Entrepreneurs of Identity: The Islamic State’s Symbolic Repertoire 9781800732674

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgements
Notes on Translations and Transliterations
Introduction
Chapter 1 Entrepreneurs of Identity and the Sectarianisation of Iraq and Syria
Chapter 2 The Caliphate
Chapter 3 Iconography and Iconoclasm
Conclusion
Glossary of Frequently Used Arabic Terms
References
Index

Citation preview

Entrepreneurs of Identity

INTEGRATION AND CONFLICT STUDIES Published in association with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale Series Editor: Günther Schlee, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia, and Director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Editorial Board: Brian Donahoe (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), John Eidson (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Peter Finke (University of Zurich), Jacqueline Knörr (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Bettina Mann (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Ursula Rao (Leipzig University and director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Stephen Reyna (University of Manchester), Olaf Zenker (Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg) Assisted by: Viktoria Giehler-Zeng (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) The objective of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is to advance anthropological fieldwork and enhance theory building. “Integration” and “conflict,” the central themes of this series, are major concerns of the contemporary social sciences and of significant interest to the general public. They have also been among the main research areas of the institute since its foundation. Bringing together international experts, Integration and Conflict Studies includes both monographs and edited volumes, and offers a forum for studies that contribute to a better understanding of processes of identification and inter-group relations. Recent volumes: Volume 25 Entrepreneurs of Identity: The Islamic State’s Symbolic Repertoire Christoph Günther

Volume 20 Mobile Urbanity: Somali Presence in Urban East Africa Edited by Neil Carrier and Tabea Scharrer

Volume 24 After Corporate Paternalism: Material Renovation and Social Change in Times of Ruination Christian Straube

Volume 19 Playing the Marginality Game: Identity Politics in West Africa Anita Schroven

Volume 23 Lands of the Future: Anthropological Perspectives on Pastoralism, Land Deals and Tropes of Modernity in Eastern Africa Edited by Echi Christina Gabbert, Fana Gebresenbet, John G. Galaty and Günther Schlee

Volume 18 The Wheel of Autonomy: Rhetoric and Ethnicity in the Omo Valley Felix Girke

Volume 22 On Mediation: Historical, Legal, Anthropological and International Perspectives Edited by Karl Härter, Carolin Hillemanns and Günther Schlee Volume 21 Space, Place and Identity: Woɗaaɓe of Niger in the 21st Century Florian Köhler

Volume 17 Bishkek Boys: Neighbourhood Youth and Urban Change in Kyrgyzstan’s Capital Philipp Schröder Volume 16 Difference and Sameness as Modes of Integration: Anthropological Perspectives on Ethnicity and Religion Edited by Günther Schlee and Alexander Horstmann

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/series/integration-and-conflict-studies

Entrepreneurs of Identity The Islamic State’s Symbolic Repertoire Christoph Günther

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2022 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2022 Christoph Günther

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Günther, Christoph (Middle East specialist), author. Title: Entrepreneurs of identity : the Islamic State’s symbolic repertoire / Christoph Günther. Other titles: Integration and conflict studies ; v. 25. Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2022. | Series: Integration and conflict studies ; volume 25 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021040513 (print) | LCCN 2021040514 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800732667 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800732674 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: IS (Organization) | Symbolism in politics—Middle East. | Group identity—Middle East. | Identity politics—Middle East. | Sunnites—Middle East. Classification: LCC HV6433.I722 G86 2022 (print) | LCC HV6433.I722 (ebook) | DDC 363.3250956—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040513 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040514

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80073-266-7 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-267-4 ebook

To A., R. and V.

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Notes on Translations and Transliterations Introduction

viii x xii 1

Chapter 1. Entrepreneurs of Identity and the Sectarianisation of Iraq and Syria

11

Chapter 2. The Caliphate

37

Chapter 3. Iconography and Iconoclasm

88

Conclusion

151

Glossary of Frequently Used Arabic Terms

160

References

162

Index

202

Figures

If not otherwise indicated, all figures draw on images, videos and texts in the author’s research archive. 2.1. Still from al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015), ʿAshāʾir sahl Nīnawā Tujaddid al-Bayʿa li-Khalīfat al-Muslimīn wa-Tatabaraʾ min al-Murtaddīn.

70

2.2. Still from al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015), ʿAshāʾir sahl Nīnawā Tujaddid al-Bayʿa li-Khalīfat al-Muslimīn wa-Tatabaraʾ min al-Murtaddīn.

70

3.1. Stills from al-Hayat Media Center (2015a), ‘The Rise of the Khilafah: Return of the Gold Dinar’, showing the ‘evolution’ of al-Hayat’s logo.

95

3.2. The Islamic State’s black banner.

96

3.3. Cover image of al-Muhājir (2016), ‘Al-Nabīy al-Qāʾid’.

98

3.4. Stills from Islamic State videos showing fighters with the black banner.

101

3.5. Stills from Islamic State videos showing the black banner as a sign of territorial demarcation and exertion of authority.

103

3.6. Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), ʿUmalāʾ lā ʿUlamāʾ.

106

Figures

ix

3.7. Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), Faʾs al-Khalīl.

119

3.8. Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), Faʾs al-Khalīl.

121

3.9. Cover image of al-Hayat Media Center (2017), Dabiq 15.

126

3.10. Still from muʾassasat al-battār (2017), Qut.āʾ al-Turuq.

130

Acknowledgements

Writing this book has been a long journey. It took the support of many people for it to finally become a work that might be a valuable contribution to research on social identities, and especially to understanding the work of the so-called ‘Islamic State’. First of all, I thank Markus Höhne, who gave me the critical impulse to transfer my thoughts into such a book. Günther Schlee made this book possible, not least by generously giving me the chance to become a postdoctoral research fellow in the Integration and Conflict department at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Beyond his insights into research on social identities, I am also deeply indebted to him for his patience and his willingness to include my book in this series, published by Berghahn Books. I therefore also thank the Max Planck Society for their financial support of my research, which would also hardly have been possible without the support of staff and student assistants at the library of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. I am also indebted to Cornelia Schnepel and Robert Parkin for their help in proofreading and a thorough language review. Many colleagues have further aided the development of this work. I thank John Eidson, who has been so generous with his time and provided constructively critical feedback on prior iterations of this manuscript. Additionally, Brian Campbell, Christian Laheij and many more colleagues at the Integration and Conflict department took it upon themselves to read some first drafts and to help me develop the theoretical framework of this book. Maéva Clement has also been of great help in this regard. Dominik Müller was eager to share his invaluable insights into the anthropology of religion and to provoke my thoughts

Acknowledgements  xi

by discussing his understanding of classificatory power with me. When I wrote the first draft of Chapter 3, ‘Iconography and Iconoclasm’, Katarina Ristic had many critical comments, but was also very enthusiastic about the way in which I wanted to approach this issue. Conversations with her certainly helped me to improve this part of the book. Joram Tarusarira, Marwan Kraidy and many others have also provided feedback on this and other parts of the book, and I am indebted to all of them. At Berghahn Books, I thank Tom Bonnington, Keara Hagerty, Harry Eagles, and Caroline Kuhtz for the professional support and for ensuring a smooth publication process. I am also very grateful to Khalid Albaih who drew the cartoon for the book cover. Because some of the best thoughts evolve over a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, I am most grateful to Brian Donahoe, Markus Klank and Jonathan Bernearts, with whom I have spent many pleasurable moments. Equally, being in Tom Kaden’s company is not only intellectually stimulating, but also most often an opportunity to laugh heartily.

Notes on Translations and Transliterations

Unless stated otherwise, translations of Arabic sources are my own. Transliteration of Arabic in this work has been carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES). This also includes place names, with a few exceptions (e.g. Baghdad). Words that have entered the English lexicon are spelled according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Whenever relevant, dates are expressed according to the Hijrī and Gregorian calendars.

Introduction

The Caliphate brings together all Muslims, it brings together the Syrian, the Iraqi, the Yemeni, the Egyptian, the European, the American and the African; it brings together the Arabs and the non-Arabs; it brings together the Hanafī, the Shāfi ʿī, the Mālikī and the H.anbalī; so come to your Caliphate! —Abū Muh.ammad al-ʿAdnānī, Hādha waʿd Allāh It is undeniable that the Islamic State,1 especially its fighters but also its bureaucrats and all other supporters, brought unimaginable distress to many people who lived within the group’s sphere of influence. As participants in violent conflicts in Iraq and Syria, but also beyond, in Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Nigeria and many other places, fighters of the Islamic State and its allies displaced, robbed, humiliated, tortured and killed people and left many places totally destroyed. In addition, the group used many of these acts for its media work and committed some crimes only in order to produce images and play with the horror of the audience. It is therefore understandable without qualification when some observers denigrate members of the Islamic State as a gang of bloodthirsty terrorists abusing Islamic traditions for money, power or even lower motives. From a somewhat safe distance, it may be possible neither to relate to the grief caused by the Islamic State’s followers among so many people, nor to continually direct our attention to the tremendous effort that is post-violence reconciliation. In this book I will, however, attempt to better understand a widely ignored yet powerful force shaping violent conflicts, and thus the Islamic State’s emergence and rise: social identities. Given the fact that this religio-political actor has proved to be

2

Entrepreneurs of Identity

one of the most powerful contenders for state power in Iraq since 2003 and in Syria since 2011, I hope to offer a new perspective on how the Islamic State successfully manoeuvred within the war-torn environment of these two countries, and was able to present itself, at least temporarily, as the best available alternative to existing orders in the eyes of many people. This book puts forward the hypothesis that the successful establishment of the Islamic State is due not least to its identity politics, that is, to the offer of existential and ontological security articulated by the ideologues of the Islamic State and its predecessors under the paradigm of ‘righteous’ Sunni Muslimness and a revival of the caliphate. I hence seek to examine some of the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues attempt to create, coordinate and control a shared sense of ‘we-ness’ through categories of social identity. Studying a wide dossier of original texts, speeches, images and videos, I trace the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues use memories of the past and the history of the Muslim community (umma) to make claims in the present and for the future through normative appeals to potential members of this larger social collective. To describe and interpret the epistemic and ontological orientation they offer, I refer to the Islamic State’s ideologues and its wider leadership as ‘entrepreneurs of identity’. I understand entrepreneurs of identity as social actors who harness social identities to establish and preserve their claims to authority. This concept originated in studies from the fields of sociology and social psychology, where it is used to describe social actors who engage in the construction of social identities in order to influence individuals and orchestrate collective behaviour.2 Examining similar figurations of human interaction, social anthropologist Günther Schlee (2008: 29) has termed group leaders who engage in manipulating collective identities ‘virtuosi of identity manipulation.’3 Building on these studies’ efforts, I want to further develop this concept, taking the Islamic State’s ideologues and wider leadership as a case in point to describe the ways in which entrepreneurs of identity aim equally to influence individual conceptions of the self and its relation to others and to manipulate intergroup processes. Employing their material or immaterial capabilities, or both, they seek to offer what Malešević (2011: 283) terms ‘ideologically articulated cognitive maps’, that is, structured and coherent narratives about their actions, norms, values and beliefs on the basis of which individuals can meaningfully decipher any social and political fact or development. Promoting dogmatically sealed, ‘sacralised’, uncompromisable and emotionally laden interpretations of the situation of conflict in Iraq and Syria, the group’s ideologues not only render religion as such, but specifically the ‘true’ enactment of ‘pristine’ Islam, as what Koschorke (2011: 37) describes as a ‘master-signifier’, which becomes the only decisive criterion of semantic, iconographic and behavioural distinction and thus helps to justify and enable understanding of rifts in the social framework.

Introduction

3

Proposing this conceptual framework, I hope to draw attention to a hitherto understudied perspective on the question of why it was precisely this group that successfully filled the identity gap produced by the delusional failure of exogenous state-building in Iraq after 2003, as well as the ambiguous misuse of sectarian narratives by the al-Asad regime in Syria. So far, research on the Islamic State’s establishment and expansion has mainly focused on the roles of former members of the Baath party, the Iraqi security apparatus and foreign fighters in the Islamic State’s forces and bureaucracy;4 the group’s economic organisation and state-building efforts;5 and its claim to and exercise of authority.6 Such exogenous factors are undoubtably highly relevant for the development of the group, as well as for its assessment of social and political facts and developments. The epistemological interest of this book, however, evolves around the Islamic State’s discursive, symbolic and iconographic strategies, used by the group’s ideologues to offer orientation – thus, around more endogenous aspects of social action. In part, these elements play a role in studies of the Islamic State’s media and its production and dissemination, which are concerned with aesthetic practices and media rhetoric used to address specific audiences,7 and the ways in which people articulate their stance towards Jihadi-Salafi actors online.8 In addition, psychosocial aspects inform analyses of the variables that regulate support of,9 as well as resilience or resistance against, violent actors on a local, regional and global scale,10 and facilitate or hinder reconciliation in a post-war environment.11 Other scholars have examined the ways in which militant Jihadi-Salafi groups establish a particular nomenclature12 and employ h.adīth literature and specific concepts drawn from Islamic intellectual history,13 and the role that broader cultural items such as poetry play in their sense of self and others (Hegghammer 2017), as part of a cultural “tool kit” of symbols, rituals and traditions that includes violence as a force of demarcation of social collectives.14 Building on the above efforts, this book seeks to contribute to the literature on identity politics in general and identity-building in the Jihadi-Salafi current in particular by focusing on the epistemic and ontological orientation offered by the Islamic State’s ideologues. I argue that as a backbone of and addition to the (often violent) exertion of authority that determined the group’s relative success in assembling a powerful fighting force, establishing a quasi-state and attracting large groups of people far beyond Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State’s leadership has put significant intellectual effort into establishing and preserving intragroup solidarity. This study thus analyses the ways in which the group’s leadership seeks to build intragroup coherence through deploying ‘fortified’ and essentialised categories of social identity as an epistemic and ontological framework. Based on this framework, so I will show, they offer plausible and meaningful appraisals of social and political events and facts, justify a claim to authority and various resources, seek to stimulate processes of social closure and strive to generate conformity.

4

Entrepreneurs of Identity

Although it is clear that the group repeatedly appeals to broad circles of its Muslim audience, its rigorous ideas are not geared towards the inclusion of large sections of the Muslim umma. The cohesive force designed on the basis of certain beliefs, norms, values and practices is rather aimed at the formation of an elitist circle whose social solidarity is nurtured by the idea of a purified Sunni Muslim identity. My discussion is built on a wide dossier of original data. I have archived and examined texts, speeches, images and videos produced and disseminated by the Islamic State’s ideologues and its media apparatus between 2003 and 2019, many of which have not been subject to a systematic qualitative or interpretive inquiry before.15 I understand these media primarily as manifestations of the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues perceive, recognise and present reality. From among these, I have selected eighty-nine media files and have used a hermeneutical approach16 to reconstruct and probe the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues create and use categories of social identity as a significant element of their self-representation and self-interpretation under specific sociohistorical conditions. Based on this original data, I will show that like many other sociopolitical actors in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State’s ideologues have availed themselves of categories of social identity such as ‘Muslim’, ‘Sunni’, ‘Arab’, ‘Shii’, ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Syrian’ primarily as tools of communicative and cognitive structuring. Such categories are resources that people can use to make sense of reality. They provide shortcuts to potentially complex systems of beliefs, normative appeals, practices and orientations, as they help people understand who they are, how they are related to others and how they should behave in certain situations. The relationship of these ontological resources to one’s sense of self, however, is volatile, ambiguous and highly variegated, determined, among other things, by the individual’s horizon(s) of experience in their social environment. I argue that entrepreneurs of identity use a broad variety of measures to create, coordinate and control a shared sense of ‘we-ness’ to try and regulate the relation of people’s sense of self to specific categories of social identity. The symbolic repertoire created and used by the Islamic State’s ideologues is a vivid example, and I will demonstrate how concepts from Islamic intellectual history, social practices and certain forms of cultural production are appropriated, reinterpreted and deployed to concatenate categories of social identity with the Islamic State’s ideological framework. Moreover, this symbolic repertoire helps manifesting an ‘Islamic State identity’ through social action, thus providing the bedrock for the Islamic State’s intragroup cohesion and the social solidarity of its leadership and ideologues, bureaucrats, fighters, supporters and potential associates. To examine these linkages and still widely overlooked components of the group’s successful establishment and expansion, both on the ground and on the internet, I explore how the ideologues of the Islamic State conceptualise the ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa). Set against

Introduction

5

modes of organising governance and society such as parliamentarism, democracy and secularity, the Islamic State’s ideologues present the revival of the caliphate as a social order that promises existential security, to fulfil expectations of salvation, provide recognition and reconcile its audience’s individual claims, goals, desires and future prospects with those of the collective – that is, the united Muslim umma across traditional boundaries of descent, ethnicity and rival schools of law – under the group’s guidance and control. They encourage their adherents and potential followers to embrace the caliphate as the righteous social order, asserting a set of norms, values and beliefs whose implementation will help revitalise feelings of ontological security, honour, pride and dignity, which are, in fact, pivotal preconditions for attaining a positive and rewarding social identity. In this sense, the Islamic State’s conceptualisation of the caliphate offers to fulfil the ‘basic psychological needs of forming a meaningful worldview that provides a coherent and organized picture in times of stress, threat and deprivation’ (Halperin 2014: 283), thus offering further incentives for strong intragroup cohesion. I argue that this concept and its appropriation and reinterpretation form the basis for the Islamic State’s deliberations on how ‘genuine’ Islamic rule and society ought to be structured, lived and experienced. This includes elaborations on the figure of the caliph and his office, on the institutions among which the shūrā enables and secures his rule and on the establishment of a social contract (ʿahd) between rulers and ruled that is stipulated by divine ordinances. In my discussion of these elements, I will focus on the concepts mentioned, which I believe are fundamental, and thus will largely leave out ideas such as wilāya or the specific institutional design of the Islamic State. The focus on the above-mentioned ideas derives ultimately from the primary sources in which the Islamic State’s ideologues draft a sometimes very detailed and elaborate configuration of these concepts. This configuration, I argue, determines their ability to offer plausible, comprehensible and meaningful appraisals of social and political events and facts, and to justify a claim to authority and various resources.. These ideologues’ conceptualisation of the ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’, however, does not merely help to clothe and justify claims to political power. I argue that their conceptual work has been a precondition for making the sacralised epistemic and ontological framework that is the caliphate socially tangible in the everyday reality of the people in Iraq and Syria. To continually reassert this framework, the ideologues demanded that people publicly perform an oath of allegiance to the caliph (bayʿa), a practice appropriated from Prophetic tradition. More importantly, though, the Islamic State’s ideologues appropriated and developed a set of social practices intended to manifest this sacralised framework through profound transformations of the social fabric and through shaping people’s behaviour, thus furthering the social revolution the ideologues seek to incite. Based on the rather abstract Qurʾanic dictum ‘to command good and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar), they initiated admin-

6

Entrepreneurs of Identity

istrative and bureaucratic structures such as the h.isba, whose members oversee the regulation of governance and society, enforce a strict code of conduct, seek to further the pervasion of people’s minds and day-to-day practices with the Islamic State’s ideology, and facilitate the intellectual rejection and material obliteration of any form of opposition to the Islamic State’s claim to power and its vision of a ‘genuine’ Muslim society. With regard to this dimension of the identity politics of the Islamic State, I also focus on a selection of social practices and leave others – such as corporal punishments or school education in the Islamic State’s territories – largely untouched. Both concepts and social practices are reflected in a wide array of forms of cultural production, such as poetry, a cappella chants (anāshīd) and various forms of new media. The appropriation, creation and dissemination of still and moving images plays an important role in this regard, as it allows entrepreneurs of identity to appeal to various audiences across boundaries of culture and language, and helps the Islamic State distribute its messages in an emotionally effective way. This symbolic repertoire serves as an instrument connecting the Islamic State’s ideas, norms and beliefs to their potential constituencies’ lifeworlds, horizons of experience, historical memories, desires and future visions. As such, it helps to define and shape the meaning, characteristics and boundaries of a ‘genuine’ Sunni identity and a sense of ‘true’ Muslimness that are to be put into effect in a specific time and place. In addition to this, I argue that the iterative performance and enactment of this symbolic repertoire, both on the ground and in the virtual realm, also lends potential stability to the Islamic State’s vision of governance and society, as it allows this vision to structure cognitions, shape appraisals of sociopolitical events and facts, accentuate particular emotions and, to some degree, shape collective behaviour in the long term, even if the Islamic State as such ceases to exist.

Outline of the Book The extent to which the Islamic State’s potential constituencies respond to these offers and claims in a favourable way is mainly contingent upon (and also reflects) the sociopolitical and psycho-emotional context. In Chapter 1, I will delineate this context and provide an overview of the ways in which the regimes of Saddam Husayn in Iraq and Hafez al-Asad and his son Bashar in Syria have facilitated a gradual ‘sectarianisation’ of the political landscape and the wider social fabric. Their rhetoric and policies increased the relevance of supranational collective identities and furthered the alienation of social groups from both the state and each other, while also affecting people’s day-to-day orientations within networks of family, kin, tribe and sect. Whole collectives were played off against each other, and tendencies towards in-group favouritism and out-group animosity not only simmered, but were occasionally aroused by state and non-state actors. This

Introduction

7

sociopolitical context provided fruitful ground for the Islamic State’s ideologues, who hoped to achieve favourable responses to their offers. The Islamic State emerged in a conflict situation that has shaped how its ideologues, bureaucrats and fighters understand themselves, their potential followers and their opponents. Moreover, this background determines the way in which the Islamic State articulates its claims towards both its adherents and its adversaries. As I will demonstrate in the course of this book, the movement and its predecessors capitalised on the ‘vulnerability’ of Sunni Arab Iraqi identity and symbols, making it easier for them to alter both significantly in a way that bolstered their own ideological framework. They sought to fashion the functional purpose of Sunni identity, drawing upon the perceived misery of Sunni Arabs in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere and promising to resolve their sense of existential and ontological crisis. For their followers, the offer made by the Islamic State’s entrepreneurs of identity may seem to fit their social experience and thus facilitate the implementation of group norms. Employing this offer as an instrument of cognitive structuring can help to establish intragroup coherence through a sense of moral imperative to act against those who transgress the proposed norms. It can thus be conceived as ‘perhaps the major strategy [of ] entrepreneurs of identity’ (Reicher 2004: 937). Chapter 2 focuses on the concepts appropriated from Islamic intellectual history and reinterpreted by the Islamic State’s ideologues in order to create their vision of governance and society. I will show that these ideologues have conceptualised the ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa) as a distinct mode of sociopolitical organisation that they understand as being based on and defining the categories of Sunni Muslims and Sunni Arabs, which helps them to embrace ‘all those they seek to mobilize, whose values and priorities are realized in their proposals and of which they themselves are representative’ (Reicher, Haslam and Hopkins 2005: 557). In their view, the caliphate, as a governing body and a rigorously structured mode of organising all spheres of society, regulates both the worldly and spiritual affairs of its subjects. Guaranteeing their existential security but also fulfilling their expectations of salvation, it is an order that is sanctioned by divine ordinances and thus cannot be compromised. The Islamic State’s ideologues argue that, for a number of economic, social and political reasons, most Sunni Muslims fail to commit themselves to this ‘righteous’ path; hence, they suffer the most from spiritual, moral and social decline. To correct this, the ideologues promote the movement’s interpretation of the caliphate as the solution to a supposed Sunni ‘crisis of meaning’ (Berger and Luckmann 1995). This state can only be resolved if Sunni Muslims recognise and support the Islamic State as the only legitimate force in an intractable conflict between ‘believers’ (muʾminūn) and all material and immaterial types of ‘disbelief ’ (kufr), which are caused by social regulations and practices that obscure the divine ordinance and deviate from it. I will demonstrate some ways in which

8

Entrepreneurs of Identity

the Islamic State’s ideologues have sought to institutionalise divine ordinances through the establishment of bureaucratic and administrative structures. Institutions such as the shūrā council, the caliph’s office and several ministries (dawāwīn, s. dīwān) epitomise the Islamic State’s all-encompassing vision of governance and society, creating and enforcing social practices such as the oath of allegiance (bayʿa) to the caliphate and the call ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar), which are intended to secure implementation of this idea. As a result, I argue, the Islamic State and its predecessors conceptualise and articulate a particular form of Sunni identity – an ‘Islamic State identity’ – based on an all-embracing (re)imposition of religion over any other sphere of organisation of society. In Chapter 3, I explore how the Islamic State’s ideologues illuminate these concepts and social practices through still and moving images. Images are a distinct form of cultural production and aesthetic practice that helps entrepreneurs of identity to address various audiences across boundaries of language and culture, justify their cause, and produce and intensify particular emotional and attitudinal patterns among their targeted audiences. The Islamic State used the affective potential of both still and moving images to disseminate key narratives of its interpretation of reality, its own role within this world and the way in which it aspires to bring about fundamental social changes. These images, I argue, provide the Islamic State’s audiences with a multisensory experience of a conflict between the agents of monotheism (tawh.īd) and the forces of its antipodes, which are defined as inherently intractable. Visualisations of the way in which the Islamic State takes up the fight against these forces of disbelief (kufr), idolatry (t.āghūt) and polytheism (shirk) can drag viewers into a particular lifeworld, help to take hold of their historical memory, structure their appraisals of and reactions to social and political events, facts and developments, and trigger intense emotional and physical responses. In doing so, they help to strengthen further the functional psychological infrastructure provided by the Islamic State’s Manichaean ideological framework and its oversimplified assessment of the conflict, supporting social cohesion and intensifying identification with the movement and the social collective it claims to represent. At the same time, we can see that the way in which the Islamic State produces a particular iconography also includes an obvious momentum towards the destruction of visual representations. Iconography and iconoclasm are deeply interlinked. As I shall show, the destruction of ancient sites, the desecration of Christian churches and monasteries, the eradication of Sunni sites of religious practice, the obliteration of Shiite sites and the killings of Shiite clerics are all part of the Islamic State’s attempt to establish a homogenous, purified system of governance and society. I argue that these practices are to be understood in the first place as a form of socioclasm, because the Islamic State’s all-encompassing concept of purification targets various spatial, material, ideational and intellectual manifestations of what it deems to be monotheism’s

Introduction

9

antipodes. For this cause and in the context explored in this book, the Islamic State’s socioclasm, its reverberations and its consequences generated far-reaching changes to the social landscape of the territories seized, and were thus more important than, for instance, military operations at large, overseas attacks or even corporal punishments and their gruesome visualisation.

Notes 1. For the sake of brevity, I use the emic designation ‘Islamic State’ to denote the militant Jihadi-Salafi group that announced the establishment of an Islamic State (dawla islāmīya) in July 2014 CE/Ramadan 1435 AH. The use of this designation in this book encompasses all stages of the group’s organisational and denominational evolution since 2003, when al-Tawh.īd wa ‘l-Jihād (Monotheism and Jihad) emerged as one of many small Sunni militias who fought the multinational occupation in Iraq. Announcing its alignment with al-Qāʾida in October 2004, the group henceforth operated as Qāʾidat al-jihād fi-bilād al-rāfidayn (al-Qāʾida in the Land of the Two Rivers). Allying with several other Jihadi-Salafi militant groups in October 2006 to form the h.ilf al-mut.ayyabīn (Alliance of the Scented), the group only a few days later announced the establishment of an ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (dawlat al-ʿIrāq al-islāmīya). Two years after the Syrian uprising had turned into a violent civil conflict, the group had evolved into a powerful and socially significant movement, announcing its expansion into Syria and declaring the establishment of an ‘Islamic State in Iraq and greater Syria’ (al-dawla al-islāmīya fi ’l-ʿIrāq wa ’l-Shām) in late summer 2013. Finally, in June 2014, the movement’s spokesperson announced the establishment of the Islamic State (al-dawla al-islāmīya). This denomination is still upheld, although the group’s quasi-state structures have ceased to exist. 2. Most notably, sociologist Barbara Ballis Lal (1997) and social psychologist Stephen Reicher (2004) have advanced the notion of entrepreneurs of identity. See also Reicher et al. (2001); Reicher, Haslam and Hopkins (2005); Haslam and Reicher (2007); and Reicher and Haslam (2017). 3. Other notable studies include Brass (2003); Leong (2015); and Matthiesen (2015). 4. See Gerges (2016); Bastug and Guler (2018); Matveeva and Giustozzi (2018); Weiss and Hassan (2015); Helfont and Brill (2016b); and Barfi (2016). 5. See Johnston et al. (2016); Clarke et al. (2017); Robinson et al. (2017); Revkin (2020); Bauer (2016); Caris and Reynolds (2014); and a number of articles and blog posts by Aymenn al-Tamimi. 6. See Revkin (2016b); Günther and Kaden (2016); Lia (2017); and Friis (2017). Bassil (2019) is among the few who offer a perspective on the entanglement of Western scholarship with the ways in which Jihadi-Salafi groups and their violence are exceptionalised. See also Gruber (2019b) and Ibrahim (2019). 7. See Krona and Pennington (2019); Lakomy (2019); Winkler and Pieslak (2018); Kraidy (2017a, 2017b); Rocca (2017); Monaci (2017); Calchi-Novati (2017); Ingram (2016); Macnair and Frank (2017); Ramsay (2015); and Lohlker (2011, 2013, 2019). 8. See Bean and Edgar (2017); Kraidy (2018); and al-Rawi (2016). 9. See Viano (2018); Lemos de Carvalho (2018); Winkler, El Damanhoury and Lemieux (2018); Amarasingam and Dawson (2018); Dawson and Amarasingam (2017); van San (2018); Koshkin, Zhidkih and Novikov (2018); Speckhard and Yayla (2016); Romero (2016); Kaltenthaler, Silverman and Dagher (2018); Olidort (2016); Al Aqeedi (2016); and Berman et al. (2009).

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10. See Carpenter (2014); Michlig et al. (2019); Nilsson (2016, 2018); Saramifar (2019); Haid (2017); International Crisis Group (2016); Aubrey et al. (2016); Al Aqeedi (2015); and Berman, Shapiro and Felter (2011). 11. See Helfont and Helfont (2018); Yacoubian (2017); Cordesman (2018); and Human Rights Watch (2016). 12. See Long and Wilner (2014) and Perry and Long (2016). 13. See Boutz, Benninger and Lancaster (2018); Maher and Bissoondath (2019); Nanninga (2018); and Wagemakers (2015). 14. See Chouliaraki and Kissas (2018); Gatt (2020); Lohlker (2016); Malešević (2010: 237– 74); Tripp (2018); Saramifar (2019); and Roy (2017). 15. Notable quantitative analyses of the Islamic State’s media work are Nanninga (2019); Winter (2018); Wignell et al. (2018); Berger and Morgan (2015); El Damanhoury (2017); and Lahoud and Pieslak (2018). Judith Tinnes’s Counting Lives Lost project (https://twitter.com/countinglivespt) also employs quantitative methods. 16. For elaborations on this methodology, see for example Knoblauch et al. (2013).

Chapter 1

Entrepreneurs of Identity and the Sectarianisation of Iraq and Syria

Although it seems that we have all witnessed significant changes in the sociopolitical arena across South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) since the early 2000s, this impression may be deceptive. The immense persistence of political and bureaucratic systems, which to a large extent have remained tenacious in their hold on territory and power and continue to paralyse the region, contrasts with medialised sensations of dynamics unsettling established orders. Alongside the dialectics of flux and constancy that shape structural conditions, media coverage and parts of academic research on the region have stressed an increasing spread of religious ‘sectarianism’ (t.āʾifīya),1 permeating in political discourses and the order of social coexistence at the expense of national and universal religious identities. Haddad (2020) and others have accurately criticised the overexaggeration and concomitant under-theorisation of the term, which connotes a rather static continuum, an immutable transhistorical force characterising the range of thoughts and activities of a certain social group, movement or even the entire Muslim community and the SWANA region since the emergence of Islam.2 Instead, we should comprehend the matter as one of communal relations and conceive of it as a fluctuating dynamic rather than a static continuum. Unlike Haddad (2020), who has discerningly expanded the notion of sectarianism beyond religions and sects, in what follows I will limit my discussion to social or material manifestations of religious sectarian identities whose meanings, figurations and inner dynamics are still understudied. Like other social identities, sectarian identities and the ties that develop around them are not homeostatic entities that stand the test of time. They are not cohesive and constantly accepted across a given group of people, but rather ambiguous and fluid, as they are for-

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ever being constructed, maintained, contested, claimed and rejected. Sectarian identities are also linked to and overlap with other categories of social identity, such as language, descent, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, ‘gender, social class, education, age (generation), profession, geographical location, ideology and/or political experiences (e.g. being affected by ethnically based violence) [which] can either reinforce or cross-cut sectarian identities’ (Davis 2010: 232). As is the case with social identities in general, people can draw upon categories of sectarian identity because they represent shortcuts to potentially complex systems of beliefs, normative appeals, practices and orientations, helping people understand who they are, how they are related to others and how they should behave in certain situations. If we understand social identities as powerful ontological resources that people need to orient themselves in their social environment, social identities may also provide vital instruments for entrepreneurs of identity. Seeking to coordinate (and control) people’s sense of themselves and others around them, these social actors develop a great extent of their ideological framework around the definition of social identities and the attempt to increase their significance for the everyday lives of many people. This process may be best conceptualised as ‘sectarianisation’, meaning the continuous absorption of any sphere of society by references to sectarian identities. In this context, this book seeks to contribute to an understanding of processes of social mobilisation and differentiation along sectarian lines, in that it probes the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues appeal to the cognitive and social resources that make up sectarian identities in order to shape people’s interpretation of the world and their actions accordingly; specifically, it examines the sociopolitical processes in Iraq under Saddam Husayn and in Syria under Hafez and Bashar al-Asad that led to an increasing relevance of religious sectarian identities in the organisation of state and society. In this chapter, I will describe some of the conditions that paved the way for the Islamic State’s ideologues to successfully appeal to (potential) supporters in the region: specifically, the gradual sectarianisation of Iraq and Syria. I reconstruct these transformations by describing how the link between supranational collective identities and national political projects became increasingly salient under the rule of S.addām Husayn and Hafez al-Asad respectively. Furthermore, I will sketch the paths that led these two countries to civil war and sectarian unrest by exploring the extent to which sectarian identities fashioned structures of political and social organisation following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Syrian uprisings against Bashar al-Asad beginning in 2011.

The Construction of an Iraqi National Identity during Saddam Husayn’s Rule In 1979, twenty-four years before the first signs of militant Jihadi-Salafi activity were visible in Iraq, Saddam Husayn seized almost total control over the Iraqi

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Baath party and began to progressively mould the appearance of this avowedly secular regime and the Iraqi nation state in a manner that was favourable to the ruling circle. Once this was achieved, he seemingly used his political power not primarily for political reforms, which could, for instance, have helped consolidate the country’s economy and supported wide-ranging prosperity. Rather, he sought to retain and expand his power to establish a ‘Republican monarchy’ (Bengio 2000: 652), thus guaranteeing his claim to an everlasting reign based on patrimonialism. Clientelist networks, which had already been built by his predecessor, were used to secure his power. These networks revolved around kin ties and friendship, resulting in the bringing of more Sunnis from Western Iraq to positions of power at the expense of other segments of society. This nurtured the perception of asymmetric power relations between social groups and the impression of the Iraqi nation state as dominated by one particular sect (Sluglett and Farouk-Sluglett 1978; Haddad 2016: 107). These networks survived the Iraq– Iran war, the embargo imposed on Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and the subsequent uprisings in the northern and southern parts of the country. Both wars aggravated Iraq’s disastrous socio-economic decline (Khoury 2010), while the regime sought to keep a tight grip on society through its growing military and security apparatus, which cracked down on any attempt at revolution (Günther 2014: 31–36). Beyond the enforcement of regulatory authority through means of surveillance and violent control, Saddam and his regime demonstrated remarkable ideological flexibility and pragmatism in forging new alliances and handling people’s frustrations over their governance. In order to orchestrate the behaviour of their constituencies in a favourable direction on both the individual and group level, they slightly reversed earlier policies. The regime gradually began to appeal to tribal solidarity (al-ʿas.abīya al-qabalīya) and assigned tribal federations the task of (semi-)autonomously governing local affairs, as well as their own, in rural areas (Günther 2014: 37–40). Tribal structures were visibly embedded into the military and other security forces, as well as the broader state apparatus (Jabar 2003a). The structure and course of action of both the state apparatus and sociopolitical organisations thus allowed the regime to use and define categories of social identity, appropriate them as resources and exploit their potential for its own ends. Rhetorically, through the promotion of certain cultural practices, and by way of a vast number of visual representations – ranging from the reconstruction of ancient sites, the musealisation of pre-Islamic objects and the restoration of Islamic architectural heritage to the architectural and decorative equipage of the presidential palaces and a range of statues, murals and posters of Saddam Husayn – the regime sought to create a cultural and historical foundation upon which a national identity could be constructed that linked Mesopotamian, Arab and Islamic culture to Iraq’s present and future.3 Arguably, this was even more

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evident with regard to the progressive inclusion of Islamic symbols and semantics into the regime’s canon of Arab secular nationalism.4 Overall, its candid (and seemingly arbitrary) practice allowed the regime to define meaning and boundaries of ‘Iraqiness’ in ideological terms, linking them with its own ideological framework5 of Baathist socialism. They employed these categories as instruments of communicative and cognitive social structuring in order to articulate their beliefs and actions and to encode their messages in such a way that others could decipher the ‘right’ interpretations of social and political events and social facts accordingly. Furthermore, public holidays and festivities provided a platform for the regime to embrace ethnic, tribal and religious identities as a symbol of Iraq’s cultural plurality and to employ them for its own political course. In addition, as it enforced Islamic mores and values in the bigger cities, in particular during the 1980s and 1990s, the regime sought to define ‘proper’ Islamic conduct, shape collective action and control public behaviour in order to appeal to Sunni conservative circles (Baram 2014). In external conflicts, the regime also employed an amalgamation of different social identities in order to orchestrate collective action. Hinting that it would reinvigorate early Muslim Arab conquests against the Persian Empire, during the Iran–Iraq war (1980–88) the regime labelled the struggle against the ‘Persian aggressors’ as Qādisīyat S.addām, identifying the war with a decisive battle fought in 636 BCE between the early Muslim caliphate and the Sassanid Persian army not far from the Euphrates river.6 Iraq’s leadership also sought to appropriate two of the most powerful symbolic figures in Shiite Islam by emphasising the Arab descent of the Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin ʿAlī b. Abī T.ālib, who is revered as the first Imam of the Shia, his birthday being declared a national holiday.7 At the same time, the martyrdom of ʿAlī’s son H . usayn was put forward as a glorious example for every Iraqi soldier to follow in the war against Iran (Bengio 1985: 8). Saddam Husayn, who had some of the country’s most influential religious dignitaries from Iraq’s Shiite community put under arrest or executed, now sought to regain the sympathy and trust of the Shiite population by investing in religious sites, educational institutions and the civilian infrastructure of Iraq’s southern provinces, with their Shia majorities (Hazran 2010: 532). At the same time, the Baath party denounced unwelcome and deviant political activities as expressions of sectarian identity and despised them as sentiments having a detrimental impact on national unity. The stigmatisation and taboo of assertions of sectarian identities particularly affected Shiite communities, whose religious practices to a great extent involve public expressions and motifs of victimhood (Haddad 2016: 112–14; Jabar 2003b: 208–15). While religion and religiosity played a steadily growing role in all spheres of society, it was still to be aligned with the Baath’s nationalist agenda. The regime advised its institutions and local party branches to watch out for any form of religious activism that could potentially inspire opposition to the party’s national project – be it

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Wahhabi Salafist teachings imported from Saudi Arabia or Shiite religio-political activism heartened by the Islamic revolution in Iran. Although these ideas gained traction in Iraqi Sunni and Shiite communities from the late 1980s, it is a matter of academic debate whether and to what extent Saddam Husayn’s awkwardness in dealing with sectarian identities and the resurgence of religion contributed to a systematic Islamisation of politics and society, which in turn provided fertile ground for ethno-sectarian identities to become salient and powerful means of political mobilisation in Iraq.8 At the same time, the regime framed the plurality of supranational identities in ambiguous and paradoxical ways. It continued with an ‘exclusionary nationbuilding’ (Haddad 2016: 111–12), which allowed to engineer, refine and secure Saddam’s authoritarian rule by pitting his various opponents against each other, regardless of their ethnic, tribal or sectarian affiliations. He turned this policy of divide and rule into a paradigm of Iraqi political culture, which is still impeding attempts to produce national cohesion across ethnic and sectarian lines to this day. As political organisation within and outside the country evolved more and more around these patterns, no unified opposition movement emerged to embrace Iraqis from all parts of the political and religious spectrum and to give voice to their needs and desires. However, regional stakeholders such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have done their utmost to ensure that their particularistic (and mostly antagonistic) interests in and visions for the region’s future would be met. These factors, among others, determined the strategies and goals of local uprisings, as well as the nature of opposition groups, both in Iraq and abroad. Primarily, while they aimed at toppling Saddam, they could not agree on common goals and programmes to shape Iraq’s future as a nation despite their nationalistic slogans. While domestic political opposition to Saddam and his regime had been more or less neutralised or incorporated into the party-state apparatus by 1992,9 individuals, movements and parties in exile sought to appropriate the country’s political identity and thus alter the sociopolitical fate of Iraq in the post-Saddam era. In order to accomplish their goals, they partnered with governmental institutions in the UK, the US, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries, which in turn sought to advance their own political projects after Saddam’s removal (see Ismael and Ismael 2010, 2015). Members of the opposition in exile residing in the US and the UK particularly lobbied for regime change based on the notion that Iraq was an entirely ‘artificial’ state with no sense of nationhood among its inhabitants, who were allegedly divided along ethno-sectarian lines and only united by Saddam’s iron fist (Visser 2007, 2008a). The principle of power-sharing based on ethno-sectarian quotas was quickly adopted by policymakers in London and Washington as a model for a future Iraq. These proportions, however, were not based on a census, and demographic facts were thus turned into a dubious political tool such that the majority status

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of the Shia and the minority status of Arab Sunnis was (and still is) highly contested (see Haddad 2013: 132; International Crisis Group 2006). In addition, pursuant to the proportional representation, Shiite religio-political parties and individuals with strong ties to Iran became ‘primary partners’ in reorganising Iraq’s political landscape and society. They interpreted Saddam’s fall mainly as a historical opportunity for the Shiite community at large and sought to appeal to their constituencies by invoking a Shiite collective identity.

