Why ISIS fight

OrbitalDawn

OrbitalDawn

Ulysses Everett McGill
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Jihadi fighters in Iraq and Syria reveal the apocalyptic motivations of the militant movement that has hijacked the Syrian uprising – and transformed the Middle East

One of the earliest sayings of the Prophet Muhammad – a hadith – mentions Dabiq as the location of a fateful showdown between Christians and Muslims which will be a precursor to the apocalypse. According to another prophecy, this confrontation will come after a period of truce between Muslims and Christians, during which Muslims – and only puritanical Sunnis fit the definition – would fight an undefined enemy, which in northern Syria today is deemed to be “Persians”.

This is the story of why men from all over the world have chosen to fight in a brutal and apocalyptic war; of what drew them to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria; and of what has kept many of them there as Europe and the west have scrambled to stem the flow, first of their own nationals fleeing to join Isis and now of millions of refugees fleeing the other way.

It is told largely by five men with whom I have spoken, at some length, over the past four years, inside Syria and Iraq. Their motivations are similar, but in some cases they are diverse and contradictory. All of them draw at least some inspiration from the prophecy of an epochal confrontation in Dabiq; they see themselves as underdogs, fired by a sense of divine mission. Individually, each man painted a distinct portrait of his reasons for joining a movement that is fast causing the collapse of an order that has bound the region together for centuries, and posing a direct challenge to all the Middle East’s current forms of governance, threatening autocracies, monarchies and quasi-democracies alike.

All of these men believed that by travelling to fight for the caliphate, they were standard-bearers of their faith. They also felt sure they were acting to restore Islam to its lost glories – and had a sense of privilege and pride that their generation was the one that had been chosen to right the wrongs of the past. These sentiments are shared by many others I have met: two senior Isis members who have been captured by Iraqi forces and are now facing death sentences; a Syria-based Tunisian fighter who believes his duty is to obey the orders of his superiors with unswerving servility; and even one former member of a mainstream rebel militia, who joined the ranks of his jihadi foes when he realised the battle was turning in their favour.

But they also had myriad other reasons for joining the terror group that had little to do with their understanding of Islamic scripture or any sense of holy war. Some saw themselves as victims of oppression, others as sons of dispossessed families. Another thought of himself as a cultural warrior, not a holy warrior: he argued that joining the jihad was an entirely practical obligation, necessary to restore the caliphate and bring on the prophecy of the end times.

Few were untouched by a yearning for the collective memory of the early centuries of Islam, alongside contemporary grievances about a humiliating loss of power at the hands of the west in recent years. By late 2014, they were all fighting under the banner of the most radical and dangerous jihadi group to have formed in the past 30 years. And Dabiq was now ground zero for their struggle.
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One of the earliest sayings of the Prophet Muhammad – a hadith – mentions Dabiq as the location of a fateful showdown between Christians and Muslims which will be a precursor to the apocalypse. According to another prophecy, this confrontation will come after a period of truce between Muslims and Christians, during which Muslims – and only puritanical Sunnis fit the definition – would fight an undefined enemy, which in northern Syria today is deemed to be “Persians”.
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Seems to be this line...

The Last Hour would not come until the Romans land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them).[7]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq

I wonder how everyone else interprets it. Some already passed battle perhaps?
 
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I will never understand how certain Muslims arrive at the conclusion that ISIS represents a Caliphate and that they would represent the army of the Mahdi, as prophesized.

I think wayfarer posted a video and article a while back explaining how this could not be the case, think it was by Hamza Yusuf. Can't find the link on mobile at the moment.

It is however interesting how easily people can be brainwashed into joining ISIS, for the life of me I cannot see the appeal.

Edit: from the article: "necessary to restore the Caliphate and bring on the prophecy of the end of times". Who the hell wants to bring on the end of the world? Who gave them the responsibility to speed up the process? Lol.
 
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Did Prophet Muhammad Warn Us of ISIS?

Basically a summary of the above-mentioned Hamza Yusuf video.


