Editorial Paper: ISIS and the Essentially Islamic (Copy)

Since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), much Western public discourse has fixated on the “Islam-ness” of ISIS. In the American context, conservative pundits and scholars have insisted on the inseparability of “Islam” from ISIS. On the other side of the polarized American political spectrum, liberal thinkers and politicians have keenly denied ISIS their claims to Islam, choosing instead to think of ISIS’s rhetoric as illegitimate perversion.

While both positions may initially seem irreconcilable, they actually share a common assumption: an essentialized “Islam” to which ISIS either belongs or does not belong. Thinking of ISIS strictly in terms of whether or not they are “Islamic” not only carries with it an Orientalist assumption of a homogenous “Islam,” but also fails to address the history and politics operating within the rise of ISIS. Instead, more attention should be paid to how ISIS members authenticate their agenda through a heterogeneous “Islamic discursive tradition,” combining Salafi theological concepts with a disaffection towards how the nation-state project has played out in the Middle East.

When Atlantic columnist Graeme Wood affirms ISIS as being “really Islamic,” he validates the “Islamic” as an essential category. Wood laments how Muslims call ISIS un-Islamic, quoting Bernard Haykel, who brushes Muslims critical of ISIS off as “politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion.” Both Wood and Haykel refuse to see Islam and Muslims as heterogenous. Instead, they not only affirm that there must be one essentially Islamic position, but that ISIS is more worthy of that position than the so-called “cotton candy” Muslims.

Wood and Haykel’s insistence on a monolothic Islam replicates what Edward Said refers to as “Orientalist” thought. In this line of thinking, Islam belongs to “the Orient,” the homogenous other to “the Occident,” or the West. Said notes that since Islam’s “latecoming challenge to Christianity,” the discourse of Orientalist discourse has reserved “fear and hostility” for a monolothic Islam. Wood and Haykel arbitrarily, but not accidentally, designate the more fearful and hostile interpretation of Islam as legitimate, as opposed to the illigitimate “politically-correct” Islam. As outsiders to Islam, their participation in designating “the Islamic” fits neatly into the ongoing Orientalist discourse.

Instead, a more analytically useful way of approaching ISIS recognizes its existence in an Islamic “discursive tradition.” As articulated by Talal Asad, viewing Islam as a discursive tradition necessitates a rejection of a homogenous, fixed “Islam.” Instead, Asad invites outsiders to analyze how Muslims themselves reconstruct the realm of “the Islamic.” Muslims regularly engage in defining and redefining what falls within and outside of Islam according to their own material circumstances. Therefore, both the language of articulating “the Islamic,” and the material circumstances of Muslims themselves become critical in understanding a heterogenous, changing Islamic discursive tradition.

A vivid illustration of the Islamic discursive tradition comes out in the case of public debates surrounding the permissibility of organ transplantation in Egypt through the 90s and 2000s. Both Muslims in favor of and opposing organ transplantation used the same theological phrase as justification: “the body belongs to God.” However, according to the need for transplants, socioeconomic status, and prior experiences with biomedicine, different Egyptians articulated the “body belonging to God” differently. In this case, theology becomes the language of articulating material circumstances—making theology and politics discursively inseparable from one another.

Turning to the material historical and political circumstances behind the rise and growth of ISIS, members and recruits often raise questions about the immorality of living in the nation-state. They point to nullifying the Sykes-Picot agreement, eradicating passports, and living piously instead in a world ungoverned by the modern nation-state. None of this loaded language is coincidental: it comes out of bloody Iraqi and Syrian civil wars caused by long historical processes of imperial Western intervention, from the mandate system to the invasion of Iraq. 

Crucially however, ISIS members articulate the failures of Western imperialism and the modern nation-state through a language of theology. Returning to the process of authenticating “the Islamic,” ISIS recruits frequently point to the dream of living within an Islamically legitimate caliphate. Theologically, they employ different interpretations of Salafi Islamic precepts of “al-wala’ wa al-bara’”, “takfir” and “jihad.” Similar to the Egyptian debaters on organ transplantation, ISIS members themselves operate in a discursive tradition that does not reduce their situation to either strictly geopolitics, or strictly theology.

However, one can argue that comparing how “everyday” Muslims in Egypt and ISIS recruits articulate “the Islamic” runs the risk of either legitimizing the violent actions of ISIS recruits, or putting innocent Muslims under further scrutiny than they already receive. In an age of mass surveillance against Muslims across the world, such a comparison could dangerously put any Muslim under suspicion for “radicalism.” How does thinking of an “Islamic discursive tradition” go against the Orientalist lens of an essentially “other” Islam, where both ISIS recruits and everyday Muslims belong?

Rather than create yet another essentially “Islamic” category, approaching Islam as discourse forces the question of “why this specific discourse, and not another?” It points to the equal significance of the political and the theological, allowing a conversation about ISIS to be deeply tethered to the sociopolitical implications of Western imperialism. It also provides the space for other Muslims themselves to engage in a discursive criticism of ISIS, without dismissing them as less legitimate.

As Western commentators engage in the discourse of determining the “Islam-ness” of ISIS, they participate in a discourse of homogenizing Islam as an essentially Other doctrine. Instead, non-Muslim analysts and commentators ought to amplify Muslim voices working within the Islamic discursive tradition. At a time where Muslims are spoken-for, if not mistrusted, stereotyped, and surveilled, outsider analyses of the rise of ISIS ought to highlight its contested position within a broader, ever-changing Islamic discursive tradition. 

Bibliography

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Asad, Talal. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam” in Occasional Paper Series: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Washington DC: Georgetown University, 1986.

Dairieh, Medyan. The Islamic State. Online. VICE NEWS, 2014.

Hamdy, Sherine. Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012.

McCants, William. The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015. 

Said, Edward. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981.

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