The Emergence of Entrepreneurs of Identity and Institutionalised Sectarianisation I have already noted that the contemporary conflict between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority in Iraq can hardly be explained as sectarian, as it is rather informed by political and socio-economic rivalry. It is based not primarily on theological rivalries between the followers of different religious confessions, but rather on contested claims to social status and political power that evolved during the nation-building process. This is not to say that one cannot detect ‘competing historical narratives and beliefs, chauvinistic attitudes and social/political resentments’ (Ismael and Ismael 2010: 340) in Iraqi history, which shaped the formation of collective identities through social separation and influenced political ideas. Nonetheless, in the sense of an explicit and violent ideology, they were not the general rule. That said, Vali Nasr’s (2006: 82) observation that it is ‘the old feud between Shias and Sunnis that forges attitudes, defines prejudices, draws political boundary lines and even decides whether and to what extent those other trends [i.e. modernity, democracy, fundamentalism and secular nationalism] have relevance’ cannot be accepted. In contrast, I argue that it is by no means the ‘old feud’ itself, but rather political, religious and social actors who deploy the memory of this conflict and its continuations as a resource with which to shape how people perceive themselves and their environments, as well as to draw political and social boundaries. The increase in sect-centric actions in recent Iraqi history therefore cannot be explained by invoking the continuity of old enmities, but is rather the result of a specific context and of specific policies and actions.10 In the following paragraphs, I shall outline some of these conditions in order to sketch the stage on which the Islamic State’s predecessors initiated their performance. After a US-led multinational military coalition conquered Iraq in March 2003,11 the Republic of Iraq, as it was known to all its citizens, was abolished. Prior to this formal deconstruction, Iraq’s economic performance, social services and overall quality of life had significantly declined over the past two decades, while unemployment, black market activity and corruption had soared throughout the country. In addition, Iraq had been repeatedly shaken by internal unrest, especially from Arab Shiites and Kurds demanding the right to participate equally in the body politic, receive official recognition or even achieve indepen-

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dence. Even though the nation state was not present in the daily lives of many of its people, or only in the form of the limited capacity of its institutions, coercion and political oppression, it still remained the overarching framework for many Iraqis, who saw themselves as citizens of one nation state and did not seek its territorial division.12 At the same time, the alliance between the Iraqi opposition in exile and Western policymakers committed to ousting Saddam from power arguably knew that the extent to which they could achieve their objectives was not only contingent upon military victories. Effective regime change in Iraq was also subject to transformations of the social, political and cultural contexts in which the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ operated. However, they either intentionally ignored the cohesive power of secular Iraqi nationalism or pushed it into the background in favour of a supposedly easier path to political success. To provide members of the exiled opposition with easy access to their constituencies, as well as to help the occupying forces and US policymakers assess the complex situation in Iraq in accordance with clear patterns, they relied almost exclusively on ethnic and sectarian identities. Consequently, the formation of the United Iraqi Alliance (al-iʾtilāf al-ʿIrāqī al-muwah.h.ad, UIA), an electoral bloc dominated by Shiite religious parties and networks, roughly reflected ethno-sectarian patterns and appealed to the religious and cultural awakening of Iraq’s Shia in the post-war period.13 Other electoral coalitions, such as Irāqīya (al-qāʾima al-ʿIrāqīya al-wat.anīya),14 also comprised Shiite political actors but sought to emphasise a secular political programme and appeal to a wider range of constituents, while yet others, such as the ‘Iraqi Agreement Front’ (jabha al-tawafuq al-ʿIrāqīyya), mainly appealed to Sunni constituencies. Despite the institutionalisation of ethno-sectarian quotas, as reflected in the formation of these alliances, political participation and the formation of alliances during the post-war period were characterised by a rapid fluctuation of individuals and stakeholders in different alliances. Furthermore, ethno-sectarian patterns did not entirely determine the formation or break-up of such structures over time, as new patterns of conflicts and challenges emerged (Sakai 2012). However, the formation of electoral blocs such as UIA and their successes in mobilising along sectarian lines to secure majority support in both national and provincial elections showed that situations of conflict and crisis, as well as the resulting instability of social structures, provided a suitable setting for entrepreneurs of identity to reinforce their targeted audiences’ orientation towards the collective level. Although entrepreneurs of identity cannot manipulate demographic facts, they will nevertheless attempt to use these facts in order to construct collective identities, interpret their meaning, increase their importance to members of one group or another and stir people up to act politically on behalf of their religious community in all possible ways. They seek to stimulate, shape and control collective action by changing and manipulating the salience and valence

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of social identities and their variables, as well as the extent to which people use social identities as resources of orientation. They take account of the fact that in such situations, collective identities in general (and, depending on the context, religious or sectarian identities in particular) potentially become more cohesive and accepted, as they help to relate individual self-concepts to membership in a group. Often, the increasingly strong orientation of an individual to the collective not only provides confidence and security, but also causes shifts both in the extent to which individuals categorise themselves and others and in the subjective aspect of conscious experiences. As Ray, Mackie and Smith (2014: 238) have it, ‘the shift in self-categorization from “me” to “us” is accompanied by a parallel shift in other categorization from “you” to “them”.’ Comparisons then occur ‘at the collective level. It is not how I, as an individual group member, compare to you, an individual member of another group. It is rather how we as a whole compare to you as a whole’ (Reicher 2004: 929). These shifts in self-categorisation and in the categorisation of others were buttressed by rapid changes to political structures in the aftermath of regime change. Through the first two official acts of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA; see Dobbins et al. 2009), the Baath party and the Iraqi military were dissolved alongside many other institutions and social organisations that had guaranteed the pervasion of Iraqi society with Baathist secular nationalism. Although these actions were primarily intended to demonstrate publicly the break with Saddam’s regime and allow a fresh start for Iraq’s body politic, they were arguably also designed to determine the interpretation of this period in Iraqi history, thereby helping to disseminate a certain image of the past, provide appraisals of current events and articulate a future vision. Functionally, however, the dissolution of these institutions in particular increased the dysfunctionality of the Iraqi state, obliterated key features of national identification and pride and nurtured the emergence of further rifts in the social framework (see, among others, Sissons and Al-Saiedi 2013b). Sunni Arabs in particular were negatively affected by these profound changes in power relations both nationally and locally, resulting in a loss of dominance, privilege and prestige, as well as ontological and existential security, which was felt on the level of the whole community and made many Sunnis perceive themselves as a subordinate group (Haddad 2014b: 79). As, for instance, the dissolution of the Iraqi officer corps mostly affected the Sunni community, it was perceived as another aspect of the deliberate ‘de-Sunnification’ of the political system and of society in general.15 Furthermore, not only had the majority of the upper party echelons been occupied by Sunnis, but party membership was also a precondition for employment in many professions. Doctors, middle-class officials, teachers and many others were not judged according to their professional or personal conduct, but their party affiliation, ethnicity or religious denomination. Taking account of the fact that it is ‘people’s conception of the context

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[that] determines their behavioural options to a large extent, and eventually their chosen routes of action’ (Halperin 2014: 282), many actors involved in this formative period of the re-emerging Republic of Iraq sought to frame this process as either the liberation of Iraqis from the former regime’s ideological chains or an assault on the Sunni community. After all, political entrepreneurs of all kinds accelerated a struggle over the prerogative of reading reality and the formation of public opinion as they aspired to facilitate and exploit a particular sociopolitical context in order to constrain the ability of others to operate and effectively offer other interpretations of reality. Moreover, they sought to appropriate the symbols, myths and rituals that formed the backbone of their audiences’ historical memories, and tried to absorb (or, if impossible, destroy and recreate) the structural ‘transmission belts’ of this cultural resource, which are ‘situated in institutions such as organized religion, tribes and extended family networks, and, of course, political institutions’ (Davis 2010: 234). These actors strove to influence people’s cognitive processing of the context – their perceptions of the conditions that model their immediate environment as well as the way they see their historical memories, imaginations, hopes and desires as ‘fit’ for prevailing conditions. Eventually, these entrepreneurs of identity attempted to increase the extent to which the framing of sectarian identities matched their constituencies’ sociopolitical experiences in order to mobilise people for their cause. In conjunction with the dissolution of hitherto existing power structures, the structural instability of Iraq was furthered by the liberalisation of both the state apparatus and the economy (Ismael and Ismael 2015: 60–64). This entire process was aggravated further by the fact that the new authorities clearly lacked the capacity to enforce law and order, provide for basic needs and security or create the conditions necessary for social and economic prosperity. The devastating state of infrastructure caused economic and existential insecurity, giving rise to strong feelings of in-group solidarity across all ethnic and religious groups (see Inglehart, Moaddel and Tessler 2006: 499). In addition, the distribution of political power according to demographic predominance ‘privileged narrow identifications easily manipulated by political entrepreneurs’ (Ismael 2015: 134) and prevented all segments of society in the body politic from sharing equally in it. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, these rearrangements fostered the entrenchment of everyday orientations along family, tribal, ethnic or sectarian lines in the popular consciousness, which in turn were exploited politically – again to the detriment of national cohesion and domestic reconciliation. Moreover, the institutions that were so crucial for national identities, such as universities, libraries, museums and archives in Baghdad and other cities, were poorly guarded and consequently frequently looted.16 The conditions for the rebuilding of cultural and civilian life were also made more difficult by the fact that dozens of intellectuals, university teachers, artists and other prominent moderate voices had been brutally silenced, with some of them even being executed in public. The impact

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of the brain drain that had affected the country since the mid-1990s, when hundreds of qualified people left Iraq, was now perpetuated by death squads on the streets of Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit, Najaf and elsewhere. Iraq’s population was subjected to the stresses of an acute war or post-war situation, the emotional consequences of which deepened the longer this situation and people’s exposure to actual and potential violence continued. Under these conditions, local authorities and militant movements sought both to provide compensation for the absence of the hitherto omnipresent nation state and, by offering security in a war-torn environment, to assert their own claims to power locally, codify patterns of identification and eventually influence people’s perceptions of the nation-building process in Baghdad.17 The armed resistance to the occupation in particular might have been tolerated by parts of the Sunni population because they associated it with the hope for social resurgence and a better future, and expected the militias, at least temporarily, to resolve the situation of economic deprivation that resulted from their dismissal from the state service and affected whole families (Gambetta and Hertog 2009; Berman et al. 2009; Phillips 2005: 153). The loss of income was partly compensated for by the sale of-labour to the highest bidders – in this case to the militias that opposed the state and presented themselves as the representatives and protectors of certain ethnic or sectarian groups, while at the same time showing little interest in the reconstruction of the civilian economy (see Azam 2006; International Crisis Group 2008: 20). The loss of social status, political prestige and the public validation of whole collectives was thus closely related to perceived and experienced insecurities, both materially and ontologically. These issues facilitated the mobilisation of people along the lines of collective identities and nourished negative emotions, which are powerful forces in perpetuating situations of conflict. At certain points, negative emotions such as contempt, despair, fear, anger and hatred reached such heights collectively as to become ‘the main psychological forces that propagate[d] conflict and constitute[d] a powerful barrier to conflict resolution’ (Halperin 2014: 282). To sum up, these emotions at least had the potential to stimulate community polarisation and perceptions of social groups as homogeneous entities in which ‘the Other’ was objectified, predominantly treated negatively and ultimately denied humanness.

Sunni Arab Identity in Iraq and the Emergence of the Islamic State as an Entrepreneur of Identity Prior to 2003, Sunni Arab identity had been portrayed as the ‘norm’, such that ‘Sunni Arab Iraqis enjoyed the identity security that arises from the conviction that “we” are the Staatsvolk whose identity is validated in the daily reproduction of power relations’ (Haddad 2016: 118). Now, the empowerment of Shiite po-

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litical actors shifted the balance significantly as the newly empowered rulers in Baghdad began to inflate the relevance of sectarian identities on the national level, with official nationalism and the myth-symbol complex of Shiite identity becoming increasingly indistinguishable (Haddad 2014b: 84–94). Despite inclusive slogans, and beyond the obvious marginalisation of Sunni Arabs, the Iraqi government sought to facilitate and capitalise on the strong interdigitation of Shiite religiosity and official nationalism. The ‘Shiiness’ of Iraq began to be displayed on official buildings and billboards, which showed figures of importance to Shiite religiosity in general, and to Iraq’s Shiite community in particular, together with the Iraqi national flag, thus reifying and giving proof to the belief among all groups that a particular sect embodied the state (Haddad 2014b). This process nurtured growing resentment among Sunni Arabs towards both the powerholders and their Shiite compatriots, fostering feelings of anger, contempt and humiliation, which ‘play an important role in promoting aggression and sustaining the vicious cycle of conflict’ (Halperin 2014: 287). The fact that many Sunni Arabs perceived this process as proof of an equation between the Shia and the Iraqi nation state forced their political representatives to conceptualise and articulate their own political programmes and their ideas about the very meaning of this nation state from a sect-centric perspective. Yet it was difficult for Sunni actors to counter these developments, adjust to the new conditions and provide both an ideological framework and a symbolic repertoire that could compensate for the losses felt by the Sunni community. These difficulties were rooted in the very fact that they had viewed themselves as being ‘simply Muslims’ and had shown little interest in constructing and adhering to a sectarian identity. They had developed neither the sense of victimhood that had driven Shiite identity since early Islamic history, nor the emblems and practices that would help them visualise and reify their perceived misery. Nationalism of the Baathist kind could not help them cope with the new situation. Thus, Sunni Arab actors needed to ‘reinvent’ their identity and create symbols to help them formulate and articulate their concerns collectively (see Haddad 2014a). After their emergence as a small group within the Sunni resistance to the occupation of Iraq and its sociopolitical reorganisation, described in the following chapter, the Islamic State and its predecessors targeted this vulnerability of Sunni identity. They sought to exploit the paralysing dilemma of Sunni political actors such as the political arm of Iraq’s Muslim Brotherhood and the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), which sought greater participation in a political system many of its constituents rejected, yearning for its failure. As the Islamic State and its predecessors took advantage of the tendency towards relying more on family, ethnic, tribal or sectarian networks in the face of increasing existential insecurity, they aimed to shape the emerging sense of a particular Sunni sectarian identity, which ceased to be synonymous with the Iraqi national identity. To further Sunnis’ alienation from the Iraqi nation state and its new sociopolitical structures, they first sought

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to further cement solidarity among Sunnis and their tendencies towards outgroup hatred of the Shia in particular. One of the group’s key narratives revolves around the alleged victimisation of Sunni Arabs collectively on the part of the new powerholders and multiple substate organisations from all ethnic and religious backgrounds – a wide-ranging plot targeting ‘genuine’ Muslims. This narrative might fit the social experiences of contemporary Sunni Arabs in Iraq and beyond to a large extent (irrespective of the question of whether Sunnis are targeted as such or as political opponents, economic rivals and so on), hence providing an incentive for the Islamic State to articulate it over and over again through any and all forms of media, ranging from posters and leaflets to videos and computer games. As the Islamic State recognised Sunni Arabs as victims of the newly empowered rulers in Baghdad and their supporters, it took account of the fact that ‘Sunni Arab identity [is] a capable contestant in the narcissistic competition of victimhoods [that] is such a prominent feature of sectarian relations in Iraq’ (Haddad 2014b: 94). Since its early days, the group sought to increase the significance of victimhood as an emblem for Iraqi Arab Sunnis and potential sympathizers abroad, who in turn could help rally support. It also took advantage of the shifts in categorisations of self and other triggered by the reorganisation of the political landscape by seeking to pull Sunnis to its side through displaying consideration for their concerns. As will be shown in Chapter 3, the Islamic State at the same time created a specific iconography and symbolic repertoire invoking strength, dignity, pride and honour as positive assets in the competition between a Sunni community and an ascendant and assertive Shiite identity. Even more important than this conscious political use of a collective feeling was the psycho-emotional context that shaped the belief that Iraqi Sunni Arabs were being victimised both politically and socially, while other groups presented themselves as legitimately making their claims to power. The Islamic State and its predecessors took up the increasing salience of feelings of powerlessness, marginalisation and deprivation among some Sunni communities and sought to increase them by presenting the new powerholders, as well as the Shia and other groups at large, as the source of the Sunni’s own ‘collective memory of a calamity’ (Volkan 1998: 48). The group defined the Shia and its other opponents as a threat to Islam in general, and the Sunni community in particular, by appraising the events mentioned above as negatively affecting each and every Sunni Muslim. In a 2016 issue of its online magazine Dabiq,18 the group devoted its leading article to this topic, suggesting that [t]he Rāfidah19 have declared a hidden war against the Muslims. They are the close and dangerous enemy to Ahlus-Sunnah. Even though the Americans are also a major enemy, the Rāfidah are more severely dangerous and more murderous towards the Ummah than the Americans . . . . . . They

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took the Americans as allies, supported them, stood in their ranks in the face of the mujāhidīn, and sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for the Americans everything precious so as to end jihād and the mujāhidīn. . . . Our war against the Rāfidah is a way to incite and raise the resolve of the Ummah for this battle. (al-Hayat Media Center 2016a: 42)20 In contrast, as will be shown in the following chapter, the Islamic State presented its own vision of governance and society and the actions it took to implement this vision as influencing Sunnis’ existence in an exclusively positive manner. In this way, it sought to solidify group bonds, strengthen individual orientation towards the collective and towards tendencies of wholesale favouritism, influence and structure cognitions, and reduce individual differences in the susceptibility to certain shared emotions. The Islamic State’s ideologues specifically addressed discrete, group-based emotions, that is, the emotions and affective states that a person experiences ‘in the name’ of other members of the same social category.21 They sought to emphasise the significance of these emotions and affects for all members of the Sunni community in various textual and audiovisual publications. They also aimed to define, trigger and exploit negative emotions among Sunnis, who perceived themselves as belonging to a subordinate group and hence as sharing a sense of disadvantage resulting from the sociopolitical events and developments mentioned above. The Islamic State’s ideologues thereby took account of the fact that corresponding appraisals of specific events, both individually and collectively, and similar assessments of the conflict situation in general make correlative emotions more likely. Making use of group-based emotions experienced ‘in the name’ of other members of the same social category is thus significant to the construction of collective identities insofar as these emotions link the individual sensory processing of certain events to appraisals of the same events that can (and most likely will) be influenced by entrepreneurs of identity. In addition, empirical research in social psychology shows that group-based emotions might be particularly useful for cooperative joint action because they tend to be congruent for different members of the group (Ray, Mackie and Smith 2014: 244). Based on these tendencies, the Islamic State’s ideologues sought to stimulate cooperative joint action among Sunnis against the Shia and other collectives they deemed ‘traitors’, ‘heretics’ and the like.22 It tried to awaken fear of these groups and to encourage anger at and hatred of them. Although the effects of emotions are not uniform, with fear often preventing people from taking action instead, it can be argued that under certain conditions, fear can be layered by anger and hatred, thus stimulating action. If people expect actions framed as retaliation or defence to be successful, entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State may take advantage of the fact that anger, ‘in combination with perceived efficacy and commitment to a disadvantaged social category, is a primary driver of collective

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action’ (Ray, Mackie and Smith 2014: 244). Addressing this emotional climate of hate, anger and fear in order to shape collective action, the Islamic State promised to resolve Sunnis’ situation of crisis and offered plausible prospects for the restoration of Sunni honour, pride and dignity.23 As will be shown in the further course of this book, one of the group’s key narratives emphasised the implementation of a sociopolitical system sanctioned by divine ordinances. This ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’ would grant basic needs, security and the vision of a better future for the Sunni population and would provide what was needed to fulfil their expectations of salvation. By breathing life into the idea of the caliphate, which lingered in the realm of cultural memory, and through public display of its regulatory authority in the territories under its control, the Islamic State also sought to define Sunnis’ ‘identity space’ (Friedman 1994). This space includes those dimensions of the social realm that should be occupied by Arab Sunnis and around which they compete with neighbouring groups. In the Islamic State’s understanding, those groups include the Shia in particular, as well as other social collectives within the Sunni community that are seen as epitomising the notions of shirk, kufr or t.āghūt. To put it in Bourdieu’s (1984: 479) words: ‘Social identity lies in difference, and difference is asserted against what is closest, which represents the greatest threat.’ Entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State’s ideologues therefore often focus their efforts on emphasising the differences between groups of people who are closely related in a given society, a process that Freud (1962) tentatively called the ‘narcissism of minor differences’24 when he described human propinquity as the main source of conflict. Although etically there are undeniable similarities between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, in a situation of conflict and crisis, entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State interpret these commonalities as being essentially ostensive and seek to accentuate the imagination of total differences between the in-group and their collectivised opponents. Consequently, the Islamic State stresses the (similarity-induced) potential of the Other to conquer dimensions of the social realm that are important for identity formation.25 In a 2004 letter to Usama bin Ladin, al-Zarqāwī exemplified this approach by suggesting that his group had to fight on two fronts: against Western enemies and against the Shia, ‘a cunning enemy who wears the friend’s clothes, behaves (in the sense of ) unanimity, and demands solidarity’ (al-Zarqāwī 2004c). The group also raised its audience’s awareness of the Shia’s alleged attempts to undermine the foundations of Sunnis’ own identity as a religious community by denying the Shiite’s Muslimness: I warn you against the followers of deviant desires. And the worst of them are the Rāfidah, as they are the Jews of this Ummah. Some of them are Jews who fake Islam to spread their deviance . . . . The Rāfidah hate Islam just as the Jews hate Christianity. They did not enter Islam longing

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for Allah or fearing Him, rather out of spite for the people of Islam and so as to inflict harm upon them. (al-Hayat Media Center 2016a: 33)26 The Islamic State’s ideologues thus emphasised that issues revolving around Sunni (Iraqi) identity and Sunnis’ existential and ontological security are closely interwoven with conflicts over political power framed in ethno-sectarian terms, the violent enactment of these conflicts and the emotions associated with them, which in turn perpetuate them. However, even in times of crisis, intragroup solidarity, which may be increased when members of other groups are perceived as a threat, does not necessarily nurture out-group hatred (Brewer 2001). Nevertheless, as membership in and identification with a group or community affect self-understanding, perceived threats to the self may provoke reactions that perpetuate the cycle of prejudice, ethnocentrism and intolerance (Stephan, Renfro and Davis 2008). Entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State thus seek to facilitate, strengthen and capitalise on this tendency. They aim to structure the cognitions of both adherents and adversaries such that alternatives to the binary ‘Us’ versus ‘the Other’ become irrelevant, as well as to make people think and act along ‘highly positive views of the in-group and highly negative views of the out-group’ (Christie and Wessels 2010: 109). This may also help to incite violent confrontations, which, when embedded in rationalised or even bureaucratised structures of social organisation such as ‘the caliphate’ and justified by an all-encompassing, wellarticulated ideological framework, can be an effective means for entrepreneurs of identity to achieve their sociopolitical goals. Inciting violence can also help them perpetuate instability, enforce social control and provide opportunities to build structures of social organisation that affect the variety of people’s identity options and behavioural options, as well as the cognitive processing of social situations and facts – that is, of the sociopolitical context. Violent confrontations may also be rationalised as using violence to protect an in-group’s real or imagined particularities – those few features that differentiate neighbouring groups from one another, which entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State exaggerate and to which they attach disproportionate significance (Harrison 2006). They thus seek to elicit ‘retaliation against any member of the offending category, culpable in the instigating act or not’ (Ray, Mackie and Smith 2014: 248). By presenting themselves as a severe threat to the Shia’s identity and existence, targeting its presence in as many dimensions of the social realm as possible and spreading fear among members of the out-group, the Islamic State aimed at deepening ruptures in the social fabric and hindering any effort directed at reconciliation. In the letter to Usama bin Ladin of early 2004, mentioned above, al-Zarqāwī argues that only the creation of such a chaotic environment as that of a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis would provide adequate opportunities for Sunni rebels. In addition, this would forestall the formation of a secular-

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nationalist coalition of Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to oppose the activities of foreign fighters (al-Zarqāwī 2004c). As will be shown in Chapter 3, Jihadi-Salafi attacks on leading Shiite religio-political figures, religious festivities and sites of religious practice fed into the increasingly sectarian character of conflicts over political power. These eventually erupted after the 2005 bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra and elicited feelings of hatred towards ‘the sectarian Other’. According to social psychologists, hatred towards ‘the Other’ is the most powerful affective driver of an ongoing conflict, since it is bolstered ‘by an appraisal of the outgroup’s behaviour as stemming from a deeply-rooted, permanent evil character’ (Halperin 2014: 287). In the aftermath of the Samarra bombing, violent conflicts between Shiite and Sunni groups affected almost the entire country, bringing a civil war-like situation to Iraq. al-Zarqāwī had proclaimed an ‘all-out war’ (h.arb shāmila) against the Shia in September 2005 (see al-Zarqāwī 2005c). He stated that The days pass by and the events follow each other continuously, the battles are numerous and the names are varied, but the goal is a single one: a Crusader-Rāfid.ī war against the Sunnis. The interests of the crusaders have met with their brothers, the hateful Rawāfid., and this has resulted in the crimes and massacres against the claim of the Sunnis . . . . Be aware you Sunni scholars, did the value of the blood of your sons, in your eyes, decrease, so you sold it for a small price?! Has the honour of your wives become of so little value?! Beware: have you not heard that the honour of many of your virtuous and pure sisters among the Sunnis in Tal ʿAfar had been libelled and their chastity was slain; that their wombs were filled with the sperms of the Crusaders and their brothers, the hateful Rawāfid.? Where is your religion? And moreover where is your sense of honour, your envy and your male virtues? (al-Zarqāwī 2005b) In the years that followed, the Islamic State sought constantly to engrave this assessment of the situation into its Sunni audience’s memories and reinforce the perception of the Shia as a threat to their existence and identity. In so doing, the movement sought to play on the fact that collective angst and fear may ‘lead to the strengthening of ingroup ties . . . , cognitive freezing, risk-averse political tendencies, suppression of creative ideas aimed at resolving the conflict, and concrete objection to intergroup negotiation’ (Halperin 2014: 287). After all, sectarian identities began to serve as a framework for social life in general, accelerating the rupture of the social fabric along ethno-sectarian lines.

Engineering Collective Identities under Hafez al-Asad Political structures in Syria up until 2011 showed remarkable similarities to the case of Iraq just discussed. Hafez al-Asad, who seized power in 1970, used

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methods of governance that resembled those of Saddam Husayn. His rule was also characterised by a policy of turning the state against any public assertion of supranational identities and distinctions, while at the same time, the ruling elite utilised these very patterns of identification to maintain their power. Hafez al-Asad used religious symbols and vocabulary to secure his authoritarian rule and, like the Iraqi President, combined it with Baathist promises of pan-Arab nationalism.27 As in the case of Saddam Husayn, he consolidated his rule through patrimonialism and clientelist networks revolving around his family, kin and tribe (see, inter alia, Hinnebusch 2015). Although this is a formal parallel to the structures of domination established by Iraq’s dictator, it broke with the power relations created and supported by the Ottoman Empire and the colonial powers (France in this case) and brought to ascendancy a new political elite made up of men of minoritarian background in post-independence Syria. Above all, the Nus.ayrīya-ʿAlawīya, or Alawis for short – a religious minority populating the Latakia region in north-west Syria – has profited tremendously from the changes in composition of the elite structure. The al-Asad family belongs to this religious minority that had emerged from Shiite Islam in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE. Having been exposed to polemics and accusations of heterodoxy, Alawis cultivated a syncretistic belief with apparently secretive religious practices barely accessible to outsiders,28 thus further fostering bonds within a community that had long been dominated and discriminated against by Sunni Muslims. Using the cohesive forces resulting from the specific sociopolitical context of his community and their communal identity, the political elite under al-Asad mainly recruited their personnel from within the Alawis, who thenceforth ascended into the inner circle of the Baath party, the military and the security apparatus. It was against the backdrop of this specific sociopolitical configuration that Hafez al-Asad also strove to broaden the base of his rule by putting national identity to the fore. Nevertheless, his regional opponents, such as the Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and Jordan’s King Husayn, in order to reinforce their own political agendas, polemicised against what they called the sectarian character of his regime and its alliance with revolutionary Iran (Phillips 2015: 366). Despite these rhetorical attacks, al-Asad was able to reduce the public salience of the Alawi identity of most members of the ruling elite. Al-Asad was far more reserved than the Iraqi President in employing religion in the political sphere without restriction. For instance, he limited the official use of religious symbols to ‘periods of heightened religiosity, such as Ramadan’ (Pinto 2016: 126). Nonetheless, it was obvious that the Syrian president had well understood the affective power of religious symbolism, and therefore had himself photographed while praying in Sunni mosques. In what can be considered an even more important strategic public gesture, al-Asad obtained a favourable legal opinion ( fatwā) from the influential Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr, who asserted that the Alawi sect belonged to the tenets of Twelver Shiite Islam. With this step, which built upon continuous assertions of Alawi adherence to Shiite Islam, al-Asad not only

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achieved further (at least symbolic) integration of his community’s distinct identity into the canon of the Twelver Shia, but also complied with the regulation anchored in the Syrian constitution that the President of the Syrian Republic had to be a Muslim. However, the regime was not the only actor to play this card. In fact, various Sunni and Shiite movements active in both Syria and Lebanon sought to counter the regime’s appropriation of religious vocabulary and symbolism through their own ideology and actions. Most prominent among them was the Muslim Brotherhood (see, inter alia, Lobmeyer 1995; Lefèvre 2013; Pierret 2013c). In addition, a violent and radical Jihadi-Salafi current rose in Syria during the 1970s (see Lefèvre 2013). Part of this development was an increasingly deteriorating relationship between Sunni Islamists and the Baathist regime, which culminated in a rebellion between 1979 and 1982 and finally in the massacre of Hama, where tens of thousands of people died when entire quarters of the city were shelled by regime troops and paramilitary forces. As a powerful historical event with far-reaching consequences, the ‘events of Hama’ (ah.dāth H.amā) remain part of the historical memory of Syrians and were also invoked after 2011 by various factions, either to mobilise against the regime or to deter resistance to it. Raphaël Lefèvre (2013: xvi) writes that, despite these hard strikes against the Islamist opposition, ‘the Ba’athist authorities understood the power of political Islam and sought to tame the remaining expression of this political current to their advantage.’ This included the provision of safe havens for various Islamist movements in the region to counter Western hegemony and prepare for their struggles against Israel (see Zisser 1999). Moreover, alliances were forged with some Sunni clerics who were supposed to act as multipliers in their communities in favour of the regime and thereby limit the political implications of the reIslamisation of society in general, and the Brethren’s call in particular (see Pierret 2013b). Furthermore, like Saddam Husayn, Hafez al-Asad used a conglomerate of different identity markers and allusions to historical memories and cultural heritage, as well as a cult of his own personality, to construct an idealised public image of national unity and equality (Wedeen 1999; Phillips 2013: 40–48). However, as Christa Salamandra (1998, 2010) asserts, a strong state that insists on the implementation of a national project and creates corresponding structures cannot guarantee that the everyday perceptions of its citizens and their feelings of national unity match this official paradigm (cf. Rabo 2012: 134). At the same time, the regime had a vested interest in preserving social differences along the lines of class, ethnicity and religion, upholding feelings of threat and the ‘fear of small numbers’ (Appadurai 2006) among the religious minorities in particular so as to activate them at the right moment. When Bashar al-Asad succeeded his late father in 2000, many Syrians put their hopes for a better future and the equal participation of all people in society and the body politic in the charming young President. However, the ‘Damascus

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Spring’, which characterised the first months of Bashar’s rule and for which so many young Syrians yearned, did not pave the way to wide-ranging changes and withered away very quickly.29 Furthermore, the sweeping reforms underscored by technocratic language, which the president had promised in order to liberalise many economic sectors and to create the jobs the country so desperately needed, primarily favoured the ruling elite and a new class of crony capitalists, thus bolstering authoritarian rule and creating further social tensions.30 With regard to the relationship between supranational identities and the nation state, the regime sought to promote the image of a liberal president interested in strengthening religious and ethnic pluralism31 within the confines of the demand for absolute loyalty to the nation state in its present form. The number of religious organisations increased and conservative Sunni groups such as the Zayd movement and others also enjoyed the freedom to manoeuvre in public (Pierret 2009; Pierret and Selvik 2009; Stenberg 2015). The regime also continued to support the development of Twelver Shiite institutions in Syria in conjunction with the strengthening of a strategic alliance between Iran and Syria (Pierret 2013a). Furthermore, during the transitional period from Hafez to Bashar, the ruling circles had tolerated the public performance of Sufi and other religious rituals, which illustrated the connection of supranational identities with the nation state (Pinto 2011: 190). Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg (2015: 11) write that at the same time, ‘religiosity remained politically sensitive [and] religious belonging has played a significant role in the creation of both support and opposition to the regime.’ Public assertions of sectarian identities increased animosities: for instance, many Sunnis took umbrage at the public performance of Shiite religiosity and the establishment of Shiite institutions of religious learning in Syrian cities (Pierret 2013a: 107). However, the fact that the regime condoned this trend also gave Sunni opposition groups the opportunity to attribute a subversive meaning to religious symbols, spaces and rituals, all of which gained further importance in the context of the 2011 protests. In sum, the regime began to promote a form of religious nationalism to gain the support of pious Muslims and rally them to its cause. Religious vocabulary was woven into the President’s speeches, and images of the President in prayer or other acts underlining his piety were made visible in official media, posters and billboards to all Syrians (Pinto 2011). Despite the flowery rhetoric and symbolism, however, Bashar mainly retained the techniques of governance employed by his father, although he also understood that he would need to ‘upgrade’ and ‘modernise’ his authoritarian rule constantly if the flawed regime was to survive (Hinnebusch 2012; Wieland 2004). Altogether, its own citizens did not perceive the ‘al-Asad kleptocracy built over four decades under a cloak of socialist secularism’ (Salamandra 2013: 304) as a force that was prepared to allow every Syrian to participate equally in the body politic and in social and economic im-

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provement. Some observers have characterised this period as nurturing a social climate marked by a ‘poetics of accusation’ (Salamandra 2004: 22), distrust and disappointment, which was essentially influenced by the structural changes in Syrian society since the Baath party’s seizure of power and the ensuing equation of sect and politics.

Entrepreneurs of Identity and the Syrian Uprising Although the regime had proved to be largely resilient in the face of unwanted changes in the political and economic sectors, in 2011 Syrians drew inspiration from the protests in Tunisia and Egypt the year before and revolted against Bashar al-Asad’s rule. The protests began largely peacefully and revolved around inclusive definitions of Syrian nationalism, with protesters demanding ‘freedom’ (hurrīya) and ‘dignity’ (karāma) for ‘the people’ (al-shaʿb) of Syria rather than for any particular ethno-sectarian group, even though most of the protestors were Sunni Arabs. The protesters also combined and reinforced their slogans with shared religious symbols and vocabulary and used religious sites for organisational purposes (Pinto 2016: 125–26). The regime initially also emphasised its nationalist credentials and deployed inclusive slogans and symbols, although some of its representatives coloured their statements with a thinly disguised sectarianism and derogatory undertones.32 However, as military conflict escalated, the regime increasingly labelled ‘its opponents as “terrorists”, “takfiris” and “al-Qaeda”’ (Leenders 2015: 265; see also Pinto 2016: 127), all allegedly acting in the interests of foreign powers to undermine Syrian national stability. Labelling the protesters ‘terrorists’ not only helped the regime to denounce their often rational and just aims and intentions; this framing of the protests also evoked mental images and associations with the Brethren’s uprising in the early 1980s, when the regime publicly warned religious minorities of a Sunni Islamist revolution. However, the fact that the protesters used mosques as safe spaces was proof enough to the regime (and therefore to some of its supporters and dependents) that this was an uprising of fundamentalists, incited by foreign powers, to rupture the integrity and stability of the Syrian nation.33 These notions were employed as strategic instruments insofar as they helped the regime to divide the population and reduce the potential of revolutionary aspirations. Labelling the protesters ‘terrorists’, on the other hand, invoked images that had become all too common in the global discourse on the ‘war on terror’. The government could use these references to justify its rigorous crackdown on its own citizens, suggest their being supported by external powers (and stop this support) and forge new alliances for itself.34 This conceptualisation of the uprising by the regime can also be compared to the use of absolute categories such as ‘believers’ or ‘disbelievers’, since in both cases the claims made preclude ne-

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gotiation over both the classification itself and the terms of settling the conflict. This in turn underpins the discursive and classificatory power of the actor who is setting these categories. Despite these allegations, Salafist groups were more apolitically oriented in Syria and had not established significant militant structures. They themselves rejected Jihadi-Salafis by labelling them takfīrī (those who accuse others of disbelief ) and responded to the regime’s propaganda with irony and humour (Pinto 2016: 128). This was perhaps a desperate attempt to counter the regime’s discursive power. While members of the opposition in many places tried to continue to develop a vision of a post-Bashar system acceptable to all Syrians, the regime arguably pursued a strategy that was not aimed at moderation, instead combining military confrontation with efforts to split the opposition, thus pushing it onto the battlefield and hindering the peace talks that would bring all actors to the table.35 The regime attempted to dismiss the protesters by using derogatory labels to discredit their objectives and massively attack them. Moreover, it used its discursive power to elicit fear among religious minorities of a Sunni Islamist coup, thereby seeking to solidify group bonds and strengthen the shifts in categorisations of self and other scrutinised above. All this, together with the ongoing psychological stress of one and a half years of protests and violence, slowly took effect by the end of 2012. Social differentiation along lines of class, political ideology or education became less important,36 whereas ethno-sectarian identities were increasingly employed by protesters to frame and explain their thinking and action. This in turn stimulated splits among oppositional groups, who increasingly distanced themselves from one another along ethno-sectarian lines. Roughly speaking, Sunnis tended to identify with the opposition, whereas non-Sunnis sided increasingly with the regime. The regime not only targeted Sunni protesters and civilians in particular, it also employed paramilitary forces from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, whose mobilisation strategies clearly revolved around sectarian motives and who particularly ‘unleashed unprecedented levels of aggressive violence against protesters’ (Leenders 2015: 253).37 Moreover, as Pinto (2016: 135) notes, the regime’s security forces sought to make acts of violence against these targets more visible, even though other segments of the population were also affected by reprisals carried out by the secret police and security apparatus. In turn, Sunni actors would interweave this seemingly one-sided violence into their assessments of the dynamics of the conflict. In other words, the sectarianisation of the conflict was not only constructed discursively, but also brought about by the explicit or implicit application of violence and repression against certain segments of the Syrian population. Following a further militarisation of the opposition, moderate voices on both sides increasingly fell silent; this was fatal for intergroup relations and affected the strategic and tactical orientation of oppositional groups to a great extent, raising concerns of further escalation (Hinnebusch 2016).

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With moderate voices falling silent, entrepreneurs of identity within both the regime and the opposition gained a stronger position with regard to the discursive framing of the conflict. As Pinto (2016: 132) cogently argues, rumours increasingly became powerful instruments shaping individuals’ assessments of the dynamics of the conflict, their own group and the ethno-sectarian ‘Other’. Historical experiences, pre-existing negative emotions towards other collectives, and the narratives, appraisals and interpretative frames distributed by entrepreneurs of identity influenced people’s perceptions of the conflict to some extent. These actors exploited the fact that ‘a majority of individuals do not experience [conflict-related] events directly, but rather via leaders, the mass-media and other forms of narration’ (Halperin 2014: 284). Thus, individual appraisals of these situations are to a certain extent shaped by others, a process known in social psychology as ‘distributed cognitions’ (see Scheve 2014). Because they were in positions of leadership, had access to more resources and were mostly at the forefront of sociopolitical mobilisation, in this situation of conflict and crisis it became easier for entrepreneurs of identity to disseminate appraisals of the conflict and its history that were in line with their ideological framework, and to define categories of identification accordingly. In other words, entrepreneurs of identity are likely to have a certain classificatory power, which they use to create identity definitions and coordinate and control a shared sense of ‘we-ness’, by which they ‘engage people in the process of turning those definitions into practical realities’ (Reicher, Haslam and Hopkins 2005: 556), despite the complex, labile and variegated nature of social identities. Altogether, the sectarianisation of the Syrian uprising was fuelled by three main factors. First, the regime followed a strategy of singling out Sunni protesters as the primary advocates of turmoil and destabilisation, by labelling them as terrorists and deliberately directing the violence of the security services and paramilitary forces against the population in mostly Sunni-inhabited areas. Secondly, the opposition was itself militarised. Thirdly, the sectarian conflict that had ravaged neighbouring Iraq since 2006 had a great impact, as it provided ‘master signifiers’ (Koschorke 2011: 37) that clearly fashioned the way in which the conflicting parties in Syria would understand and present themselves and relate to each other. To sum up, the Syrian conflict became sectarianised to a significant extent because the actors involved had learned from the conflict in Iraq that ethnosectarian identities were a perfect way to denigrate their opponents’ cause and thus provide a meaningful frame for their own political projects and a useful instrument of mobilisation. This is true for the Syrian government, which ‘carries prime responsibility for the sectarian turn in the uprising, and duly benefited from the resulting polarization’ (Leenders 2015: 253). Equally, it accounts for the Syrian Kurds, who, after decades of experiencing discrimination, began to fight for the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria. Furthermore, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias deployed sectarian motifs for

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their mobilisation and recruitment strategies and justified their support of the regime to their home constituencies by invoking ethno-sectarian goals (Smyth 2015). In addition, Sunni Islamist actors both within and outside Syria increasingly played the ‘sectarian card’. Among them were not only Sunni militias such as the Islamic State and the al-Qāʿida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, whose agenda included perpetuating the sectarianisation of the conflict; popular clerics such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and elements of the opposition in exile also sought to mobilise resistance to the regime by promoting sectarian interpretations of the conflict. These popular, mainstream voices lamented the perennial ‘Shiitisation’ (tashayyuʿ) of Syria to the detriment of the Sunni population, thus feeding into the victimisation narrative that was key to Jihadi-Salafi factions. They also threatened and denounced members of religious minorities, especially the Alawi community, for their political and military engagement on the side of the regime. This, in turn, made it much easier for the regime to label the protesters as Sunni sectarians and to remind their own constituents constantly of the fateful civil war of the early 1980s. These dynamics and rhetorical strategies may help to explain why some parts of the religious minorities, especially Alawites and Christians, understood the regime as the lesser evil, bound their own existence to its political survival and were even ready to fight in the paramilitary National Defence Forces (quwāt al-difāʿ al-wat.anī) on the side of the regime (Pinto 2016: 133–34). It can also be argued that, from a certain point onwards, all the actors involved built on pre-existing sentiments, fostered the escalation and sectarianisation of the conflict and made use of it for their purposes – and many could even expect to gain more from the conflict’s continuing than from its settlement. In the sense of the classificatory and discursive power, described above, of elite circles to help to influence the context of a conflict and thus to shape its perception among all the actors involved, the Syrian regime, due to its prominent position and available resources, has played a critical role. I therefore argue that the ruling elite, through its distinct way of explaining the conflict through the lens of sectarian upheaval, and by acting accordingly, has to a certain extent set the playing field and the rules of the game for its concrete and symbolic competition with all other actors, with some of its opponents being all too willing themselves to accept this situation.

Notes 1. T.āʾifiyya, however, must not be confused with religious doctrines or tenets (madhāhib), nor with what are referred to in the doxographical or heresiographical literature as ‘sects’ (firaq). 2. Haddad (2016: 102–4) offers a concise overview of the various ways in which this term is used in the research literature, concluding that, with a few exceptions, there is a ‘duality of negativity and indefinability’ that characterises prevailing approaches to sectarianism.

