Is ISIS a Religious Group? Of Course It Is.

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-paul/is-isis-a-religious-group_b_6730968.html


David Paul
President, Fiscal Strategies Group

Posted: 02/22/2015 4:10 pm EST Updated: 02/22/2015 4:59 pm EST


Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

This week, the White House held a Summit on Combating Violent Extremism. Walking through the Albuquerque airport on the day of the Summit, I was surprised to see a TV headline ask the question, "Is ISIS a religious group?" It is an absurd question, and one that, despite his comments at the Summit, President Obama cannot be taking seriously.

Of course it is a religious group. ISIS adherents are very clear that their motivations are grounded in faith, and their actions are directly tied to religious scripture. Week after week, they publish the specific Koranic justification for their most gruesome acts, whether it is the beheading of apostates and Christians, throwing gay people off of high buildings, stoning to death women accused of adultery, or the enslaving of women and children. One cannot read the article "The Revival of Slavery" in the ISIS magazine Dabiq, with its debate over how Shari'ah law dictates the appropriate punishment of Yazidi women -- enslavement as pagans or execution as apostates -- and not see its fundamentalist zeal.

ISIS is the very definition of a fundamentalist religious group. Religious fundamentalism is nothing new in the modern era, and not unique to Islam. Christians and Jews, to say nothing of Hindus, each have their groups that seek to live in accordance with laws and scripture that date back thousands of years. Each has had their zealots who have committed terrible crimes. Each embraces practices that many view to be medieval. Christianity has a strong millennialist tradition, mirrored or even rooted in Judaism, that suggests that a return to the fundamentals of faith will presage the end of days and the second coming, a stance that is widely embraced in Iran, notably by former President Ahmadinejad. ISIS is not unique in its fundamentalism or its apocalyptic vision, but rather in its dictates to conquest that the Prophet -- himself a general -- set forth in his foundational work.

The White House and President Obama continued to bend over backward this week at a White House summit on combating violent extremism to avoid language that might suggest the broader Islamic world is culpable for the conduct of its most violent and fundamentalist adherents. "No religion is responsible for terrorism," the President declared. "We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam." Yet his first statement and his last are not credible. Few would argue that religion over the millennia has been the rationale for countless episodes of terrorism, and all major religions have their own history of war and violence that we would now would label as terrorist. The President's comment that "No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism" echoes the old NRA trope Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and, while true, ignores the role of religion and faith as defining human motivations. The sectarian nature of religious faith revolves around each community's search for truth, often complicated by a fervent commitment to their own interpretations of ancient scripture. Thus, one community's essential truth might inevitably be viewed as another community's "perversion."

more at link

[samsingh]

1. it is

[cbayer]

4. I thought this was a good analysis of why Obama is taking the position

he is taking.

I am still ambivalent around this issue, but I think I understand the strategic tack that Obama is trying to achieve.

Certainly it makes sense to see ISIS as the many things that it is, including a religiously based group, but it seems a mistake to define either solely as a religious group or not as a religious group at all.

[trotsky]

2. Duh.

Sad that it has to be pointed out like this. Glad you've come around though, cbayer.

[skepticscott]

3. The intellectual bankrupcy of the

"This isn't REAL Islam" or "These aren't REAL believers" argument is becoming more glaringly obvious and harder to argue against with a straight face all the time.

We can hope that fairly soon, even the most knee-jerk apologists for religion here will be ashamed to resort to it.

[stone space]

5. Their religion strikes me as having more in common...

...with the religion of the NRA than the religion of the more than 1000 Muslims who formed that peace circle in Oslo.

People are responsible for violence and terrorism" echoes the old NRA trope Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and, while true, ignores the role of religion and faith as defining human motivations.

I'm not so interested in what they believe, as I am in how they believe it.

Actions breathe meaning into words.

[cbayer]

6. Good points. It becomes critically important to distinguish between subgroups

when there are those who are on the extreme edges.

While they are clearly Muslims, most others who share that label reject them.

[trotsky]

10. I don't think you've actually thought that through.

"While they are clearly Muslims, most others who share that label reject them."

There was a time when MOST who were Christians considered slavery acceptable. Does that mean the ones who didn't, were wrong? Your reasoning here is basically just the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

[bravenak]

7. I agree.nt

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Except of course that the 1000 muslims in Oslo are the outliers.

Which is why many in the west are running around crowing about this "look! well intentioned muslims!", because at this point it is unusual. The angry about blasphemy demonstrations after the Hedbo massacre, for example, dwarfed this demonstration.

Anti-semitism is rampant in the islamic world, the 70 year Israeli-Palestine conflict being the primary cause. While ISIS is certainly not a majority view, you can find polling data that indicates that support for violent islamic extremism is somewhere in the 10-15% range, and support for hugely problematic islamic positions that are not as extreme as ISIS poll much higher than that.

The percentage of Muslims who say they want sharia to be “the official law of the land” varies
widely around the world, from fewer than one-in-ten in Azerbaijan (8%) to near unanimity in
Afghanistan (99%). But solid majorities in most of the countries surveyed across the Middle
East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia favor the
establishment of sharia, including 71% of Muslims in Nigeria, 72% in Indonesia, 74% in Egypt
and 89% in the Palestinian territories.
...
In most countries where the question was
asked, roughly three-quarters or more
Muslims reject suicide bombing and other
forms of violence against civilians. And in
most countries, the prevailing view is that such
acts are never justified as a means of
defending Islam from its enemies. Yet there
are some countries in which substantial
minorities think violence against civilians is at
least sometimes justified. This view is
particularly widespread among Muslims in the
Palestinian territories (40%), Afghanistan
(39%), Egypt (29%) and Bangladesh (26%)

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf

[pinto]

9. (an aside on the topic) I was really pleased to see the media coverage of the recent Atlantic piece.

"What ISIS Really Wants"

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Much of the background was news to me (being admittedly unfamiliar with Muslim history / tenets). Found it thought provoking in a number of contexts and well worth a read or two.

[cbayer]

11. Thanks for that. I will take the time to read it.

I saw it briefly but didn't look closely. I also saw a rebuttal somewhere.

Interesting times we live in!