Much debate has raged recently concerning the motives, nature, and aims of the Islamic State (IS) group, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Broadly, two viewpoints have emerged regarding the said group: The first sees the IS group as a mediaeval phenomenon, very much like many other Islamist movements, only worse. According to this view, recent actions by the IS group can be traced back to the Dark Ages. The second view considers the IS group to have much more in common with modern totalitarian ideologies and governments, such as Lenin’s Bolsheviks in Russia or Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, partly because the IS group has proved itself adept at the use of modern techniques and technology in order to further its cause.
The truth of the matter is that the IS group is a product of both past (in its content) and present (in its techniques, e.g. its clever use of social media). That seems to indicate that rather than taking the present back to the past (as expressed in the first view above), the IS group has brought the past to the present. Yet this past is not mediaeval times; those were dark periods for Christianity. By contrast, Islam was experiencing its golden era at that time by combining great advances in various fields of knowledge with tolerance towards ethnicities, religions, and sects. Instead, the past the IS group has brought over to the present is that of very early Islam at the time when it first arose: Many of the IS group’s recent deeds were in fact carried out at that time, including giving Christians and Jews the choice between converting to Islam, paying the jizya (a form of poll tax), or being killed; offering other people of other religious beliefs the choice between conversion to Islam or death only (the jizya was not applicable to adherents of those “unrecognized” religions); appropriation of a defeated enemy’s property and the enslavement of their families; forced copulation with the womenfolk of that enemy; destruction of temples and shrines that were seen as heretical; the seizure of people and merchandise in frequent raids and their return to their families or owners in exchange for huge sums of money; and so on. To be sure, many of those acts had been committed by non-Muslims too; the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full of them. But the difference here is that today’s Jews and Christians do not practice them any longer. That is mainly because the rough edges of both Christianity and Judaism have been greatly softened by the likes of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment; Islam’s have not been.
What the bulk of Islamists, and even more so the IS group, have done in contemporary times is decontextualize Islam; that is to say, they regard God and his words as absolute and, therefore, the very early form of Islam to be immune to changes in time and place. Consequently, this means that for them, what was true of Islam fourteen centuries ago is true now, and what was true of the Arabian Peninsula is true of the whole world. It follows that what radicals such as the IS group have been doing lately is considered by them to be permissible and even enjoined by God and his laws.
That is essentially why what was known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which initially focused on building an Islamic state in that area, has now simply become the Islamic State, i.e. that its intended boundaries are now unlimited. This is compatible with the declared aim of the original conception of jihad in the early years of Islam: to convert the whole world to Islam and ensure the permanent supremacy of the Word of Allah. For this reason, Western countries should not lull themselves into thinking that the ultimate goals of the IS group are confined to Muslim countries; those are just the launch pad.
About the author
Husam Dughman comes from a family that is historically descended from Europeans on his father’s side and Middle Easterners on his mother’s side. He was born in Libya and educated in Libya and the United Kingdom. Before Qaddafi came to power, Husam Dughman’s father had been the president of the University of Libya and his maternal grandfather had been a prime minister. Immediately following Qaddafi’s military coup d’état in 1969, both stood up to the Qaddafi regime and were consequently imprisoned: Husam Dughman’s father was incarcerated for a period of 10 years, during which he was subjected to regular torture by the Qaddafi regime, and his grandfather was incarcerated for five years.
In the 1990s, Husam Dughman returned to Libya and worked as a university professor of political science. Due to conflicts with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position in 1997 and subsequently worked in legal translation. Years later, Husam Dughman left Libya for North America, where he has been working as a Newcomer specialist, helping new immigrants with their settlement. He currently resides in the United States.
Husam Dughman has recently published a book, Tête-à-tête with Muhammad, and he has also published various articles about the Middle East. You can find out more by visiting his website at http://www.husamdughman.com