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3. See Baram (1991, 2014); Davis (2005); Günther (2014: 40–45); Lenner (2007); Makiya (2004); Rohde (2010); Jones (2018: 32–37); and Tugendhaft (2020: 54–64). Furthermore, the regime sought to produce national cohesion and to augment its own public presence by means of public holidays and feasts (see Podeh 2011). 4. See Maddy-Weitzman (1982) and Long (2004). 5. Following Sanin and Wood (2014: 214), I understand an ideological framework as ‘a set of more or less systematic ideas that identify a constituency, the challenges the group confronts, the objectives to pursue on behalf of that group, and a (perhaps vague) program of action’. 6. On this battle, see Streck, Lassner and Veccia Vaglieri (2012). 7. See Long (2004: 64) and Nakash (2009: 346–47). In 1980, a film entitled Qādisīya was released, intended to present these historical events to the Iraqi people as a parable of the present. See Bengio (1998: 173–75). 8. Advocates of this argument, like Amatzia Baram, emphasise that the so-called ‘faith campaign’ (al-h.amla al-īmānīya) of 1993 is to be regarded both as symptomatic of this process and as one of the roots of the Islamic State’s success (see Baram 2014). Samuel Helfont argues that, on the contrary, the archives of the Baath party indicate policies of suppression against any religious movement that had the potential to undermine Saddam’s control over the state (see Helfont 2018, as well as the debate in Foreign Affairs: Baram 2016a, 2016b; Helfont and Brill 2016a, 2016b). 9. For a brief overview of domestic Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish oppositional forces before 1992, see Günther (2014: 45–58). 10. Ismael and Ismael (2010: 340) presumably connect to widespread reservations in the SWANA region and present a perception of Western foreign policy whose hegemonic struggles have had a direct impact on the relationship between different segments of society in Iraq: ‘In hindsight, the goal of the sanctions regime appears to have been to shake the socio-economic foundation of Iraq, and thus, the social coherence of the Iraqi national project that had developed progressively since 1920’ (cf. Haddad 2016). They thus surmised that a long-term plan had been drawn up in which the destruction of Iraq and the setting up of a puppet government in Baghdad were already being prepared in the 1990s. 11. As ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ has already been extensively discussed in numerous publications, I will not give it separate consideration here. See, among others, Davis (2007); Bouillon, Malone and Rowswell (2007); Ricks (2007); Phillips (2005); Arato (2009); Dodge (2005a, 2005b); Dodge and Simon (2003); Danchev and Macmillan (2005); Cordesman (2008); Chatterjee (2004); and Barakat (2008). 12. For contrasting examples, see Visser (2005a, 2005b, 2013). 13. This bloc predominantly represented Arab Shiites, but also some Arab Sunnis, Turkmens and Yazidis. It mainly comprised the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (al-majlis al-aʿlā li ’l-thawra al-islāmīya fi ’l-ʿIrāq, or SCIRI; from 2007 the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (al-majlis al-aʿlā al-islāmī fi ’l-ʿIrāq), ISCI) under the leadership of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-H.akīm; the Daʿwa party under Ibrāhīm al-Jaʿfarī; and the Iraqi National Council led by Ah.mad Jalabī. See Allawi (2007: 340–44). On the internal power relations of those on this list, see Visser (2010: 50–58). On the UIA’s performance in national and provincial elections, see Sakai (2012). 14. See International Crisis Group (2012). 15. This perception was also nurtured by the fact that the CPA established a ‘De-Baathification Council’ controlled by Ahmad Chalabi, a leading figure in the opposition in exile who held several influential posts in both the UIA and the Iraqi government. According to

Entrepreneurs of Identity and the Sectarianisation of Iraq and Syria

16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

35

a report published by the International Crisis Group in 2006, Chalabi used his office ‘to eliminate potential rivals and, in the run-up to the January 2005 elections to rally (sectarian) support as he gambled on the Shiite card to gain power. Moreover, the Shiite parties that rose to prominence helped “sectarianize” the de-Baathification process by giving Shiite Baath party members within their own community the opportunity to repent’ (International Crisis Group 2006: 9–10). Other sources support this assessment; see Rubin (2015) and Sissons and Al-Saiedi (2013a). While the then US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, commented on these events with the words ‘stuff happens’ (Ricks 2007: 135–36), the looting of the Iraqi National Museum and many other culturally significant sites was undoubtedly a catastrophic event for modern Iraq. For more detail on these events, see Rothfield (2009); Polk and Schuster (2005); Workert and Juby (2010); Baker, Ismael and Ismael (2010); Warren (2008); Emberling and Gibson (2008); and Stone and Bajjaly (2008). In addition, seventeen of the twenty-three ministries in Baghdad were destroyed by looters in the first weeks after the invasion, thus impeding the reconstruction of the country and the reform of the administrative apparatus. See Phillips (2005: 134–35). See International Crisis Group (2004); Anderson and Stansfield (2009: 91–92); Allawi (2007: 89–91); and Cole (2003). Davis (2010: 233) notes that ‘interviews with Iraqis in 2007 and 2008 made clear that support for sectarian organizations stemmed largely from the inability of the central state to provide security and social services. Once security was provided and some social services became available, Iraqis quickly abandoned support for these organizations’. His last remark, however, seems debatable today, given that inter-sectarian and interethnic cleavages have increased since 2003, while at the same time, cross-cutting ties such as interethnic or inter-sectarian marriages have been decreasing. Altogether, this might have left more people susceptible to material and intellectual offers made by sectarian entrepreneurs. Issued by the Islamic State’s al-Hayat Media Center between July 2014 (Ramadan 1435) and July 2016, the periodical Dabiq has been one of the group’s flagship media, marvelled at by some for its slick design and emulation of contemporary news magazines. See also, inter alia, Günther (2015b); Frissen and d’Haenens (2018); Frissen et al. (2018); and El Damanhoury (2020). On the apocalyptic connotations encoded in the magazine’s title, see Cook (2020). Rāfid.a (pl. rawāfid.) is a derogatory term today mainly used in Sunni polemics to frame Shiite Muslims’ religious beliefs and practices as deviating from the ‘correct’ meaning of the scriptures, including through the rejection of the status of important figures of early Islam such as Aisha and other companions of the prophet. However, the history of the concept reflects political issues and schisms within Shiite Islam itself (see Kohlberg 1979). On the use of the term in Sunni Salafi circles, see Olsson (2017). See also al-Zarqāwī’s lengthy description of the Shia’s alleged conspiracy against Islam in al-Zarqāwī (2006b). According to Halperin (2014: 284), the importance of group-based emotions lies in the fact that ‘a large proportion of individual-level emotional experiences are group-based, namely, are experienced “in the name” of other members of the group, specifically those who directly experienced the event, and as a result of one’s identification with the group’. Mackie, Maitner and Smith (2009: 287) refer to this cognitive operation as ‘intergroup appraisal’, which they define as ‘the construal or interpretation of events, entities (including the ingroup and outgroups and their members), and situations in terms of their implications for the ingroup, regardless of their personal relevance. Therefore events that negatively impact other members of the group (even if the self is unharmed), or circum-

36

22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

29. 30.

31.

32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37.

Entrepreneurs of Identity stances that benefit the group as a whole (although not the self ), or outgroup members who compete against fellow ingroup members (but not the self ), are nevertheless psychologically significant’. For research in social psychology that sheds light on the cognitive operations underlying this process, see Mackie, Maitner and Smith (2009: 285). On the framing of resistance as a means to restore honour and dignity among Iraqi Sunnis, see Meijer (2004). For an overview of the resonance of this concept in the social sciences, see Blok (1998). I am well aware that this proposition works quite well with regard to the Islamic State’s discourse about the Shia, Sunni ‘traitors’ and other culturally neighbouring collectives, but might be stretched to its limits with regard to ‘the West’ as another force that is understood as undermining Sunni identity by way of economic and cultural influences. I thank Maéva Clément for pointing this out in a personal email conversation. The parallels drawn between the Shia and the Jewish community are part of historical anti-Shiite polemics that al-Zarqāwī took up, suggesting that ‘the roots of the rāfid.a and the Jews are the same, and therefore the teachings of the rāfid.a resemble those of the Jews’ (al-Zarqāwī 2006b). For a comprehensive bibliography on Islam in modern Syria, see Pierret (2013b: 6–9). On the history and theology of Syria’s Alawites, see Mervin (2002, 2006, 2010); Friedman (2010); Tendler Krieger (2011, 2013, 2014); S. Winter (2015); and Farouk-Alli (2015). For detailed discussions of the ‘Damascus Spring’, see Ghadbian (2015); Wieland (2012); and George (2003). See Salamandra and Stenberg (2015: 5). As Leenders (2015: 255) notes, many commentators have emphasised the regime’s economic policies as a root cause of the uprising. See also George (2015) and the literature referenced in Leenders’s chapter, including Lisa Wedeen’s critique of the tendency to overemphasise economic factors. The religious and ethnic landscape of modern Syria includes, beyond Sunni and Shia groups, a number of religious and ethnic minority groups such as Ismaʿilis, Alawis, the Druze and various Christian denominations, whose exact numbers are difficult to verify. See Khatib (2011: 7); cf. Courbage (2007); Robson (2011). See e.g. Buthayna Shaʿbān’s press statement on 24 March 2011 after the protests in Darʿā erupted. Several religious sites were used by the protesters as safe spaces and places of assembly, the Umayyad mosques in Damascus, Aleppo and Darʿā being the most important in terms of their symbolic value (Pinto 2016: 127). In claiming these eminently important historic sites for their cause, they attributed a new subversive meaning to them and extended their actual competition with the regime to the field of symbolism. Obviously, this is not the only reason for the significant restraint exercised, especially by the US and the EU, with regard to military intervention in Syria or arming the opposition. For a discussion of different points of view and arguments, see Hashemi and Postel (2013). See Charles Lister’s interview with Muhammad Khadam, Secretary of the Union of Syrians Abroad (Lister 2015: 55). As compared to the period between 2007 and 2010, for which Phillips (2013: 130–61) draws a different picture. The reliance on these units might also be due to the fact that the regime’s regular armed forces were ‘dwindling because of defections and desertions’ (Leenders 2015: 263).

Chapter 2

The Caliphate

The set of sociopolitical factors described in the previous chapter and the interpretive patterns regarding the conflicts in Iraq and Syria have set the scene for the self-staging of the Islamic State and its predecessors since 2003. In this chapter, I will first briefly outline the evolution of the movement. I will then focus on the Islamic State’s attempt to institutionalise a particular form of social and political order called ‘the caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (al-khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa). Theoretically, this order reflects the re-establishment of divine ordinances and of an idealised past in the present, as much as it proposes very specific and narrow visions for the future. In practice, the Islamic State appropriated and developed a set of social practices that made its claim to absolute regulatory authority tangible for its subjects. It thereby sought to classify group boundaries and the meaning of ‘genuine’ Islam, thus furthering the construction of an ‘Islamic State identity’.

The Evolution of the Islamic State: From al-Zarqāwī to al-Baghdādī On 24 April 2004, in the midst of the emerging resistance against the US-led occupation and restructuring of the political system in Iraq, several assassins attacked the economically important oil transhipment sites in the region of Basra in southern Iraq with boat-planted bombs (Burke 2004). Two days later, a group calling itself al-Tawh.īd wa-l-Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad) claimed responsibility for the attack (al-Zarqāwī 2004e). This was the first statement published on the internet by a hitherto widely unknown group. Much more was to be seen and

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heard from it in the ensuing years, however. The statement bore the signature of Abū Mus.ʿab al-Zarqāwī, the nom de guerre1 of a Jordanian native whose birth name was Ahmad Fadhil Nazzāl al-Khalayla.2 However, al-Zarqāwī, who is still revered by some Jihadi-Salafis as the founding father and spiritus rector of the Islamic State, became well known to a wider public even before the US-led war on Iraq had started. In his speech to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003, the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, claimed that al-Zarqāwī was the intermediary between Saddam Husayn and Usama bin Ladin, responsible for equipping the latter with weapons of mass destruction of Iraqi origin (Weisman 2003).3 Despite the falsity of these claims, in making them Powell drew attention to the hitherto unknown al-Zarqāwī, a former thief and gambler, among Jihadi-Salafi circles worldwide. In the years that followed, al-Zarqāwī became one of the most prominent and prolific advocates of a new generation of Jihadi-Salafis and shaped ideological debates in the global Jihadi-Salafi current. Between 2003 and 2006, at least twenty-eight audio messages were disseminated over the internet in which he articulated a specific ideological framework that still forms the basis of Islamic State ideology. It is arguable whether al-Zarqāwī designed this ideology alone, but he became a figure of identification for Jihadis around the globe and the ‘poster boy’ of relentless Jihadi-Salafi activities, seeking to make ‘Iraq a site for Jihad where the sword and the pen reach perfection’ (al-Zarqāwī 2004c). In October 2004, al-Zarqāwī publicly pledged allegiance to Usama bin Ladin, who, despite their doctrinal and strategic disagreements, accepted him as the leader of Tanz.īm al-Qāʿida fi-bilād ar-rāfidayn (al-Qaʿida Organisation in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq), AQI).4 Al-Zarqāwī was killed on 7 June 2006, in an airstrike on his hideout some sixty kilometres north of Baghdad.5 In the meantime, AQI had suffered severe military defeats and came under increasing pressure from the US military and allied Sunni ‘S.ah.wa’ forces.6 In addition, their atrocious tactics against civilians lost them the hearts of many Iraqis, limiting their ability to establish a broad popular constituency. In this light, the merger of AQI with several other Jihadi factions in January of the same year and the establishment of a ‘Mujahidin Shura Council in Iraq’ (majlis shūrā al-mujāhidīn fi-l-ʿIrāq, MSC) might seem to have been desperate measures.7 Although al-Zarqāwī had periodically invoked the establishment of an Islamic state (al-Zarqāwī 2005a) and proclaimed the ‘dawn of the state of the Qurʾan’ (fajr dawlat al-Qurʾān) (al-Zarqāwī 2004a) and ‘the establishment of God’s law all over the world’ (alZarqāwī 2006a), none of his publications contained precise propositions or reflections on how to implement these phrases. On the other hand, building an alliance such as the MSC was a logical consequence not only of AQI’s operational development, but also of its claim to spearhead the establishment of an Islamic state. Seeking to appropriate the positive meanings of the shūrā concept, which will be discussed further below, the

The Caliphate

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leadership of the movement might have assumed that this label would shape public perceptions of it and support its call on people to rally around its cause. At the same time, Iraqi Arab Sunnis might have expected that such a change in name would involve more than superficial cosmetics and would lead to a significant turn in the range of targets away from civilians, the Iraqi police and military, and on to foreign military forces.8 While the emergence of the MSC clearly reflected the ‘Iraqisation’ of al-Zarqāwī’s group, it is equally clear from the available sources that AQI’s military strategy remained almost unchanged, partly due to the continuity of personnel. Firstly, attacks were still aimed at members of the Iraqi security forces. The MSC’s ‘legal department’ (al-hayʿa al-sharʿīya) published a detailed statement on this issue in 2006, which essentially repeated al-Zarqāwī’s threats against the military and the police (Mujahidin Shura Council 2006). Secondly, while ‘collaborators’ and Shiite militias remained in the movement’s range of targets, only a few attacks were directed against the troops of the military coalition. In contrast, assassinations of Shiite civilians decreased, although the MSC did not moderate its sectarian rhetoric. The MSC presented itself as a defender of the Sunni population against attacks by Shiite militias, but only seldom confronted them directly. It also refrained from attacks with a high symbolic impact. However, on 22 February 2006, the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a major Shiite sanctuary, was partly blown up. As will be described in the following chapter, this event further escalated the sectarian conflict, which AQI had hoped to boost in recent years. Subsequent territorial manifestations of social splits along sectarian lines, expulsions, violent confrontations with militias with sectarian agendas, and crimes committed by Shiite militias against Sunni civilians provided further opportunities for alZarqāwī’s group to address the grievances of the Sunni population and present themselves as the protectors of Sunni interests and honour. During this period, the ‘shūrā council’ was promoted as ‘the nucleus (nawāh) of an Islamic State’ (al-Fajr 2006) and served to pool the military and sociopolitical power of various Jihadi factions. Military pressure on AQI and its offshoots increased still further after alZarqāwī’s death in June 2006, and the group was also exposed to considerable internal unrest. Inheriting the movement’s leadership, ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Badawī, an Egyptian native publicly known by his nom de guerre of Abū H.amza al-Muhājir,9 apparently chose to prevent the group’s fragmentation due to ideological differences and mistrust in its own ranks by continuing relentless military operations and employing a rigid form of leadership. At the same time, he sought to strengthen alliances with other rebel groups and establish stable relationships with Iraqi Sunnis, especially Sunni tribal factions, as only they could provide the Mujahidin with safe operational bases. However, the most important task seemed to be the development of a future-oriented concept for the group and the

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articulation of a religio-political programme that would go beyond the flowery phrases mentioned above. Only four months after al-Zarqāwī’s death, on 15 October 2006/22 Ramadan 1427 H., the movement announced the establishment of an ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (dawlat al-ʿIrāq al-islāmīya, ISI). In light of the dynamics in Iraq discussed above, it can be argued that this step was primarily informed by strategic considerations, but was not limited to them (muʾassasa al-burāq al-iʿlāmiyya 2006).10 In fact, ISI developed a coherent ideological framework, discussed further below, which included detailed elaborations on the righteous implementation of a Sunni Islamic mode of governance in accordance with earlier theories of the caliphate. This elaborate conceptualisation of an alternative organisation of all spheres of government and society, which addressed the disenfranchised parts of the Arab Sunni Iraqi population especially, reflected an attempt to develop a broad popular constituency and to support ISI’s desire to develop into a sociopolitical movement. Moreover, its efforts to conceptualise and exercise governance and regulatory authority distinguished ISI from other rebel groups in Iraq at this time, because it aimed to build governance structures and to take over, alter or recreate institutions serving the functions of a modern state system. Furthermore, the symbolic repertoire that ISI developed on the basis of its ideological framework helped the movement to shape the territories under its control in such a way that it could expand its contestation of Iraq’s authorities beyond the realm of military confrontation and also begin to compete symbolically with the powerholders. In addition to its concrete and symbolic competition with powerholders and other opponents, the formation of these institutions, which I shall further discuss below, also reflected ISI’s claim to provide political and spiritual guidance to all Muslim believers. Through this claim, the movement not only entered the realm of theological and spiritual competition with established structures of Sunni religious teaching; it also asserted its symbolic competition with other Islamists and Jihadi-Salafis, with whom it has henceforth struggled for hegemony in discourse on religiously inspired interpretation of the world and social organisation. To further shape its profile as a force that could offer rebel governance, exhibit regulatory authority in many domains and militarily contest other actors, including government forces, ISI had to maintain the balance between a high degree of institutionalisation and the necessary flexibility of fighting units. At the same time, ISI’s leadership managed to forge alliances with a growing number of former members of the Baath party, its security apparatus and the Iraqi military, many of whom contributed their experiences both in governance and on the battlefield. Arguably, shared convictions, ideologies and beliefs hardly informed these partnerships. Rather, the stakeholders seemingly expected to support their respective causes by joining forces and exploiting the potential of their allies despite ideological differences.

The Caliphate

41

In this regard, it is worth noting the claims various authors have made that former Baathists had, as it were, ‘hijacked’ ISI to regain positions of power they had lost in the reorganisation of the body politic and the administration of the Iraqi state after 2003 and to reinvigorate Baathist rule. Making this argument implies that for many former members of the Baath party and the security apparatus, a secular-nationalist organisation of society had been a cohesive pattern of individual and collective identification throughout their life. Secondly, this observation largely neglects the extent to which the socio-psychological climate of an environment characterised by war, flight, expulsion and existential insecurity affects the individual, as well as ignoring possible attitudinal changes, including a turn to religion as a means of interpreting reality (see Gerges 2016: 144–69). However, it remained unclear to what extent these alliances would affect ISI’s grand strategy beyond an increasing emphasis on Sunni Iraqi identity, and in what way they would inform a pragmatic course and result in significant moderation. Contrary to some expectations, rifts between ISI and other Jihadi-Salafi factions, Sunni religious and political leaders and the wider Sunni public became even more apparent in the years from 2007 to 2010. ISI did not moderate its view of itself as forming an elitist vanguard, continued relentlessly to attack a great number of civil and military targets and asserted its claims by using force rather than through compromise and negotiation. These rifts were aggravated by the US-led coalition, which sought to tie up most of the Sunni resistance and to integrate it into state structures in order to suppress the influence of Jihadi-Salafi groups, above all by granting material goods and social privileges. However, the Baghdad government hardly seemed either able or willing to transfer the successes of ‘the surge’ into a long-term political strategy of national reconciliation. Although ISI did not immediately capitalise on these failures and misconceptions, there were indications that the group had well understood its own faults and the reasons for its opponents’ successes. In late 2009, circles sympathetic to the movement published a fifty-five-page document on Jihadi-Salafi forums entitled Khut.t.a istrātījīya li-taʿzīz al-mawqif as-siyāsī li-dawlat al-ʿIrāq al-islāmīya (A Strategic Plan to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State of Iraq; Anonymous 2009).11 Published under a pseudonym, this frank lessons-learned document reflected strategic considerations on how ISI could exploit the internal instability of Iraq’s government and the foreseeable withdrawal of US troops in order to regain the hegemonic position it had achieved by 2006/2007. The authors assessed the group’s current situation as reflecting a period of decline, but reinterpreted it positively as a trial imposed by God on his believers, leading to a purification of the Jihadi-Salafi current in Iraq. They further stated that ISI must acknowledge that it cannot exercise regulatory authority through military efforts alone. Rather, media work should play a greater role in improving the movement’s public image (ibid.: 5). In addition, ISI should adapt its opponents’ methods and also establish ‘Awakening Councils’ in order to deal with the cur-

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rent situation and prepare for the reconquest of territory (ibid.: 39). The authors hinted that Sunni Muslims were mostly convinced of the righteousness, legitimacy and necessity of an Islamic social order. At the same time, they seemingly ignored the fact that opportunities to participate in the political process and to find employment within the state apparatus were apparently more attractive to Iraqi Sunnis facing the imminent withdrawal of US troops than the distant prospect of the utopia of an Islamic state, which was also, in many regards, incompatible with their everyday lives. Overall, the solutions proposed in this document seemingly came too late to spark the widespread effects that were intended, not to mention the financial resources and central strategic planning needed to implement such wide-ranging changes. Against all odds, however, within the next four years ISI succeeded in building a social base by co-optation and forging alliances and social networks with Sunni communities and political actors, thus helping the movement gain control over large areas of Iraq and Syria by mid-2014.12 In addition, ISI’s successful evolution was inconceivable without Iraq’s broken political system and the continuing failure of political elites ‘to prioritize reconciliation over personal gains’, as Nussaibah Younis (2014) put it. Focusing on ‘how broken Iraqi politics fuelled the revival of ISIS’, Fawaz Gerges (2016: 119–20) has identified four correlative variables that help explain the resurgence of a movement that, in 2010, was largely besieged and on the defensive. First, the US-backed ‘Awakening Councils’ (s.ah.awāt, s. s.ah.wa), which since 2006 had been substantially dependent on the financial and material support of US forces, had not been integrated into the state apparatus and were increasingly disintegrating in a climate characterised by envy, distrust and individual aspirations. At the same time, the ISI proved quite successful in recruiting members from among the s.ah.wa because it exploited their grievances, offered financial incentives and provided security (primarily against its own assassins). Furthermore, the movement articulated an ideology that promised ontological security and elicited positive emotions, thus attracting younger, unemployed and disenfranchised members of the s.ah.wa in particular (Benraad 2011: 124). Second, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government was not only quite reluctant to include members of the s.ah.wa in the wider state apparatus, but also largely failed to facilitate a process of national reconciliation, embrace Sunnis’ concerns or provide all segments of society with a reliable future perspective. While the successes of cross-sectarian nationalist actors in the 2010 parliamentary elections incited hopes that supranational identities had lost significance and that a ‘bottom-up reconciliation’ would take shape, Maliki outmanoeuvred his opponents. The Prime Minister managed to stay in power and the government continued to be organised along ethno-sectarian lines, thus increasing volatility and slowly undoing the political settlement that had ended the fierce sectarian violence and put ISI on the defensive. In addition, the central authorities failed

The Caliphate

43

to reduce the high unemployment rate or tackle wide-ranging corruption, which still hinders prosperity nationwide and damages the state’s legitimacy in the eyes of the population.13 These failures of government, as well as the orientation of powerholders towards profit-seeking and personal gain, provided an opportunity for ISI to gain popular support and to solicit Sunnis for its proposed model of social organisation by promising just and reliable governance. Third, as in other countries throughout the SWANA region, Iraq’s tense economic situation and sweeping corruption inspired demonstrations against the central authorities and their economic policies.14 It was during the popular ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings that engulfed the entire SWANA region that ISI visibly regained its momentum, helping the movement attract recruits from all over the region and beyond. Although the movement had already penetrated Sunni communities in neighbouring Syria, the degeneration of peaceful protests into sectarian violence, as well as the subsequent breakdown of state institutions, provided it with an opportunity to expand its networks among local Sunni communities in a country that was slowly tumbling towards civil war. Fourth, ISI had proved itself capable of forging pragmatic alliances with local notables, tribal factions and militias in order to strengthen its links with rural Sunni communities and, again, recruit among their disenfranchised members. This hitherto unseen willingness to compromise and to soften its strict ideological framework might have been due to the fact that the movement had to renew its leadership constantly, and therefore tried to involve local forces more intensively. Since 2006, the US-led coalition had begun to hunt down the ISI’s leadership and has continued to inflict severe losses on the movement’s rank and file.15 As part of these efforts, ISI’s nominal leader Abū ʿUmar al-Baghdādī and al-Zarqāwī’s successor Abū Hamza al-Muhājir, who served as its minister of war, had been killed in a joint operation by Iraqi and US forces in April 2010 (Myers 2010). ISI subsequently acknowledged the deaths of its leaders and some three weeks later published a document introducing Abu Bakr al-Baghdādī al-Husaynī al-Qurashī as the newly appointed ‘Commander of the Faithful’ (Dawla al-ʿIrāq al-islāmīya 2010a, 2010b). Abu Bakr al-Baghdādī, however, like his predecessors, initially refrained from public appearances and limited his external communications to the release of audio addresses. Only four years later, on 5 July 2014/7 Ramadan 1435 H., the pulpit of the al-Nuri mosque in Mosul became the stage on which he demonstrated his investiture as the caliph of all Muslims to the global public. In the meantime, in late 2011, ISI had sent a group of fighters and emissaries to Syria, which later became the Jabhat al-Nus.ra li-Ahl al-Shām min mujāhidī al-Shām fī-sāh.āt al-jihād (Support Front for the People of the Levant from the Levantine Mujāhidīn in the Fields of Jihad) or simply Jabhat al-Nusra.16 In April 2013, at a time when the Syrian uprising had already degenerated into a civil war with a broad range of rebel forces competing with the government and with each other for control over certain areas, ISI published a state-

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ment by al-Baghdādī proclaiming the expansion of the Islamic State into Syria. Retitling the movement Islamic State of Iraq and Shām (dawla al-islāmīya fi-lʿIrāq wa-l-Shām, ISIS), its leadership not only indicated its expansion beyond Iraq’s borders and thenceforth its exercise of regulatory authority on both sides of the border (al-Baghdādī 2013), it also expressed ISIS’s will to combine the two conflicts, which were already highly interconnected, even more closely. In proclaiming its extension into Syria, ISIS also aimed at altering the broader understanding, meaning and assessment of the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, further reducing the significance of the nation as a point of reference and of nationalist forces. Jabhat al-Nusra’s nominal leader Abū Muh.ammad al-Jawlani, however, quickly defied the attempt to subsume his group back under ISIS’s command and appropriate its gains across Syrian territory. He not only refused to abide by al-Baghdādī’s order, but made it clear that his loyalty was to al-Qaeda central, swearing an oath of allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri for good measure. The highly mediatised rivalry between Jabhat al-Nus.ra and Jawlani, who insisted on leading an autonomous group tied to al-Qaida, and ISIS and al-Baghdādī, who openly contested alQaida’s supremacy over the international Jihadi-Salafi community and sought to project al-Baghdādī’s sovereignty as amīr al-muʾminīn in Syria, reflected a rift in the fabric of the ‘Jihadi-Salafi International’, which was to deepen further in the years that followed. In addition, ISIS attracted many of Jabhat al-Nus.ra’s foreign fighters and allied itself to local Jihadi-Salafi factions to further expand its reach on the Syrian battlefield (Lister 2015: 119–49). In the wake of 2014, infighting between ISIS and other rebel groups of various ideological backgrounds intensified, and by April the latter’s anti-ISIS offensive had pushed the movement back in many parts of the country (ibid.: 151–218). Nonetheless, ISIS managed to turn the situation to its favour. In May and June 2014, the movement achieved significant territorial gains in Iraq, culminating in the conquest of Mosul on 10 June. Through this blitzkrieg it attained its peak in terms of military strength, which might explain the fact that during this time other rebel groups and several tribal formations across both Syria and Iraq joined its ranks (Al-Baalbaky and Mhidi 2018). It was thus no coincidence that the movement used this moment of strength to have its spokesperson T.aha S.ubh.ī Falāh.a (alias Abū Muh.ammad al-ʿAdnānī) proclaim ‘The Islamic State’ (al-dawlat al-islāmīya) and the establishment of a ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa) in a thirtyfour-minute-long audio message issued on 29 June 2014/1 Ramadan 1435 H. under the title Hādha waʿd allāh (This is the Promise of Allah).

Conceptualising the Caliphate upon the Prophetic Way (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa) The movement did not just choose this moment carefully because it had the military strength to claim a hegemonic position within the broad spectrum of

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resistance to the al-Asad regime and the central authorities in Baghdad. Nor was proclaiming the return of the Islamic caliphate oriented by ‘the prophetic way’ on the first day of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, just another attempt to appropriate the symbolic and spiritual meaning of this specific time of the year. The Islamic State’s ideologues also timed this specific announcement so as to increase its symbolic power and make clear that they strove to implement a social-revolutionary system that would encompass all domains of society and individual life. They seemed to have reached a point where no one could but recognise the Islamic State as a fully fledged religio-political actor. In other words: who would still consider this month to be an ‘ordinary’ Ramadan after such a proclamation, and simply ignore the emerging caliphate, rather than feeling compelled to engage with it in one way or another? Undoubtedly, the Islamic State was not the first Islamist movement to exploit the month of fasting to draw attention to its self-representation. Yet in a situation of conflict that was causing fundamental existential and ontological insecurity among many Sunnis in Iraq and Syria, and which resonated with many Muslims across the globe, the Islamic State’s ideologues chose the right moment to appeal to their potential constituents and put down a marker against their opponents. These ideologues certainly understood that if they were to build their socialrevolutionary project upon the idea of the caliphate, they could not simply conceive of it as the manifestation of a certain mode of organising governance and society. Rather, as entrepreneurs of identity, they were required to re-signify the ‘abiding significance of the caliphate within the Islamic context and the elusive desire for a righteous locus of central authority and leadership grounded in the Islamic tradition’ (Hassan 2017: 13). Gatt (2020: 85) remarks that this Islamic tradition, however, is characterised by ambiguity, which may make it easy for entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State ‘to create a unique worldview that may still entail recognizable and identifiable elements selected from the Islamic tradition’. This very ambiguity undoubtedly factors into the appeal of the idea of the caliphate to a considerable number of Muslims worldwide (Pankhurst 2013). It shapes historical memories and consciousness by lingering as a ‘distant nostalgia’ (Sabri 2013) in the discourses of many Islamist parties within and outside Iraq and Syria, as well as in various products of mass culture across and beyond the region (Skovgaard-Petersen 2013). As such, the idea of the caliphate would be an instrument with which to appeal to Sunni Muslims across the globe beyond the confines of the Jihadi-Salafi current, because ‘as an institution with its genesis in the early days of Islam, the caliphate offer[s] a potent mode of connectivity with the Muslim community’s cultural, religious, legal and historical heritage as well as with its ideals of solidarity’ (Hassan 2017: 14). Although the moment was chosen carefully, and the movement won several important military victories, the proclamation of the caliphate pointed well beyond what the Islamic State and its predecessors had achieved so far. Were this

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project of social revolution to resonate effectively with Sunni Muslims beyond the Jihadi-Salafi current, the Islamic State’s ideologues had to create an ontological framework that latched onto various social identities and was, at the same time, homed in on the belief that its values and norms were guaranteed by a higher authority – that is, by divine ordinances. Consequently, when al-ʿAdnānī proclaimed the establishment of the caliphate he reminded his audiences that [t]here only remained one matter, a collective obligation, which the umma sins by abandoning. It is a forgotten obligation. The umma has not tasted honour since they lost it. It is a dream, which lives in the depths of every Muslim believer. It is a hope, which flutters in the heart of every monotheist mujāhid. It is the caliphate. It is the caliphate – the abandoned obligation of the era. (al-ʿAdnānī 2014b) This short quote illustrates the key elements of the Islamic State’s appeal to legitimate authority: Al-ʿAdnānī presented the establishment of the caliphate as a collective obligation (wājib kifāʾī),17 even though it had been forgotten – a norm that binds the Muslim community collectively and demands collective action. The Islamic State’s spokesman not only claimed authority over Islamic doctrine by declaring this disputed dogma non-negotiable; what is more, he asserted that Muslims would commit a sin by not fulfilling this obligation, thus insinuating that his audiences would be risking their salvation in the hereafter if they failed to discharge this responsibility before God. In addition to this attempt to produce conformity with the Islamic State’s vision of state and society by claiming theological authority and appealing to religious beliefs and expectations of salvation, al-ʿAdnānī related the foundation of the caliphate to collective and individual feelings. He emphasised that the loss of the caliphate as an institution and its legitimate authority over temporal and spiritual matters within the Muslim community deprived all Muslims of a graceful and honourable life. In view of the strong sociopolitical upheavals in the SWANA region, he linked the hopes of many people for a just and safe life with the idea of a caliphate, which was not to remain a dream or distant nostalgia but was to become reality through the militant actions of ‘genuine’ monotheists. Al-ʿAdnānī consequently drew his audience’s attention to ‘the soldiers of the Islamic State’, who created the preconditions so that ‘Now the caliphate has returned; we ask God (the Exalted) to make it to be upon the prophetic way. Now hope is being actualised. Now the dream has become a reality’ (al-ʿAdnānī 2014b). The Islamic State’s spokesman thereby not only articulated a request to God, but in fact presented an idiom that would become an assertion very soon, when the Islamic State became referred to as ‘the caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa). This phrase, which became prevalent in the Islamic State’s mediations, thenceforth served to continually reassert its claims to

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righteous leadership of the Muslim umma. It not only helped to define the organisational and legal structure of the sociopolitical entity the Islamic State sought to establish, which will be detailed below, but also to attribute certain traits to this form of society and its representatives. In addition, the Islamic State’s ideologues sought to project onto their own group their audience’s expectations towards the caliphate, derived from Muslim tradition and closely linked to the idealisation of this so specifically named form of sovereignty and society. This appropriation of yet another h.adīth that helped render this proto-state the fulfilment of a prophecy18 was by no means a theological or political Gedankenexperiment of purely symbolic character. It was linked to the group’s actions, and thus had sociopolitical consequences as the self-characterisation of advancing on ‘the prophetic way’ very quickly became manifest through iconography. The expression became part of the Islamic State’s material culture on posters, billboards, street signs, uniform batches and more, images of which were in turn produced and shared via Web 2.0. In addition to such rather dispersed imagery, however, the Islamic State’s ideologues produced a thirty-six-minute video compilation titled ʿalā minhāj alnubūwa. Paralleling his lifeworld, thoughts and actions to those of the Islamic State, they emphasised traits that had supposedly helped the Prophet Muhammad to survive in a hostile environment and visualised their understanding of ‘the prophetic way’ through images of military operations, conquests, retaliation against intra-Islamic enemies, unification with tribal and other rebel forces, and iconoclasm (muʾassasat al-furqān 2014a). The aim was to reassert and positively reinforce the group’s claims to power, which, in a rather circular fashion, were bound to their claim of a line of continuity between the Prophet Muhammad, his companions and the Islamic State. The idea was as much geared towards the group’s followers and potential supporters as to its critics within the JihadiSalafi-Salafi current, and was thus also an attempt to immunise against criticism that the Islamic State was becoming visibly more extreme (McCants 2014). Against this backdrop, there is reason to believe that the Islamic State’s selfdesignation as khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa was not only intended to serve as a supposedly unassailable authorisation of this sociopolitical revolutionary endeavour, itself a distinct mode of sociopolitical organisation set in opposition to democracy, secularism and nationalism. What is more, this perspective helped to interpret any excesses decried by the group’s opponents as part and parcel of the ‘right creed’ (al-ʿaqīda al-s.ah.īh.a), affirming that any criticism and attacks from outside were mere proofs of the Islamic State’s righteousness.19 Al-ʿAdnānī and those who wrote his speech did not invent any of these elements, nor their strategic interdigitation. Rather, being part of a circle of people versed and skilful in political communication – entrepreneurs of identity in the full sense – he drew on ideas that had lingered in the cultural memories of Muslim communities for centuries, so that he could render them part of the legitimation of the Islamic State’s socio-revolutionary project. Although widely unknown, the

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ideological and conceptual foundations of this project had already been developed seven years before. In a ninety-one-page document entitled Iʿlām al-anām bi-milād dawlat al-Islām (Informing Mankind about the Birth of the Islamic State; muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c), the ideologues of ISI had already provided a detailed account of the historical sources they considered relevant in offering the group’s local and global audiences an overarching ideological framework to latch onto their historical memories, beliefs, norms and future aspirations. In what follows, I will explore this offer in more detail and shed light on the derivation of the Islamic State’s caliphate model from the classical sources of Sunni theories of state. The Islamic State’s ideologues had built their conceptualisation of the caliphate mainly upon the ideas of Sunni theorists such as ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1037), Abu-l-H.asan ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), Abu-l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) and Abū H . āmid Muh.ammad al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111).20 These scholars, who witnessed the degeneration of the Abbasid caliphate and the fragmentation of caliphal authority during the fifth and sixth centuries AH, at the very least idealised the political and social circumstances of their times and sought to maintain the idea that the community founded in Medina had remained perfect and unchanged in all its essentials. However, as Donner (2012: 13) notes, these theorists’ emphases on the integrity of spiritual, political and judicial authority had not been inspired merely by a romanticised yearning for the past, but rather ‘were the consequences of the actual unity of the very early Islamic state’. Furthermore, they followed the early exegetical literature, whose authors perceived the internal division of the Muslim community as a trauma, because Islam ‘was supposed to have restored the unity of the umma wāh.ida; herein was to be found, as the Scripture said, a clear sign of God’s mercy’ (van Ess 2015: 22).21 Thus, their writings reflected concerns about the fragmentation of the Muslim community and internal strife (fitna) and stressed instead a ruler-centred approach in order to hold out the prospect of a (re)unification of the umma under a single command. In contrast to earlier theorists, these scholars reconfigured the source of legitimate authority, moving from the historical centrality of the Muslim umma that had been ‘the object of God’s deputyship and . . . the fundamental and highest source of legitimacy’ (Al-Sayyid 1997: 57, quoted in Anjum 2012: 92) to a ruler-centred vision. Although it seems reasonable to assume that the Islamic State’s ideologues would adopt this approach as a justification for an authoritarian form of rule, we can see in many of the movement’s communiqués that they oscillate between community-centred and ruler-centred visions. On the one hand, they emphasise the significance of the Muslim community at large for the implementation of sacred law. On the other hand, the Islamic State’s ideologues strengthened the ruler-centred vision because they discarded, albeit implicitly, the idea on which the community-centred vision is based, namely that consensus

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(ijmāʿ) within the umma might be an instance of regulatory authority. Following al-Māwardī’s vision in particular, the Islamic State sees the caliph ‘as chosen by God to be the centre of the divine mission on earth, and the Muslim Community merely his extension’ (Anjum 2012: 119). The choice they made to follow the medieval jurists is not hard to explain: the Islamic State presents itself as a resolute vanguard (t.alīʿa), whose authority is not primarily derived from the consensus of the community, but sanctioned by divine revelation, the strict orientation to the Scripture and the rigorous application of certain legal norms. This focus on a ruler-centred approach does not entail any basic divergence from the positions held in contemporary Sunni scholarship on the concepts of state and society. Much more important for al-ʿAdnānī, the authors of Iʿlām alanām and other ideologues of the Islamic State, however, is agreement with the classical views on the caliphate mentioned above, which they regard as authoritative sources. Consequently, as demonstrated by the above quotation and many other writings, the Islamic State’s ideologues’ orientation towards the classical views indicates very clearly that the caliphate is considered a legal necessity and a communal obligation. The Islamic State’s ideologues see it first and foremost as a universal necessity to establish the caliphate as an institution, which in turn would implement an ordering structure, enforce discipline and social morality and maintain the umma’s unity. To acknowledge and help establish the caliphate is thus a collective obligation (wājib kifāʾī) for any Muslim, sanctioned by divine ordinances and the words of revelation, neither of which can be compromised. As we will see below, the Islamic State’s spokesman Abū Muh.ammad al-ʿAdnānī reiterated this very reasoning when he proclaimed the establishment of the caliphate in June 2014. Like the authors of Iʿlām al-anām, al-ʿAdnānī appealed to Muslim self-conceptions and expectations of salvation by rendering the establishment of the caliphate as a religious duty, the performance of which will be rewarded and the omission of which will be punished. However, its framing as wājib kifāʾī, that is, as an obligation whose fulfilment by a sufficient number of individuals absolves others from executing it, also stabilises the Islamic State’s volatile nature. It underlines the Islamic State’s claim to supreme authority over the Muslim community, even though the legitimacy of the caliphate itself is not contingent upon the fact that every Muslim fulfils this obligation. Rather, as will be shown below, an indefinite but ‘sufficient number of individuals’ may prove that this duty is being fulfilled. The main consequence of the implementation of the caliphate in the Islamic State’s understanding is an all-encompassing regulation of human communitarisation, based on the idea that through his prophets God offers an ordering structure to humankind as an antithesis to the natural chaos of this world. This structure is to be realised first and foremost by those from within the community who are vested with authority (ulū-l-amr/wulāt al-amr) and to whom qualified

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obedience is due.22 The exegetical literature conceives these people as the trustees of the divine order and as representing a mission that addresses both the Muslim community and the rest of humankind. In the Islamic State’s understanding, the idea that humankind does not only need ordering structures, but rather a form of social order that complies with divine ordinances, has two main consequences: the legal necessity of a hierarchical structure of religio-political leadership within the Muslim community, including the investiture of a caliph; and the communal obligation of both subjects and rulers to enter into a social contract (ʿahd). To support this argumentation and the application of this concept to its representatives and functionaries, the Islamic State’s leadership frequently invokes those few verses of the Qurʾanic text that explicitly stipulate the investiture of a regulatory authority.23 This regulatory authority is borne by an indefinite group of people, who, as agents of the Islamic State, embody the movement’s offer of a social contract sanctioned by divine ordinances. In contrast to corrupt secular and national political systems, whose representatives are keen to protect their own interests, the ulū-l-amr promise to realise the tenet ‘until the religion, all of it, is for Allah’ (h.attā yakūna d-dīn kulluhu li-llāh),24 thus preparing the existential and ontological security of ‘genuine’ Muslims through the implementation of an all-encompassing system of governance and social order, as well as through the performance of specific social and religious practices. Muslims must therefore acknowledge their individual obligations to accept and pledge obedience to those authorities. In return, rulers must protect their subjects and guide them justly. In this way, a social contract will be enforced in which all actors and their deeds are understood as reciprocal. At the same time, both rulers and the ruled must obey and serve their creator and the community at large. The social contract between rulers and their subjects is thus characterised by both vertical, patriarchal and horizontal, fratriarchal arrangements of governance and social organisation, which are interdependent and mutually influence each other. Following the classical view, the Islamic State’s ideologues hold that this reciprocal relationship of rulers and subjects affects the legitimacy of any office-holder, the fulfilment of various obligatory aspects of Islamic law and the validation of certain religious practices. Finally, it influences the fulfilment of individual expectations of salvation in the hereafter, because the establishment of such an order is not an end in itself, but guarantees that Muslims will be saved from their sins and enter paradise. While these rather theoretical considerations might prove agreeable to wide circles of contemporary Sunni scholars, their practical implementation, which has been determined by political and social complexities to say the least, has ever been a matter of dispute. The authors of Iʿlām al-anām consequently devoted considerable parts of the document to explaining the necessity of establishing such a regulatory authority in this particular time and place. Their main argument is that Muslims have lost awareness of how they, being God’s subjects in

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the first place, are important to actualising divine ordinances. Their inability to realise that, as Muslims, they contribute to a universal mission is due to various forces undermining the umma’s unity and making Muslims unable to fulfil their duties towards God, the Muslim community and the rest of humankind. In Chapter 1, I described how the Islamic State’s ideologues have polemicised against the Shia, identifying them as a whole as the main force responsible for the umma’s spiritual and political debilitation. In Chapter 3, I will further look into this example, exploring how the movement’s ideologues use images as a means to further and render socially effective the identification and generally valid (derogatory) description of the Shia and others as an antagonist out-group – a method that is important for entrepreneurs of identity, not only to determine ‘the Self ’ more precisely in contrast to ‘the Other’, but also to stimulate a clear demarcation from, or even violent action against, the latter in a situation of conflict.

