Abstract:
The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has sparked debates among scholars on the connection between religion and violence. ISIS provides Islamic-based justifications for its violent acts such as beheading, burning alive its prisoners, enslaveng its female captives, stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, killing homosexuals and those whom ISIS considers heretics, destroying statues and tombs believed by ISIS to be sources of shirk or idolatrous act, and many others. How should, then, one assess an answer to the question of whether ISIS?s violent acts are caused by, or at least have something to do with, religion (i.e. Islam, in this case)? To answer this question, this paper examines such justifications through the established theories of the discourse on religious violence. It takes four examples: (1) ISIS?s theology or creeds; (2) the practice of burning captives alive; (3) the destruction of tombs; and (4) the revival of slavery. Data are taken from ISIS?s pamphlets distributed through particular websites or social media platforms that advance its justifications behind its violent acts. I argue that the religion of Islam (as interpreted by ISIS) has a significant role in ISIS’s violence. ISIS’s creed and violence echo what Mark Juergensmeyer calls “cosmic war”, a battle perceived by ISIS to symbolically represent war between God and devil and, as such, elevates mundane battle to a more deadly and beyond this-worldly level. Further, some of ISIS?s violent acts, as seen through its justifications, are most likely caused solely by its interpretation of Islam; thus viewing ISIS?s religious violence through an instrumentalist perspective (i.e. that religion is just a tool or a disguise to cover ISIS’s “secular” agenda) fails to capture the whole phenomenon. I propose that ISIS’s ideology functions as an intervening variable in that it escalates the level of violence and defines who is friend and who is enemy.
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