Foreign Pulse: The ISIS mindset, and how it must be fought
On May 26, buses plying Coptic Christian pilgrims to a monastery in Egypt’s Minya governorate were waylaid by masked gunmen. ISIS’ opponents within the Muslim community often say that there is “nothing Islamic about ISIS”, and one should stop referring to it as “Islamic” State as it violates the essentially peaceful form of a religion followed by 1.8 billion people. Two recent books on ISIS — The Way of Strangers by Graeme Wood of The Atlantic, and The Master Plan by Brian Fishman of the New America Foundation — make a common point that although this monstrous terrorist movement is far from the nonviolent quotidian Islam practised by most Muslims, it is still one strand of Islamist orthodoxy. It is by appealing to the takfir concept, that is well lodged in the history of Sunni Islam, that ISIS is able to attract tens of thousands to its fold from every corner of the globe to wage war on Shias, Kurds and moderate Sunnis who are all Muslims but “heretic”. A special edition of ISIS’ Dabiq magazine entitled “Breaking the Cross” addresses Christians with an ultimatum: “abandon infidelity and accept Islam, the religion of sincerity and submission to the Lord of the heavens and the earth”.
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