Institutionalising Divine Ordinances In the Islamic State’s understanding, such a demarcation cannot be realised through military struggle or the text-induced spiritual purification of the Muslim community alone. Rather, the success of the struggle for the hearts and minds of Sunnis is reflected above all in the extent to which people conform to the practical implementation of the Islamic State’s ideological framework.25 This conforming ‘flock’, in the Islamic State’s understanding, would form the social base (h.ādina shaʿbīya) that is indispensable for the movement to survive in the long term. To build this constituency and establish itself as a serious alternative to its political opponents, the Islamic State had to build institutions and adopt bureaucratic structures that would allow it to outmanoeuvre its competitors in all domains of governance and social organisation in the short run, as well as to trigger long-term effective changes in the social fabric and in people’s social behaviour.26 Throughout its media, the Islamic State and its predecessors have projected a particular type of governmental structure to demonstrate the seriousness of the movement’s claims to power and legitimate authority. This structure was supposed to reflect and validate the Islamic State’s desire and ability to replace governmental structures in the territories it controlled, proving that all aspects of its subjects’ lives and needs would be taken care of. It is in this context that on 19 April 2007, a video was released in which the official spokesperson of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abū Bakr al-Jubūrī, proclaimed its institutional structure. According to this release, ISI’s leadership was being aided by a shūrā council (majlis shūrā), which guided, advised and recruited the leadership. Additionally, ten ministries with a wide variety of responsibilities, ranging from media and public relations via healthcare and education to religious affairs, flanked the leadership (al-Jubūrī 2007).27 The cabinet structure outlined therein was refined and adjusted to changing circumstances over time.28 It was also described in detail in a

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video published in English (with Arabic subtitles) on 6 July 2016 under the title ‘The Structure of the Caliphate’ (s.arh. al-khilāfa) (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). As can be expected from the Islamic State’s evolution and physical expansion, the administrative structure presented in this later account is much more complex than the descriptions released a decade earlier.29 However, despite its increased complexity (and notwithstanding the intricacies and challenges posed by the task of controlling vast areas of Iraq and Syria), the movement emphasised the purpose of the simplicity of its administrative apparatus as being that ‘[the caliphate’s] subjects are governed, justice is applied evenly and the Lord of mankind is feared’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). However, Sunni Muslim scholars frequently accused the ISI of conveying a state-building project to its audiences that existed only virtually and in the minds of its creators and that did not correspond to reality, whether to the object world or to the dayto-day experiences of people in Iraq and Syria.30 To counter these accusations and display the existence of a ‘solid structure’ (bunyān mars.ūs.)31 supporting its aspirations, the movement gradually released a vast quantity of textual and audiovisual media to prove that the Islamic State had in fact begun to exert regulatory authority and exhibit control over peoples’ daily lives. I shall scrutinise these accounts further below, but first focus on the conceptualisation of leadership.

The Shūrā Council A key function in an Islamic state in its ideal typical form is assigned to the ‘shūrā council’ (majlis shūrā): a committee whose members, in a narrow sense, advise the political and religious leadership of the caliphate over ‘issues, whether devotional or practical, that [do] not have a clear answer in the Qurʾan or the Prophet’s teachings’ (Anjum 2012: 55).32 Whether this term was prevalent in the early Islamic period is a matter of debate. Patricia Crone (2001: 6) points out that there was no Arabic word for the advisory committee itself and that the term shūrā referred to the act of consultation rather than to the people who exercised it. Roswitha Badry (1998: 395), however, suggests a different view, as she understands majlis as nomen loci in the first place and concludes that counselling the ruler had been institutionalised – not de jure but de facto – in the early period of Islam, insofar as a ‘core elite’ had emerged that acted as a counselling body in matters of governance.33 It is this narrow understanding of shūrā that the Islamic State’s ideologues took as a starting point for conceptualising their vision of governance, statehood and society. They conceived of this body as the nucleus and backbone of the caliphate, thus affirming an interpretation of shūrā as an elitist circle preparing and guiding a sociopolitical revolution. Despite this clear interpretation in accordance with the movement’s ideological foundations, the Islamic State’s ideologues were apparently intent that other functions of this body anchored in

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historical memory should not fade into the background. This applied particularly to the great importance of this assembly for the stabilisation of social bonds in the early period of Islamic history. During this era, the primary purpose of this body was to facilitate settlements of conflicts over political power and hence to reconcile different actors and their interests.34 The latter interpretation notwithstanding, the Islamic State’s ideologues did well not to highlight too prominently the perception of the shūrā as an elitist leadership circle, but instead to maintain the polysemy inherent to the concept, leaving room for a range of interpretations and connotations and thus potentially allowing a larger group of people to identify with the Islamic State’s offer. They presumably anticipated that the people living under their rule would not appraise the principle of consultation as an instrument to stabilise and justify leadership (which may be more significant to the ruling class). Rather, the concept of shūrā lingers as a forum in which senior members of the community prudently seek compromise between diverse interests, or in which a general consensus (rid.ā wa jamāʿa) is forged by various means in order to keep the peace,35 save the community from breaking apart and even establish a form of the collective exercise of power and the supervision of the ruler in the sense of a state council (see Badry 1998: 66; van Ess 1997: 706–10). The concept’s use by Islamist movements suggests that they understand their vision of governance as being in line with early Muslim interpretations that were ‘distinct from and superior to kingship (mulk) precisely on the account of shūrā’ (Anjum 2012: 57), thus reflecting the social contract between rulers and their subjects. In fact, many governments throughout the SWANA region understand the symbolic power of the concept and employ shūrā as an institutionalised form of mediation of different interests on the state level. This shows that the concept can even be appropriated to support authoritarian forms of secular rule. However, in the wake of state failure in Iraq and Syria, shūrā councils also seem to have been established on the micro-level to govern local affairs, as well as to facilitate coordination between different Jihadi-Salafi factions. Therefore, it can be assumed that the history of the concept, as well as its practical implementation and consequences, were known to local populations and proved easy for the Islamic State to appropriate for its own purposes. As far as the composition of shūrā is concerned, the classical sources remain rather vague. It is not clear how many people are required to form such a body, nor who will be appointed member of the council on the basis of what criteria for which period of time (Badry 1998: 147–48; Crone 2001). Consequently, the Islamic State’s ideologues follow the majority of the classical sources in that they conceptualise this body vaguely as bringing together ‘wise and powerful men’ (‘upright, qualified men’ in other statements), whose participation is based on plutocratic as well as theocratic criteria (see al-S.umūd 2009: 25). In most of its sources, the movement refers to those who participate in the council by

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interchangeably using ahl al-h.all wa-l-ʿaqd (people who loosen and bind), the Qurʾanic term ulū-l-amr (those who are vested with authority) and fud.alāʾ alumma (honourables among the umma), although early exegetical sources suggest that these terms do not necessarily refer to the same persons. Any of these terms suggests understanding this assembly as an elite circle (khās.s.a) whose role is to appoint the caliph and legitimise him on behalf of and in relation to the community by means of an oath of obedience (bayʿa). As will be seen in more detail below, this oath in turn reflects a relationship of mutual recognition and authorisation between the leader and the shūrā council acting on behalf of the general public. Furthermore, members of the shūrā ought to represent the loyalty of their own power bases towards the caliph, provide him with military force and put their knowledge and experience of religion, politics and administration at his disposal. This is the theory; in fact, this elitist understanding primarily reflects the mediation of strategic considerations and claims to power among the circle’s members, which arguably inform both whom they choose to elect as caliph and the way in which they advise the ruler. Unsurprisingly, we have no empirical evidence on whether the idea of the shūrā has helped the Islamic State to bolster its acceptance among local people and global audiences. I shall therefore limit my reflections to the way in which this assembly is conceptualised and probe the offers the Islamic State’s ideologues make as they invoke the concept. Apparently, the authors of Iʿlām al-anām were aware of the various ways in which the selection of the ruler had been conducted in the formative period of Islam.36 They mainly turned to treatises such as alMāwardī’s (d. 450/1058) influential al-Ah.kām al-S.ult.ānīya (The Ordinances of Government) and al-Juwaynī’s (d. 478/1085) seminal Ghiyāth al-Umam, both of which confined and judicialised the ways in which political authority could legitimately be claimed. The Islamic State’s ideologues mainly follow al-Māwardī’s interpretation and propose three different methods of appointing a ruler (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 12): First, a body of ‘people who loosen and bind’ (ahl al-h.all wa-l-ʿaqd) may, on behalf of the entire Muslim community, elect a suitable candidate and pledge an oath of allegiance (bayʿa) to him, which in turn is binding on all Muslims. Second, the ruler is empowered by the transmission (istikhlāf ) of authority from his predecessor. Third, power is seized by way of usurpation. Māwardī in particular codified (and thereby legalised) the long-practised method of usurpation of power, thus helping to facilitate ex post justification of a violent takeover (see Crone 2004: 232–33; Rosenthal 1958: 45). Arguably, the method of transmission cannot be applied to the Islamic State’s circumstances. Consequently, its ideologues justify their claim to regulatory authority by combining the election of the caliph by a circle of qualified persons and the usurpation of power. This seemingly arbitrary combination is of particular importance to the offers made by the Islamic State to its audiences. The authors of Iʿlām al-anām, as in al-ʿAdnānī’s Hādhā waʿd Allāh and other treatises,

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adopted a line of reasoning portraying the Muslim community at large as being void of authority and leadership – a situation they compare to the circumstances that prevailed during the emergence of the first Muslim community under the Prophet Muhammad’s leadership. In such a situation, the umma has to accept a violent seizure of power in order to forestall disintegration and internal strife (fitna), just as it must succumb to the authority of a vanguard ‘triumphant sect’ (al-t.āʾifat al-mans.ūra) leading the umma to the victory promised by God.37 Drawing on this self-understanding, al-ʿAdnānī claims that ‘it is not permissible for anyone who believes in God to sleep without considering as his leader whoever prevails over them [i.e. his opponents in the fight for power] by the sword until he becomes caliph and is called commander of the faithful, whether this leader is righteous or sinful’ (al-ʿAdnānī 2014b). Following this interpretation, legitimate authority is acquired once the aspirant prevails over his opponents and calls on the community to obey him.38 As they conceptualise the process of obtaining power in this way, the Islamic State’s ideologues emphasise the dynamics of social revolution that characterise the movement’s ideology and practice, while traditional sources of authority such as the shūrā are employed merely to flank and safeguard the usurpation of power. This impression is even reinforced by the fact that the specifics of this particular practice of consultation are not considered in the Islamic State’s publications. None of the movement’s media releases scrutinise the particularities of this body or its composition and role in the movement’s efforts to exert regulatory authority, let alone disclose details on the persons serving in the shūrā. Furthermore, reports based on documents captured during raids in Iraq or on other insider accounts either only refer to the involvement of certain individuals in the Islamic State’s shūrā in the sense of a governing council, or merely mention the existence of a shūrā within the organisational structure of the Islamic State and its predecessors without further explaining the characteristics of this assembly.39 All this uncertainty notwithstanding, it can be assumed that the practice of shūrā and the existence of an elite advisory council played discrete roles in the Islamic State furthering its expansion and forging alliances with local powerholders. The movement’s ideologues might have prioritised including high-ranking members of allied groups in this circle in order to strengthen ties between allies, give symbolic weight to these bonds and designate them prominently. At the same time, the composition of the shūrā has been yet another way in which the Islamic State has sought to practice ‘the prophetic way’ and emulate the Prophet Muhammad’s practice of governing and uniting the nascent Muslim community, in that they grant the right to shūrā to foreign fighters (muhājirūn) and local supporters (ans.ār), thus treating them as equals. However, this is also uncertain, for neither the movement itself nor observers of the situation in Iraq and Syria have mentioned compromises reached by the shūrā in mediating diverse interests arising out of the situation of conflict between these two groups.

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Such reports could also buttress the Islamic State’s attempt to portray its governmental institutions as a serious alternative to the Syrian or Iraqi authorities and thus reflect their subjects’ share in the body politic. Finally, it remains open whether and to what extent decisions made by the counselling body are understood as merely advisory (muʿlima) or rather as binding (mulzima)40 and thus affecting day-to-day governance in the caliphate and promising to restrain a despotic ruler should he stray from ‘the path of God’ (sabīl Allāh). Highlighting this function might demonstrate the movement’s commitment to an accountable, just and consultative form of governance and could help strengthen its subjects’ confidence in the Islamic State’s leadership.41 Arguably, the rather obscured role of the shūrā indicates that the Islamic State’s ideologues envisaged a specific theoretical and theological vision of governance and society that included a counselling body in order to promote a certain image and address certain imaginations of just statehood. Yet in the Islamic State’s governing practice in the territories under its control, the shūrā rarely appears as relevant to the movement’s aims.

The Commander of the Faithful Despite the invisibility of the shūrā and the many uncertainties around its composition, this assembly has assumed a central role in the Islamic State’s conceptualisations of governance and society. First and foremost, in this line of thinking members of the shūrā are identified with the entire Muslim community and are commissioned to act on behalf of the umma. Through their oath of allegiance to the caliph (a practice that will be described below), they lend legitimacy to the regulatory authority that is the Islamic State in executing divine ordinances. Acting as representatives of the umma at large, the members of the shūrā – a ‘sufficient number’ of individuals – thereby fulfil the collective obligation of Muslims to appoint a leader who guides their community in spiritual and mundane affairs. The centrality of the ruler in this conceptualisation raises the questions of why it is necessary in the first place to appoint a leader who qualifies for such a position, and how his authority will be implemented. As outlined above, the Islamic State’s publications are very clear about the need for a regulatory authority in accordance with divine ordinances. Furthermore, their authors insist that this authoritative entity must be led by a single individual. They deduce the obligation to invest a leader from the practice of the Prophet’s companions, who came together after his death to appoint an imām.42 To underline the notion that it is still strictly necessary to appoint a single leader for the entire Muslim community, the Islamic State’s texts in particular rely on a h.adīth and related exegetical literature according to which any community with at least three persons needs a leader in order to satisfy divine ordinances.43

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Beyond the regulatory function of the caliph, the Islamic State’s ideologues also claim that he is the source of legitimacy for certain religious practices. However, looking at the classical sources of Sunni theories of the caliphate and caliphal authority, Anjum (2012: 117) strikingly notes that the caliph ‘was neither indispensable nor the source of legitimacy of the Community’s religious life, but only its protector, organizer, and representative, without whom the Community could continue, albeit imperfectly’. This notion is not entirely dismissed by the Islamic State, which accepts the reality of the community’s imperfections and emphasises that a ‘sufficient number’ of individuals, such as the vanguard that is the Islamic State, is adequate to realise the divine ordinances. However, the movement directly links the presence of an imām to the fulfilment of expectations of salvation, as well as to the validity of other religious duties and practices. Without explicitly mentioning his writings, their arguments draw upon al-Ghazālī, who held that the caliph is the source of all legitimacy and contended that ‘[i]f there were no caliphate, all religious institutions would be suspended and the Sharīʿa itself would be threatened with extinction’ (cited in Hillenbrand 1988: 82–83). Adding to this adamant argument, the Islamic State’s ideologues argues that God will only accept the fulfilment of individual and collective religious duties if the Muslim community is led by an imām. They assert in particular that two of the five fundamental religious duties of every Muslim, namely the pilgrimage to Mecca (h.ajj) and the collection of alms (zakāt), are invalid without an imām or caliph.44 Moreover, proclaiming and waging jihād against ‘the crusaders and their allies’ is also considered contingent upon the existence of such a person (alS.umūd 2009: 26).45 As for the question ‘Who qualifies for leadership of the Muslim community?’, the Islamic State’s publications draw on the Qurʾanic text in a general manner in identifying rulers as ‘those vested with authority’ (ulū-l-amr/wulāt alamr). Based on the exegetical literature, the movement conceives of this label as comprising (military) commanders (umarāʾ; s. amīr), political leaders (sāsa) and religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ), all of whom represent the state and its institutions. They thereby epitomise a structure that combines the preservation of divine ordinances with the regulation of profane affairs. In this perspective, the state is headed by a man who, as successor to the Prophet Muhammad (khalīfat rasūl allāh), leads the communal prayers (imām) and guides the Muslim community in its spiritual and temporal affairs. This individual is hence seen as the umma’s religious and political leader – the commander of the faithful (amīr al-muʾminīn).46 Employing this title helped the ideologues of the Islamic State and its predecessors to construct a symbolic link between the movement and the first Islamic state in Medina. In doing so, they appropriated historical memories of a social environment and order shaped by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, one which some of their subjects and (potential) followers may regard as genuine, pure and highly congruent with divine ordinances. Furthermore, the title amīr

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al-muʾminīn implies a particular type of leadership, one that actively strives for the reform of Islamic practices, regulates the conduct of the Muslim community and defends the umma against aggressors from outside. As Pennell (2016: 623) points out, it is in this sense that the title amīr al-muʾminīn had most commonly been used throughout Islamic history, that is, to ‘glorify an individual who sought untrammelled local rule to impose an uninhibited shari‘a’. These individuals were seen as paving the way for their communities to renew humankind’s covenant with God (ʿahd); the caliphate was above that. As we shall see below in more detail, the Islamic State’s ideologues employ this honorific title to assert the movement’s legitimacy as a regulative authority. As a symbolically valuable asset in the construction of an ‘Islamic State identity’, they also utilise it to make propositions to which many Sunni Muslims can potentially relate, which evoke historical memories and motifs of glory, dignity, pride and honour, provoke certain images in the minds of their audiences and elicit distinct emotions both individually and collectively. However, the Islamic State’s evolution also shows that the meaning of the title gradually changed along with the movement’s capabilities and its shift of focus towards a transnational and global mission. The movement’s publications between 2006 and 2014 indicate that its claim to the honorific title of amīr al-muʾminīn was not seen as equivalent to a claim to the caliphate, for its ideologues did not make claims to caliphal authority with regard to either Abū ʿUmar or Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī. The former’s designation as amīr al-muʾminīn after the announcement of the Islamic State of Iraq in late 2006, however, not only received esteem from key figures in the global Jihadi-Salafi current, but also triggered specific connotations. For instance, Anwar al-Awlākī, an American-born cleric affiliated with al-Qāʿida, published a speech in 2007 in which he endorsed the fact that . . . the current head of that [Islamic] state being a descendant of H . usayn Bin ʿAlī carries a lot of importance [because] it represents a move of the idea from the theoretical realm to the real world. The idea of establishing the Islamic rule and establishing khilāfa on earth now is not anymore talk. It is action. (al-Awlākī 2007)47 Obviously, this has changed since the proclamation of the caliphate in mid-2014, with the title of amīr al-muʾminīn, among other honorific titles, granted to Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, who was onwards referred to as Caliph Ibrāhīm. The notion of the leader of the Islamic State being capable of acting as the Commander of the Faithful was not only incorporated into the conceptualisation of a regulatory authority separating ‘believers’ from ‘infidels’, it also became an indispensable component of the Islamic State’s attempt to acquire symbolic capital for its state-building project. Despite the fact that both the Qurʾanic text and the sunna only indicate vaguely who qualifies to succeed the Prophet as a head of

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the community and legitimate leader of the umma, the Islamic State contended that Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī was qualified for the caliphate, because he fulfilled certain criteria pertaining to ideas of the ideal candidate that are acceptable beyond the confines of the Sunni schools of law.48 These criteria relate particularly to questions of genealogy, as well as to the candidate’s physical, temperamental and cognitive eligibility.

Descendant of the Prophet Muhammad? The first criterion, which is the caliph’s genealogy, is based on the belief that the Prophet Muhammad’s successor must descend from his tribe, the Quraysh.49 Throughout Islamic history, this concept has hardly been applied strictly, for genealogical principles cannot be certain, especially over the course of many centuries. Some scholars have therefore subordinated genealogy to other criteria, hedging their bets by referring to a prophetic tradition according to which Muslims should even obey an Ethiopian slave if he were to be appointed imām, that is, the head of the Muslim community.50 The Islamic State’s ideologues also left this matter rather vague in their argumentation. On the one hand, they pursued the same reasoning and justified the necessity of the people’s obedience towards an imām by referring to this very h.adith, thus understanding the genealogical principle as a secondary criterion (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 5). On the other hand, when they chose their noms de guerres, the leaders of the Islamic State and its predecessors resorted to onomastic elements that brought sharifīyan descent to the fore. All three men to whom the Islamic State refers as amīr al-muʾminīn have indicated their descent from the Prophet’s family. Abū ʿUmar (killed 2010) and Abū Bakr (killed 2019) accordingly adopted the nisba of al-H.usaynī alQurashī al-Baghdādī, whereas the latter’s successor, Amīr Muh.ammad Saʿīd alS.albī al-Mawla, is referred to as Abū Ibrāhīm al-Hāshimī al-Qurashī (al-Qurashī 2019). Using these onomastic elements, the Islamic State’s leadership indicates that these individuals descend from the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraysh, and family through the line of his daughter Fāt.ima and grandson H.usayn. Public display of their nisba was above all important so that they could comply with the conventions concerning the appointment of a caliph as we find them in the catalogue of virtues outlined by al-Māwardī.51 What is more, their kunya Abū ʿUmar and Abū Bakr respectively refer to the names of the first two caliphs who took over the leadership of the early Islamic community after the Prophet’s death. Through these pseudonyms the Islamic State’s ideologues manifest a claim to authority. First, this claim is based on an understanding of authority that is inherited through kinship, which, as I have shown elsewhere, uses these onomastic elements not only to position a person in an – albeit construed – line of continuity, but also to signal the legitimacy of the claim itself (Günther and Kaden 2016). Second, as an all-encompassing claim to spiritual and worldly leadership of the

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entire Muslim community, it is undoubtedly exorbitant, hubristic and contrary to the realities of Muslim life in the twenty-first century. I argue, however, that the Islamic State’s ideologues are in no way concerned with realising this ideal on a global scale. Much more important is the symbolic value of these pseudonyms as a means to latch onto local identities, and thus to attract local support for the group’s rule. Utilising the prophetic lineage as a source of authority has thus helped the Islamic State’s ideologues to acquire significance (and power) through the appropriation of ideas, historical memories and emotions to which many Sunni Muslims can potentially relate, because they are linked to the Prophet Muhammad, his family, the early Muslim community and an idealised idea of the caliphate. What is more, the movement’s ideologues embedded in their identity-building project appeals to the social relevance of genealogical records in Iraq, as well as to the fact that Abū Bakr’s tribe, the al-Bū Badrī, is recognised to be of sharīfī descent (al-ʿĀmirī 1993: 174–76). However, it does not matter whether the Islamic State’s ideologues or their various audiences actually believed in this proposed line of continuity linking the Islamic State’s leader to the Prophet’s family.52 The truthfulness of this assertion only becomes ‘real’ through a public act of social recognition, that is, the oath of obedience (bayʿa), which has been an important part of the Islamic State’s governing practice. I will come back to this in more detail below, but for now it may suffice to emphasise that incorporating the claim of validity associated with sharīfī descent into the Islamic State’s symbolic repertoire thus provided the movement’s ideologues with yet another instrument to establish and strengthen intragroup coherence among its Iraqi and Syrian membership. The naming of their leader might support this intention on yet another level, because it also appeals to popular religious beliefs, particularly on baraka and the idea that it is a ‘beneficent force, of divine origin, which causes superabundance in the physical sphere and prosperity and happiness in the psychic order’ (Colin 2012). There is a broad consensus among Sunni scholars that God planted a manifestation of his baraka in the Prophet Muhammad, who passed it on to his descendants, that is, his daughter Fāt.ima and her sons H.usayn and H.asan. A personage endowed with baraka by inheritance or other forms of transmission may be the object of particular feelings of adoration and practices of veneration, which can persist beyond his death. By tracing Abū Bakr’s lineage back to H . usayn and Fāt.ima, the Islamic State alludes (albeit indirectly) to this kind of force. This is not at all to suggest that the Islamic State would be willing to corrupt its rigorous interpretation of monotheism by including in its ideational framework the ideas of the veneration of saints and their graves that prevail in Islamic mysticism, Sufism and broader popular beliefs. Nevertheless, by presenting both of its caliphal figures as being blessed with this spiritual power, it opens up a space for those who apprehend the caliphate as a spiritual mission in the

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first place, for whom these leaders must be equipped with extraordinary spiritual qualities; this in turn validates their eligibility as political leaders.

The Caliph’s Extraordinary Personality and his Office To answer to these passions and meet the requirements for caliphal authority articulated in the classical texts, the Islamic State’s ideologues were eager to prove that Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī was indispensable for the movement’s revolutionary state-building project and for the identification of a wide range of Muslims with this state and its institutions. Two documents in particular – Abū Muh.ammad al-ʿAdnānī’s 2014 proclamation of the caliphate hādha waʿd Allāh (This is the Promise of God), and muddū-l-ayādī li-bayʿat al-Baghdādī (Stretch out Your Hands for an Oath of Allegiance to al-Baghdādī), a short leaflet published during the same year (al-Binʿalī 2014)53 – extol the virtues of Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, praising his outstanding character and cognitive qualifications to buttress his eligibility for the office of caliph. In the former, al-ʿAdnānī characterises Abū Bakr as ‘the mujāhid, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, descendent from the family of the Prophet, the slave of Allah’ (al-ʿAdnānī 2014b; see also Günther and Kaden 2016). In the latter, supposedly authored by the Bahraini scholar Turkī al-Binʿalī, who served as the Islamic State’s chief mufti for some time (Bunzel 2014), Abū Bakr’s qualifications are explained in more detail. The text describes him as a brilliant theologian, as someone who ‘has mastered the ten qirāʾāt of the Qurʾan’ (al-Binʿalī 2014), implying that he has acquired a sound knowledge of the holy text and extraordinary proficiency in the theological discipline of reading it (see Paret 2012). According to this leaflet, his insights into the Qurʾanic text qualify him to discover and revive the original and ‘genuine’ meaning of the scripture. Moreover, the text indicates that before the proclamation of the caliphate, Abū Bakr himself had travelled throughout Syria and Iraq, listening to the complaints of the people, sitting with the young and the old, the rich and the poor, to rule among them with the law of al‐Lat.īf al-Khabīr.54 At the same time the Shaykh also used to visit the tribes and clans, as well as the Jihadi groups and the armies of imān, calling them towards unity and rejection of breaking into sects and discord. He would discuss with them in a completely neutral manner and with justice. (alBinʿalī 2014) As will be described below, all the qualifications suggested in these two documents conform to the requirements for caliphal authority put forward by classical texts of Sunni theorists of statehood such as ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī,

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al-Māwardī and al-Juwaynī. However, al-Binʿalī’s treatise not only highlights Abū Bakr’s qualifications in the field of religious knowledge and leadership; it also quotes a speech by al-ʿAdnānī characterising al-Baghdādī as a ‘a practicing scholar as well as a devout worshipper and mujāhid. I saw within him the ʿaqīda, endurance, fearlessness and aspiration of Abū Musʿab, as well as the tolerance, justice, guidance and humility of Abu ʿUmar, alongside the intelligence, resourcefulness, determination and patience of Abū Hamza’. Al-ʿAdnānī suggests here that Abū Bakr continues the work of his three predecessors while, to some degree, also embodying the best of their virtues. In other words, as much as the Islamic State had evolved during the ten years before publication of this treatise, its leadership had also attained maturity of character, religious qualifications and experience, so that the best available person had now ascended to caliphal authority. Whereas the goal of this compendium of Abū Bakr’s virtues is to render his traits conformant to the requirements set out in the classical Sunni theories on statehood, the medieval jurists, however, had other concerns. They seem to have been more concerned with the actual practice of leadership and governance than the extent to which the aspirant followed the Prophet Muhammad’s example or emulated his extraordinary characteristics. They consequently prioritised the caliph’s exercise of control over governance and the personal conduct of his subjects. According to them, it would be the caliph’s primary task to secure his community’s spiritual and material well-being by ruling in a just manner (ʿadāla). He therefore oversaw the distribution of state revenues and, more importantly, ensured that public security was maintained and nonconforming behaviour punished in accordance with Qurʾanic prescriptions. Equally importantly, he was expected to follow the Prophet’s example by adjudicating disputes among his subjects and brokering a consensus between various political and social stakeholders in order to protect his community from fragmentation and fitna. In order to settle disputes within his community, he was assigned the command over the judiciary and institutions with executive power. His capacity to direct these institutions, however, was contingent upon and constrained by his knowledge of Qurʾan and sunna, as well as his ability to interpret these texts. The aspirant who was capable of doing this would not only provide social stability, but also guarantee that the divine ordinances were preserved and applied without alteration. It was this representation of an overarching law and pure justice that was fundamental to his claim to legitimate authority (Sharon 2012; Badry 1998). Although these requirements match the qualifications listed in al-Binʿalī’s pamphlet, the latter hardly reflects on the way in which the medieval jurists conceptualised the leadership structure of the caliphate. These scholars witnessed the weakening of caliphal power and the territorial fragmentation of the Islamic empire under Abbasid rule, which caused a de facto separation between caliphal authority and the effective power to govern. These historical developments were reflected in the way in which the medieval jurists conceptualised caliphal author-

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ity, in that they apparently tended to differentiate theoretically between the authority of the person of the caliph and the authority of his office, and to separate them for the sake of the institution’s stability and continuity. Although scholars like al-Juwaynī maintained that the caliph is the locus of all authority, they first restricted his authority over the codification of the law, thus strengthening the position of the ʿulamāʾ.55 For instance, ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī suggested that the caliph’s individual reasoning about Islamic law (ijtihād) should only aim at uncovering the divine ordinances insofar as they have become obscured in the course of history. In addition, according to al-Juwaynī (1979: 227), the caliph’s aptitude (kifāya) for his office is linked to his ability to tackle the challenges his community faces, and he should consult a muftī in order to deduce an appropriate solution from Qurʾan and sunna. Secondly, according to al-Māwardī, the caliph is advised to maintain law and order and generally to guide the Islamic umma while delegating his executive power to the institutions and functionaries of the state (see Lambton 1991: 95–97). In the understanding of these medieval jurists, caliphal authority is thus largely separated from the definition of law, effective governance and the exercise of regulatory authority. Anjum (2012: 130) summarises al-Ghazālī’s views on this matter by noting that ‘[t]he Sharīʿa, in Ghazālī’s view, required an imām from whose person all political offices and social relationships sought their legitimacy; ideally, the imām also wielded power and control, but if that was not to be had, his symbolic authority was still necessary.’ Although this conceptualisation of caliphal authority reduces the power of the caliph as an individual person to the merely symbolic, it does not lead to the institution of the caliphate being devalued. Rather, this notion provides potential stability to the system as such in that it provides a justification for replacing the caliph should he fail or be killed. Involved in a situation of violent conflict, the Islamic State faces fragmentation of territory and organisational entities, the weakening of its regulatory authority and constant threats to the lives of its leaders. Its ideologues did not negate these conditions but rather constantly reinterpreted them as tribulations and trials of their own strength and faithfulness willed by God. In the inner logic of the movement, these circumstances thus serve the purpose of constant parallelisation with the challenges to which the Prophet Muhammad and his early followers were exposed. With regard to the ideas of the Islamic State’s ideologues about authority and society, as well as the role of the caliph therein, a recourse to the medieval scholars is hardly surprising, because the latter also developed their views against the background of a fragmented caliphate. Describing ‘the preservation of religion’ (h.ifz. al-dīn), ‘the restoration of monotheism in this world’ (iʿādat al-tawh.īd ilā-l-ard.) and the reunification of the Muslim community as the primary obligations of the imām or caliph56 is thus not only grounded in the Islamic State’s specific situation, but rather once again helps it latch onto the classical theories. In the 2016 video ‘The Structure of the Caliphate’, mentioned above,

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the movement essentially adhered to the classical views,57 stating that the caliph ‘upholds and spreads the religion, defends the homeland, fortifies the fronts, prepares the armies, implements the h.udūd, and enforces the people’s adherence to sharʿī rulings’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). This video also emphasises the idea of consultation between the caliph and the shūrā council. Furthermore, the film takes up al-Māwardī’s approach to separating the caliph’s authority from effective power to govern when its authors assert that ‘the task of communicating orders once they have been issued and ensuring their execution is delegated to a select group of knowledgeable, upright individuals with perception and leadership skills’. This body is known as ‘the delegated committee’ (al-lajna al-mufawwad.a), which in turn supervises all subordinate institutions (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016).58 This indicates that the Islamic State’s ideologues follow the classical texts quite closely in that they conceptualise the figure of the caliph primarily as a symbolic, though still vital, asset to his community. His primary function is not to wield power but rather to act as a figure of identification for any of his subjects, whereas the agency to ‘establish the restrictive ordinances, execute the judicature, command the good and forbid the wrong’ (iqāmat al-h.udūd wa-infādh al-qad.āʾ wa-l-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar) (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 23) rests with the caliph’s office and the Islamic State’s institutions. Although the Islamic State’s ideologues are adamant that any Muslim can only fulfil their expectations of salvation when living under ‘genuine’ Islamic rule headed by a caliph, the group had effectively established a functional differentiation of political, legal and religious authority from the person of the caliph and allocated these spheres of governance to his office and other institutional forces. In turn, this conceptualisation naturalises the power of an indefinite circle forming the leadership of the Islamic State. In this way, the group’s ideologues harmonised the tensions between ruler-centred and community-centred approaches, and implicitly shifted the focus to a leadership-centred vision of governance and society while reflecting the organisation of various groups and individuals with different interests within the Islamic State. More importantly, this conceptualisation lends potential stability to the movement’s rule in a twofold manner: firstly, it provides a justification for replacing the current caliph should he fail or be killed, without damaging the ruling structure;59 and secondly, it allows for the effective inclusion of allies in the ordering structures, who could then wield power as legitimate representatives of the caliphate without challenging caliphal authority as such. This approach also provides the Islamic State with an opportunity to immunise its conceptualisation of governmental authority, in that it helps to solve the question of whether the caliph has to be personally known or even individually recognised by his subjects, or whether it is consistent with Islamic law that he remains anonymous while his authority – and thus the legality of his power – is exercised by regional and local representatives. In April 2007, the Kuwaiti cleric H . āmid al-ʿAlī took up this question as a way of criticising the ISI’s conceptual-

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isation of religio-political leadership, the composition of its leadership and its practical exercise of power. He asserted that the proclamation of an Islamic State in Iraq would be against the fundamentals of the sharīʿa since ‘it is not known in Islam to pledge an oath of obedience towards an unknown, invisible imām who has neither power nor visible presence or a solid stand, which would empower him to guarantee security on the streets, to establish a just governance, or to protect individuals, belongings, and honour’ (al-ʿAlī 2007). Al-ʿAlī’s critique of the secret identity of the Commander of the Faithful presumably drew on the provision in Sunni theory of the caliphate that the imām or caliph had to be visible, as opposed to the Shiiteclaim of the existence of an invisible imām (Lambton 1991: 78). Beyond these allusions to theory, al-ʿAlī’s critique was nurtured by speculation, mostly in the Western media, that Abū ʿUmar was actually just an actor reading the movement’s messages in a recording studio, whereas real power rested with al-Zarqawi’s heir, Abū Hamza al-Muhājir (Roggio 2007; Robertson 2009). In a self-immunising manner, the Islamic State replied that it was not necessary for every Muslim to know their spiritual and political leader personally. Rather, it is the ahl al-h.all wa-l-ʿaqd with whom the final decision about the imām’s appointment or removal rests, following assessment of his capacities and the suitability of his character. This reinforces the notion that the sheer belief in the basic legality of this form of rule and its executors is more important to the people than their direct relationship with each other. Consequently, the Islamic State’s ideologues argued that the people should personally know the leader of an Islamic State as much as they know God and His Prophet personally (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 76). In other words, everyone believes in God and His Prophet, even though no one has ever met them in person. As the Islamic State’s ideologues sought to strengthen the position of its leadership, the institutions of the caliphate and the ability of its functionaries to wield power in place of the caliph himself, they further immunised their understanding of leadership against such criticism. However, the nascent caliphate could not claim to exist with a caliph who was largely invisible and intangible to those he aspired to rule, and was thus reduced to a mere ‘poster boy’. As a result, the Islamic State sought to ascribe a prominent position to Abū Bakr as a figure of identification, making his presence immediate and discernible to his subjects through the practice of an oath of allegiance administered by his representatives.

Bayʿa In order to demonstrate that they legitimately strove to exercise regulatory authority over the Muslim community, in many of their textual and audiovisual publications the Islamic State’s ideologues demanded an oath of allegiance (bayʿa) from all Muslims. Paradigmatically for this request, al-ʿAdnānī (2014b) stated that ‘we inform the Muslims that, with the announcement of the caliphate, it has become obligatory for all Muslims to give bayʿa and support to Caliph Ibrāhīm’.

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As I will show in more detail below, al-ʿAdnānī thereby not only proclaimed recognition of the Islamic State as a caliphate to be an obligation imposed on the Muslim community, he also established a ritualised framework for this recognition, lending it public effectiveness and community-building character. Although the meaning of the Arabic word bayʿa is not entirely clear, it most probably refers to ‘the physical act of clasping someone’s hand . . . which was used to indicate the conclusion of an agreement between people and was based on an ancient Arab custom [but was also said to have been] applied to the election of and submission to a leader’ (Wagemakers 2015: 98).60 Thus, bayʿa had become a practice whereby a person of authority receives legitimation from and enters into a social contract with the Muslim community. Some Jihadi-Salafis discuss the possibility that the practice in the form just described had been used by early Muslims, who offered a pledge of allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad and physically touched him during the ceremony, which is interpreted as indicating unity and dedication (Milton and al-ʿUbaydī 2015: 1). As will be shown below, this performative aspect of the bayʿa plays a significant role in the Islamic State’s videographic representation of its rule and acknowledgement by its subjects.61 Broadly speaking, as an expression of loyalty and obedience performed in public, the bayʿa epitomises the complex relationship between the community and its ruling elite based on mutual acceptance of a hierarchical social structure. As outlined above, the acceptance of this divine ordinance entails rights and duties for both rulers and subjects. Drawing mainly on the Sunni theorists of statehood mentioned above, the Islamic State’s ideologues have described these provisions in several publications since 2007.62 In short, the ruler is obliged to take care of his subjects and to act in a just manner (ʿadl), while his subjects owe him unconditional obedience. Binding rulers and subjects together in this way had a sociopolitical purpose in the first place, namely to uphold the vision of a unified umma and preserve the Muslim community from division. Understood as a means to assert this contract, the practice of bayʿa is primarily a formal procedure through which rulers articulate and set the terms of the social contract, thus asserting their classificatory power, while the members of the community affirm their acceptance of the contractual relationship. From the point of view of the Islamic State’s ideologues, the practice becomes a means to strengthen in-group bonds and prevent disintegration of the collective they have sought to create. Furthermore, individual and collective acceptance of the ruling power, expressed through an oath of allegiance, is considered yet another distinct and constitutive feature of the Muslim community as contrasted with the ‘disbelievers’. Framing bayʿa in this way, the Islamic State’s ideologues are entrepreneurs of identity who define the boundaries of Muslimness in terms of the extent to which people are eager to respond to their call for obedience to this caliphate. They link the performance of bayʿa to the principle of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ (loyalty and disavowal). In their conceptualisation of public acknowl-

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edgement of the ‘genuine’ caliphate, Muslims express their loyalty to the Muslim umma, identified with the Islamic State, by publicly performing bayʿa. In turn, they disown the collectivised ‘disbelievers’, who are identified with any concept and person opposed to the Islamic State’s interpretations of Islam, governance and society. The Islamic State’s ideologues therefore turn this practice into a litmus test of the extent to which people are inclined to comply with divine ordinances – thus, a test of their piety. As outlined above, in this understanding bayʿa also affirms the contractual relationship between rulers and their subjects as a basis for individual salvation. Consequently, the Islamic State’s ideologues base their calls for the public to show obedience upon Qurʾanic verse 4.59.63 They argue not only that people’s obedience to God is equal to their obedience to their ruler, but also that individual allegiance to the community is always established through allegiance to the ruler and his delegates. Correspondingly, the movement’s ideologues also link the practice to the promise to fulfil individual expectations of salvation and warrant people’s ontological security. They see the performance of bayʿa as constituting people’s public affirmation of their inseparability with a collective that they trust, thus providing an anchor for their emotional and cognitive orientation towards the self, others and the world around them. To buttress this notion, the Islamic State’s ideologues frequently invoke a tradition according to which any Muslim who dies without being bound by an oath of obedience dies as a pagan.64 Consequently, the movement calls Muslims to show allegiance to the caliphate – the manifestation of divine ordinances and of the political unity of the umma – because obedience to the ruler is seen as part and parcel of being Muslim. The performance of bayʿa thus becomes both an integral part of Sunni Muslim identity and a component of its symbolic repertoire. Al-ʿAdnānī’s call for absolute allegiance from all Muslims is not only fundamental to the Islamic State’s creed; this strong claim also implies that the group must present its audiences with a plausible narrative explaining why it was necessary to have a caliphate in the first place, why (Sunni) Muslims should obey the caliph Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī specifically, and to what extent this would affect their ontological status as Muslims. The Islamic State needed to convey the idea of an emerging caliphate as being essential to Sunni identity and to propose this particular form of rulership as compatible with its audiences’ historical memories, beliefs, norms, values and future aspirations. These reflections primarily concerned the Islamic State’s theological and political justifications and its vision of a caliphate, which, however, were of particular importance epistemically and theoretically. On the practical level, however, allegiance to the Islamic State had significant consequences for both the daily lives of people living under its rule and their future perspectives, given that at least temporarily, they tied their personal fate to the group and thus could be identified with this ‘terrorist organisation’ once its fate turned.

