The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (36 page)

The Would-Be Rescuer

For some, the risk is worth taking. A Muslim first-year medical student from Britain, Ahmad Rashidi, ventured into the Islamic State to try to find a friend’s daughters who had gone there to become jihadi brides. He succeeded in entering ISIS territory and finding one of the girls—whereupon her husband accused Rashidi of being “a spy and a journalist.”
¹⁷⁰
But then Rashidi struck on a stratagem that saved his life: he claimed that he was a doctor who had come to join the caliphate.

The jihadis were convinced. An Islamic State court freed Rashidi on the condition that he stay within the caliphate and practice medicine. Eventually he was accorded so much trust that he was allowed to pass freely in and out of Islamic State government offices. At one point he was even given access to one of the Islamic State’s computers. On it he saw material that convinced him that “they want to be more better than al-Qaida. They want to do something more better than the World Trade Center.”

Rashidi was eventually able to escape across the border into Turkey; he recalls his experience within the Islamic State as harrowing: “They are full of hate. You can see fire in their eye. If you smell like European, they are going to kill you.”
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The same thing holds true of everyone who does not conform to their vision of Islam and the Islamic State, if they get the chance.

The Secret of Their Success: Former Saddam Men

The Islamic State is not just the gang of ruffians it is made out to be by the international media and Western leaders. Much of its senior leadership is made up of former military officers in Saddam Hussein’s army. A selection of the men who we know have made this transition is listed below, with the role of each in the Islamic State’s leadership followed by his former position in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The Islamic State even won over one of Saddam’s principal deputies, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri—the King of Clubs in the U.S. military’s card deck of wanted Saddam officials. The Americans never captured al-Douri; he became the leader of the Sufi Naqshbandi Army (that’s right, the “peaceful” Sufis), which allied with the Islamic State, and he was killed in April 2015 in fighting against the Baghdad government.
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Much of the military success of the Islamic State is owed to the planning of former Saddam military and intelligence officials.
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Coinage for the Caliphate

In November 2014, the Islamic State announced plans to mint its own currency.
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The purpose of this currency would be to separate Muslims from “the tyrannical monetary system that was imposed on the Muslims and was a reason for their enslavement and impoverishment, and the wasting the fortunes [sic] of the Ummah (nation), making it easy prey in the hands of the Jews and Crusaders.” The currency, said the Islamic State in its announcement, “will be minted from gold, silver and copper, and further instruction will be provided by the Treasury Department”—which was an early indication that the Islamic State had a Treasury Department at all.

Islamic State agents began buying up gold, silver, and copper in large quantities. One precious metals trader remarked, “They said it was for gifts for their wives, but now I know why, and all the traders say the same thing. We’ve been making trips to Baghdad to get more, and they buy all of it.” Another said, “We don’t ask why they’re buying so much. But even silver in small shops outside the city is sold out.”
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Images for the proposed coins include a map of the world, in line with the Islamic State’s global pretensions, as well as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Minaret of Jesus in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and other images designed to remind the bearer of Qur’anic passages and Islam’s glory days.

Since none of the nations of the world recognize the Islamic State, this currency, if it is indeed ever minted, will for the foreseeable future be for internal use only.
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It is unclear what they plan to do with passports, since no border police in any country would accept a passport from the Islamic State, but ISIS has issued them anyway. Emblazoned with “State of the Islamic Caliphate” on the cover, each Islamic State passport also says: “The holder of the passport if harmed we will deploy armies for his service.”
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Given the trajectory of its history, that is a promise on which the Islamic State means to make good. And given the long journey of groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and even the Taliban to respectability, and the ongoing weakness and vacillation of the West, perhaps it is not unreasonable for the caliph and his minions to envision a day when these passports will be accepted everywhere.

Not Exactly the AP Stylebook: Islamic State Rules for Journalists

It is often difficult to get solid information out of the Islamic State, especially after the beheading of journalist James Foley. It became even tougher when the Islamic State issued rules for journalists in October 2014. Journalists must:

            
•
   
Declare their allegiance and loyalty to the caliph.

            
•
   
Submit all stories and photos to Islamic State media supervisors before sending them in to their employers.

            
•
   
Not work for any local or international satellite TV network or offer any exclusives.

            
•
   
Not work for Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, or other networks based in Muslim countries that have joined air or ground missions against the Islamic State.

            
•
   
Submit no anonymous pieces.

            
•
   
Publish nothing without the permission of the Islamic State media office.

            
•
   
Provide the Islamic State media offices with the names, addresses, and online handles of all those writing on blogs or social media about the Islamic State.

            
•
   
Abide by local regulations when taking photos.

            
•
   
Accept the supervision of Islamic State media offices, knowing that violation of these rules could lead to suspension and punishment.

            
•
   
Accept any new rules or changes in rules for journalists.

            
•
   
Submit a license request to the Islamic State media office and operate only with this license.
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Chapter Six

THE CALIPHATE: WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT MATTERS

T
he Islamic State’s June 29, 2014, proclamation of itself as the caliphate is the key to its appeal to so many Muslims worldwide.

The caliphate in Islamic theology is
the
Islamic nation, embodying the supranational unity of the Muslim community worldwide under a single leader, the caliph, or “successor”—that is, the successor of Muhammad as the spiritual, political, and military leader of the Muslims.

The claim couldn’t have possibly been more momentous. The concept of the caliphate is extraordinarily important for Muslims, deriving its power from the fact that the Qur’an repeatedly exhorts Muslims to obey not only Allah, but Muhammad as well (3:32; 3:132; 4:13; 4:59; 4:69; 4:80; 5:92; 8:1; 8:20; 8:46; 9:71; 24:47; 24:51; 24:52; 24:54; 24:56; 33:33; 47:33; 49:14; 58:13; 64:12).

Muslims can read about Muhammad’s deeds and sayings in the hadith, obey his words, and emulate him, in accord with the Qur’an’s designation of Muhammad as the “excellent example” (33:21)—that is, the perfect model for Muslim behavior. But this obedience to Muhammad is also expressed in obedience to his successor. As the successor of Muhammad, the caliph does not hold the Prophet’s status as an exemplar, but he does command the obedience of all Muslims, and loyalty to him transcends all ethnic and national loyalties.

The Significance of the Caliphate

The caliph is the symbol and center of the unity of the Muslims worldwide. In traditional Islamic theology, Muslims worldwide constitute a single community (
umma
), and are rightfully citizens only of the Islamic caliphate. The caliph, as the successor of Muhammad, is the only earthly authority to whom Muslims owe obedience.

Reliance of the Traveller,
a manual of Islamic law that Cairo’s prestigious and influential Islamic Al-Azhar University (where Barack Obama delivered his outreach speech to the Islamic world in June 2009) certifies as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community,” explains more of why the caliphate is so pivotal for Muslims worldwide
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(or at least for Sunnis, who are 85 to 90 percent of the world’s Muslims; the Shi’ites have a very different idea of the authority within the Muslim community).

The caliphate, this Sharia manual says, is “both obligatory in itself and the necessary precondition for hundreds of rulings . . . established by Allah Most High to govern and guide Islamic community life.” It quotes the Islamic scholar Abul Hasan Mawardi explaining that the caliph’s role is “preserving the religion and managing this-worldly affairs.”

The caliphate is a “communal obligation,” according to
Reliance of the Traveller,
“because the Islamic community needs a ruler to uphold the
religion, defend the sunna, succor the oppressed from oppressors, fulfill rights, and restore them to whom they belong.” The “sunna” is what is acceptable practice for Muslims, established by the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example.