In separate attacks last week, ISIS terrorists killed 39 tourists at a beach resort in Tunisia, and close to 30 worshipers at a Shia Mosque in Kuwait. The onslaught came shortly after the group called on its militant Jihadi sympathizers to expand operations in the month of Ramadan.

ISIS has demonstrated an unflinching determination to take out anyone who dares to disagree with it. Its members have slaughtered Yazidis and Christians, but the vast majority of its victims have been Muslims who resist it and refuse to acknowledge its authority. ISIS has even executed Sunni clerics who refused to swear allegiance to it, and Muslim women who did not submit to its worldview.

This feature is shared across all terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam. The vast majority of the victims of the Taliban, for instance, are also Muslims. Hundreds of Shia Muslims have been killed just in the last few years. And I have lost many close friends in similar attacks on the Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and even in America.

So when some anti-Islam critics keep doggedly associating the faith of us Muslims with the acts of our tormentors, we call them out for their insensitivity.

I do not disagree that part of the motivation for religious extremism is rooted in perverted interpretation of scripture by radical extremists. However, it is dishonest to label the vast majority of Muslims who reject such interpretations as non-devout or "nominal."

An honest study of the Quran shows that groups like ISIS act in complete defiance of the injunctions of Islam. The Quran, for instance, equates one murder to the elimination of the whole human race (5:32), and considers persecution and disorder on earth as an even worse offense (2:217). It lays emphasis on peace, justice and human rights. It champions freedom of conscience and forbids worldly punishment for apostasy and blasphemy.

A study of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad also demonstrates that he warned us of the rise of religious extremism in this age in astonishing detail.

1,400 years ago, he prophesized that a time would come when nothing would remain of Islam but its name, nothing of the Quran but its word, and that many "Mosques would be splendidly furnished but destitute of guidance" (Mishkatul Masabih). In these latter days, the true spiritual essence of Islam would be lost, and religion, for the most part, would be reduced to a ritualistic compulsion. He foretold that the clergy would be corrupt and be a source of strife during these times.

How true this is of the extremist clerics in parts of the Muslim world that abuse the pulpit to preach division and hate.

He also went on to describe terrorist groups such as ISIS that would try to hijack the Islamic faith. At this time of dissension, he said there would appear "a group of young people who would be immature in thought and foolish." They would speak beautiful words but commit the most heinous of deeds. They would engage in so much prayer and fasting that the worship of the Muslims would appear insignificant in comparison. They would call people to the Quran but would have nothing to do with it in reality. The Quran would not go beyond their throats, meaning they wouldn't understand its essence at all, merely regurgitating it selectively. The Prophet then went on to describe these people as "the worst of the creation."

As if this outline wasn't clear enough, another tradition in the book Kitaab Al Fitan reported by Caliph Ali, the fourth successor to Prophet Muhammad, describes these people as having long hair and bearing black flags. Their "hearts will be hard as iron," and they would be the companions of a State (Ashab ul Dawla). Interestingly, ISIS refers to itself as the Islamic State or Dawla. The tradition further mentions that they will break their covenants, not speak the truth and have names that mention their cities. The ISIS caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, comes to mind.

Prophet Muhammad furiously and painfully described these evildoers, and admonished Muslims to beware of their evil and fight it. "Whoever fights them is better to Allah than them," he proclaimed.

Reflect on this critical point. Whenever ISIS kills in the name of Islam, claims to follow the Quran, or uses the Holy month of Ramadan to spread anarchy across the globe, know that Prophet Muhammad explicitly warned us of these imposters, and entrusted us to root them out.

The only people who refuse to reflect on this point are ISIS, ISIS sympathizers and anti-Islam extremists who want the world to believe that ISIS is legitimate. Intelligent people, meanwhile, see Prophet Muhammad's prophetic wisdom and thus remain united against both ignorance and extremism.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kashif-n-chaudhry/did-prophet-muhammad-warn_b_7702064.html
 
Fury05 said:
I will never understand how certain Muslims arrive at the conclusion that ISIS represents a Caliphate and that they would represent the army of the Mahdi, as prophesized.