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In constructing a plausible prospect for its audiences, theological arguments play a decisive role in the way that bayʿa is embedded in the Islamic State’s ideological framework and its conceptualisation of governance and society as a ritualised procedure. As described above, in the Islamic State’s understanding, the submission of Muslims to the regulatory authority that is the caliphate is a collective duty. Although Muslims are thus called on to comply with this obligation to validate their membership in the umma and fulfil their expectations of salvation in the hereafter, it suffices if an indefinite number of Muslims fulfil this obligation. As outlined above, while the Islamic State oscillates between a rulercentred and a community-centred vision of governance and society, it struck a middle course in that it established a concept of regulatory authority that is based on an indefinite leadership circle. This is also apparent in the way in which bayʿa is both conceptualised and employed. Although some of the classical sources state that this oath is to be made by ‘the people’ (bayʿat al-nās) in general,65 in practice the consent of ‘the masses’ was assumed to follow automatically after a ruler had been appointed and had received the elite’s vow of allegiance (bayʿat al-khās.s.a). It is not surprising that in this regard the Islamic State also followed the medieval jurists. Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī was seen as indispensable to the Muslim community, as his presence guaranteed the observance of divine ordinances, the validity of certain religious practices and individual salvation. Although his primary duties reduced his activities to a representative role, the charismatic qualification of both incumbent and office rendered the caliphate symbolically and affectively powerful. Since this sort of power is much more significant to the Islamic State than the ruler’s decisiveness, the movement’s ideologues apparently conceptualised the figure of the caliph not as an absolute ruler, but rather as a nominal leader who is still seen as the locus of power. This conceptualisation has severe consequences for the extent to which the direct bayʿa from the people to the ruler is needed to legitimise his authority. Anjum (2012: 120) reaches the heart of the Islamic State’s approach when he interprets Māwardī’s stance on the bayʿa by noting that the ‘preference for an easily manageable bayʿa as against the involvement of the representatives of the Community is understandable, for it does not matter if a symbolic caliph has an effective bayʿa or allegiance of the Community or not. Besides, the will of the Community had become increasingly difficult to imagine let alone express given territorial and ideological fragmentation.’ This interprets the people’s ‘general oath’ (bayʿat al-ʿāmma) as a form of acclamation rather than as a prerequisite for legitimate authority (see also Badry 1998: 131–32). Moreover, this conceptualisation discards the idea of the umma as a regulatory authority in and of itself that could restrain the ruler. This means disregarding the stricture that ‘the bayʿa was granted based on devotion to the cause of promoting the path of Allah, and the warning that a ruler who strays from this path will be deposed’ (Hatina 2007: 90). This interpretation fits the Islamic State’s leadership circle-centred vision of legitimate governance, in which the will

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of the Muslim community at large becomes utterly irrelevant. Furthermore, in this concept, elite circles finalise the appointment of the ruler by inducing their constituencies to swear loyalty to the caliph. Consequently, the movement’s ideologues made considerable efforts to emphasise that recognition of the Islamic State would not depend entirely on elite individuals or groups who pledged obedience to its leadership. It has nonetheless placed noticeable emphasis on the visibility and visualisation of public performances of an oath of allegiance in order to make acceptance of its rule manifest both on the ground and through various (audio)visual publications. Several videos of the group depict the staging of such performances in public by showing ‘ordinary people’ applauding and cheering the movement’s soldiers or vowing an oath of allegiance to Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī in public, which in turn can be interpreted as a form of recognition of the Islamic State’s authority.66 Beyond such allegedly spontaneous offerings of allegiance, videographic records of bayʿa show a highly formalised act and imply that the Islamic State has a great interest in displaying procedural regularity, in order to support its claim to regulatory authority with a sense of reliability and build trust and confidence in its rule. This is particularly obvious in cases where local notables, elders and tribal members swear the oath of allegiance to Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī – for instance, in a video published in August 2015 under the title ʿashāʾir sahl Nīnawā tujaddid al-bayʿa li-khalīfat al-muslimīn wa-tatabarraʾ min al-murtaddīn (The Clans of the Nīnawā Plains Renew the Oath of Allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims and Dissociate Themselves from the Apostates) (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāya Nīnawā 2015k). This title suggests that these people might not voluntarily offer their allegiance to the Islamic State and its leadership, but rather that some of the Sunni clans who are ‘renewing’ their bayʿa now had previously sworn allegiance to Abū ʿUmar al-Baghdādī, allied themselves with the Iraqi government, fought the ISI and ISIS between 2007 and 2014 as part of the ‘Awakening Councils’, and have now chosen to realign themselves with the Islamic State for one reason or another.67 The bayʿa is thus presented as part of a public repentance, and the videographic recording of the performance might indeed further incentivise the participants to maintain the alliance. In this way, bayʿa also serves as an instrument whereby the Islamic State underlines its claim to supreme authority and indirectly challenges the central authorities, strengthens group bonds, stresses its military strength and suppresses opposition to it. At the beginning of the video, the actors are identified by two men holding a banner which reads ʿashīrat Jubūr Albū Khat.t.āb taqifu .saffan wāh.idan maʿa mujāhidī dawlat al-khilāfa (‘The Jubūr tribe congregation of Albū Khat.t.āb closed their ranks with the mujāhidīn of the state of the caliphate’). Following a sequence in which several elderly men, each dressed in a white jalabīya and wearing a white ghutra with a black ʿaqāl, enter a room and take their seats alongside the walls, the viewer sees five men who are apparently presiding over the meeting.

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Figure 2.1. Still from al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015), ʿAshāʾir sahl Nīnawā Tujaddid al-Bayʿa li-Khalīfat al-Muslimīn wa-Tatabaraʾ min al-Murtaddīn. Author’s archive.

The man in the middle, supposedly a representative of the tribal congregation, sits in front of the Islamic State’s banner and reads a text to the assembly – and to the viewers of the video – in which he affirms their loyalty to the Islamic State and condemns the ‘Safavide state’ led by the authorities in Baghdad. This is followed by a scene in which two men face each other and hold each other’s right hands in front of a male audience standing with their right arms stretched out in a horizontal direction.

Figure 2.2. Still from al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015), ʿAshāʾir sahl Nīnawā Tujaddid al-Bayʿa li-Khalīfat al-Muslimīn wa-Tatabaraʾ min al-Murtaddīn. Author’s archive.

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The person on the left holds a microphone and prompts the bayʿa, while the man on the right, together with the audience, repeats the following words after him: ‘In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. We swear an oath of allegiance to the commander of the faithful Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī [swearing that] we will listen and obey in what pleases and displeases [us], in hardship and ease, and following what has been handed down to us.’68 The sequence ends at this point, which indicates that it was the recording of these lines that was of greatest importance to the producers. The lines of the oath follow a h.adīth included in one of the canonical collections, which records the oath of allegiance vowed to the Prophet Muhammad by some of his companions: ‘We pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, pledging to listen and obey in hardship and in ease, in pleasure and displeasure even if someone is wrongly favoured over us, and pledging not to dispute the rule of those in authority and that we should speak the truth wherever we are and not to fear those who blame us regarding Allah.’69 By using a version of this tradition, the Islamic State’s leadership arguably seeks to invoke their audiences’ historical memories about the ways in which the Prophet Muhammad structured his authority over the nascent Muslim community. In this way, the leadership strives to elicit feelings of loyalty, pride, strength and ontological security in a supposedly unified community protected by God. With regard to the Islamic State’s iconography, described in Chapter 3, it will become even more apparent that the movement’s leadership has attempted in many ways to use these references to the Prophet to claim his authority over the umma’s spiritual and temporal affairs and transfer it symbolically onto themselves. Therefore, the public pronouncement of these words has been centred in ceremonies during which members of the Islamic State and other groups of people living in the territories under its control vowed their allegiance to the group and its leader. Furthermore, the symbolic meaning of the gestures performed by the participants is of great importance to the message conveyed in the video. As we see in the foreground, the prompter on the left, who is supposedly a representative of the Islamic State, shakes hands with a person who might be a representative of a tribal congregation. At the same time, the physical postures of the audience members in the background resemble this gesture, as each of them stretches out their hand to partake symbolically in the handshake.70 This handshake is an integral part of the symbolic representation of the contractual relationship between the regulatory authority that is the Islamic State and its subjects. Moreover, this example conflates bayʿa al-khās..sa and bayʿa al-ʿāmma, as it supposedly shows elitist members of both the Islamic State and the tribal congregation performing the oath, while ‘the masses’ in the background repeat the oath after them and imitate their gestures, thereby entering into the social contract with the ruling power as well.

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In fact, though, it remains unclear on this and other occasions whether both sides are equally articulating their desire to fulfil the duties that the divine ordinances impose on both the ruler and his subjects. This could be done through a verbal statement or a letter handed out by the Islamic State’s representatives, which specifies that the ruling authority not only accepts its subjects’ oath of allegiance, but also indicates its will to keep their part of the contract. In contrast, in the way it is presented in this particular instance – and in most of the Islamic State’s videos recording a bayʿa – it is merely an act of acclamation, which binds those repeating the oath after the prompter to the caliphate. Presented in this way, the people depicted in this video on the one hand become objects placed at the disposal of the Islamic State to prove that its rule is enforced in certain territories. On the other hand, it shows that the Islamic State is being met with widespread acceptance, and affirms the collective responsibility of Muslims to establish and strengthen the divinely revealed order in their immediate environment in order to ensure their personal salvation.

Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong: The Islamic State’s Legal System Through these performances and their videographic dissemination, the Islamic State’s ideologues seek to demonstrate the legitimacy of their regulatory authority. At the same time, they show that such performative acts symbolise the purification of humankind from evil forces, for the Islamic State commits Muslims to adhere to divine ordinances and guides them onto the ‘right’ path. This guidance of the Muslim community is based on the premise that the organisation of government and society reflects the Islamic State’s Manichaean ideology and that all competing models, as well as their immaterial and material representations, must be rejected theologically and obliterated physically. In the Islamic State’s understanding, the collision of tawh.īd and its opposites kufr, t.āghūt and shirk also becomes apparent in the realm of the law, wherein the plurality of man-made laws constitutes polytheism and thereby violates divine ordinances.71 The resolution of these collisions between absolute monotheism and all its material or immaterial antagonists is grounded in the application of the Qurʾanic paradigm ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar).72 In general, this principle has a wide normative and ethical scope. Similarly to provisions concerning the shūrā council, the Qurʾanic text, the h.adīth and the exegetical literature remain rather vague concerning the precise realisation of this tenet; thus, disputes about its interpretation date back to the early Umayyad period (van Ess 1991: 387–90). In addition, the sources do not specify who has the right to act in this way, whether there should be an institution overseeing the application of this principle or whether other structures would suit the desired regulation of social space instead.

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Nevertheless, there seems to be a consensus among Muslim scholars that this principle’s application is a collective obligation (fard. kifāya), exempting parts of the Muslim community as long as others fulfil it (Cook 2002: 18). Moreover, the classical literature, like modern theologians and jurisprudents, tends to differentiate according to what Cook (ibid.: 32–35) calls the ‘three modes tradition’ of exercising the principle: defensively by heart (bi-l-qalb), admonishingly by the tongue (bi-l-lisān) or, in a rather offensive fashion, using the hand (bi-l-yad) or the sword (bi-l-sayf ).73 Beyond this general framework, the questions of who has the right to enforce the tenet and how it is to be implemented are mainly left unanswered. It might be due to the lack of clear definitions and limits to this principle that the Islamic State’s leadership is keen to appropriate and reinterpret this dictum in accordance with the group’s ideological framework. This slogan moreover helps its ideologues to classify group norms and boundaries, as well as to substantiate its claim to political power. As outlined in the preceding chapter, entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State’s ideologues attempt to shape identities, direct and transform attitudes and behaviour, and redefine group norms and objectives. The great extent to which the Islamic State stresses the significance of the dictum ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ in the organisation of all spheres of society represents just such an attempt. It helps the group to define how ‘genuine’ Sunni Muslims should see themselves, how they relate to their social collectives and to others, what they should do and not do, and what the consequences of their behaviour are. Moreover, the way in which the Islamic State intertwines the dictum with its own ideological framework in making propositions to its audiences indicates that it uses the tenet in order to make it seem as if Sunnis’ individual and collective interests, and indeed their economic, ontological and existential security, depend upon the extent to which these aspects of their life conform to the norms, values and practices proposed by the movement. In this way, the Islamic State aspires to organise its (potential) followers’ activities so that a moral imperative stimulates the achievement of group goals and helps to strengthen the bonds between the individual members of the collective. In light of the group’s claim to political power, the Islamic State’s use of the tenet ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ not only provides a justification for rebellion against its opponents in general and state authorities in particular; it also buttresses the movement’s competitive activities aimed at ‘out-governing’ and permanently displacing the incumbent governments, identified as forces of t.āghūt or shirk. In this vein, the way in which the Islamic State has constructed governmental structures did not just emulate the functions of a modern state system and require it to appropriate, modify or recreate corresponding institutions. More importantly, the dictum grounds the Islamic State’s claims to absolute authority by placing any regulatory activity under the premise of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’. It thereby helps establish the group’s assertion of

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its monopoly of power, that is, the right to regulate any sphere of social organisation, religious practices and everyday life. Furthermore, the dictum also helps legitimise the way in which this power is exercised. Consequently, the doctrine has become an important tool in the Islamic State’s self-presentation as a regulatory authority, as well as in respect of its appraisals of social, political and cultural events and developments and its future visions. Above all, the Islamic State’s ideologues have only rarely provided theological reflections on the way in which The Right is to be commanded and The Wrong forbidden.74 Rather, they codified this precept by way of concrete exertion through the movement’s functionaries and institutions in order to make their classificatory power tangible in the everyday lives of their subjects. On a broader social level, the Islamic State uses the application of this dictum to convey an image of its fighters and other individual representatives as active members of the Muslim community and to deploy them into the midst of society. The streets of Raqqa, Mosul and Deir al-Zor were the battlegrounds on which they restored and preserved the divine ordinances. They commanded good through the ‘enforcement of religious commandments, settlement of conflicts and building of security’ and forbade wrong through ‘repression against enemies, punishment of criminals and annihilation of deviant religious practices’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 35–36). As its agents are also visibly engaged in the regulation of sectors such as urban waste management, public transport, the cleaning and restoration of urban roadways and other municipal services, and the (re)construction of mosques, the Islamic State sets the stage for its supporters to act as role models based on the precept of commanding right and forbidding wrong.75 At the same time, however, its leaders form an exclusive (and excluding) elite, chosen to use their qualifications to exert social control and to take over those responsibilities for which ordinary people are unfit. In this understanding, the divine ordinances will only come into full effect under the rule of an Islamic State – the state of truthfulness (dawlat al-h.aqq) (al-S.umūd 2009: 7) – which represents and executes these regulations. As it gained momentum in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State gradually established a system of legal institutions in the territories under its control, which helped to enforce the precept and formalise its application. Ideas of justice and its application are at the centre of the activities of many rebel groups in Iraq and Syria. However, the extent to which the Islamic State made efforts to put notions of security, justice, legitimacy and procedural regularity into practice, as well as its ability to enforce the ensuing regulations, distinguished the movement in the years 2013–16 from most other contestants in the area.76 As Mara Revkin (2016b: 11) puts it, the group’s legal system was perceived to be ‘generally more efficient and effective than the available alternatives’ – if alternatives were available at all. Consequently, institutions such as the ‘delegated committee’ (al-lajna

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al-mufawwad.a) mentioned above and its local branches, as well as several administrative offices (dīwān, pl. dawāwīn), helped to shape images of the implementation of ‘commanding good and forbidding wrong’ by providing the legal framework for and overseeing the exercise of regulatory authority.77 The above-mentioned video ‘The Structure of the Caliphate’ characterises the dawāwīn as ‘places for protecting rights’, which ‘assume the maintenance of public interests and protect the people’s religion and security’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). In other words, these institutions and their representatives were commissioned to help the Islamic State enter into a social contract with local populations, thus providing the institutional framework for the establishment of an ‘Islamic State identity’. Revkin (2016a: 3) has concisely characterised the main pillars of this contract, details of which were given in publicly displayed documents such as ‘The Charter of the City’ (wathīqat al-madīna),78 as comprising offers of ‘(1) justice and accountability, (2) protection, and (3) services’. At the same time, people had to comply with the laws laid down by the Islamic State in order to benefit from its rule. Beyond its material benefits, however, the Islamic State has time and again stressed the significance of the enforcement of these provisions for people’s ontological state of affairs. In other words, any action of the state, its institutions or its individual subjects is based on their belief in and recognition of this order. As a result, the social contract relates any individual to the community. Whether people abide by or violate the contract affects the extent to which every single member of the community, and the community at large, can fulfil their expectations of salvation.79 On the one hand, this calls for every individual to make this principle the leitmotif of all aspects of their life, their relationships with their environment and their interactions with others. This attitude would then help people to improve human behaviour according to divine commandments and eventually ensure the prosperity of the whole community. On the other hand, this notion suggests that there is an obligation for the Muslim community to empower those actors who dedicate themselves to effectively commanding right and forbidding wrong. In this conceptualisation, the dawāwīn provide instruments with which to build the social, political and legal framework needed for the development of such an attitude, and to enforce these regulations and sanction nonconforming behaviour that is seen as a violation of the social contract. To the extent that the Islamic State’s institutionalisation of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ has served to enforce observance of this social contract, its actions can be understood as a form of missionary work aimed primarily at the Sunni community. The long-term goal of this approach is to bring about fundamental social and political changes through education and the internalisation of the proclaimed values and norms. However, in the short term, the movement seems to aim at directing those under its rule towards compliance and public docility in the sense of

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‘acting as if ’. This means that while contrary internal beliefs have to be tolerated, publicly visible conforming behaviour is interpreted as signifying acceptance of the stipulated norms and values. Most prominent among the offices that the Islamic State established to give effect to the precept of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ was the dīwān al-h.isba. Its members – the muh.tasibūn (those who enforce h.isba) or rijāl al-h.isba – were commissioned to actively induce social change through the imposition of Islamic morality in public and private spaces. On the one hand, they fulfilled an educational function, commanding right and forbidding wrong by providing people with information on the Islamic State’s laws and the terms of the social contract in the sense of proselytisation (Al Aqeedi 2016). The Islamic State thus features the muh.tasibūn in numerous audiovisual media, showing them handing out leaflets published in the maktabat al-himma series, which clarify individual rights and duties and define rules of appropriate conduct, to the people. On the other hand, members of the h.isba regulated religious practices and oversaw public morals and compliance with the social contract by actively interfering in the lives of the population, exhorting them and punishing violations of religious law committed in both public and private.80 As I have noted elsewhere (Günther and Kaden 2016), these men patrolled the streets of cities like Raqqa, Mosul and Falluja in search of nonconforming behaviour. This included checking whether shops were closed during prayer hours and exhorting shop owners to join the community prayer (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2014a), as well as checking whether the weights used for scales at market stands were adjusted correctly (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Fallūja 2014), whether all men of age wore beards (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat alRaqqa 2015c) and whether women and men were dressed and behaved according to the Islamic State’s understanding of decency. Muh.tasibūn also searched people at checkpoints for forbidden items such as alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and engaged in their public destruction (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa 2014b, 2015c). They even raided houses of suspected magicians in search for items supposedly used to bewitch other people (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa 2015b). Beyond the supervision of public morals and the stimulation of social control, members of the h.isba also regulated everyday life as part of the Islamic State’s penitentiary complex. Police forces, muh.tasibūn and the all-female al-Khansāʾ brigade (liwāʾ al-khansāʾ)81 policed public and private places. They also enforced sharīʿa courts’ decisions, including public executions (al-maktab aliʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa 2015b; Homs Media Office 2015). March and Revkin (2015) categorise the crimes and forms of misconduct that were punished by these institutions into ‘crimes threatening the state and public order, including espionage, treason, collaborating with foreign interests, embezzlement of public funds; crimes against religion or public morality, including adultery, sodomy, blasphemy, apostasy, pornography, selling or consuming drugs and alcohol, and

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witchcraft; and crimes or torts against particular individuals, which include theft, burglary, home invasion, rape, armed robbery, and murder.’ As I will detail in Chapter 3, the muh.tasibūn also persecuted infringements of divine ordinances under the precept of ‘commanding good and forbidding wrong’ beyond the realm of individual conduct, in that they were involved in the destruction of various cultural properties identified by the Islamic State’s ideologues as manifestations of polytheism (shirk). In addition to executive forces such as the h.isba and liwāʾ al-khansāʾ, the judiciary is both an important element of the Islamic State’s regulatory authority and a viable instrument for making its propositions for an alternative order tangible to its subjects. In 2007, ISI had already proclaimed that the establishment of a legal system comprising the investiture of judges and commission of executive forces was imperative for the settlement of disputes and the maintenance of social order. Moreover, it claimed that it had already made substantial achievements in this sphere because it had appointed a judge as a member of the top-level leadership and created provincial committees for legal matters, each of which was chaired by a judge in order to administer justice regionally and locally (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007c: 41–44). Some seven years later, the Islamic State established the ‘Dīwān for Judgments and Grievances’ (dīwān al-qad.āʾ wa-l-maz.ālim) to be ‘responsible for clarifying and enforcing the sharʿī rulings . . . in addition to judging between the people’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). Judges employed in this court system reportedly announced verdicts in public places in order to educate the public about the rules of the Islamic State’s legal system and to involve the population actively in the execution of the law (Revkin 2016b: 25–26). In order, moreover, to stress the Islamic State’s accountability for misconduct and crimes committed by its own personnel, people were also urged to have resort to this dīwān to file complaints against the movement’s fighters and functionaries (ibid.: 31). This approach was not just an instrument with which to discipline its own rank and file, but was also used to highlight the perceived corruption and favouritism in the way in which state authorities handle transgressions of the law by their representatives and allies. In this vein, the Islamic State employed the judiciary as an instrument of its contentious politics. Invoking Q. 4.65,82 the movement’s ideologues claimed that ‘genuine’ Muslims had no choice but to turn away from positive law and any form of secular judiciary. Instead, people must turn to the Islamic State’s legal institutions if they want to comply with divine ordinances. As a result, the movement did not just ‘sacralise’ its legal system; as it increased its control over urban centres in Iraq and Syria, it disseminated leaflets in urban neighbourhoods warning people against pursuing their disputes through the state’s courts and specifically targeting lawyers and judges (Revkin 2016b: 12). In doing so, it sought to further undermine the sovereignty of the national authorities and their use of the law as a means

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to nurture people’s identification with the state. To close this circle, the Islamic State’s leadership argued that recognising its legal system is crucial to acceptance of an Islamic state, under whose rule alone Muslims can fulfil their expectations of salvation. In this vein, the Islamic State stressed that it is above all the interdigitation of orthodoxy and the judiciary that helps those ‘to whom the first-time implementation of Islamic law since the fall of the caliphate in the land of the two rivers was a great pleasure’ (muʾassasat al-furqān 2009c; see similar arguments in muʾassasat al-furqān 2007a), this being implemented because ‘our people themselves demanded it and insisted on it’ (al-Baghdādī 2006). It remains to be seen whether the populations of Iraq and Syria demanded that a particular interpretation of Islamic law be implemented, or whether they rather called for any institution to regulate the resolution of everyday disputes in the wake of state failure during violent conflict. Whatever the reason, the Islamic State was keen to meet these demands and to give shape gradually to the way in which it handled dispute resolution in the territories it controlled. Despite ideological affinities or antipathies, however, some people in Iraq and Syria seem to have perceived the Islamic State’s judiciary as being predominantly fair and the best available forum in which to resolve their legal disputes (Revkin 2016b). In demonstrating the seriousness of the movement’s legal system, occupancy of the law courts seemed to play an important role. Court buildings are another example of how, like other contentious movements, the Islamic State appropriates institutions and their material manifestations, which are vital to statebuilding and collective identity. The Islamic State’s official communiqués, sparse journalistic reports and accounts of people who have lived under the movement’s control convey the impression that it took a rather pragmatic approach to taking over buildings and institutions associated with the Syrian and Iraqi authorities, whom it officially despised. The movement would not only base its criminal and civil courts in the old court buildings of Raqqa, Mosul and other cities under its control to prove that it has prevailed over these state authorities – it also sought to appropriate the symbolic power of these buildings. Court buildings, as Linda Mulcahy (2011: 8) notes with regard to the recent history of law courts in Britain, ‘are typically different from surrounding buildings and exist as culturally specific markers in the civic landscape’. This is no different in the SWANA region, where law courts are also most often clearly visible, apparently occupy public space and have a certain psychological meaning, symbolising the effects of the law system on the individual, the collective and society at large. The architectural features of court buildings might indeed also have an impact on the socio-cognitive processes of both the judiciary and laypersons, such that some people may feel intimidated by the site alone (see Maass et al. 2000). In occupying court buildings, the Islamic State arguably exploited these features. These spaces of judicial activity thus not only helped the movement buttress its claims to regulatory authority and strengthen

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its image as a force bringing justice, fairness and procedural regularity; using these sites also served to epitomise the Islamic State’s claim to exert regulatory authority, a claim exemplified by hoisting the black flag in front of or on top of these buildings, or by attaching posters or banners to the building’s walls. Court buildings also epitomised the bureaucratisation and institutionalisation of the social contract between the movement as a ruling force and the ordinary population as its subjects. Therefore, these very buildings both reflected the legal system administered inside them and shaped the imaginations of people about this system and its impact on their lives, ultimately possibly also tailoring their behaviour. In conclusion, this chapter has demonstrated that the ability of the Islamic State’s ideologues to act as entrepreneurs of identity is essentially determined by the way in which they convey their idea of a very specific social and political order, that is, ‘the caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa). Their conceptualisation of this order is founded on the appropriation of a range of ideas drawn from the Qurʾan and the prophetic tradition. Appropriation here refers to an act of meaning-making through ‘borrowing, reusing, or re-contextualising existing elements within a new work . . . to renegotiate the meaning of the original in a different context’ (Rowe 2011); it thus not only implies seizing (on) something, but also connotes the act of making the material or mental object seized ‘one’s own’ and linking it to one’s situation. Only from this point of view, so this chapter has argued, could the Islamic State’s ideologues convey the idea of an emerging caliphate as being essential to Sunni identity, propose this particular form of rulership as being compatible with its audiences’ historical memories, beliefs, norms, values and future aspirations, and formulate concrete instructions on how ‘genuine’ Sunni Muslims should see themselves, how they should relate to their social collectives and to others, what they should do and not do, and what the consequences of their behaviour would be. Such a point of view, the skills of such entrepreneurs of identity and the appeal of their message must be assessed here in light of the developments described in the first chapter. The disintegration of the state and social order in Iraq and Syria not only created a political vacuum, which had partly existed long before the outbreak of armed conflicts, but also ontological and existential insecurities that are more important in the context of this book. This, I argue, means that against the background of the extensive erosion of societal binding forces described in Chapter 1, the formation of social identities – with the intention to shape people’s actions and behaviour – by the Islamic State’s ideologues was possible only through the establishment of concrete social practices that made the movement’s claim to absolute regulatory authority tangible for its subjects. At the same time, it is very clear that the order designed by the Islamic State’s ideologues – and with it, the social practices that manifested it – were not only intended to substitute shattered principles of social order, but to initiate a fundamental break

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with previous and current structures ordering state and society. This required a fixed ontological framework, which I describe as an Islamic State identity, used to classify group boundaries and the meaning of ‘genuine’ Islam. The work of this authority is based on a social contract (ʿahd) that not only positions rulers and the ruled in a relationship of mutual recognition, but also links questions of discipline, social morality and deference to the social contract to the fulfilment of expectations of salvation. Ordering human communitarisation is thus not an end in itself; instead, the ordering structure that is the caliphate appears here as the fulfilment of divine ordinances. I argue that one social practice in particular – that is, the oath of allegiance to the caliph (bayʿa) – helped to make this claim to unrestricted regulatory authority tangible, and testifies to the recognition of the caliphate as an ordering structure given by divine ordinances. At the same time, through appropriation and performance of a prophetic tradition, this practice manifests the social-revolutionary project of the Islamic State not only as an emulation, but also as a continuation, of the efforts of the Prophet Muhammad. In this way, this practice basically serves to define the essence and limits of Muslimness. Practices based on the principle of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar) show the attempt by the Islamic State’s ideologues to shape social identities through the regulation of behaviour even more comprehensively than in the performance of bayʿa. This abstract dictum was exerted and embodied in particular by the members of the h.isba and the liwāʾ al-khansāʾ. Through the presence of the muh.tasibūn, which was tangible in people’s everyday lives, and its clear interventions in the living environment of local communities, an Islamic State identity was constructed beyond the theoretical level. It was given expression through the marking of belonging to the in-group or the out-group, be it through corporal punishments of alleged nonconformists, shops that were closed due to violation of religious regulations or religious sites that were destroyed on charges of polytheism. Moreover, the Islamic State’s ideologues were keen to capture many of these instances, so that their concept of a ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’, its establishment through social practices and its identity-shaping forces would be visible to audiences across the globe.

Notes 1. On noms de guerre as a ‘discursive mechanism that constructs identities of DĀʿISH fighters’, see Gatt (2020: 92–96). 2. I will not examine al-Zarqāwī’s biography in any detail, as it has already been the subject of numerous studies on the evolution of the Islamic State. See, inter alia, Gerges (2016: 50–60); Günther (2014: 62–70); Awdah, ʿAbd al-Jayyid and al-ʿAz.mah (2015); Nas.rāwī (2006); Milelli (2006); ʿAbd al-Rah.īm (2005); Husayn (2005); Brisard and Martinez (2005); and Napoleoni (2005a, 2005b).

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3. For the full transcript of Colin Powell’s remarks to the United Nations Security Council and the slides of his presentation, see http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ iraq/2003/iraq-030205-powell-un-17300pf.htm (accessed 24 April 2017). 4. See al-Zarqāwī (2004f ) and bin Ladin (2004). For a detailed discussion of these statements, see Günther (2014: 162–64). The discrepancies between al-Zarqāwī and al-Qaida central revolved particularly around al-Zarqāwī’s vicious tactics against, and adamant takfīrī stance towards, Muslim opponents in general and the Shia in particular. These debates cannot be covered in detail here. See, among others, Gerges (2016) and Günther (2014). 5. Measured by the dozens of elegies circulating on Jihadi web forums following his death, it is clear that despite all the criticism of the modus operandi of his group, al-Zarqāwī had high symbolic value for the global Jihadist movement and was consequently revered as a martyr (Günther 2014: 179–80). 6. The emergence and decline of the US-backed ‘S.ah.wa’ councils, their tactical alliances with and integration into the US ‘surge’ strategy, and the failures of the Iraqi government to integrate these measures into a long-term strategy of sociopolitical reconciliation between the central authorities and Sunni forces cannot be discussed in detail here. See, among others, Günther (2014: 266–73); Lynch (2011); Benraad (2011); Berman, Shapiro and Felter (2011); Baram (2009); and Kilcullen (2007). 7. For a list of the factions that supposedly joined the MSC, see Günther (2014: 176). 8. Surveys from October 2005 show a clear distinction in public opinion in the predominantly Sunni governorates between attacks on coalition troops and attacks on Iraqis: the former were assessed as acts of freedom fighters or patriots, the latter as acts of terrorists or criminals (see US Department of Defense 2006: 32). 9. Al-Muhājir succeeded al-Zarqawi in leading AQI and later served as the ‘minister of war’ in the Islamic State of Iraq. On his proclamation as al-Zarqāwī’s heir, see al-Fajr (2006). Soon thereafter, Usama bin Ladin officially recognised al-Muhājir as the new leader of AQI. On al-Muhājir’s biography, see Filkins and Burns (2006) and Fishman (2006). 10. In fact, the official announcement of ISI had been issued by yet another evolutionary stage of al-Zarqawi’s group, the ‘Alliance of the Scented Ones’ (h.ilf al-mut.ayyabīn). See Günther (2015a: 37–39). 11. See also Lynch (2010); McCants (2015b); al-Shishani (2014); and Nasira (2010). 12. For a comprehensive discussion of the definition of ‘territorial control‘ in the case of the Islamic State, see Gilsinian (2014). 13. See, among others, Younis and Mahdy (2016); Cordesman and Khazai (2014: 119–39); Sawaan (2012); and Le Billon (2008). 14. The scope of this book does not allow for a detailed examination of Iraq’s highly unsustainable economic policy. For an overview, see, among others, Cordesman and Khazai (2014: 283–20) and Sassoon (2011). Nor will the extent to which economic factors were crucial to the ISI’s resurgence be given detailed consideration here. Arguably, ISI’s (and other rebel groups’) military strategy also included targeting central administrative facilities, civil infrastructure and Iraq’s oil industry, thus exploiting the country’s rentier state policies. Their attacks were thus designed to limit Iraq’s economic performance and hinder its efforts to rebuild the civilian infrastructure that was essential to economic growth and the reduction of unemployment, which in turn fuelled popular discontent with government policies. See, among others, Cordesman (2008). 15. Colin Kahl (2010) notes the killing or capture of ‘34 out of the top 42 AQI leaders’ between February and August 2010, but neither discloses his sources nor names his criteria for designating a ‘top leader’ as such in the ISI. See also Shanker (2010).

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16. See video on the group’s proclamation released on 23 January 2012 at http://jihadology .net/2012/01/24/al-manarah-al-bay%E1%B8%8Da-foundation-for-media-productionpresents-for-the-people-of-syria-from-the-mujahidin-of-syria-in-the-fields-of-jihad-jab hah-al-nu%E1%B9%A3rah-the-front-of-victory/ (accessed 16 May 2017). For a thorough assessment of Jabhat al-Nusra’s evolution see Lister (2015). 17. In contrast to individual obligations (fard. ʿayn), such as prayer, fasting, alms and pilgrimage, a collective obligation (fard. kifāya) exempts parts of the Muslim community as long as others fulfil it. Except for the H.anafī school of law, most jurists understand the terms wājib and fard. as being synonymously applicable to designating a binding norm for action. 18. The h.adīth (Musnad Ahmad, 18406) in full is: ‘Prophethood will remain among you for as long as Allah wishes. Then Allah will remove it whenever He wishes to remove it, and there will be a caliphate upon the prophetic way. It will last for as long as Allah wishes it to last, then Allah will remove it whenever He wishes to remove it. Then there will be an abiding dynasty, and it will remain for as long as Allah wishes it to remain. Then Allah will remove it whenever He wishes to remove it. Then there will be tyrannical (forceful) kingship, and it will remain for as long as Allah wishes it to remain. Then He will remove it whenever He wishes to remove it, and then there will be a caliphate upon the prophetic way.’ Some clerics, however, consider this h.adīth weak due to its weak isnād. 19. Usama bin Ladin, in a speech released in 2008, assessed that the foremost reason for which the Islamic State of Iraq was attacked and treated with hostility by forces from within and outside of the country lay in the fact that they were closest to the truth and the way of the Prophet, proclaiming the truth and pleasing the creator. 20. For their biographies and juridical conceptualisations of rulership and society, see Hassan (2017); Anjum (2012); Crone (2004); Lambton (1991); Crone and Hinds (1986); and Nagel (1981). 21. See Q. 11.118–19: ‘And if your Lord had willed, He could have made mankind one community; but they will not cease to differ. Except whom your Lord has given mercy, and for that He created them.’ 22. Early Muslim theorists used the metaphor of the flock that needs a shepherd to guide it on the right path and to assert the necessity of structures of leadership, so that the Muslim community will not go astray from what has been commanded in the Scripture (van Ess 2015: 27–28). It stands to reason that some have compared this idea of any form of state taming natural human inclinations to chaos to Hobbes’ conceptualisation of the Leviathan. For an overview of the exegetical history of ulū ’l-amr, see Anjum (2012: 52). 23. ‘And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority.” They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?” Allah said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”’(2.30). ‘O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is the best [way] and best in result.’ (4.59). ‘And when there comes to them information about [public] security or fear, they spread it around. But if they had referred it back to the Messenger or to those of authority among them, then the ones who [can] draw correct conclusions from it would have known about it. And if not for the favour of Allah upon you and His mercy, you would have followed Satan, except for a few.’ (4.83). 24. This slogan refers to Q. 8.39 and, along with similar phrases, is often invoked to outline the goal of the jihadist endeavour.

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25. This notion, however, does not tell us anything about the degree of actual acceptance of this order by the ruled. 26. See muʾassasat al-furqān (2007c: 5). 27. The ministries and ministers named in this video release (al-Jubūrī 2007) were as follows: Abū ʿAbd ar-Rah.mān al-Falāh.ī: Prime Minister to the Commander of the Faithful (al-wazīr al-awwal li-amīr al-muʾminīn); Abū H . amza al-Muhājir: Minister of War (wazīr li-l-h.arb); Abū ʿUthmān at-Tamīmī: Minister for Religious Affairs (wazīr li-l-hayʾāt aš-šarʿīya); Abū Bakr al-Jubūrī: Minister for Public Affairs (wazīr li-l-ʿalāqāti l-ʿāma); Abū ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Janābī: Minister for General Security (wazīr li-l-amn al-ʿām); Abū Muh. ammad al-Mashhadānī: Minister for Information (wazīr li-l-iʿlām); Abū ʿAbd al-Qādir al-ʿIsāwī: Minister for Martyrs and Prisoners (wazīr li-shuʾūn al-shuhadāʾ wa ’l-asrā); Abū Ah.mad al-Janābī: Minister for Oil (wazīr li ’n-nift.); Mus.t.afā al-Aʿrajī: Minister for Agriculture and Fishery (wazīr li-z-zirāʿa wa-th-tharwat as-samakīya); Abū ʿAbdallāh azZaydī: Minister of Health (wazīr li-s.-s.ih.h.a). In addition, ISI’s Ministry of Information proclaimed on 25 August 2007 the establishment of a Ministry of Education (wizārat al-taʿlīm) under the leadership of Muh.ammad Khalīl al-Badrī. 28. See muʾassasat al-furqān (2009b). 29. The institutional structure described in this video is divided into fourteen ministries and five further ‘committees’ (hayʾāt) constituting the central authorities. Branches of these authoritative institutions consequently form the governing bodies of the Islamic State’s separate provinces. 30. See Bunzel (2015: 17–20) and Günther (2014: 203–4). Al-ʿAdnānī also referred to this accusation in the proclamation of the caliphate by reminding fighters in other rebel groups: ‘If your leaders whisper to you claiming it is not a caliphate, then remember how long they whispered to you claiming that it was not a state but rather a fictional, cardboard entity, until its certain news reached you. It is a state’ (al-ʿAdnānī 2014b). 31. Many of the texts and audio messages of the Islamic State and its predecessors use this phrase from the Qurʾanic text (Q. 61.4) to refer to the movement’s fighters and representatives as building a unified, solid structure. 32. Classical sources assign a wide range of functions and competences to this advisory committee. On these functions and competences, as well as on the etymology of the term and its use in the Qurʾan see Badry (1998). 33. On the practice of shūrā and its use in struggles over power in the formative period of Islam see Anjum (2012: 37–92). 34. Arguably, this objective draws attention to the meaning ascribed to the modern term majlis shūrā, which in some instances has been adduced to argue for democracy-like governance practised during the time of the Prophet or for the identification of shūrā and democracy. See, among others, Khan (2014); Shavit (2010); Rahman (2009); Hatina (2007: 53–54); and Krämer (1999). 35. See Crone (2001: 9). Taking a different view, Rotter (1982: 12–13) identifies the purpose of shūrā first and foremost as an assembly of Qurashī leaders based on pre-Islamic decision-making practices. Badry (1998: 128) argues in a similar sense. 36. Meir Hatina (2007: 89), examining the writings of the Egyptian activist Faraj ʿAlī Fawda, lists six different methods of choosing the ruler used in the case of the first caliphs. These were: ‘(1) Selection by authority figures during Abu Bakr’s time; (2) Nomination by a sealed note in the case of ‘Umar; (3) Selection from a small pool of candidates in the case of ‘Uthman; (4) The granting of bayʿa, or an oath of loyalty, by several regional governors in the case of ‘Ali; (5) Force and the sword in Muʿawiya’s time; and (6) Heredity in ʿtim al-Malik’s time.’ See also Anjum (2012: 37–92).

