3/8/2015

'What ISIS Really Wants': How Readers Are Responding to The Atlantic's Cover Story - The Atlantic
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A survey of reactions to The Atlantic's cover storyfrom think tanks to jihadist Twitter
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My cover story in TheAtlantics March issue asked, as simply as possible, What

doesISISbelieve,andwhatareitsideologicalroots?I read every ISIS
statement I could find, including fatwas and tweets and road signs, and I frontloaded my mornings with execution videos in hopes that by bedtime Id have
forgotten enough of the imagery to sleep without nightmares. I picked through
every spoken or written word in search of signals of what ISIS cares about and
how its members justify their violence. I also asked a small group of its most
doctrinaire overseas supporters for guidance, and they obliged.
At the time, the dominant clich about ISIS was that it was a thrill-kill group
that had hijacked Islam for its own ends, and that these ends were cynical,
pathological, and secular. The investigation yielded something like the opposite
conclusion: ISIS had hijacked secular sources of power and grievance, and was
using them for religious endsends that are, at least among some supporters,
sincere and carefully thought through. They include a belief in the imminent
fulfillment of prophecy, with the group in a key role.

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I am grateful for thoughtful reaction from many sources. (Ill examine separately
the pushback to my claim that ISIS is within the Islamic tradition.) Shadi Hamid
of the Brookings Institution emphasized that ideology is deeply embedded in
social and political facts, and that ignoring those facts is at least as dangerous as
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'What ISIS Really Wants': How Readers Are Responding to The Atlantic's Cover Story - The Atlantic

ignoring the ideology. I agree completely: ISIS achieved its successes in a hellish
setting where all authority was predatory and nothing was safe; it offered
certainty, sincerity, and the promise of reliability; it did this in ways that were
antithetical to traditional interpretations of Islam (though not quite as
antithetical as some believe).
I suggested that religious ideology was underrated
as an explanatory lensindeed, barely understood
as onebut didnt specify the relative importance of
it versus other factors, specifically the bad
governance, the shifting social mores, the
humiliation of living in lands valued only for their
oil. If I could specify that relative importance, I
would; I find the confidence of others in this regard
What ISIS Really Wants
fascinating. But as I wrote in the original essay:
Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the
Islamic State could be complete. I set out to write an essay about this groups
ideology, which heretofore has gone underacknowledged, so I dont apologize for
doing just that, though I take to heart Hamids counsel to see these elements as
less separable than they appear.

Related Story

J.M. Berger, also of Brookings, argued that the religiosity of the group matters
less than its importance as an identity movement, an aggressive form of defining
membership in a group. Id add that the type of religious ideology ISIS espouses
is remarkably well-adapted for brutal enforcement of group membership. This
type of jihadi-Salafism, unapologetically aimed at purifying Islam through
killing, was obsessively policing its adherents well before the rise of the Islamic
State. Understanding that sect is a way to understand its associated identity.
Andrew Anderson, who studies jihadists, wrote this fine reflection on the context
of the Islamic State's views of warfare, which he places in the medieval period
rather than in the early Islamic conquests to which ISIS considers its project the
rightful heir. He and my colleague Frank Griffel at Yale both point out how ISIS,
which is so keen to emphasize its early-Islamic cred, differs from early Islam in
important and substantive ways.
For an Islamist perspective, Id refer you to http://justpaste.it/jhxc, a quick
reply by a Twitter user who rebuked me gently (thanks) for missteps and ended
with a proposal I dearly hope comes to pass. What is really needed, he wrote,
is a delegation from an Islamist background to visit Islamic State territory and
engage with their leadership and ideologues as well as their common fighters.
He doubted that the specific ideologues I met are the best representatives of the
groups ideology. Until that happens it is hard to truly fathom what this
movement is about and what it truly wants.