I think wayfarer posted a video and article a while back explaining how this could not be the case, think it was by Hamza Yusuf. Can't find the link on mobile at the moment.

It is however interesting how easily people can be brainwashed into joining ISIS, for the life of me I cannot see the appeal.

Edit: from the article: "necessary to restore the Caliphate and bring on the prophecy of the end of times". Who the hell wants to bring on the end of the world? Who gave them the responsibility to speed up the process? Lol.
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People that sincerely believe the hereafter will be a paradise? Many Evangelical Christians in the US also share this idea, and that's why they're so ardently pro-Israel. Jews need to populate Israel for Jesus to come again and usher in the apocalypse.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
People that sincerely believe the hereafter will be a paradise? Many Evangelical Christians in the US also share this idea, and that's why they're so ardently pro-Israel. Jews need to populate Israel for Jesus to come again and usher in the apocalypse.
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No doubt, but my point was that 'speeding up' the process so to speak is almost akin to commuting suicide, not so? If one believes in God it then stands to reason that the decision of when the world ends lies solely in the metaphorical hands of God himself.
 
Fury05 said:
No doubt, but my point was that 'speeding up' the process so to speak is almost akin to commuting suicide, not so? If one believes in God it then stands to reason that the decision of when the world ends lies solely in the metaphorical hands of God himself.
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Not really. They merely believe they're bringing about the conditions necessary for it to occur. They believe it's their responsibility. No one really leaves things to god, even if they claim to believe he has a plan. This is just another one of those. If you look throughout history (and contemporary societies) religious folk have never really just left things to god.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Not really. They merely believe they're bringing about the conditions necessary for it to occur. They believe it's their responsibility. No one really leaves things to god, even if they claim to believe he has a plan. This is just another one of those. If you look throughout history (and contemporary societies) religious folk have never really just left things to god.
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I suppose so. Although your life must be really empty if you want those conditions to come about.
 
quote
A study of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad also demonstrates that he warned us of the rise of religious extremism in this age in astonishing detail.

1,400 years ago, he prophesized that a time would come when nothing would remain of Islam but its name, nothing of the Quran but its word, and that many "Mosques would be splendidly furnished but destitute of guidance" (Mishkatul Masabih). In these latter days, the true spiritual essence of Islam would be lost, and religion, for the most part, would be reduced to a ritualistic compulsion. He foretold that the clergy would be corrupt and be a source of strife during these times.

/quote

Completely off-topic, but this is why I detest organized religion of any kind.
The exact same thing happened to Christianity and Catholicism.
 
konfab said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?_r=2

This is probably one of the reasons why. :(

Getting a qt.3141 sex slave seems to be enough to motivate men to commit atrocities. Which leads to the question: why are they so desperate?
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“He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, ‘What you’re doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s allowed. It’s halal,’ ” said the teenager, who escaped in April with the help of smugglers after being enslaved for nearly nine months.
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These people have no concept of finding their own moral code, they take whatever's written down for them in some book (usually just specific verses too) and blindly adopt that as their moral blueprint.

All is cool 'cos Big Mo says it is..

Marakker said:
Completely off-topic, but this is why I detest organized religion of any kind.
The exact same thing happened to Christianity and Catholicism.
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Unquestioning obedience & promises of salvation leads to no-one taking individual responsibility.

All is cool 'cos Big G says it is..
 
1,400 years ago, he prophesized that a time would come when nothing would remain of Islam but its name, nothing of the Quran but its word, and that many "Mosques would be splendidly furnished but destitute of guidance" (Mishkatul Masabih). In these latter days, the true spiritual essence of Islam would be lost, and religion, for the most part, would be reduced to a ritualistic compulsion. He foretold that the clergy would be corrupt and be a source of strife during these times.
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At least we know one of his prophesies came true :D
 
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