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37. This notion is inspired by a number of messianic-apocalyptic ah.ādīth, e.g. ‘There will always be a group in my umma that will fight according to the order of Allah, victorious over their enemies and there will be no harm on them from their contradictors until the hour comes and they will be triumphant.’ See Muslim 1921; Musnad Ah.mad 22320; alBukhārī 36040. 38. See muʾassasat al-furqān (2007c: 15–16) and al-Juwaynī (1979: 232). 39. See, among others, Johnston et al. (2016); Abū Hanieh and Abū-Rummān (2015); and Orton (2016: 24–36). 40. Abū Hanieh and Abū-Rummān (2015: 269) also argue that the rulings of the shūrā council ‘seem to be primarily advisory (muʿlima) rather than obligatory (mulzima)’ without elaborating further on their impression. 41. On the debate over the shūrā’s binding nature among modern Egyptian Islamic scholars, see Hatina (2007: 145–46). 42. See al-S.umūd (2009: 14). 43. H . adīth: ‘It is not permissible for three persons on foreign soil not to appoint one among them as a leader’ [lā yah.illu li-thalāthati nafarrin yakūnūna bi-falātin min al-ard. illā ammarū ʿalayhim ah.ad (variation: lā yah.illu li-thalāthati nafarrin yakūnūna bi-ard. falāt illā ammarū ʿalayhim ah.ad)] (Ibn H.anbal 176–177/2). ISI’s texts attribute a similar meaning to the following tradition: ‘When three persons set out on a journey, they should appoint one of them as their leader’ [(Id.ā kharaja thalātha fi-safar fa ’l-yuʾammirū ah.aduhum) (Abū Dāʿūd 2272/2608 and 2273/2609). See exegesis at al-Shawkānī: ‘Nayl al-awt.ār’ 9/157 (3872/3873); al-Māwardī c.1950: 3; al-Qalʿī: ‘Tahdhīb al-riyāsa wa-tartīb al-siyāsa’, p. 74] and compare it with the former. 44. ‘al-h.ajjʿibāda lā tas.ih.h. illā bi-imām, kadhālika al-zakāt ʿibāda lā tas.ih.h. illā bi-iʿt.āʾihā liimām.’ See al-S.umūd (2009: 26). 45. Based on concepts we find in al-Māwardī ca. (1950: 16–18); al-Juwaynī (1979: 73); and al-Baghdādī (1928: 271). 46. Al-Māwardī refers to the leader of the Muslim community generally as imām, but also considers the title of Caliph – designating the Prophet’s (not God’s) representative – to be appropriate. See al-Māwardī ca. (1950: 15); Ibn Khaldūn (2005: 123–25) argues in a similar manner. 47. This snippet of Awlākī’s speech had also been included in the first part of a series of videos entitled Iqāma al-dawla al-islāmīya (The Establishment of the Islamic State; muʾassasat aliʿtis.ām 2013), wherein the Islamic State’s ideologues saw fit to use this reference to bolster the genealogy they had ascribed to Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī. 48. For an overview of the compendia listing the virtues of the ideal ruler, see van Ess (1992: 129–30). 49. See van Ess (1997: 709–11); and more extensively, al-Dumayjī (1983: 265–68); alMāwardī (c.1950: 4); and Lambton (1991: 79). For variations of the tradition grounding this concept and subsequent conflicts, see Kister (1994: 96–98). 50. According to al-Juwaynī, who ‘simply dropped the Qurayshī lineage requirement from the conditions of imamate in order to make it attainable to his patrons’ (Anjum 2012: 124), this requirement for an imām emerged in deference to the Prophet’s lineage when nobody claiming Qurashī descent aspired to the caliphate. However, understood as a legal requirement, it was based on assumptions (z.ann, pl. z.unūn) rather than evidence. Juwaynī therefore argued that a competent, i.e. suitable (kāfin), devout (wariʿ) and knowledgeable (ʿālim) aspirant is to be supported even if his descent is unclear. See al-Juwaynī (1979: 106–9, 438–39). We can detect this stance particularly among Sunni scholars of the fifth/ eleventh to eighth/fourteenth centuries, who, as Crone (1994) argues, adopted a quietist

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53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

65.

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position towards the rulers. In addition, the Kharijites referred to this tradition when they sought to justify their leaders being labelled amīr al-muʾminīn even if they could not prove a Qurashī line of descent. It should be noted, though, that the Islamic State has repeatedly rejected comparisons with the Kharijite movement; see e.g. al-Baghdādī (2007). See e.g. van Ess (2015) and Anjum (2012: 112). In a leaflet entitled muddū-l-ayādī li-bayʿat al-Baghdādī (Stretch out the Hands for an Oath of Allegiance to al-Baghdādī), one of the movement’s clerics, Turkī al-Binʾalī, provides a list of Abū Bakr’s ancestors (al-Binʿalī 2014). For a thorough critique of the lineage presented in this leaflet, see https://da3ich.wordpress.com (2014) (accessed 29 April 2021). The leaflet, supposedly designed to be handed out to local populations, is a shortened version of a twenty-five-page treatise with the same title. Literally ‘the Benevolent, the Sagacious’, two of the asmāʾ al-h.usnā, the ‘most beautiful names’ attributed solely to God. See Gardet (2012). For early debates surrounding claims for the caliph’s interpretive authority over unsettled spheres of law, see Anjum (2012: 85–86). Closely following al-Māwardī’s al-ah.kām al-sult.ānīya, which had been partly reprinted in the Islamic State’s maktabat al-himma publication series. See Hassan (2017: 101–2). See also Al-Tamimi (2016a, 2016b). Tom Kaden and I have drawn this conclusion from a close reading of the Islamic State’s proclamation of the caliphate, Hādhā waʿd Allāh (This is the Promise of God), which reveals a similar approach (Günther and Kaden 2016: 11). We noted that in the passage of the text quoted above, most of the qualifications and honorific attributes are presented before Abū Bakr’s name is mentioned. Analysing the text from a Weberian perspective, we suggested that the Islamic State presents Abū Bakr as a person with extraordinary qualifications and endows him with charismatic authority. However, the way in which the above-quoted sequence is ordered indicates a dissociation of the charismatic authority of the person who is Abū Bakr from the charisma ascribed to the office of caliph that he holds. See also Landau-Tasseron (2010) and Tyan (2012). Audiovisual representations of such performances have also been issued by several regional and international affiliates of the Islamic State. As al-Qaida Central had done before, in some cases the movement also confirmed these pledges over the media. In general, though, the Islamic State’s franchising strategy differed from that of al-Qaida in that both its affiliates and the movement itself do not rely on the caliph’s confirmation for the bayʿa to become effective. See Holtmann (2014). See, among others, Maktabat al-Himma (2016); al-Azdī (2013); and muʾassasat al-furqān (2007c). See also Maktabat al-Himma (2015a), a leaflet outlining the ‘Provisions for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Caliphate’ (ah.kām bayʿat al-khilāfa). The flyer was supposedly produced for distribution in the territories controlled by the Islamic State. ‘O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you.’ ‘man māta wa-laysa fī ʿunqihi bayʿa fa-māta mītatan jāhilīya’. Kister (1994: 106) notes that ‘it is quite in character that this tradition was transmitted by Muʿāwiya’. Despite its chain of transmission, the tradition had been included in Muslim’s compendium (Sah.īh. Muslim 4/549; 1851). See, inter alia, al-Dumayjī (1983).

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66. There are numerous examples showing people – children and adults alike – lauding the Islamic State by pledging allegiance to Abū Bakr. For early instances of individual and collective advocates throughout the region demonstrating their support, see Al-Tamimi (2013). 67. Other instances of tribal congregations ‘renewing’ their allegiance to the Islamic State can be found in al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015j, 2015l). 68. ‘Bi-ism allāh al-rah.mān al-rah.īm. Nubāyiʿu amīr al-muʾminīn, Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, ʿalā l-samʿi wa ’l-t.āʿa; fi ’l-manshat. wa ’l-makrah’ wa ’l-ʿusr wa ’l-yusr wa-ʿalā atharatin ʿalynā.’ The wording slightly deviates from the tradition described below in that it places ‘pleasure and displeasure’ before ‘hardships and ease’. 69. See Muslim (1709). Other h.adīth collections refer to different occasions on which the Prophet taught his companions how to swear allegiance to him, thus recording slight variations in wording, which are also to be found in several of the Islamic State’s publications. For instance, a 2009 document quotes a h.adīth in which the prophet answers a query of his companions by saying: ‘Swear me allegiance by listening and obeying, with activity and inaction, in what pleases and displeases [you], by commanding good and forbidding wrong.’ See Anonymous (2009: 29) and h.adīth compilations referred to therein. 70. The above-mentioned leaflet, muddū ’l-ayādī li-bayʿat al-Baghdādī (Stretch out Your Hands for an Oath of Allegiance to al-Baghdādī), published in the Maktabat al-himma series, takes up this motif. Additionally, another video, published in September 2015, depicts seven men (some of whom are emissaries of the Islamic State, whereas others are representatives of the Āl Kalash clans that belong to the Jubūr tribe) all stretching out their arms and putting their hands together while swearing the oath of allegiance. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015l). 71. As Mara Revkin (2016b: 12) notes, the main jihadist critique of positive law adopted by the Islamic State had been conceptualised by the Jordanian ideologist Abū Muh.ammad al-Maqdisī, al-Zarqāwī’s former mentor and one of his harshest critics. 72. E.g. 3.104: ‘And let there be [arising] from you a nation [umma] inviting to [all that is] good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and those will be the successful ones.’ This call also appears in different contexts in seven other verses in the Qurʾan (3.110, 3.114, 7.157, 9.71, 9.112, 22.41 and 31.17). 73. See also van Ess (1991: 387–90; 1997: 674–75). 74. See the rather rare accounts in muʾassasat al-furqān (2007c: 35–37). 75. See e.g. al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2014b, 2016a, 2015f ); al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa (2014a); and al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Anbār (2014). 76. When state structures vanished and crime proliferated, many rebel groups responded to the needs of local populations by establishing courts and providing other ways of solving disputes (see MacFarquhar 2013; also Ledwidge 2017: 75–78). In addition to the Islamic State, Hayʾāt Tah.rīr al-Shām (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nus.ra) has also successfully exerted regulatory authority on a wider scale in some parts of Syria. See al-Dassouky (2017). 77. The areas of responsibility of the fourteen dawāwīn listed in the ‘Structure of the Caliphate’ video range from the judiciary over the regulation of theology and religious practice to the management of means of subsistence, military matters, state finances, media, education and other areas. See muʾassasat al-furqān (2016). Furthermore, in contrast to the administrative structure outlined in 2006–7, the labels for the top-level administrative institutions were changed from ‘ministries’ (wizārāt) to ‘diwans’ (dawāwīn), probably to emphasise the reference to early Islamic forms of administrative organisation; see Duri et al. (2012) and Zaman et al. (2012).

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78. The title of the document refers to another document that has been regarded as the constitution of the first Islamic state in Medina in 622. It outlined the social contract between the members of the nascent Muslim community, thus constituting one of the foundational documents of the umma (see, inter alia, Arjomand 2009; Lecker 2004; and Berween 2003). The document disseminated by the Islamic State is thus another part of the movement’s symbolic repertoire, with which it seeks to appropriate Muslims’ historical memories and embed them into its ideological framework. 79. On the interdigitation of belief and action in different traditions, see Johansen (1999). 80. On the internal structure of the Islamic State’s h.isba forces, see Al-Tamimi (2018); on their actions in Mosul, see Al Aqeedi (2016). On h.isba in Islamic jurisprudence, see Cahen et al. 2012; Ghabin 2009; and Klein 2006. On h.isba as a tool in the contentious politics of Islamist movements, see Meijer (2011). 81. On the naming of the liwāʾ al-khansāʾ and its discursive function, see Gatt (2020: 88–92). On the role of women in the Islamic State in general and the al-Khansāʾ brigade in particular, see, among others, Khelghat-Doost (2017); Del Re (2015); Cheikh and Pierret (2015); Rafiq and Malik (2015); and Allison and Barnes (2015). On the brigade’s 2014 ‘manifesto’, see C. Winter (2015) and Mohagheghi (2015). 82. ‘But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you, [O Muhammad], judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged and submit in [full, willing] submission.’

Chapter 3

Iconography and Iconoclasm

In the twenty-first century, situations of conflict in general, and of violent political conflict in particular, hardly seem possible or conceivable without images. Since contemporary conflicts without images are conflicts without a public (Müller and Knieper 2005; Löffelholz 2001), at certain points, overwhelming amounts of still and moving images are disseminated, calling on us – a global audience – to assess and make sense of what we see, position ourselves in relation to it and engage with what we have just witnessed. At the same time, we hardly gain any clarity about what is ‘really’ happening in a conflict such as the wars in Syria and Iraq, because they are image wars (Rossipal 2016) in a double sense: they are wars of images, insofar as the actors involved not only articulate their worldviews and perspectives on the conflict through visual representations, but indeed understand images as a weapon. Furthermore, they are wars about images, in that actors strive for the prerogative of reading reality through visuals in order to shape others’ appraisals of social and political facts and developments. Beginning with the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing occupation, the actors involved in the violent conflicts in Syria and Iraq orientated their action to a great extent towards a televisual mise en scéne and, in some cases, provided spectators with real-time images of extensively documented conflicts. At the same time, images distributed in the mass media were best suited to being used by all kinds of actors for reinterpretation and appropriation, and such actors deployed them to justify their own causes publicly and create and strengthen certain attitudinal patterns among the targeted audiences. Entrepreneurs of identity make use of the fact that images, whether still or moving, are meaning-making devices that

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have their effect through sensing rather than language (Mitchell 2007; Boehm 2007, 2015) and have a more powerful effect on their recipients than texts, as they are ‘processed faster, categorized more efficiently and remembered better’ (Eder 2017: 67).1 Interwoven with pre-printed narratives, images may trigger the sensation of the authentic eyewitness and elicit emotions that potentially have a more lasting effect on the recipient than abstract textual or audio-propagated content (Meyer et al. 2000: 133–34). Against this background, in situations of conflict, sociopolitical actors use audiovisual media to evoke an immediate experience of what is seen and heard, rendering images and sounds key for audiences’ appraisal of a specific situation. Entrepreneurs of identity take advantage of the fact that images operate as collective stimuli in political situations and symbolise group concerns. They take part in conflicts by triggering emotions in the conflicting parties, their elites and allies, in external observers and the general public. They fuel or temper adversarial emotions, enthuse or frighten supporters, keep reciprocal affects in groups alive, suppress or foster feelings of guilt or shame, block or facilitate empathy with opponents and victims. They focus on moral issues, on concerns and expressions of social groups, on their gain and loss of power and status. In doing so, images often trigger collective situations saturated with group feelings, affective contagion and affective scripts for possible action. More specifically, images select, intensify, combine and frame stimuli for affective responses, define targets of shared emotions, make group members aware that they share them and show bodily and facial expressions in visual proximity. (Eder 2017: 66) Entrepreneurs of identity employ such affective forces to make salient and emotionally charge the categories of social identities they define. They seek to reduce the complexity of context and direct the audience’s attention to specific messages. In this way, the conscious separation between medium and object might be eliminated, hampering the audience’s reflections on the practices and context they witness. This in turn might impede the viewers’ ability to establish a cognitive distance between themselves and what they see.2 Audiovisuals are thus not produced simply to represent or display reality, but rather help sociopolitical actors to create it in the first place. They therefore become instruments of power with and through which people act, and might be deployed ‘not only as a visual military weapon but also as a means of humiliation and disablement of the opponent and finally as a modern torture instrument’ (Paul 2005: 11). It can therefore be argued that the physical and medialised escalations of a conflict are to a certain extent interdependent, the spiral of violence on the ground reflecting and fuelling the drastic content of the disseminated images and vice versa. At the same time,

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these images provide an orderly structure to the horror of war, which can hardly be reproduced or described in words. The fact that, at times, still and moving images have accounted for more than three quarters of the Islamic State’s publications (Zelin 2015) is not just an expression of the increasing use of images in communication practices worldwide. This figure also shows that the Islamic State’s ideologues obviously assumed that visualisations would help them to convey their messages to the widest possible audience, in a way favourable to the construction of an ‘Islamic State identity’, the establishment of intragroup coherence and the structuring of people’s world­ views. In what follows, I will show not only that images are an eminently important means of communication for the Islamic State, but that they can help us understand two things that are crucial for its identity-building project. First, the ideas discussed in Chapter 2 are the epistemic background for the Islamic State’s image production. Hardly any of the images in the group’s online magazines, nor its photo reports or its numerous videos, some of which last more than an hour, are ultimately comprehensible without numerous references to the conceptualisation of authority and society discussed above. Second, visualisations – in images or on the ground – are transmitters for a symbolic repertoire that manifests the above-mentioned concepts, making them sensually perceptible. These two components are, I argue, central to audiovisuality, that is, the ability of entrepreneurs of identity to manipulate social identities as they guide our vision and listening (see Günther and Pfeifer 2020). To elaborate on this process, I will, in the first part of this chapter, probe the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues employ audiovisuality as they expound the dangers to Muslims and Islam as a whole, reflect on the good life in the caliphate, demonstrate the Islamic State’s strength and call on their audiences to confront the forces threatening the unity of Islam from within. I argue that the audiovisual composition of these narratives not only reflects the Islamic State’s ideological framework, but shows in an exemplary way the sonic and visual means with which the group’s ideologues have sought to shape the world­views of their audiences, and thus their social identities. I will also use these examples to illustrate how strongly audiovisuality, classificatory power and the construction of group-based identities are interrelated, especially regarding the positive connotation of the self and the negative stigmatisation of ‘the Other’. This link is also evident in the second part of this chapter, in which I concentrate on the Islamic State’s destruction of cultural properties. Much more explicitly than above, I will demonstrate here the consequences of the group’s selfunderstanding as ‘those who command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amarūn bi-lmaʿrūf wa-l-nah.ūn ʿan al-munkar). Here, the denigration of a collectivised Other and the simultaneous glorification of the self is translated into physical action, which is directed against people but especially against cultural properties that are

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of outstanding importance for the social identities of social collectives identified as ‘heretical’ or hostile.

The Islamic State’s Audiovisuality Images are an important tool of communication and knowledge in the twentyfirst century, one which like language structures the way in which people make sense of themselves, others and their environment (see Mitchell 2008, 2012). In the grip of global image-centric habits, however, it is sometimes forgotten that the aural is equally important as the visual. Listening, like vision, is neither limited to physiological activity nor purely sociocultural. Both domains are important parts of the sensory field and essential modalities of knowledge and meaning creation, through which individual and collective identities are enacted. It thus appears almost trivial to assert that visual and sonic practices do not simply constitute an essential element of human communication, or merely represent ideologies and horizons of experience unconnected to these practices. As cultural artefacts, rather, they are important for defining the nature and boundaries of social collectives, and thus formative of social identities. Unlike abstract textual descriptions, they make belonging comprehensible and tangible in a multisensory way. Consequently, entrepreneurs of identity use visual and sonic practices to produce a socially effective symbolic repertoire, communicate with their audiences, describe and appraise sociopolitical developments and facts, and propose and justify specific visions of individual life and society that resonate with their (potential) followers’ aspirations. This repertoire thus becomes part of the social community itself, in a process that I will characterise below as ontological amalgamation. At the same time, it is employed by entrepreneurs of identity to create a specific perspective on the world, shape their targeted audiences’ perceptions, elicit their emotions and influence their behaviour. Simone Pfeifer and I have described this process elsewhere and conceptualised it as audiovisuality (Günther and Pfeifer 2020) to examine the multiple and highly volatile links between people’s sensation, the mediations they encounter and the modes deployed to create meaning and knowledge. What is important for our purposes here is that the Islamic State’s ideologues, just like other entrepreneurs of identity, use audiovisual media to offer short cuts to potentially complex systems of beliefs, normative appeals, practices and orientations, seeking to influence people’s understanding of who they are, how they are related to others and how they should behave in certain situations. They take advantage of the nature and social effectiveness of images and sounds described above, the cognitive processing of which involves a range of emotional and physical reactions (see Fingerhut 2012; Krois 2010; Freedberg 1991). Triggering intense emotional and physical responses among its audiences thus not only potentially creates links be-

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tween emotional states and appraisals of the social environment favourable to the Islamic State’s ideological framework; the group’s ideologues also deploy auditive and visual elements such as postures, ‘costumes, props, make-up, hairstyle, [and] spaces as a stage or scene (setting in terms of Goffman) to construct images for their sensitive effects’ (Mandoki 2007: 146; emphasis in original). Similarly, listening ‘can orient people within their environments, connect them with affective stimuli, and open their bodies up to violence and pain as well as to knowledge and pleasure’ (Daughtry 2015: 6). The fact that responses to audiovisual stimuli develop both individually and collectively also helps to further tendencies of ingroup solidarity and out-group animosity. Individuals who share certain dispositions, for instance in terms of self-identification as members of a certain social collective, experience similar emotions even if disconnected from one another, and may mutually reinforce their emotional conditions and become aware of collective concerns. This, however, is not least determined by the ability of recipients to recognise and understand the symbols, semantics and narratives employed. The Islamic State’s audiences, as different as they may be in terms of ethnicity, language, class and other aspects, are implicated in what we see and hear in the group’s audio addresses, images and (in particular) videos, although the relational character inherent in these mediations is most often obscured. The notable diversity of people who have joined the Islamic State or support its goals in the digital realm is also reflected in the media work of the group, which does not merely imitate contemporary global media practices, but is itself part of this media landscape. The group has, on the one hand, extensively appropriated snippets from Hollywood films and various TV productions (Zywietz and Beese 2020). What is more, its media apparatus has developed what Dauber and Robinson (2015) describe as ‘Hollywood visual style’, designating the techniques applied in media composition and production that range from the clarity and colour intensity of the images through professional lighting and sound technology to certain methods of pre- and post-production. Using techniques of cinematic design that correspond to professional media practices, the Islamic State’s ideologues – and the personnel working in its media apparatus in particular – do not demonstrate that they are like Hollywood (although they are only too happy to accept and support this reading), but that they have understood how Hollywood works and what it stands for, as well as the viewing habits and expectations of a mostly young global audience. In addition, Lahoud and Pieslak (2018) draw our attention to the fact that we find similar patterns in the Islamic State’s a cappella hymns (anāshīd), which employ artificial reverb or autotune – techniques of post-production and musical patterns resembling the aesthetics of global pop music. These appropriations are not an end in themselves, but rather provide hooks that allow the Islamic State’s ideologues to latch onto their audience’s horizons of knowledge and experience, establishing cognitive links between the signified and people’s own conscious experiences and historical memories.

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Considering that we, as an audience, are implicated in what we see and hear, others have pointed out that the media of the Islamic State not only adapt global media practices in order to connect to the viewing and listening habits of their audiences, but also appropriate their enemies’ audiovisuality and related horizons of experience, knowledge and expectation in order to turn them against their originators. The Islamic State’s ideologues and their media are thus set in what Gruber (2019b) has aptly described as a relationship of ‘antagonistic co-evolution’ of audiovisual regimes and practices with their opponents (see also della Ratta 2018: Chapter 7). This symmetric dualism is particularly evident in the audiovisualisation of punitive, retaliatory violence and the performativity of these images, including their potential to trigger enormous outrage among the group’s enemies, as Friis (2017), Gruber (2019b) and Krona (2020) show from different angles. Against this background, it becomes clear that the Islamic State’s audiovisuality not only depends on the technical and compositional abilities of its own media apparatus to tailor visual and sonic content to specific audiences, but must also be understood in connection with and dependent on hostile audiovisualities. The simplest and clearest example of this is undoubtedly the orange suits – symbols of the prison system operative in the United States as well as in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere – that the group’s ideologues use to present many of its victims, from Nicholas Berg’s decapitation in 2004 to the present day (see Richey and Edwards 2019). A third aspect that shapes the Islamic State’s audiovisuality is the fact that our vision and audition are learned, situated and social activities that are constantly being honed and are never static. Thus, although the Islamic State’s ideologues appeal to a range of local and global audiences through the internet and make use of viewing and listening habits shaped by global media practices, they cannot easily condition peoples’ perception and appraisal of sociopolitical facts and developments. Those addressed are ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish 1980) that actively experience and decode messages disseminated by entrepreneurs of identity. They are, however, exposed to socio-psychological dynamics beyond the ideologues’ control. In addition, technical variables foster feedback loops shaped by the transformative dimension of ‘fast-moving, self-propelled’ imagery on the internet that evades regulation and control (Bolt 2012) and the ways in which jihadi media and communication in general have both modified and been changed by the technologies of the social web (for example, see Ramsay 2015; Lohlker 2019). Although the diversity of their (potential) followers and the variety of potential hooks to latch onto their identities is undeniably an asset, the Islamic State’s ideologues try to maintain as much control as possible over the ‘right’ interpretation and the ‘true’ meaning of their visual media output. They do not disregard the fact that ‘it is above all our fantasy or imagination unleashed by the image, which charges the image with meaning’ (Breckner 2003: 53–54). Similarly, neither do

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they attempt to ‘turn off’ the polysemy inherent in images (see Barthes 1977: 39), instead deliberately producing ambiguity in order to cater to the diversity of their audiences’ capacities, horizons of knowledge, memories and emotions. At the same time, they seek to reduce that polysemy so that the meanings ascribed to the images by the viewer largely coincide with the meanings intended by the image producers. Entrepreneurs of identity such as the Islamic State’s ideologues may thus seek to further regulate accessibility and their audiences’ experiences of immediacy through the convergence of (written and spoken) language and the pictorial.3 The use of voice and words in particular, but also the style chosen, as well as the rhythm, tone, volume, intonation and many other variables that are produced by and productive of body posture and motions, help not only to display markers of social identity that people can relate to, but also to specify the meaning of images. In this way, the Islamic State’s ideologues seek to prove their capability to construct an audiovisual presentation that expresses their authority and aestheticises their classificatory power. As I have detailed above, this claim to authority is based on the self-understanding of those who identify with the Islamic State – whether as functionaries working in the administrative apparatus, media personnel, h.isba, clerics, ideologues or any kind of supporters on the ground and online – as people who are taking their part in an eternal fight between monotheism and its antagonists – that is, as mujāhidīn. This self-understanding not only entails a specific interpretation of the concept of jihād, which is beyond the current discussion, but also points to the consolidating potential of this self-understanding, which helps to qualify every piece of the Islamic State’s thinking and action, as well as their self-identified members’ practices and experiences, as jihādī. In this regard, Ramsay (2015: 55) clarifies that ‘the sum total of all that is “jihadi” does not add up to jihad, but rather to its man-made allegory’. Li (2020: 108) further asserts that ‘what requires understanding is not jihad’s “Islamicness” or lack thereof, but rather how the jihad perform[s] the work of universalism, of processing difference’. The Islamic State’s audiovisuality in the sense suggested here thus encompasses how people’s auditory and visual practices and experiences are productive of and produced by the visualisation and sonification of the group’s ideology and action; by the set of ideas, norms and values transmitted through audiovisual media; by the processes of production, distribution, collection and consumption of this audiovisual content; by the discursive and non-discursive practices of processing and engaging with them; ‘and even [by] the way in which information is ordered and structured by the Web’ (Ramsay 2015: 77). These material and immaterial configurations are, significantly, not inherently bound to any specific region, culture or even religion, or to whether they are based on ‘genuine Islamic’ symbols and signs, which hardly exist in any case, given the continuous processes of cultural exchange throughout the Mediterranean. On the contrary, rephrasing Deborah Poole (1997: 8–10), I suggest that the affective potency of the Islamic

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State’s audiovisuality is contingent upon an audiovisual economy that interrelates people in disparate places, who may not share a common language, geographical origin or class, but nonetheless share a common identification with the Arabic nisba jihādī or the active participle mujāhid as an allegory that helps to relate their social identities, practices and experiences to a wider collective. Two examples may be helpful to illustrate how the Islamic State’s ideologues have created a symbolic repertoire that functions as currency in this audiovisual economy through appropriation, modification and reinterpretation of symbols and signs, which already carry certain meanings and messages, and through incorporation into their ideological framework. These are the symbol of the al-Hayat Media Center (markaz al-h.ayā li-l-iʿlām) and the Islamic State’s main symbol, the black flag. The al-Hayat Media Center is one of the Islamic State’s main media agencies and was founded in early 2014, since when it has primarily served as the group’s non-Arabic-language media division. With regard to the conflation of script and image and the appropriation of particular symbols, the audiovisual ‘evolution’ of the Media Center’s logo, shown at the beginning of many videos, is illustrative (Figure 3.1): while the sound of moving water can be heard, the logo of al-Hayat is created in a digital simulation of flowing, intertwining lines, which convey the impression of water jets in colour, with light refraction and movement. Individual water drops are ‘attracted’ by the nascent form such that they are absorbed into the whole structure. Finally, a calligraphic logo becomes visible to the viewer, subsequently takes on contours and becomes golden-bronze in colour, thus visually expressing the firmness of its structure. Stylistically, it might be derived from the seals of the Ottoman sultans,4 but more importantly the emblem seems to mimic the logo of al-Jazeera, which is extremely popular and has become iconic in the Arab world, imitations of it being visible throughout the public sphere.

Figure 3.1.  Stills from al-Hayat Media Center (2015a), ‘The Rise of the Khilafah: Return of the Gold Dinar’, showing the ‘evolution’ of al-Hayat’s logo. Author’s archive.

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At first glance, the logo, whose visual evolution showcases the interdigitation and simultaneity of text and image, reflects the Islamic State’s concept of itself as an entity that is composed dynamically and flexibly of many parts, which, despite their different forms, fit seamlessly into a nascent yet solidifying structure. At a higher level of meaning, further allusions to the religious character of the group unfold before the eye of the observer. The link being made between the Media Center’s name and the element of water is very obvious and alludes to the Qurʾanic text in many different ways. Here, water is a symbol of the power of God to create life on earth,5 of the purification of the earth from all that is sinful6 and of the extrinsic and spiritual cleansing of man from the temptations of this world,7 as well as being a definite part of the description of paradise and hell.8 One can approach another (if not the) symbol of the Islamic State, namely the black banner (Figure 3.2), in a similar way. This symbol not only serves as a visual expression of the group’s identity and self-conception, but has also been omnipresent throughout the global media for quite some time. Any observing audience might at first glance grasp its monochrome black-and-white design. Many others will also recognise the Muslim profession of faith inscribed on the banner, that is, the confession in linear notation to the unity and uniqueness of God (lā ilāha illā-llāh), which is visually separated from a rounded form confirming the status of Muhammad as a messenger of God (Muh.ammad rasūlu-llāh). At a second glance, however, some people may ‘decode’ additional layers of meaning in Figure 3.2.  The Islamic State’s black banner. Author’s archive. this composition. First, the colour scheme of the banner appeals to the symbolic power of the colour black in Islamic history, which numerous religio-political movements have used to bolster their claims to power (McCants 2015a: 25–29).9 The two-colour design also points to the Islamic State’s ideological framework, which advances a binary distinction between believers and unbelievers – a paradigm described in Issue 7 of the Islamic State’s online magazine Dabiq as the ‘extinction of the grey zone’ (al-Hayat Media Center 2015b: 54–66). Second, the typeface used for the confession of monotheism in the upper part of the banner appropriates the Kūfī style – the type of writing in which the Qurʾanic text is presumed to have been first written down as a single compilation (Witkam and Sukanda-Tessier 2012). One can, however, identify it as a modern imitation, because the typeface features a hamza letter where there would have been none in an eighth-century text. Still, McCants’s (2015a: 20–21) suggestion that the typeface is ‘scrawled’, or ‘deliberately ragged, meant to suggest an era before the

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precision of Photoshop even though the flag was designed on a computer’, is misleading, because the symbolic capital of the typeface appropriated by the Islamic State’s ideologues is not determined by its manner of production. The black banner thus conveys clarity and strength, alludes in many ways to Islamic history and provides a meaningful link between the Islamic State and the Prophet Muhammad and his followers. The Islamic State’s ideologues have created a pictorial signet that helps them to appropriate the affective power of shared Sunni historical memories of the early Islamic period, and thus to bolster their claims to the spiritual and political inheritance of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. They understand the black banner as an iconic bridge to an idealised past that carries the claim of reforming the Muslim community in conformity with divine ordinances. It has thus become a signifier of their claim to spiritual and political inheritance of the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslim community, an emblem of their vision of ‘genuine’ Sunni Islam and an insignia for their aspirations of absolute political power. However, in order to symbolically charge this black flag, created through digital techniques, a justification was obviously required – one which we find in a document that has not yet received any scholarly attention. Entitled al-nabīy al-qāʾid (The Prophet as a Leader), this was published in May 2016 as a reprint in the Islamic State’s maktabat al-himma series. According to the foreword, ʿAbd al-Munʿim b. ‘Izz al-Dīn al-Badawī (aka Abū H.amza al-Muhājir), ISI’s late ‘Minister of War’, compiled the almost four-hundred-page document before his death in April 2010. Although first and foremost concerned with ‘an examination of the Prophet’s governance and his military campaigns’ (mabh.ath fī-sarāyā al-nabīy wa-ghazwātihi), it is a milestone text that provides valuable insights into how the Islamic State’s ideologues interpreted the Prophet and the early Muslim community as a blueprint for their own ideas and actions. A short, two-page section of this document is also dedicated to the banner of the Prophet and its visual appearance. Here, the document’s author(s) quote a range of ah.ādīth to suggest that the colour of the Prophet’s banner was black and that the shahāda was written on it (al-Muhājir 2016: 55–56). Noticeably, though, quotations that concern the writing on the banner are all drawn from non-canonical ah.ādīth. Equally, the author(s) ignored canonical sources that emphasise the variety of colours of the banners carried by the Prophet and his followers during times of war.10 The main elements of this reasoning can also be found in an undated and unsigned document circulated in online sources under the title Mashrūʿiyyat al-Rāya fi-l-Islām (Legal Permissibility of the Banner in Islam).11 Whereas alMuhājir’s treatise is a compilation of theological sources on the matter, the authors of Mashrūʿiyyat al-Rāya point to the – probably logical – conclusion that the Islamic State’s ideologues had drawn from the evaluation of these sources: ‘the leader of the faithful issued a decree in consultation with knowledgeable people that the Islamic State’s banner shall be black . . . and it was decided that it shall be

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written upon it what had been written on the banner of the Prophet (sas): There is no God but God, Muh.ammad is His messenger’ (Anonymous n.d.: 4). The authors of the document not only present insights into the creation of the prevailing symbol of the Islamic State, but claim to ultimately define the visual appearance of the Prophet’s banner. This definition, which is so clearly and unambiguously made in Mashrūʿiyyat al-Rāya – regardless of the ambivalences that characterise many of the historical sources and their exegesis – translates into the conception of the frontispiece of al-Nabīy al-Qāʾid in the above-mentioned reprint edition.

Figure 3.3.  Cover image of al-Muhājir (2016), ‘al-Nabīy al-Qāʾid’. Author’s archive.

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This cover image (Figure 3.3) is a remarkable example of what seems to be an ideal picture of the maghāzī period as the Islamic State’s ideologues understand it. The lower half of the digital collage depicts a premodern army of horsemen and foot soldiers with swords, spears and black standards, and appropriates a picture that appears on many websites to illustrate a range of military campaigns by Muslim rulers during the first three centuries AH. Appropriating the image for their specific purpose, the Islamic State’s ideologues have altered the illustration so that it matches the group’s self-conception. They have not only given it a modified, sandy colour scheme, but also added roundels pixelating the protagonists’ faces and the horses’ eyes. What is most important here is that they have added the Islamic State’s design onto what in the original is a plain black flag. In addition, the title and subtitle of the document, which circumscribe the image of the soldiers, rather suggest that this image is an authentic representation of the nascent Muslim community and its war campaigns. It is not clear whether the Islamic State’s ideologues selected this particular picture due to the dynamic composition of the scenery, or whether it alludes to a range of widely known still and moving images of the Prophet and the early Muslim community, including films such as The Message (directed by Moustapha Akkad, 1976) and miniature paintings in Arabic and Persian manuscripts, but also visualisations of historic battles in contemporary global cinematography. Whichever criteria might have guided the selection of this particular image, the Islamic State’s ideologues have chosen a picture whose motif and visual design can be appealing to a large number of people. They thus address the broadest possible audience, drawing on the diversity and ambiguities of different bodies of knowledge and memories that shape people’s sensation. However, although the ideologues focus on ambiguity and diversity in order to interest as many people as possible in their cause, their aim is ultimately to eliminate the diversity of ideas of the early Islamic period and to establish their own interpretation as the only valid one. Against this backdrop, the above image is not just a remarkable example of how the Islamic State’s ideologues have appropriated Islamic and global visual culture. What is more, it is a notable instance of what Mirzoeff (2006) has described as ‘visuality’, that is, the visualisation of history in which power and visual representation intersect, because it highlights an actor’s ability to assemble information, images and ideas so as to picture history and at the same time manifest their authority. The group’s ideologues have thus appropriated the above image and all its connotations to establish an authentic, ‘true’ visualisation of the maghāzī, in which the Prophet Muhammad’s banner equals the Islamic State’s black banner. This instance of visuality thus not only defines the visual appearance of the Prophet’s banner. What is more, it helps to establish a relationship between the Islamic State and the nascent Muslim community, one which is grounded in the group’s claims that its leader is a descendant of the Prophet and that the Islamic State’s fighters re-actualise the role models that are the Prophet Muhammad and

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the nascent Muslim community during his lifetime. Visually, this claim is deeply inscribed in the banner, both through the black colour, which is reserved for the descendants of the Prophet, and the circled form on the banner, which resembles the Prophet’s seal.12 Both components thus insinuate that the Prophet’s authority has been symbolically transferred to Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī and the fighters who carry the banner on his behalf. The above image also makes clear that the relationship the Islamic State’s ideologues seek to establish between the early Muslim community and the Islamic State as an entity, its leadership and its personnel is contingent upon an affirmation of the black banner as an expression of visuality through its usage both on the ground and in the group’s image production. An early example can be found in the fifty-five-minute video al-Himma Muhimma (Fervour is a Duty), published in October 2009 by al-Furqān, the then central media organisation of the Islamic State of Iraq. The introductory sequence of this video presents a digitally constructed page of the Qurʾanic text that focuses on verse 4.84,13 while at the same time a recitation of the verse can be heard. Through its display and recitation, the producers determine the interpretation framework for the entire video, but especially for the following sequences. The explicit mention of the Prophet is intended to evoke in the audience ideas about his person and his actions, which they draw from learned knowledge. Against this background, the following sequences display warriors armed with bows, arrows and swords riding fast on horseback, against the backdrop of a narration about the expansion of Islam in its early days. This heroic recourse to the Muslim troops of the early Islamic state is followed by an interpolation of a small group of masked men carrying out military exercises, the Islamic State’s black banner always in view. Although this staging may seem amateurish and evoke connotations of paramilitary groups and their training camps familiar to a global audience, this example shows very clearly how the Islamic State’s ideologues employ audiovisuality to create in the minds of their audiences an identification of their own fighters with heroic figures of the early Islamic period, and even with the Prophet himself. As I show elsewhere, this equation does not always depend on exposure of the black banner, and the Islamic State’s ideologues use a variety of audiovisual allusions for this purpose (Günther 2021). Still, they use images that include the black banner to portray the group’s fighters as strong, steadfast and pious, or to attribute to them other traits typically associated with the Prophet Muhammad and his companions (Figure 3.4). Some of the images that serve this purpose have become iconic, and some have been printed on the covers of international magazines. Far more than a brand (although they use the black banner for this purpose, too) the Islamic State’s ideologues have created an essential element of their symbolic repertoire, something that is highly important for the construction and effectiveness of social identity. Like the above-examined symbol of the al-Hayat

Figure 3.4. Stills from Islamic State videos showing fighters with the black banner. Author’s archive.

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Media Center, the black banner shows effectively how the Islamic State’s ideologues not only lay claim to the prerogative of how certain symbols, typefaces, words, metaphors and synecdoches should be understood, but also appropriate them, embed them into their own ideological framework and give them a very specific meaning. To establish a finite interpretation of symbols that are usually interpreted diversely is thus a litmus test for the Islamic State’s visuality, which is ultimately a form of classificatory power. One consequence of this process is an ontological amalgamation of the signifier (i.e. the black banner) and the signified (i.e. the Islamic State) in the minds of its audiences – supporters and adversaries alike. In other words, the black banner not only represents the Islamic State, but rather constitutes the group just as much as all the people acting on its behalf. This notion is distinctly reflected in the public speech of a military commander addressing a group of Islamic State soldiers, announcing that ‘the flag of lā ilāha illā-llāh will be established with which our Prophet Muhammad came, with which he broke the Persians and the Romans’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat S.alāh. al-Dīn 2016). The black banner here is not a mere material representation, but rather an allegory for the Islamic State’s ideology, practices and personnel. In the same vein, Abū Muh. ammad al-ʿAdnānī asserted in January 2014 that ‘for ten years, we saw nothing from this blessed banner except assistance, support and aid from God Almighty, and maybe you felt that by yourselves, since whenever this banner enters God Almighty throws in your heart tranquillity, pride and fortitude, boldness and courage, and throws in the hearts and souls of the people love and veneration for you, as He throws fear (from you) in the souls of your enemies’ (al-ʿAdnānī 2014a). I will return in more detail to how such an equation is relevant to social identities when I examine the Islamic State’s iconoclasm in the second part of this chapter. For now, it may suffice to emphasise that with regard to in-group coherence, which is a fundamental goal of identity entrepreneurs, the merging of flag and group in their self-perception points far beyond the symbolic, and helps to form the self-image of each individual group member. Moreover, this linkage is of course not uncontested, but rather subject to efforts of reappropriation and reinterpretation, which create spaces of symbolic and concrete competition between the Islamic State’s ideologues and their adversaries. The black banner, be it in the form of a flag, a poster or graffiti, functions as an insignia of political power. When the Islamic State seized control of territories in Iraq and Syria, it did not just tear down national flags or the badges of opposition militias, but also hoisted the black banner. This symbol could also be used in banners, posters or graffiti for the emblematic demarcation of areas, regions, cities or buildings, declaring them to be under the power and control of the group. The flag was used in this sense to signal the takeover of official buildings such as courts, police stations and other governmental facilities, as well as whole cities, to indicate that the hitherto known order had been removed (Figure 3.5).

Figure 3.5. Stills from Islamic State videos showing the black banner as a sign of territorial demarcation and exertion of authority. Author’s archive.

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Beyond local contexts, the symbolic meaning of such acts became particularly salient when Islamic State’s fighters raised the black flag over the destroyed sand wall of the border between Syria and Iraq, parts of which the group had bulldozed in a media-effective operation (al-Hayat Media Center 2014b). It gained wider international attention when images of Islamic State’s fighters parading through Mosul with black flags mounted to their vehicles dominated international media for some time in summer 2014. The spaces of symbolic and concrete competition thus became linked to one another, calling on all parties involved to react to the claims articulated and staged by the Islamic State, whether in the form of refusal, acceptance or passive tolerance. This link between symbolic and concrete competition is made even clearer by the central position the black flag occupies in the Islamic State’s image production. The way in which the flag is placed in the group’s imagery affectively charges these images in a particular way because they carry the symbolic meaning of the flag, while at the same time inviting viewers to link these visuals to their own (or others’) experiences and to react accordingly. This potentially makes many of the images produced by the Islamic State all the more salient; they are formative images that cannot be ignored and instead evoke immediate reactions. The production and use of these images by the Islamic State shows that visual communication in general, and the group’s visual self-representations in particular, are one of the means it employs to tell distinct stories and meta-narratives. Below, I identify and examine in more detail four such narratives: the dangers to Muslims and Islam as a whole, reflections on the good life one can lead in the caliphate, the Islamic State’s strength and its confrontation with forces that threaten the unity of Islam. As these narratives reflect the various elements of the Islamic State’s ideological framework, they appear in all forms of the group’s communications with its environment. As a complement to textual or purely verbal communiqués, however, the visualisation of these narratives takes up the affective force of images and pictorial communication and therefore plays a significant role in the way in which the Islamic State addresses its audiences. These visual narrations show that through constant repetition, the group wishes to entrench certain messages more deeply into the recipients’ memories, feeding into their experiences and perceptions of the conflict and impeding critical reflections on these messages.