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As for the reaction from the Islamic State: I noticed my article tweeted out
multiple times by ISIS supporters, at least once by a fan of the group who noted
nervously that the guy who wrote it must be spying on their tweets. Those whose
comments I saw were delighted that I had taken their ideology seriously and
concluded that ISIS is an Islamic group. Their delight pleases me only because
my intention was to describe the group in terms it recognized and considered
fair. I suppose at least some supporters thought I succeeded, or at least came
closer than the last infidel who tried.

"The enemies of Muslims

prefer to fight their
imaginary war based
upon rational freedom-

Anjem Choudary, the notorious London blowhard

who patiently explained the version of jihadism he
supports, tweeted the story out, pleased that he and
his minions got their airtime. Musa Cerantonio, a
more soft-spoken and scholarly young Australian
who did the same, sent a long and thoughtful email

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'What ISIS Really Wants': How Readers Are Responding to The Atlantic's Cover Story - The Atlantic

loving democrats vs.

irrational evil terrorist
madmen."

with a few points of correction and clarification. He

stressed that execution for wearing Western clothes
and shaving is not an Islamic State practice. I think
hes right. ISIS certainly forbids shaving, but
merely to commit a sin is not grounds for
excommunication or killing. (To excommunicate over matters of sin would put
the Islamic State in line with the Kharijites, an early sect to which ISISs Muslim
enemies often compare the group.) He added that dying without pledging
allegiance to a valid caliph, which I correctly quoted him as saying is a death of
disbelief, is not to die as an infidel. He said that the quote as printed
misleadingly left open the interpretation that he was calling Muslims infidels. To
do so would jeopardize his own status as a Muslim.
But the most interesting comments concerned my storys popularity among ISIS
supporters (referred to below with the shorthand "Muslims"). I was unsurprised
to see it shared online by Islamic State fans, at least somewhat positively, but of
course I was still uncomfortable about being praised by avowed gnocidaires.
One ISIS supporter wrote to me to note the peculiarity in all this. The piece, he
said,

1 WhatISISReallyWants
2 It'sTimetoKillDaylightSaving
3 FinallyIHearaPoliticianExplainMyCountry
JusttheWayIUnderstandIt

4 MachiavelliWasRight
5 ISIS'Manifesto'SpellsoutRoleforWomen
6 DaylightSavingTimeIsAmerica'sGreatest
Shame

7 TheGangstersofFerguson
8 IUsedtoBeanAntiVaxer
9 ABrewingProblem
10 WhyWeSleepTogether

is grounded in realism, and argues that not understanding what is

happening is very dangerous, especially if fighting a war, one must fight the
war that is real, not the invented one that one wishes to fight. Perhaps
ironically, your [writings] ... are most dangerous to the Muslims (not that it
is necessarily meant to be so on your behalf), yet they are celebrated by
Muslims who see them as pieces that speak the truth that so many try to
deny, but also because [Muslims] know that deep down the idealists of the
world will still ignore them.
What stands out to me that others don't seem to discuss much, is how the
Islamic State, Osama [bin Laden] and others are operating as if they are
reading from a script that was written 1,400 years ago. They not only follow
these prophecies, but plan ahead based upon them. One would therefore
assume that the enemies of Islam would note this and prepare adequately,
but [its] almost as if they feel that playing along would mean that they
believe in the prophecies too, and so they ignore them and go about things
their own way. ... [The] enemies of the Muslims may be aware of what the
Muslims are planning, but it won't benefit them at all as they prefer to either
keep their heads in the sand, or to fight their imaginary war based upon
rational freedom-loving democrats vs. irrational evil terrorist madmen.
With this in mind, maybe you can understand to some degree one of the
reasons why many Muslims will share your piece. Its not because we don't
understand what it is saying in terms of how to defeat the Muslims, rather
its because we know that those in charge will ignore it and screw things up
anyway.
PRESENTEDBY

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GRAEME WOOD is a contributing editor atThe Atlantic.His personal site isgcaw.net.

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