Exogeneous Threats to the Muslim Community One of these meta-narratives revolves around a vision of the Muslim community being threatened by external powers. Like other Islamist and Jihadi-Salafi actors, the Islamic State frequently stresses that the umma in general is in a deep state of crisis, partially induced by ‘modern Crusaders’ who are seeking to seize control of resources in the SWANA region and beyond by reducing the role of Islam in the organisation of all spheres of society and subjecting Muslims to dependence

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through a variety of social, political and economic means. The picture drawn by the Islamic State and other actors picks up on both historical and current events and developments. In the case of the Islamic State, European colonialism and its legacy, the economic and political alliances of several regional powerholders with ‘Western’ powers, and current military interventions in the region feature most prominently to underline this narration and process it visually. The group uses images of political figures, national flags, political and social events, and sites of political decision-making as emblems of ‘disbelief ’, ‘polytheism’ and other opposites of absolute monotheism. To visually intensify audiences’ perceptions of the essentially inimical character of these forces, this narrative is underpinned by many Islamic State videos that show injuries or the deaths of children – the most innocent among the Muslim community. Certainly, in mediated violent conflicts, all factions involved or concerned deploy images of wounded and dead children. Moreover, both human rights activists and the warring parties themselves arguably use such images as a means of political communication in order to mobilise people and resources for their cause. At the risk of sounding cynical, it might also be argued that all these actors use such images because they assume that their audiences can hardly ignore the powerful emotional effects they have. Due to the affective power of such images, recipients might consequently be limited in their ability to reflect critically on these depictions and the contextual messages conveyed by the actors responsible. As for the Islamic State, a characteristic example can be found in the video Al-Mafqūd (The Missing One), issued in 2010.14 In the introductory sequence of the video, destroyed houses and children’s corpses are shown. In the next scene a masked spokesman addresses the American population and asks whether children are carrying weapons,15 and whether this is the democracy16 that Americans want to bring to Iraq. Furthermore, the technically superior US military is accused of using its modern weapons to bombard innocent and defenceless Muslims (li-qas.f al-abriyāʾ min al-muslimīn), reinforced by the accusatory words of a resident of a bombarded site. In a similar manner, a 2016 video targeting Muslim scholars opposed to the Islamic State features footage of victims of aerial attacks, contextualised as a ‘glimpse of a crusader air raid targeting the ordinary people in the city of Mosul’.17 The attacks of the US-led coalition on the positions of the Islamic State, which have been ongoing since August 2014, repeatedly cause civilian casualties, this ‘collateral damage’ being accepted. These attacks are thus reinterpreted as acts that are intended to kill and injure civilians. For a further two and a half minutes, the video mainly shows children who have been wounded or killed. These scenes are interrupted by an interlude in which a man wearing a white jallabīya stands amid the ruins of houses, raises his eyes to heaven and implores God to punish the hypocrites among the Muslims, as well as those who are directly responsible for this destruction (Figure 3.6).

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Figure 3.6.  Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), ʿUmalāʾ lā ʿUlamāʾ. Author’s archive.

In both videos, visualisations communicate physical and mental pain more directly than textual accounts would. These images are intended to convey the reality of extreme horrors, real pain and individual suffering to a wide public, creating emotionally powerful images from which the audience can hardly turn away. Each video combines footage of injured, weeping and dead children obviously shot at different locations, both in the day and at night. Nevertheless, this kind of editing is intended to emotionally overload the recipients, preventing them from reflecting on what they have just seen and making them rely instead on the Islamic State’s verbal explanations. Thus, it is precisely through the immediacy of representation that it appears difficult for the recipient not to be affected by the message.18 Furthermore, the Islamic State’s explanation feeds into people’s everyday experiences, prejudices, fears and attitudes, which are shaped by similar images and narratives in other (mass) media. Rhetorically and figuratively, therefore, the audiovisual presentation constructs a direct link between the acute suffering of Iraq’s citizens and the political changes in the country.19 The images and text give the viewer an impression of the cruelties committed by the US military in those areas of the country predominantly populated by Sunnis. Moreover, they are intended to prove the anti-Sunni agenda of Iraq’s central government, which not only remains silent in the face of the crimes being committed against its citizens, but also allegedly supports the killing of children, as well as the destruction of family homes and civil infrastructure, in order to persecute those who have merely been seeking a good life and the resolution of their hopes for the future in the caliphate.

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The Good Life in the Caliphate This narrative also plays an important role in many of the Islamic State’s visual publications, as it conveys what ‘genuine’ Muslims can expect if they comply with divine ordinances and the regulatory authority that is the group. Visualisations of this narrative do not just depict an offer of a ‘better’ world, they also foreshadow the salvation of Muslims in the hereafter. As I explained earlier, the group had already realised by 2006 that establishing a social base (h.ādina sha’biyya) was indispensable if it was to survive in the long term. In various photo reports, illustrated articles in print publications and especially in videos, the Islamic State presented itself as a ruling body that fulfilled its social responsibility and took care of the people living in the territories it controlled. A number of textual publications also highlighted the need to transform this welfare function into an administrative structure and thus make it widely visible. It is clear that according to the Islamic State, only those who submit to the group’s interpretation of Islam and its strict rules of conduct can enjoy this care. The distinct administrative bodies that were to provide this supporting function had already been proclaimed in the ISI’s Declaration on the Constitution of its Ministries, and they are repeatedly mentioned in various textual and audiovisual communiqués. The supposedly well-organised administrative apparatus and its responsibilities, which reflect the organisation of a modern state system, were particularly highlighted in the 2016 video mentioned above, S.arh. al-Khilāfa (The Structure of the Caliphate; muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). This supposedly centralised administrative structure reaches from top-level offices via ‘central administrations’ (idārāt al-ʿāmma) for certain goods and services in the Islamic State’s provinces down to local spaces tasked with the distribution of food, oil, gas and other resources. All these activities are shown in the video, together with market stands, intended to prove the richness of the foodstuffs available in the territories of the Islamic State.20 Ranging from the repair (and even the cleaning) of roads21 via the provision of public transport, healthcare and much more22 to the planned introduction of its own currency,23 the Islamic State was very much concerned to make various aspects of its welfare provision visible in order to convey to targeted audiences an impression of order and security. The group presented the areas under its control as idyllic, peaceful and harmonious places of stability ruled in a just and reliable manner. This image is bolstered further in the video by means of a presentation of cheerful, playful children of local origin alongside those who have emigrated to the caliphate with their parents from different nations, which in turn contrasts with the images of dead and wounded children deployed in the negative narratives mentioned above.24 These idyllic pictorial representations underscore the close link between immanence and transcendence and reflect the Islamic State’s claim that a life in the

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caliphate is indispensable for Muslims if they are to find salvation in the hereafter. However, the close link between immanence and transcendence also points to the constant dangers to which this idyllic place is exposed. The producers of the images thus always situate their representations in relation to the endangering of this idealised space by internal and external opponents, emphasising the fact that the Islamic State’s defensive nature must be strengthened in order for this arcadia to ‘remain and expand’ (bāqiya wa tatamaddad).

The Islamic State’s Strength and Outstanding Intragroup Coherence It is certainly not surprising to find that many of the Islamic State’s audiovisual publications make the use of violence their main theme. Since the group’s self-representation as a defensive and fighting vanguard is an essential part of its ideological framework, it also appears as a prominent motif in its communiqués. As has already been pointed out, this motif builds upon a close interweaving of immanence and transcendence. The group presents itself as chosen by God to succeed the Prophet Muhammad in applying His laws in this world, thus establishing the conditions for the salvation of the people in the hereafter. In order to frame its actions, the Islamic State refers repeatedly to the early days of Islam and presents its leadership and fighters as incarnations of both the Prophet’s companions and other outstanding figures in Islamic history. However, the successes of these historical figures are by no means based solely on the use of force. Rather, Islamic historiographies attributed to these figures special qualities and ‘knightly virtues’ (murū’āt), such as steadfastness, volition, determination, good conduct and patience.25 Beyond the textual publications scrutinised in the previous chapter, the Islamic State deploys visual means to suggest that its leadership and fighters have the same qualifications and virtues, making them extraordinarily suited to enforcing the divine ordinances and serving as role models for others. The fighters in particular are depicted as occupying a purely masculine world, in which women and children only seldom appear.26 In this way, family relations, sexuality and also certain aspects of the emotionality of the combatants are removed from what is visible to the audience. The viewer is also shown that the physical, mental and spiritual energy of these men feeds primarily on the small, tightly knit community of mujāhidīn. In this community, no difference is supposedly made by people’s ethnicity, skin colour, origin or language, because it acts upon the dogma of the Islamic State only – the ‘genuine’ Muslims. The fighters are depicted during military training (including techniques recalling images of military commandos), and the various battles are shown from different perspectives, ranging from the bird’s-eye view of a drone to the perspective of an action camera that a fighter is carrying on his body. Thus, at first glance the fighters of the Islamic State are hardly different from the members of a smaller military unit.

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The essential difference is revealed by the overemphasis on the spiritual dimension in the actions of these men. They are portrayed as pious men in individual or communal prayer, and in other religious rites practiced together they sing together hymns (anāshīd, s. nashīd) and recite poetry.27 The strength of the represented collective thus results not only from the subordination of the individual, but also from the mutual consolidation of their faith. This firm belief is illustrated by a whole combination of religious symbols, such as the Qurʾan (‘the guiding book’/kitāb yahdī) and the fighters’ weaponry (‘the aiding sword’/ sayf yans.ur). Numerous videos also show fighters in various types of action, images combined with the recitation of certain verses from the Qurʾan,28 as well as distinct anāshīd and ah.ādīth. Images of dead fighters or martyrs-to-be are also more often than not accompanied by recited descriptions of heavenly landscapes and paradise.29 The close link between text and images thus becomes apparent and, through verbal explanations of what is being shown, helps to highlight once again the spiritual dimension of the Islamic State’s struggle. The group also emphasises the spiritual dimension of its fighters’ deeds through their visual representation. It is not surprising to see that only resolute, cheerful, courageous or dead men are shown. The grey zones of life and the impact on the individual’s psychic constitution from the stress of fighting, deprivation, desperation, despondency, depression and hopelessness are excluded from these accounts. This makes the visual narration highly consistent with the Islamic State’s ideology, which establishes absolute and clear categories for any sphere of life. Moreover, the videos obviously focus exclusively on the mujāhidīn’s extraordinary and faith-based virtues. Accordingly, some of these videos, as well as certain textual publications, narrate the biographies of exemplary fighters and emphasise their special qualities,30 which distinguish them from both ordinary people and the ‘hypocrites’ (munāfiqūn) among Muslims. At the same time, these characteristics enable fighters to endure the deprivations and hardships of war, to submit to the trials that God imposes on them and to accomplish those challenges to which no one else would ever even expose themselves.

Clashes with Internal Threats to the Unity of the Umma and the Purity of Creed Many of the Islamic State’s visual communiqués illustrate the application of its Manichaean world view. This is particularly obvious in instances that depict how the group deals with internal Islamic threats to the unity and purity of the Muslim community. Beyond the threats posed to the umma from outside, the Islamic State understands it as imminently endangered from the inside. As outlined earlier, these perils to Islam and ‘genuine’ Muslims mainly stem from the activities of the Shia, as well as of certain groups and individuals among the Sunni community, who are disparagingly referred to as ‘traitors’ or the like. In relation to these

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two groups, the Islamic State basically suggests two ways of restoring the umma’s unity and purity: repentance and submission to the Islamic State, or death. Whereas members of the Shia and other religious minorities are in principle threatened with death, the Islamic State has repeatedly emphasised that, where Sunnis are concerned, repentant ‘sinners’ may obtain reconciliation with God through submission to the group. Consequently, the Islamic State has produced various (moving) pictures that illustrate such an act of repentance. For instance, fighters of the Islamic State are shown in mosques, where, as suggested, they offer renegade Sunnis forgiveness for their fall from ‘true’ Islam and then make them swear allegiance publicly to the caliphate and its leaders (muʾassasat al-furqān 2014b). As we have seen in the previous chapter, the Islamic State has staged appearances of its representatives at meetings of Sunni tribal leaders, who also publicly swear allegiance to the caliphate. In so doing, the group seeks to visualise its purportedly strong ties with the Sunni community, strengthen group bonds and use its classificatory power to define who belongs to the collective of ‘genuine’ Sunni Muslims. At the same time, the supposed ‘silent majority’ (al-kathra als.āmita) among the Sunnis is called upon to understand the persons shown in these performances as fulfilling their obligations towards God and their community, and thus entering into a social contract consent to which will guarantee people’s existential and ontological security, as well as their individual expectations of salvation. These public confessions have a high value for the Islamic State in two respects. Footage of them serves as a tool of mobilisation and recruitment, combining the call for action with images of people publicly affirming their commitment, apparently prepared to bear the social and political consequences that this alliance implies in a situation of conflict. At the same time these images can be used as an instrument of discipline, for those who publicly swear allegiance to the Islamic State can be identified by both present witnesses and an indeterminate public as members or at least supporters of the group. Moreover, the Islamic State deploys these images not just to ‘transport’ viewers to a certain lifeworld. Rather, it wants its target audience to create an emotional link between themselves and the persons depicted, and seeks to instil cognitive and emotional identification with those categorised as friends or a distance from those classed as foes. As I have shown above, the positive qualities of the Islamic State’s fighters and the ways in which they are visualised are used to suggest to potential followers that these figures are to a great extent identical to themselves through their own lifeworlds, dreams, hopes and visions of the future. In a similar way, the Islamic State presents local notables, tribal leaders and ordinary Sunnis pledging their allegiance to the group as normal people who make mistakes and go astray, nonetheless obtaining forgiveness and being given the opportunity to fight for glory in this life and salvation in the hereafter.

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On the other side of the Manichaean dichotomy, however, viewers are confronted with the Islamic State’s ruthless brutality against those who do not submit willingly, or those whom the group has chosen to kill for whatever reason. Videos, photo reports and images in the Islamic State’s magazines depict bomb attacks on military and civilian targets, as well as mass shootings and the executions of individuals. Here also, different camera settings, angles, filters and other modes of visual narration are intended to create an impression of distance from or proximity to those who are depicted. As a result, these technical manoeuvres attempt to affect viewers’ evaluations of the depicted actions and their cognitive and emotional reactions to them. For instance, in the case of mass killings, ‘drive-by-shootings’ or bomb attacks, the identity of those killed is almost never disclosed. The viewer thus remains at a great visual distance, cognitively and emotionally dissociated from the victims of these violent acts. What remains are more or less spectacular images, which, produced with certain design tools and enhanced by sound effects, are intended to confirm the impression of the Islamic State’s omnipotence. In contrast, the Islamic State also produces images that consciously make the viewer seem close to those who are depicted. This dissolution of distance is observed first in the Islamic State’s conduct towards individuals who become its prisoners during arbitrary roadside checks or in targeted raids on their houses (see e.g. muʾassasat al-furqān 2014b). It is likely that exposing the captives’ identities by, for example, showing their ID documents affects the audience by making the biographies of these individuals partly comprehensible, possibly leading viewers to create cognitive links between the signified and their own conscious experiences or the experiences of other members of their social collective. The conscious separation between signifier and signified is then to some extent overturned by the viewers’ multisensory experience, triggered by the detainees’ facial expressions, voices, body postures and so on. In these visual representations, different motifs are addressed at the same time. Degradation of the delinquent is one such motif. The victims are humiliated and mocked in front of the camera and are forced to testify verbally and physically to the supposed magnitude, strength and invincibility of the Islamic State, for example by digging their own graves before their execution and, while doing so, being ‘interviewed’ about their defeat and the collapse of their world view (muʾassasat al-furqān 2014b). Another aspect is the provocation of other members of the collective to which the delinquent belongs, or with which the Islamic State associates them (e.g. the national police, the army, certain militias or other religious groups). In some of these instances, the victims are stripped of their uniforms and thereby symbolically deprived of the protection and security offered by the social group to which they belong. In addition, flags, uniforms and ID cards – emblems of national institutions or militias, as well as of social identities – are ‘desecrated’ by the Islamic State’s fighters, who throw them on the ground and trample on them (see, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-

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Anbār 2015). This is to prove that the police, the army and opposition militias are in practice powerless against the Islamic State and cannot adequately protect their members from it. Furthermore, the humiliation of the delinquents is intended to transmit negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, helplessness and insecurity through images and sounds. These emotions are in turn intended to affect other members of the same social category so that they refrain from resisting the Islamic State. Finally, retaliation for crimes committed against Sunnis by members of the social category represented by the individual delinquent is an important aspect in these representations. Arguably, the producers of these images calculate that the depiction of negative emotions among the Islamic State’s enemies does not just affect opposing collectives. Rather, these images are intended to elicit feelings of satisfaction and (regained) pride among the Sunni population. These feelings can also be evoked when the Islamic State’s violence is directed not only against persons, but also against objects and properties that are understood as being not merely symbolic representations, but rather an significant part of an opposing collective and its identity. In the following, I will show that the Islamic State presents these violent acts, which include the destruction of cultural properties and religious sites and the killing of religious functionaries, as part and parcel of its claim to purify the religious and social landscape. I will also examine in more detail the extent to which the production of images and the breaking of icons are closely interlinked, and the ways in which the Islamic State depicts its actions in this regard.

Fighting Polytheism through Iconic Socioclasm When George W. Bush declared on 1 May 2003 that the war in Iraq had ended, American troops had only shortly before pulled down a large statue of Saddam Husayn in Baghdad’s Firdaus Square, amid the applause and with the participation of rejoicing Iraqi citizens. One of the many material symbols of Saddam’s omnipresence in Iraq was at first partly covered in an American flag, before it was pulled down and eventually beaten and trodden on by the crowd (Göttke 2010). The widely disseminated video footage of this event was obviously intended to symbolise the dawn of a new order by eradicating such reminders of the old regime. Indicating that the period of the Baath party’s absolute power was over, the symbolic gesture by the military coalition was greeted with joy by many of those who had suffered under Saddam’s authoritarian system; it gave them hope for a better future and a new start in a new Iraq, but was also a signal to those who still remained loyal to Saddam.31 This episode illustrates that the destruction of monuments and other cultural properties that are visual representations of (political) power seems to be a comparatively simple tactic that both states and nonstate actors deploy in situations of conflict. It is a widespread and well-known phenomenon in the history of humankind, deployed among other strategies to

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enforce and reflect the transition from one ruler to the next, or one form of dominion to another (Elsner 2016). In this section, I will examine the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues have sought to define ‘genuine’ Islam and its boundaries through the destruction of cultural properties and the visualisation of these acts. As I have described above, entrepreneurs of identity describe their self-image not only by saying who they are and what they want, but also by articulating what they are not and how their vision of life and society is superior to that of others. Their definition of a category of social identity, its characteristics and its boundaries more often than not goes hand in hand with a characterisation of ‘the Other’, and frequently includes its denigration. I have also described above how the violence of the Islamic State has been directed to a significant extent at Shiite and Sunni actors in Iraq and Syria – communities against which a demarcation is particularly important for the creation of an ‘Islamic State identity’, because they are so closely connected with the past, present and future claimed by the group’s ideologues. In what follows, I will show that the group not only targeted its violent acts directly against members of these and other local communities in Iraq and Syria, but also attacked cultural assets in order to destroy their identity-forming and social functions. I argue that the Islamic State’s attacks on these properties are embedded in an all-encompassing strategy of spatial, material, ideational and intellectual purification of the socio-religious landscape. By destroying these sites, the group targeted integral elements of the social identities of local and transnational communities and their individual members in order to build a new social framework on their ruins. I suggest understanding these acts as strategic socioclasm. Visualisations are part of this strategy and help to render the Islamic State an effective force, as they support the production of mental images both in the minds of the group’s followers and its adversaries, thus attesting to the Islamic State’s rise, ideology and actions. All actors involved in the course of violent conflicts in Iraq and Syria have been involved in the destruction of cultural objects, ancient sites and antiquities for one reason or another (see Danti 2015). This also includes the US and European countries, which either tacitly accept such destruction as a form of collateral damage, or whose societies provide flourishing markets for illegally traded cultural objects from the region. The Islamic State is thus by no means solely involved in the destruction of cultural artefacts. In contrast to state actors, however, the group has deliberately put such destruction on display and performed it for its cameras, calculating its wide mediation. Although its predecessors had already demonstrated how they would ‘purify the earth’ of manifestations of shirk, such as tombs and other holy places,32 it was only after the seizure of Mosul in mid-2014 that the Islamic State launched a large-scale campaign targeting important cultural properties in Mosul and the adjoining province of Nīnawa, extending this practice subsequently to other areas that fell under its control.

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In 2014 and 2015 in particular, images of the destruction of cultural properties were a significant element of the Islamic State’s media production (Smith et al. 2016) and attracted a great deal of attention, and indeed outright horror, globally (Cunliffe and Curini 2018). However, attacks on internationally known ancient sites were comparatively few. Several photo reports and videos showed that the Islamic State directed the power of its fighters against cultural properties that were primarily used by local religious communities, among them Christian churches and monasteries (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Dīmashq 2015b, 2015c), Sufi zāwiyas and graveyards (Maktabat al-Himma n.d., 2014), Sunni mausoleums (‘Qis.s.as. wa-khurāfāt ikhtazanahā al-nās ʿan qubūr wa-mazārāt shirkīya hadamatuhā dawlat al-islām’ 2016; al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2015a, 2015e, 2016a; al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat S.alāh. al-Dīn 2015), Shia mosques, shrines and graveyards, and also natural objects such as trees (al-Furāt Media 2015).33 The choice and proportional prevalence of cultural properties targeted by the Islamic State indicate that the group’s ideologues primarily aim to remove physical evidence of contemporary religious communities. Most affected are sites and objects of Shiite and Sunni religious and social practices – properties used by those communities whose members provide the norms, values, beliefs, religious practices and political aspirations that most clearly contest the Islamic State’s claims and its ‘identity work’. Christiane Gruber (2019b: 129) rightly observes that these strategic devastations did not just result in ‘the greatest systematic destruction of Islamic architectural heritage in modern times’. She also demonstrates that ‘the militant group’s acts of violence showcase the close-knit and mutually dependent relationship between peoples and their cherished objects, the extermination of one often reflecting or presaging the obliteration of the other’ (ibid.: 126). Building upon her effort, I argue that the Islamic State’s all-encompassing strategy of spatial, material, ideational and intellectual purification of the socio-religious landscape, which I conceptualise as socioclasm, not only showcases but is inherently determined by and reinforces the relationship between people and objects that are targeted because they are important elements of social identities. The justification of these acts, however, does not present such purification as an end in itself in the first place. It is rather cloaked in theological patina, based on the Qurʾanic dictum ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʾrūf wa-n-nahīy ʿan al-munkar), which helps to create a moral imperative to enforce and enact ‘pristine’ Islam. Consequently, the group’s attacks on cultural properties, as I will detail below, are justified using theological terminology that helps distinguish ‘genuine’ Muslim believers (muʾminūn) in monotheism (tawh.īd) from those people adhering to its antipodes polytheism (shirk), disbelief (kufr) and idolatry (t.āghūt). In conceptualising and judicialising the group’s iconoclastic actions, the concept of shirk is particularly important, as it helps the group to legitimise its agenda of purification by homologising a diverse array of objects, ideas and persons considered manifestations or representatives of idolatry. The collision of shirk

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and tawh.īd, as well as their representatives and manifestations, is thus presented as a framework for the interpretation of the current conflict situation. With regards to cultural properties, the Islamic State’s ideologues consequently do not differentiate between wider concepts of veneration, honour or respect, but rather subsume any site or object under the rubric of ‘worship’ (ʿibāda), no matter whether the cultural property attacked is an ancient temple complex, a monastery, a mausoleum or any other site used for social and religious practices, from graveyards to trees. The sites are defined as ‘landmarks of polytheism’ (maʿālim al-shirk), and thus as epitomes of eternally powerful forces, which lead people astray from the ‘right’ path of monotheism.34 James Noyes notes that in the situation of conflict in which the Islamic State is involved, the domains of the secular and the religious have become increasingly conflated, such that ‘the word “shirk” has increasingly been used by ISIS to go beyond its scriptural concept of association. It has become something of a catch-all phrase used to describe how the Islamic State defines itself: fighting the shirk of Bashar, the shirk of passports, the shirk of national poets and museums, the shirk of Shia mosques’ (Hall and Noyes 2014a). Eradicating any of these is conceptualised by the Islamic State’s ideologues as an essential precondition for the establishment and dissemination of monotheism and ‘the right creed’ (al-ʿaqīda al-s.ah.īh.a), and thus, for the enforcing of divine ordinances.35 The visualisation of these obliterations is intended to prove the power and presence of the incomparable God, who may not be depicted and who exists beyond any image (see also Boehm 2015: 58). In this way, the Islamic State pretends to make the invisible visible through its own deeds, thus producing absence in order to demonstrate presence. Moreover, the imagery of these acts feeds into the realm of the sacred in a double sense. Because the group understands material manifestations of polytheism (shirk) as desecrating God’s sovereignty (h.ākimiyya) and allegedly tempting people to worship something other than God, it claims to (re)establish His authority and (re)sacralise this world by obliterating these manifestations. At the same time, as I shall show below with regards to the destruction of world heritage sites and antiquities, the Islamic State’s ideologues categorically reject the interpretation of these sites as valuable embodiments of past cultures, which in reality have no religiously grounded ontological significance for contemporary people. Instead, they sacralise these monuments as they assign them significance as sacred goods that are still effective today. It is this notion that defines the Islamic State’s mission to eradicate any material and immaterial manifestation of that which is opposed to absolute monotheism, that is, kufr, t.āghūt and shirk. The rationale presented by the Islamic State’s ideologues thus frames their endeavours as acts of religious reformation aimed against any site, object or practice that could be interpreted as involving worship of icons or idols instead of the one God. Focusing on such rationales grounded in religious terminology, a large volume of scholarship has scrutinised such deeds, past and present, in a field of study in art history called iconoclasm. Studies of iconoclasm and iconoclasts have

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examined historical events, modes of behaviour, ideologies and attitudes towards images involving various agencies, motivations and intentions, in relation to different historical periods, and incorporating diverse meanings, from the simple hiding and ‘whitewashing’ of images to their complete destruction (see Chapman 2018: 3–31).36 Iconoclasm in the sense of its modern understanding refers to the destruction of images and initially denoted a period in Byzantine history in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. The term and concept has for a long time been associated with discursive and material struggles around the valuing, meaning and attributed power of images in the domain of religious (mainly monotheist) doxa, practices and imaginaries (Brubaker 2012; see, inter alia, Aston 2003). Based on the observation that theological arguments still fuel disputes around visual representations (see van Asselt et al. 2007), iconoclasm is often understood as ‘a religious phenomenon generated from a position of belief and right action as defined within that belief system’ (Apostolos-Cappadona 2005: 4282), which centres on ‘the intentional desecration or destruction of works of art, especially those containing human figurations, on religious principles or beliefs’ (ibid.: 4279; see also Bioly 2016: 18). While this notion emphasises religion as a vital episteme of the phenomenon, it does not however essentialise religion as the main motivation of the actors or as the primary trait of their objectives. This definition also makes it possible to avoid subscribing too easily to the normative stance of the ‘modern observer’, for whom the destruction of art must not have any ideological (and certainly no religious) basis, as they look onto such acts with incomprehension and describe them as mere ‘blind vandalism’ (see Harmanşah 2015). Boldrick (2013: 2) takes a more general approach and highlights the embeddedness of such acts in a symbolic order, suggesting that iconoclasm can be understood as ‘the deliberate breaking or infringement of the physical integrity of culturally significant images and objects . . . including sites and landscapes as well as other objects and artefacts that possess a symbolic power’. Acts interpreted as iconoclasm can be traced throughout human history, where we see that ‘the history of an icon includes repeated and overlapping moments of contestation, appropriation, damage, restoration and amnesia’ (Rambelli and Reinders 2013: 40), all of which affect its physical state, context or meaning. Richard Clay also highlights this transformative function of iconoclastic acts and pursues a semiotic approach when he conceptualises iconoclasm as ‘a form of material sign transformation with communicational intent’ employed by ‘iconoclasts [who] were sophisticated coders, as well as decoders, of signs and spaces’ (Clay 2012: 240, 277). The communicative aspect of iconoclasm does not lie in the act of obliteration itself, but is rather produced in the first place by spreading information about these acts, and in modern times, as I will further expound below, by putting destructions on public display. Iconoclasm must thus be performed coram publico. The act of extinction requires not only the presence of the object to be eradicated and the people who eradicate it, but also and above all that of those

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who testify about it – that is, co-present and mediated audiences who give witness to the process of destruction, participate in it or react to it in one way or another. As an act of communication, such transformative reactions to material culture often take place against a complex backdrop of cultural, economic, social and political narratives, discourses, claims and power relations. They are also primarily embedded in (and are comprehensible in relation to) the intellectual framework that shapes these contextual factors (Elias 2013). These deeds are meant to be discerned, understood and appraised by others, calling them to react to carefully performed (and sometimes thoughtfully timed)37 transformations of symbolically valued images, certain objects and entire sites. While iconoclastic acts always occur in relation to social contexts, are shaped by sociopolitical (and not purely religious) agendas and have social repercussions, studies of iconoclasm and iconoclasts have rarely made these perspectives fruitful for an understanding of attacks on cultural properties. In what follows, I propose the concept of socioclasm to discuss some examples of destructions of symbolically valued images, objects and entire sites at the hand of the Islamic State’s fighters. Building on rather than seeking to replace the notion of iconoclasm, I develop socioclasm as an expansion of what I have identified as the main epistemological access that studies of iconoclasm and iconoclasts provide to human action and interaction, that is, ideas of representation, symbolism and communicative relations.38 While I acknowledge the epistemological value of religious rationales for the various actors involved in and reacting to the destruction of cultural properties, I want to expand the focus from the realm of the religious and the symbolic into the social representative quality of these signifiers. My proposal centres upon the significance of concrete objects and sites for specific social practices, and thus for the establishment, retention and transformation of people’s knowledge about who they are, how they are related to others and how they should react in certain situations. I argue that the concept of socioclasm helps to accentuate the ways in which processes of discursive sign transformation and material sign transformation (Clay 2007, 2012) are related to the domain of the social, and thus to collective and individual social identities. Moreover, the concept allows for a comprehensive understanding of the social implications of acts intended to transform the socio-religious landscape through the destruction of properties whose material and symbolic qualities are integral parts of the social identities of a given community, something that therefore makes specific social practices that are inextricably linked to specific sites impossible. As indicated above, the objects targeted by the Islamic State’s iconoclastic actions can be classified into four categories: a) ancient Mesopotamian complexes; b) religious sites of local non-Muslim religious communities, such as Christian churches and monasteries; c) places used by Sunnis within the framework of religious practices that the Islamic State regards as deviant; and d) sites of Shiite religious practice. In what follows, I take destructions of these four types as case studies to discuss their meaning as significant elements of social identities, and

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develop the concept of socioclasm to better understand the tactics deployed by the Islamic State’s ideologues in their ‘identity work’. Considering the fact that the group’s ideologues have extensively utilised socioclastic actions to produce and disseminate still and moving images of these destructions, I sketchily propose a further theoretical expansion that I describe as iconic socioclasm. This accentuates the fact that many cultural assets have been destroyed not only to wipe them out, but to produce and disseminate images and keep alive the memory of the destruction. In other words, these sites were destroyed not only to annihilate elements of individual and collective memory, but to create the memory of annihilation (see also Brubaker 2013). These images were thus intended to signify, conjure and testify to the Islamic State’s power as it aimed to construct social identities and build a new social framework on the ruins of destroyed monuments, obliviated social and religious practices, and murdered religious authorities.

Destruction of Ancient Mesopotamian Complexes The destruction of ancient Mesopotamian monuments and objects at the hands of the Islamic State’s fighters has generated much attention worldwide and shaped the stance of international organisations such as UNESCO, who have begun to recognise the destruction of cultural properties as a carefully planned tactic of war deployed by state and non-state actors (Russo and Giusti 2017). I have argued elsewhere (Pfeifer and Günther 2020) that the valuation and subsequent securitisation of cultural properties fostered by these institutions on the one hand, and a thorough knowledge of the logics of global image production and discourses among Islamist militants on the other, influenced the Islamic State’s actions. The group’s ideologues not only anticipated that these destructions would cause ‘an outcry from the enemies of the Islamic State, who were furious at losing a “treasured heritage”’ (Anonymous 2015: 22); in at least one instance, they also explicitly addressed the expectation that reactions by international institutions would evolve around the immaterial and pecuniary worth of cultural goods, stating that archaeological remains would be obliterated ‘even if these objects are worth several million dollars’ (Nīnawā Province Media Office 2016a). By conflating the pecuniary and the cultural value of these objects, the Islamic State’s ideologues reacted to UNESCO’s secretary general Irina Bokova, who had condemned these destructions ‘in the strongest possible manner’ only a few days before, emphasising these two dimensions. I have already explained above that the justification for such acts operates with Qurʾanic terminology to assess both current and historical contexts. Moreover, these justifications are always embedded in a religiously grounded logic by which the Islamic State’s ideologues characterise the group as another advocate of monotheistic religious practice in the tradition of Muhammad and the biblical prophets. Thus, it is Abraham in particular who not only enjoys a special status among the biblical prophets (because Muslims refer to him as the founder or re-

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former of the monotheistic Kaʿba cult39), but is also frequently invoked by Salafi and Jihadi-Salafi theorists to construct their ideological framework and conceptualise Islam as ‘the faith of Abraham’ (millat Ibrāhīm; see, inter alia, Wagemakers 2009). It is therefore no coincidence that Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī was given the title of Caliph Ibrāhīm. Several Qurʾanic verses highlight Abraham’s status as a pure monotheist (h.anīf ), and in Q. 4.125 it is said that God took him as a true friend (khalīl).40 His reforming endeavours, however, also targeted objects for worship and sacrifice – idols venerated by his father and his people that he smashed to pieces in order to abrogate their polytheistic beliefs.41 Christiane Gruber (2019b) has shown that the way in which the Islamic State’s ideologues resorted to Abraham as an inspiration for the group’s iconoclasm is apparent in the video that shows the destruction of statues and replicas in the Mosul Museum, which starts with a recitation of Q. 21.52–54,42 introducing the description of Abraham’s zeal against the polytheistic practices of his father and kin. Another paradigmatic example of this kind can be found in a video released in Ramadan 1437/June 2016 with the title Faʾs al-Khalīl (Axe of the Khalīl),43 which invokes a complex array of cultural and religious references. These connotations not only resonate with both the wider Muslim community and the Jihadi-Salafi current, but also provide the framework for interpretation of the video’s content. The video is characteristic of the Islamic State’s audiovisual representations of its attacks on cultural properties in that it features a speaker who, standing on site, explains the destruction and emphasises the religious framing of the operation. In this case, the speaker is a member of the Islamic State’s h.isba forces, dressed in a white garment (thawb) worn under a brown vest (Figure 3.7). Through a digitally inserted caption in Arabic, located at the bottom of the shot, the speaker is further identified with his nom de guerre, Abū-l-H . assan al-Ans.ārī.

Figure 3.7.  Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), Faʾs al-Khalīl. Author’s archive.

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Furthermore, the viewer experiences a multisensory account of the obliteration, including footage, verbal explanations, textual inserts and a cappella hymns (anāshīd), as well as the sounds of the destruction itself. The video launches with the basmala (‘In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful’) that sacralises the following audiovisualisation. The opening of the video consists of an introductory sequence featuring various photographs and video sequences, strung together to illustrate that mankind in general and the Muslim community in particular has been repeatedly going astray from the ‘right’ path of monotheism. By worshipping deities besides God (‘min dūn Allāh’) or idols ranging from ancient pyramids to the modern skyscrapers of the Gulf emirates, which were erected to enslave people, they have acquired a blameworthy form of unbelief, because ‘civilizations will not be assessed by their monuments, but rather by the extent to which they observe divine ordinances’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāya Nīnawā 2016b). This digital collage is concluded by a recording of a rock buffeted by waves and a reference to Q. 13.1744 to emphasise that the following account is to define truth and falsehood, thus connecting the Islamic State’s ideological framework to a political message. The video then continues with a shot of the scenery where the spokesperson opens his monologue praising God, who ‘strengthens the Muslims with monotheism and humiliates the disbelievers through polytheism and censoriousness’.45 This statement is paradigmatic in that it not only invokes a dichotomous concept of the world, but also seeks to demonstrate the Islamic State’s classificatory power, defining and appraising the characteristics of social collectives. Beyond their ability to linguistically distinguish truth from falsehood, al-Ans.ārī continues that God has given the Islamic State power to actively exert authority in this place and establish God’s law, because its members ‘perform the prayer, pay alms [and] command the right and forbid the wrong’.46 Again, Qurʾanic terminology is used to describe who the Islamic States members are and justify what they do. While the camera now focuses on a ramp leading to a higher gate enclosed by two towers with battlements, the video’s authors either presume that their targeted Arab audience knows this monument, or, because it is simply another manifestation of idolatry that does not need to be further specified, deliberately withhold the information, such that one beholds the reconstructed Mashki Gate of the city of Kalhu (Nimrūd), the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the eighth century BCE (see Jones 2016a).47 Al-Ans.ārī goes on to elaborate that ‘we removed the landmarks of polytheism and the idols and destroyed the idols and disseminated monotheism and the right creed’,48 while the viewer beholds two lamassu statues. These human-headed, winged bull and lion creatures once structurally supported and symbolically guarded the entrances to Kalhu. The picture of the partly damaged statues (Figure 3.8) is meant to illustrate al-Ans.ārī’s assertion, further define the Islamic State’s understanding of idolatry and visualise its destruction. The human face of at least one of the lamassu is erased – a tactic that, in the sense of a ‘creative destruction’ (Boehm 2015: 61), deprives figurative

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Figure 3.8.  Still from al-maktab al-ilāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016), Faʾs al-Khalīl. Author’s archive.

representations of their heads, faces or even just their eyes, and thus ‘purifies’ and divests them of their alleged lifelikeness. Furthermore, it is a gesture of abhorrence aimed at the power of European and American museum cultures, wherein the lamassu ‘serve as idols of sorts in Euro-American claims to civilizational birth, inheritance, and protection – and hence sovereignty in the Middle East’ (Gruber 2019b: 132; see also Shaw 2015). The video, however, only presents the result; it does not show the fact that it might have proved difficult to use a sledgehammer or drill to gouge the statue’s face, which was over three metres high.49 As indicated above, the Islamic State’s ideologues do not specify the collective ‘disbelievers’ any further, and seldom mention the names or locations of targeted sites. They rather refer to them collectively as ‘manifestations’ (maz.āhir), ‘temples’ (maʿābid) or ‘landmarks’ (maʿālim) of polytheism. Any of these temples, statues and tablets of stone is understood as a material manifestation of a culture that has led people astray from the ‘straight’ path of monotheism. In the video described above, al-Ans.ārī claims that ‘today we destroy and obliterate another landmark of polytheism, which had been held in high esteem by the people, whereas they did not know that these relics are idols and statues, which had been worshipped besides God’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2016b). This statement suggests that the Islamic State’s ideologues conflate two epistemological levels, namely the sociocultural and religious significations of these monuments; the first of these informs the appraisal of these sites by (local) people, whereas the latter shapes the motives of the Islamic State for destroying them. Al-Ans.ārī’s assertion furthermore sheds light on the way in which the Islamic State’s ideologues assess the horizon(s) of knowledge of those who engage with these cultural assets as immaterial cultural heritage worth preserving. First,

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the significance of these sites for contemporaries more often than not revolves around ideas of cultural heritage, local belonging and an appreciation of what past cultures had achieved in terms of architecture, art, social organisation and cultural splendour. It has become clear in this regard that the prominence of the securitised discourse on the preservation (and reconstruction) of world heritage sites and ancient artefacts has often overshadowed their significance for the social identities of local and national communities. I argue that the obliteration of some of these sites and objects became a desirable goal for the Islamic State exactly because ‘they have been held in high esteem’, since they have been an important element in the construction of social identities on a local and national level in Iraq, Syria and the broader Middle East. Embroiled with European colonial history and the making of nation states in the region, archaeological remains have been deeply entangled with the construction of Iraqi and Syrian national identities since the first half of the twentieth century. Complementing ideas of a shared religious, cultural and linguistic identity, national leaders in both states included ancient objects, sites and symbols in the canon of pan-Arab and particularist nationalism and used archaeology as a tool of power and resistance against Western imperialism (see, inter alia, Valter 2002; Abdi 2008; Bernhardsson 2005). We have seen above that as an expression of recognition of a ‘national ownership of cultural heritage’ (Sørensen and Viejo-Rose 2015: 4), the Iraqi regime creatively appropriated Babylonian and Assyrian culture and properties to develop its vision of Iraqi national identity.50 These could link the present to the past and ‘provide evidence of lengthy existence and past accomplishments’ (Jones 2018: 32), but could also help to construct a sense of national unity across ethnicity, religion and class – one which also stimulated the flourishing contemporary arts (Tugendhaft 2020: 60–65). Some Iraqi archaeologists, as Abdi (2008: 17) shows, understood excavation campaigns as a prerequisite for educating their fellow citizens about their cultural roots and heritage under the pretext of Arab nationalism. In addition to history lessons tailored to the ideological proclivities of a state oriented towards aggrandisement of a strong leader (Makiya 2004), archaeological field projects and a number of museums built throughout the country became one of the pillars of Iraq’s educational system. As is the case anywhere else, museums were conceptualised as spaces of meaning-making, where children and adults would be taught who they were through visualities that linked the remains of past cultures to the present and defined the contemporary Iraqi community, its values and its truths (Davis 1996; see also Tugendhaft 2020). Similarly, the Syrian regime stimulated excavation campaigns in the plethora of major archaeological sites scattered across the country and made use of ancient heritage to strengthen national pride and a sense of superiority (Zisser 2006). Jones (2018) also shows that the imagined link between ancient Mesopotamian cultures and contemporary national identities, forged by the Baath regimes in both countries during the second half of the twen-

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tieth century, still offers a viable blueprint with which current governments can define and appeal to the outstanding traits of contemporary Iraqis and Syrians vis-á-vis their international and regional adversaries. In view of the regime-forged connection between Baath nationalism and ancient cultural heritage, which is especially obvious in Iraq, Harmanşah (2015), de Cesari (2015), Frahm (2015) and Jones (2018) have aptly argued that the destructions caused by the Islamic State must be understood above all as a violent turn against national and secular identities, and thus against competing schemes of social identity. From the Islamic State’s strategic perspective, it is therefore irrelevant whether these sites are still used for religious practices. These artefactual proxies, as Gruber (2019b: 134) notes, ‘must be destroyed as the embodiment of the “servants of satans” – and not because they served as centerpieces in now long-gone practices of idol-worship.’ However, the significance of ancient Mesopotamian cultures in the Baath regimes’ framework of ideas of national belonging also shaped processes of local identity formation, especially through the education system. I argue that local communities and their social identities, constituted partly in relation to ancient Mesopotamian sites and objects, were of greater importance for the Islamic State’s actions on the ground – although perhaps not for its media production. Archaeological sites and antiquities, despite (or perhaps because of ) their strong enchantment in terms of nationalist policies and their musealisation according to the European model, are places and artefacts with a strong presence in the everyday life of local communities. Local communities provide the vast majority of workers for excavation campaigns and the restoration of ancient Mesopotamian sites. In addition, cultural heritage sites of international importance such as Palmyra (Tadmur), Nineveh and others attract both domestic and international tourists, thus ensuring the livelihood of tourist guides, ticket vendors, restaurant and hotel operators, and their families. Probably not so much the objects themselves, but rather the permanent activity in their surroundings thus creates a form of identification that shapes the sense of people’s selves. This becomes even clearer through projections from the outside, such as when a person from Tadmur is associated with the famous Assyrian temples and objects by others as a matter of course, and hence adopts such attributes for his/her own identity. Quite profane, archaeological sites also often serve as adventure playgrounds for children and thus become part of the earliest processes of developing social identity. Heritage thus exists as a cultural process that is socially and historically situated, and therefore subject to contestation in terms of its definition and significance. It is, therefore, local communities that are often responsible for the maintenance and operation of cultural heritage sites, and whose livelihood – and part of the local social infrastructure – is closely linked to these sites and objects. Despite the need for further empirical research on the ways in which people ‘value and engage with their heritage, how they perceive and interpret its destruc-

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tion and the value they place on its reconstruction’ (Isakhan and Meskell 2019: 1200), I suggest that these day-to-day practices substantively structure how people in Iraq and Syria have related these archaeological remains to their senses of self in such a way that their preservation is perceived as a positive asset of one’s ontological framework and their destruction as shattering the same.51 Furthermore, if it is the manifold daily practices of engaging with and living in the face of material cultural heritage that are constitutive for the creation and experience of social identities, it becomes clear that the Islamic State’s ideologues have sought to begin the realisation of the Qurʾanic paradigm ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ exactly at this level. As described above, their identity policy aims not only at the superficial negative stigmatisation of competing identity offers, but rather at their comprehensive erasure and replacement. From this perspective (as I will show below with regard to sites and objects of religious practice), cultural heritage sites and ancient objects are understood as constitutive elements of social identities and individual ontological frameworks. They are almost a part of the Sein of people who develop their senses of self in relation to them, and their obliteration makes impossible social practices that are essential for the feeling of belonging to social communities. I therefore follow Harmanşah (2015: 170), who understands the destruction of these sites at the hands of the Islamic State ‘as a form of place-based violence that aims to annihilate the local sense of belonging, and the collective sense of memory among local communities to whom the heritage belongs’. In order to justify the destruction of ancient Mesopotamian sites on the grounds of their religion-based ideology, however, the Islamic State’s ideologues and fighters do not attack these monuments as relics of a past that hardly affects people’s conformity to divine ordinances. Rather, their rationale disentangles the cultic function of these sites from their historical contexts and identifies them with current deviant religious practices. In so doing, the group’s ideologues streamline the interpretation of the creation, historical context and contemporary existence of these monuments in one direction: these buildings are epitomes of shirk. The Islamic State’s discourse around the function and assumed effect of these sites omits a dimension that is quite important in conversations around cultural heritage, namely the man-made character of these monuments. The fact that the Islamic State’s ideologues remain silent about this aspect might be due to the ontological tension that Bruno Latour (2002: 18) describes in his musings on iconoclasm, writing that ‘[i]f you say it is man-made you nullify the transcendence of the divinities, you empty the claims of a salvation from above’ (see also Freedberg 2001). If one takes Latour’s objection seriously, there is no necessity for the destruction of these objects, since one could simply deny their sacred character and thereby uncover the ‘trick’ behind these ‘false’ beliefs. The Islamic State’s ideologues, however, must not acknowledge this dimension of the objects’ genesis, because they present themselves as a force that acts

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in the name of God and His message against the forces of evil. Therefore, they cannot but bolster the cultic fascination and the significance and function attributed to ancient objects and sites in the context of religious practices; they have to sacralise them. They cannot take Latour’s objection seriously, since to do so would rob them of a central justification for exerting authority and implementing wide-ranging social changes through the destruction of these sites and objects. The Islamic State therefore cannot acknowledge the practices of (local) people that evolve around these sites primarily as exemplifications of local and national collective identities, as these do not conform to its sense of ‘genuine’ Muslimness. Rather, these monuments must be seen to epitomise the influence of eternally powerful forces, which lead people astray from the ‘right’ path of tawh.īd. As such, they are as ‘historyless’ as the divine forces the Islamic State claims to represent. Within the parameters of the continuing battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, any manifestation of polytheism is said to preserve its ‘evil’ power for all time, whereas the Islamic State continues the work of God’s prophets, who have worked for all time for the establishment of monotheism. To put it in the Islamic State’s words: ‘The breaking and burning of idols is a major aspect of rejecting t.āghūt and something that the prophets all practiced’ (al-Hayat Media Center 2016c: 36).

Obliteration of Christian Sites In comparison to the Islamic State’s destruction of ancient cultural properties, its attacks on sites actively used by religious communities, be they Yazidis, Christians, Jews, or Sunni or Shiite Muslims, seem to have a much deeper impact on the social fabric. In addition to the expulsions and murders of hundreds of people – especially of Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains, and of Jews and Christians forced to flee from the Islamic State or other Jihadi-Salafi militias – the destruction of places of religious practice has not only been aimed at erasing the material traces of these communities. Rather, through eradicating churches, monasteries, synagogues, cemeteries and other sites, the group and its ideologues also sought to obliterate spaces, monuments and objects that are important for the social fabric of communities and their members’ sense of self, because these members identify themselves with these elements of material culture. The Islamic State’s ideologues made this very clear through the ways in which they visualised the group’s treatment of Christian sites and communities in Iraq and Syria. Particularly remarkable and comprehensive in this regard was the photo cover and lead story of the fifteenth issue of the Islamic State’s Englishlanguage mouthpiece Dabiq, entitled ‘Break the Cross’. Its cover shows a photograph shot from street level, focusing on one of the Islamic State’s representatives, who kneels on the top of a church bell tower to remove a cross while carrying a black flag tied to his back (Figure 3.9).52

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Figure 3.9.  Cover image of al-Hayat Media Center (2017), Dabiq 15. Author’s archive.

The lead article includes a photograph of a similar scene, depicting three men equipped with the Islamic State’s flag knocking down a cross approximately four metres high from the top of a church cupola.53 Seeking to provide a theological rationale for the Islamic State’s position towards Christian theology and religious practice, the authors start their remarks with a Qurʾanic verse (3.64)54 to prove that

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their argument is derived from divine ordinance. They then list a number of biblical prophets who were sent by God to call mankind to monotheism, but still claim that the Torah, Psalms and Gospel were distorted and loaded with inconsistencies and contradictions so that ‘the authentic scripture was lost and the people strayed’ (al-Hayat Media Center 2016b: 47). Furthermore, they note that although parts of the Muslim community also went astray, both the Qurʾanic text and the sunna provide clear and uncorrupted messages guiding mankind onto the ‘straight’ path to salvation. In contrast to this, the authors present Trinitarian Christianity, whose evolution is described in detail, as a clear example of polytheist belief and practice. Claiming to act upon the Qurʾanic text and sunna, the Islamic State’s ideologues extend ‘a final invitation’ (ibid.: 62) to the people of the Scripture, particularly Christians, to accept Islam and consequently follow the call to monotheism disseminated by God’s last prophet Muhammad. If they refuse to do so, they are threatened with wide-ranging restrictions to their daily lives and religious practices, including the removal of crosses from their churches and the obligation to pay the jizya, a poll tax levied on non-Muslim subjects living under Muslim rule.55 These two motifs also play a role in some of the few videos that show the Islamic State’s attacks on Christian communities and their religious sites, including churches, monasteries and cemeteries.56 After it had conquered the western Syrian town of al-Qaryatayn in early August 2015, the Islamic State published two videos focusing particularly on the group’s interaction with local Christian communities. One of the videos, entitled ‘(Fight) until they give the jizya willingly while they are humbled’ (H.attā yuʿt.ū-l-jizya ʿan yad wa-hum .sāghirūn’ ),57 first presents the legal framework within which the Islamic State aspires to regulate the affairs of the Christian community and its religious practices through imposing the status of ‘Protected People’ (ahl al-dhimma) upon them, including the supposedly forced signing of a ‘Contract of Protection’ (ʿaqd al-dhimma).58 Issued by the Islamic State’s ‘Dīwān of Judgement and Grievances’ (dīwān alqad.āʾ wa-l-maz.ālim), the two-page document lists the terms of submission of the local Christian community under the Islamic State’s rule, among them the obligation to severely limit their religious activities in public. The video then presents a spokesperson – supposedly a legal scholar of the Islamic State in his early thirties – sitting in a green garden with a black kūfiya smoothly laid over his head, partly covering his ammunition belt. While he quotes Q. 9.29, the viewer watches a scene similar to those in the Dabiq magazine described above, with two men standing on top of a bell tower, removing the cross and throwing it down to the ground. Holding the Islamic State’s black flag, they raise their hands and cheer. In addition, the outer walls of a church are shown with murals depicting Mary and the Christ child, as well as the interior of the church with the altar, tables and several icons destroyed. As the camera focuses on the spokesperson again, he goes on to explain the corruption of Trinitarian Christianity and ends by quoting Q. 4.172.59

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Although this video was published exclusively in Arabic and is thus primarily aimed at a regional audience, it is clear from the speaker’s remarks that it – like the article described above – also addresses international actors. Both publications refer to a debate pursued chiefly in the US and Europe in which the protection of Christian minorities in the conflict areas of the SWANA regions was emphasised as an essential goal of political and military engagement. Alluding to this discourse, the video shows some ten to twenty men of various ages, identified as ‘Christian prisoners’, in humble poses and with sad faces, uncertain about their destiny. The spokesman explains that the Islamic State would show mercy to the Christians of the city, allowing them to pay the jizya and to continue to live their lives under the protection of the caliphate. The speaker then addresses ‘the Christians of the East and the West and the Crusader garrison America’, calling on them to ‘submit and you will be safe’ (aslimū taslamū)60 before ending his statement by quoting Q. 8.36.61 The second video visualising the Islamic State’s conduct towards the Christian community in al-Qaryatayn (and beyond) shows the destruction of the Syrian Catholic monastery of St Elian (Dayr Mār Iliyān), located at the town’s outskirts (Damascus Province Media Office 2015b). The dramaturgy of the monastery’s obliteration in August 2015 follows already-tested patterns and is thus very similar to the videos that show the destruction of ancient cultural properties; this similarity is deliberately produced, because the Islamic State’s ideologues understand the monastery as a manifestation of polytheism similar to all other cultural properties destroyed in front of and for the camera.62 In this case, however, the target has a distinct significance for the ontological framework of local communities, because the monastery had not only been a place of worship between the third and eighteenth centuries CE, but in more recent history had also been a place for interreligious encounters between local Christians and Muslims before it was destroyed.63 The monastery was thus on the one hand closely linked to the tradition of the local Christian community. Its buildings, maintained and adapted throughout the centuries, told the history of Christians in this area and were thus a testament and point of reference for today’s generations and their questions of belonging and identity. On the other hand, this site of spirituality, contemplation and the search for a connection with God served as a space of interreligious dialogue, and was thus effective and important for Christians and Muslims alike. It furthermore allowed for individuals to question their selves, not in demarcation from but above all in contact with the Other. This was a place that produced memories and the experience of social cohesion across the boundaries of religious communities, showing the inclusive potential of social identities. As we will also see below with regards to the destruction of Shiite places of worship, the Islamic State’s ideologues affirm this identification of people with their cherished places and objects, and do not understand the latter as mere rep-

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resentations, but rather as indispensable elements of the respective communities and of the social identities of their members. Consequently, the masked spokesperson in this video emphasised that the Islamic State identifies this site with the Christian community, which had been offered protection and forgiveness, but that the Islamic State had come to raze ‘these idols and graves’ (hādhihi-l-awthān wa-l-qubūr) as a warning. The ontological importance of graves cannot be underestimated, as I will explain further below. By not only demolishing buildings that are in active use, but also levelling graves, the Islamic State’s ideologues seek to prevent today’s generations from relating to the history of their communities as embodied by the deceased. However, it is not only the local Christian communities and their supporters that are to be antagonised by this visualisation.64 The speaker extends his warning in a furious tone to the Islamic State’s international opponents, shouting that ‘we will come to your lands and destroy your thrones’ (Damascus Province Media Office 2015b), ushering these acts in through depictions of the debris of the convent.

Destruction of Sites of Shiite Religious Practice and the Killing of Shiite Clerics Through its uncompromising attitude, the Islamic State has sought to cloak itself in an aura of invincibility and immunity against any tribulations. I have explained in the previous chapter that the Islamic State’s ideologues, despite their strong medialised rejection of ‘Western’ political and social models, portray the Shia as the pre-eminent inner threat to the Muslim community. Linking their ideological framework to the popular discourse of a ‘Shiite crescent’ entrenched across the SWANA region, the ideologues of the Islamic State and its predecessors have denounced the interweaving of Shiite religiosity and symbolism with the state-building process in Iraq in many of their texts, speeches and videos, and have also harshly criticised Iranian political and military influence in Syria and Iraq. These ideologues understand the Shia community at large as a constant contestation of the ‘true’ meaning of divine ordinances; thus, any material and immaterial manifestation of Shia theology and practice is an epitome of shirk. Emphasising the historical divisions between Sunna and Shia, the Islamic State’s ideologues have sought to refresh peoples’ memories of a conflict that is presented as an intractable ‘old feud’; the Shia are thus classified as a group of people whose otherness ‘is not an initial strangeness to be solved by further acquaintance, but an otherness that cannot be reduced to knowledge or recognition’ (Poorthuis 2007: 127). The group’s ideologues have developed essential elements of the Islamic State’s self-image in the course of an increasingly violent sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, where the rejection of Shia theology, practice

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and political endeavour, the destruction of related objects and sites, and the obliteration of the Shia’s human representatives have become prominent elements of the Islamic State’s teleology. As a bedrock of the group’s strategy, the sectarianisation of situations of conflict in Iraq and Syria is (as I will explain in detail below) contingent on an assumption shared between members of the conflicting parties, namely that sacred buildings, objects of religious practice and outstanding religious scholars are not mere representations of a religious community, but rather a part of it that is crucial for determining the self-conception of the entire community and its individual members. Since the great weight of Shiite theology and practice serves as a counter project to ‘true’ Islam, and thus as ‘the Other’ against which the Islamic State’s ideologues have developed their social identity offer, it is not surprising that the latter use pictures and audiovisual documentation of destroyed Shiite sites throughout the group’s media to document its zeal for purification of the socio-religious landscape. Deeply embedded in the Islamic State’s general teleology, an example of such imagery can be found in a video that mainly polemicises against various renowned Sunni theologians who oppose the Islamic State (muʾassasat al-battār 2017). In an introductory sequence praising the Islamic State’s achievements, there is a short scene in which a voice-over asserts that the Islamic State has granted victory to monotheism and destroyed idolatry (nas.arat al-tawh.īd wahadamat al-shirk). On the plane of images, a partially animated montage is shown with two simultaneous motions: at the same time as the minaret of an unnamed mosque collapses on the right-hand side, a man dressed in camouflage and upholding the Islamic State’s black flag rises from the ground into the very centre of the image (Figure 3.10).

Figure 3.10.  Still from muʾassasat al-battār (2017), Qut.āʾ al-Turuq. Author’s archive.

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Although it is a short scene in a longer video produced to bolster the Islamic State’s claim to the prerogative of an authoritative interpretation of Islam’s holy sources, this six-second-long composition paradigmatically illustrates the way in which the group’s ideologues conceptualise its position in between the dialectics of tawh.īd (monotheism) and shirk (polytheism, idolatry). This piece thus not only shows how one symbol replaces another, but also illustrates the purportedly inevitable simultaneity of the emergence of a God-given order and the obliteration of its antipodes. The foundation of pristine monotheism in a purified society, represented by the warrior firmly holding the Islamic State’s black flag, must be built only on the rubble of the material manifestations of its opponents. The latter in this case are represented by the collapsing minaret of the Shiite Jawād Husayniyya mosque in Tal ʿAfar, which was probably blown up in July 2014 after the Islamic State seized control of the city. This holy site was one of several places of worship destroyed by the Islamic State in and around Tal ʿAfar between 24 and 26 June 2014 (Danti et al. 2015: 54–89). Probably named after its donor, Muh.ammad Jawād al-Barzanjī (b. 1952),65 the mosque was adjacent to a complex that housed a shrine designated to the memory of Saʿd b. Muslim b. ʿAqīl66 and a cemetery. Being spaces used for communal prayers and religious learning, both sites were vital elements of local Shia Muslim religiosity and social life. Furthermore, they had a specific significance for Shiite community-building that extended beyond a purely local context. Parts of their complexes were also allocated h.usaynīyāt, which are spaces that usually provide a special setting for the collective mourning of the martyrdom of the third imam of the Shia, H . usayn Ibn ʿAlī (d. 680), and for mourning the deaths (or celebrating the birthdays) of other imams – and which, besides offering space for a wide range of other religious and social practices, serve as hostels for pilgrims to Shiite shrines (Sindawi 2008: 365). The complex that harboured these sites is exemplary of many other Shiite attributes targeted by the Islamic State, because we can identify it as a space where social function and symbolism amalgamated in the realm of religious practice and community formation. Such sites provide a space where members of a religious community – that is, a social collective ‘that is tied to neither blood nor locality’ (Turner 1974: 201) – manifest role and status and create personal bonds of communitas during services, prayers, religious education, charitable activities and much more.67 Architectural elements and other visible characteristics demonstrate that these sites are built, preserved and visited as ‘signs of belonging in shared memory’ (Mieth 1988–2001: 135). Soon after blasting the complex apart, the Islamic State issued a ‘photo report’ on the destruction of both sites, describing it as the destruction of the ‘H.usaynīya temple’ (maʿbad h.usaynīya).68 On the surface, this caption provided the justification for the sites’ obliteration, because in the Islamic State’s view, they were designated as idolatrous forms of

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worshipping the Prophet’s grandson H.usayn b. ʿAlī, and had to be obliterated in accordance with the principle of al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar. In emphasising its designation as h.usaynīya, however, the authors asserted that the meaning of such sites for the Shia extends beyond the realm of the symbolic, since they present room for assemblies that help to link individual believers to their immediate social collective and to shape their social identities as members of a wider community. This suggests that the Islamic State’s ideologues had a sense for the value that such sites had for the cohesion of the Shiite community at large and the social identities of its individual members. As their usage as h.usaynīya indicates, both sites were also destinations of pilgrimages and attracted people from various locations. Pilgrimage sites in general are of great value for both the collective identity of religious communities and the social identities of individual believers. In this sense, it can be said that both small sites with local significance and places that are visited by people from across the globe ‘matter to people because they tell the story of who we are, where we’ve come from, and who we wish to be’ (Mulder 2016; italics in original). These stories are shaped by religious authorities and institutions, which ‘ground themselves in sacred sites and gain power and prestige by promoting certain religious narratives through the embellishment or creation of holy places’ (Pinto 2017: 64–65), as well as through the formation and medialisation of bodies of knowledge that evolve around these places. A case in point is a twin shrine in the Syrian town of al-Raqqa, which was destroyed by the Islamic State after it seized control over the city in early 2014 (Reuters 2014). The complex housed the tombs of Uways al-Qaranī and ʿAmmar b. Yāsir, who were contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad.69 It had been visited by local tribes who considered themselves descendants of H . usayn, whereas ‘intellectual circles linked to the traditional urban notable families [saw it] as a lieux de mémoire of Raqqa’s urban identity’ (Pinto 2007: 123). Similarly to many other religious commodities that were (re)built under the reign of Hafez al-Asad, the twin mausoleum had been ‘built by the al-Asad family, supported by the Ayatollah Khomeni, to honor the tombs of two seventh-century Shia martyrs from the First Islamic Civil War’ (Hall and Noyes 2014a). Although visits by local Sufi communities continued, under regime protection the shrines were ‘Persianised’ in exterior decoration and architecture and became an established site of pilgrimage for Shiites from across the region. The shrines grew into ‘objects of conflicting territorialities’ (Ababsa 2001: 647) because their expansion was resented by local notables, who saw an appropriation (and resignification) of the mausoleum by the regime and ‘by a religious community they view[ed] as “foreign” (the Shiʿi)’ (Pinto 2007: 123; see also Ababsa 2001, 2005).70 The increasing stream of (mostly Iranian) pilgrims into the city also sparked socio-economic changes (Ababsa 2001: 648), such that an elaborate economic and social infrastructure evolved around the shrines, providing a variety of direct and indirect

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earning opportunities for the local populace. Such social infrastructure helps to further increase the outreach of religious institutions and authorities through the establishment of schools, community centres and charitable institutions aimed at the general population, thus establishing loyalties that extend beyond membership of a religious community. Furthermore, an intellectual environment builds up around many such sites, in the form of seminaries and other institutions of religious learning, as well as bookshops, which are also grounded in the ‘charisma’ of the site and pilgrims’ activities. As this and many other examples in Syria show, the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies used Shiʿi holy places to build social identities around a sense of transnational bonds and commonality between Shiites across the region. The appeals of these entrepreneurs of identity, however, must be accepted (to a certain extent at least) by pilgrims and the local populace alike. These are the people who likewise shape, circulate, appropriate, further develop and animate these narratives, actively making the stories manifested in the site part of their selves and embedding them into their subjectivities and their own religious imaginaries. They are the ones who seek (and answer the ‘call’ of ) these sites, open themselves to their topographical and architectural configuration, experience the religious sacra preserved in them with all their senses, attribute a charismatic aura to these sites and objects, navigate their way through the ‘web of rules and representations that establish certain locations’ (Pinto 2017) and process their interactions with other people en route and at the places themselves. It is through these encounters and human interactions that such sites become more than markers, but rather meaningful elements of people’s social identities. Although people rarely set aside their social status during a pilgrimage, such journeys and the collective practices performed throughout help to dilute or attenuate social hierarchies between pilgrims, because they allow for shared emotions and experiences that establish bonds between individuals and groups of people visiting the same site at the same time, following similar routes, engaging in similar religious practices, wearing similar clothing and buying similar accessories on site.71 Holy sites, collective practices and the environment surrounding them thus create ‘the experience of . . . a diffuse solidarity that transcends social and cultural differences’ (Pinto 2007: 109) and help people to construct bonds and loyalties that relate their selves to other members of their community, both living and deceased. Many of the elements I have described so far indicate that holy sites in general, and sites of pilgrimage in particular, are constitutional elements of the collective identities of religious communities. They provide spaces for a wide range of religious and social practices, as well as social infrastructures that emerge around them. Operated by religious institutions and authorities and frequented by a broad variety of believers, these sites become embedded in an individual’s horizons of experience, intellectual advancement and personal memories, shaping

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narratives about their spiritual journey as well as the development and consolidation of their ‘ontological security’ (Giddens 1991) in relation to a given social collective. They thus help to produce a self-assertive power, which is nurtured and perpetuated by the experience of an identity-creating fusion of individual, place and ritual through practices linked to the specific site. In this perspective, such sites cease to be mere symbolic or physical representations, but rather constitute the social collective to a significant extent, or even become the groups themselves.72 When the Islamic State’s fighters destroyed the twin shrine on 26 March 2014, they attacked a site that displayed ‘a hybrid symbolic dimension of identity and religion’ (Ababsa 2001: 657), created through the expansion of Iranian religio-political influence in Syria from the early 1990s. Through the obliteration of the shrines, the Islamic State thus (albeit in reverse) acknowledged and reasserted the identification of the signifier (the mausoleum) with the signified (the Twelver Shia and its Iranian representatives) on a symbolic level. On a sociopolitical level, however, the attack aimed to repel ‘the hateful rawāfid.’ by destroying the social representative quality of the site and the web of social relations between pilgrims and locals that had evolved around it. Furthermore, the Islamic State’s ideologues could build on local sentiments as they framed the destruction of these properties as an important element of their struggle against the ‘Shiification’ of the region, embodied by Iranian pilgrims who not only articulated Shia religiosity, but also furthered the expansion of Iranian religious and political influence (Anonymous 2016), thus influencing transnational identities. From the Islamic State’s perspective, targeting these sites, I argue, is thus equal to targeting the community at large, because members’ social identities are in part deeply entangled with (and built in relation to) sites that offer not just space for rituals and other practices, religious learning and community-building, but are also valued for their significance for individual and collective identities. At the same time, I contend that this notion does not only exist in the minds of the Islamic State’s ideologues, but hinges on the assumption that the equation of signifier and signified is valid for the Islamic State and the attacked community alike. If this assumption is shared, it also explains some of the conflictive and provocative potential of the group’s destruction of cultural assets. This is particularly clear with regard to the mobilisation potential of the threatened attacks on the Sayyida Zaynab Mosque near Damascus (Smyth 2015), but also in the case of the attacks on the golden dome and the al-ʿAskarī shrine in Samarra73 in early 2006 and mid-2007 (which triggered massive sectarian violence in Iraq), and of several other attacks on Shiite shrines, mosques and pilgrims in Iraq, including assaults targeting the Imam ʿAbbās mosque and the Imam H.usayn shrine in Karbala, which caused serious casualties (Cave and Bowley 2007). The actual (or at least apprehended) destruction of religious sites is thus used by all actors in this conflict as a part of their strategy (Hardy 2014).

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As the description of the above-examined cultural properties further suggests, sites of pilgrimage often provide a setting for more than one rite of passage. The belief in the beneficent forces that impregnate certain places (and the traditions upholding these beliefs) may do more than bring people to conceive of their pilgrimage as a transitional process that transforms their selves in relation to many dimensions of the religious and the social. Such a belief may also prompt people to seek burial at these sites, such that cemeteries are most often located near sacred places. Pinto (2017: 62), for example, shows that people from all across Iraq have their bodies sent to Najaf to be buried in the holy ground that is impregnated with baraka, a beneficiary force that is transmitted through the Prophet Muhammad’s descendants, thus emanating from the belief in the physical presence of a human body that is both a symbolic and literal representation of a person and their traits. This belief potentially affects both the body and mind of visitors, who can set themselves in relation to this person. It also helps to reinforce links between the deceased and the whole Shiite community, and to amplify the idea of its continuity throughout time. Furthermore, the bereaved embody this idea as well, as a burial is a social practice that is inextricably interwoven with their individual and collectively shared sense of memory, their religious imaginaries and their sense of belonging to a community that continues throughout time. By destroying shrines, graves and cemeteries, the Islamic State targets both the veneration and the burial practices, as well as their significance for the ontological framework of the respective communities (see, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat S.alāh. al-Dīn 2015; Maktabat al-Himma 2014). In some cases – for instance, the destruction of the above-mentioned twin shrine of Uways al-Qaranī and ʿAmmar b. Yāsir in al-Raqqa – the Islamic State’s ideologues did not content themselves with destroying the site of veneration itself. The group’s claim to protect Sunnis from ‘Shiification’ and its aim to purify the socio-religious landscape even led to the exhumation and removal of the mortal remains from the tombs before its fighters blasted the gravesite.74 The purification strategy was all-encompassing: by blasting the gravesite and removing the remains of the saints, the Islamic State not only intended to temporarily prevent certain social and religious practices, such as pilgrimages and saint veneration. In fact, by transferring the actual object of veneration to an unknown place, it also aimed to do away with any worship related to a distinct object or person at a particular place, once and for all. By destroying a shrine and graveyard in this way, the Islamic State’s socioclasm aims to make saint veneration – an adherence to beliefs in beneficiary forces that induce the attribution of charisma to a certain site – impossible. What is more, the attacks are directed against burials as social practices through which contemporaries can build a social identity by relating their sense of self to a wider community, to which they are bound neither by blood nor by locality.

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In some places in Iraq and Syria, we also see a simultaneity of personal charisma and the charisma of a site. Immediately after the fall of Saddam Husayn, many Iraqi Shiite scholars who had fled into exile returned to their home country in a climate of high ontological and existential insecurity. I have described in the first chapter how some of these scholars did not confine their work to the spiritual realm, but rather intensively shaped social and political developments in Iraq. They became figures of orientation, who, through their personalities and their institutions, began to mould sites that are important for the creation and preservation of Shiite identity. One of them, Muhammad Bāqir al-H.akīm, returned to Iraq in May 2003 after he had spent decades in Iranian exile. Chairing the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), he resided in Najaf and was revered as an important political and religious authority for the Iraqi Shia. Like other renowned Iraqi Shiite clerics, such as Ayatollah ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, he called for a rapid transfer of political responsibility to Iraqis and an open affirmation of Islam in the process of constitution-building.75 In contrast to al-Sīstānī, however, al-H.akīm maintained a close relationship with Iran’s religious elites. Moreover, the Supreme Council had a powerful paramilitary organisation at its disposal, the Badr Corps (faylaq al-Badr), which would stand with al-H.akīm in case of a conflict situation. Al-H.akīm was therefore not only a political heavyweight; he also embodied the image of ‘the Shiite enemy’ invoked time and again by Zarqawi and his heirs. Al-H.akīm, who had already escaped an assassination attempt five days earlier, was killed by a car bomb together with ninety-five other people on 29 August 2003 as he left the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf (Allawi 2007: 171–73). The symbolic power of this attack was enormous, since it targeted one of the highest-ranking Shiite scholars in Iraq at one of the most important sanctuaries of the Shia – the tomb of the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī T.ālib. Reports in local and regional news outlets also highlighted the symbolic significance of the location of the attack, and some were quick to label al-H . akīm a martyr. Zarqawi did not explicitly claim responsibility for the attack, but, in an audio message of April 2004, referred to it as a success and stated that ‘God already honoured us through the killing of al-H.akīm, who hauled wickedness, deceit and enmity towards the people of Islam’ (al-Zarqāwī 2004b).76 Although al-H . akīm’s assassination could neither render the Supreme Council nor his institutions in Najaf inoperative, it temporarily dealt a severe blow to the aspirations of Shiite religio-political organisations. Additionally, it was a temporary setback for the CPA and the American administration, which regarded the Supreme Council as one of its main partners in the sociopolitical reorganisation of the country. From the perspective of the ideologues and strategists of Zarqawi’s group, even if they were not responsible for the attack, the killing of al-Hakīm was just as important as the destruction of Shiite cultural assets. Al-H.akīm, like other clerics and religious scholars for their respective religious communities, assumed an important

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theological and social function as a mediator of religious knowledge, as well as by offering guidance and counsel to believers. His distinct political position, but also his status as a prominent theologian, made al-H . akīm a particular figure of identification for the Iraqi Shia in and beyond the country, one who embodied their collective identity and the self-conception of their religious community, and thus who could hardly be replaced by someone else. It could be argued that one of the strategies of the Shiite community in coping with his death was to transfer the appreciation of his person and achievements into acts of veneration aimed at affirming his memory, as he was soon after his assassination revered as the ‘martyr of the prayer niche’ (shahīd al-mih.rāb) (Valenti 2003).77 Headed by his nephew ʿAmmar al-H.akīm, the Najaf-based muʾassasat shahīd al-mihrab (Martyr of the Prayer Niche Foundation) mainly works to keep ‘the religious, social and political legacy of SAIRI’s martyred leader alive through the provision of philanthropic services in Iraq’ (Corboz 2012: 357). Preserving the memory of the man whose name was added to the long list of al-H.akīmshuhadāʾ, the foundation has also been key in the establishment of an ‘enormous religious and educational complex called al-mujammāʿ shahīd al-mihrab al-thaqāfī (the Cultural Complex of the Martyr of the Mihrab)’ (Pinto 2017: 69), erected on the way from Najaf to Kufa. Pinto (ibid.: 70) reports that the complex will ‘include the Imam ‘Ali Mosque (Masjid Imam ‘.Ali), which will have capacity for 12,000 worshipers; one religious school for boys and another for girls; a university for Islamic and Human Sciences; a general library; a conference hall; and the Imam Hassan Guest House and Hostel . . . more importantly, his body will be enshrined in a mausoleum (marqad).’ The ways in which Najaf-based Shiite institutions managed the aftermath of al-H . akīm’s murder and the construction of a memorial to him that includes the Imam Ali Mosque shows their capacity to fill the void cut in the social fabric of the Shiite community in Najaf and beyond in a particular way. While the reconstruction of destroyed cultural properties often runs the risk of creating artificial environments that lack a connection to people’s memories and social identities, a person lost is even harder to replace. However, it seems that this assassination has opened up opportunities for the Shiite community to establish a new site around an existing one that, through its architectural language and spatiality, not only produces a symbolic relationship between Sayyid al-H . akīm and Imam ʿAlī, but also invites visitors to honour both. This configuration of memorials and surrounding institutions sparks social practices in which the figure of al-Hakīm is not only accorded a special status, but can also be worshipped as one in a line of people who secure the continuation of Shiite theology, religious practice and community-building, and connect the community’s past with current and future generations. Enclosed in the mosque complex and thus embedded in the city’s sacred topography, the institutions that have been established to commemorate al-H . akīm have created yet another point of reference for the local population and

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pilgrims in Najaf, in relation to which feelings of belonging and social identity can develop. By placing Bāqir al-H . akīm at the centre of Najaf ’s sacred topography, the Shiite community ultimately resisted the destructive forces that sought to eradicate their identity.

Sites of Sunni Religious Practice One would assume that the Islamic State’s ideologues, in contrast to their total rejection of Shiite dogma and practice, have a more nuanced view of the religiosity of Sunni Muslims, whose recognition they strive for. Their claim to classificatory power is indeed grounded in elaborate ideas about how Islam should be lived, interpreted and proclaimed; however, as well as rejecting the traditional schools of law, these ideas cannot accept the diversity of interpretations of Qurʾan and h.adīth within Sunni Islam. Denouncing the multiplicity of these understandings as deviance and heresy, the Islamic State’s ideologues have sought to exert authority in the territories under their control in order to try to regulate the social and religious practices of the Sunni Muslim communities in particular. They have offered a social contract to the ruled, and accordingly established institutions in charge of overseeing wide areas of public and private life. These are the dīwān alh.isba and the dīwān al-daʿwa wa-l-masājid (the council for the call to Islam and mosque-related matters), the latter of which is a specific institution responsible for the education and appointment of clerics, as well as the building and maintenance of mosques (muʾassasat al-furqān 2016). As documented in a 2016 video (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāya Nīnawā 2016a), these two institutions seem to work closely together to ‘purify’ Sunni mosques. The narrative of the video revolves around the central position of the mosque as a sacred space and a place of community-building, where the Muslim community constitutes itself through the worship of God and the publicly performed acceptance of divine ordinances. The place where the call to Islam is promulgated, and from which the spread of Islam began – so the voice-over continues – has not only been attacked and desecrated by the enemies of the Muslims, but also used by them to let ‘evil scholars’ (ʿulamāʾ al-sūʾ) call for a renunciation of ‘true Islam’, for obeisance to modern idols (t.awāghīt) and for a war against the monotheists (ahl al-tawh.īd). Invoking Q. 72.1878, the Islamic State’s ideologues, during the first half of the thirteen-minute-long video, present their vision for a reformation of the significance and purpose of mosques, through the erasure of inappropriate engravings on their insides and outsides, their renaming, the removal of tombs and shrines, and ultimately the destruction of entire buildings. The voice-over further claims that in order to preserve the straight path of ‘true’ Islam against ‘excessive Sufis, heedless murjiʾa, or the ally and defender of idolatry (t.āghūt) . . . a number of polytheist temples were destroyed’79, followed by a longer sequence showing a

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compilation of footage of the destruction of eight mosques and shrines in Mosul, including the mosque of the Prophet Jonah (nabī Yūnus).80 The destruction of the latter, which until then had been one of the landmarks of Mosul, in July 2014 attracted enormous attention in Iraq and the wider region. The contemporary mosque had been ‘built atop an archaeological mound’ covering the remains of an Assyrian palace and a Nestorian church ‘which houses the tomb of a Christian patriarch that came to be associated with the Prophet Jonah’ (Isakhan and Meskell 2019: 1197). The mosque had been a space that attracted a range of visitors and pilgrims from a variety of religious affiliations and ethnic backgrounds. In addition, Isakhan and Meskell (ibid.) describe that the top of the mound, which ‘offers views across the city of Mosul and was a popular spot for family picnics . . . played a significant social role’. Some of their respondents express how they perceive the different layers of significance of the site, as well as relating their own experiences on the mound and in the mosque, indicating that their senses of self had been established in relation to the heritage and spiritual and social significance of the site, which was a vibrant space of Mosul’s ethnic and religious diversity. By destroying the site, the Islamic State’s ideologues not only sought to demonstrate that the hitherto known social order was abrogated once and for all; through this symbolic and socially powerful act, they moreover targeted the site’s significance in its entirety. As the video described above and similar accounts81 indicate, they cloaked the attack in theological terminology, framing it as an ‘extermination of a polytheist temple’ (izālat maʿbad shirkī). The obliteration of the site was thus aimed at popular Muslim beliefs and religious practices associated with the mosque and the tomb – practices such as the veneration of saints, which the Islamic State’s ideologues castigated in a number of texts, inspired by the doctrine of the Wahhābīya, whose partisans destroyed graves and shrines in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not only in Saudi Arabia but also during raids in southern Iraq.82 The site’s obliteration furthermore targeted its pluri-denominational character as a space that embraced all segments of society across the boundaries of ethnicity and faith and symbolised the diversity of the socio-religious landscape in a pluralistic society. Thus, their act manifested their often-articulated rejection of spiritual contact between different religions and deviant Muslim religious practices, as well as related expectations of salvation, in that it eradicated the very space around which these practices evolved and to which people’s beliefs were directed. Beránek notes that ‘[t]he strategic objective of these acts is to destroy the culture, background and pride of local people and their intellectual bedrock. . . . The harsh approach toward cultural heritage has proved in the past to be a very powerful instrument in the fight against various forms of popular Islam. It has also served as a way of controlling local Muslim communities all around the world.’ (Quoted in Nabeel 2016; Hall and Noyes 2014c).

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The detonation also targeted the social and intellectual infrastructure established in and around the site, which provided space for identity-creating social practices through debates and scholarly education in the mosque, in clerical circles or even in bookshops. Since the Nabī Yūnus mosque had been a site that attracted pilgrims from across Iraq, its destruction, similarly to the obliteration of the other sites of pilgrimage mentioned above, was aimed at impeding the identity-creating function of pilgrimages, venerations of saints, spiritual exercises and other rituals, which are distinct social practices in the first place. Beyond the realm of the religious, however, the destruction of the site also targeted the social practices that unfolded on the mound, which not only allowed for the mingling of the sexes but more importantly also provided opportunities for the establishment of a pluralistic social order that embraced all Iraqi citizens across the boundaries of ethnicity and faith. The Islamic State’s fighters, however, did not target the pre-Islamic cultural heritage preserved in the area, which they had partially excavated, inserting all movable goods into their economic cycle. In sum, the spatial, material, ideational and intellectual purification of this site’s socio-religious signification was all-encompassing, and its effects reached well beyond the smouldering rubble that remained of one of Mosul’s erstwhile iconic landmarks. Socioclastic in its intention and effects, this purification continues to affect the memories, lives and social identities of the people who felt ‘comfortable there . . . [and as if we did] connect with Allah directly . . . and when we are walking into the Mosque we feel that we are in another world’ (Isakhan and Meskell 2019: 1199). Nevertheless, we must remember that the destruction of the Nabī Yūnus mosque represents an all-encompassing strategy of purification, based on the Islamic State’s claim to regulate Sunni religious practice and to shape it in conformity with the ideas of the group’s ideologues. This also means that in contrast to the attacks on sites of other religious communities, including the Shia, the Islamic State’s purification strategy aimed to preserve and (re)create distinct points of orientation for local populations, even as it razed and ruined many sites of Sunni religious practice. Amid dozens of properties of Islamic cultural heritage destroyed in Mosul under the Islamic State’s rule,83 the Great Mosque of al-Nūrī (al-jāmiʿ al-kabīr al-Nūrī) was such a point of orientation, and one which came to be known to a wider transnational audience once Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī ascended its pulpit on Ramadan 6, 1435 AH/5 July 2014 to deliver his first, widely mediated public speech as proclaimed caliph (muʾassasat al-furqān 2014c). The Friday Mosque of al-Nūrī and its famous leaning minaret was not only a focus of local religious life and social memory, significant to local identities as one of Mosul’s iconic landmarks; Isakhan and Meskell (2019: 1195) also describe it as a shared sacred space, that is, an example of the ‘mixed sanctuaries where people with different ethnic and religious affiliations come together to perform or witness different forms of devotion – often at the same time.’84 Its namesake,

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Nūr al-Dīn Mah.mūd b. Zankī, who ruled Aleppo and Damascus between 1146 and 1174 CE and commissioned the building of the mosque, which was finished in 1172, is an important figure for contemporary Sunni militant movements, not only due to his reported piety and his rejection of Shia Islam, but also because he won decisive victories against the European Crusader armies and came to be associated with the image of defending Muslim lands against Christian aggression. Shortly after they had seized control of Mosul in June 2014, the Islamic State thus took possession of a site whose structure – although it had been repeatedly reconstructed and altered over the centuries – was closely interwoven with the history of Mosul and its Sunni population, and could speak to contemporaries as a testimony to a past remembered as glorious. Occupying the Great Mosque, the group’s ideologues planted the black banner on top of its leaning minaret (alRubaye 2017) to make their claim to authority widely visible. Moreover, they could use the site to exert regulatory authority over the Sunni population and shape the latter’s sense of ‘genuine’ Islam by enforcing conformity with their values, norms and views on the manner in which Islam ought to be lived, interpreted and proclaimed, knowing that they could hardly determine people’s inner states and religious beliefs.85 Forcing people to ‘act as if ’ can thus be conceived as just another step towards substantially altering religious and social practices. The Great Mosque provided the backdrop for an authoritative and sovereign gesture by Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, but also, through its history, lent additional significance to his sermon, his person and the claim to power he embodied. The very fact that the Islamic State’s ideologues linked this space to the group and its aspirations through Abu Bakr’s Friday sermon, thus appropriating it for their symbolic repertoire, related the building and its history, but also its preservation, to the existence of the proclaimed caliphate. The detonation of the building on the evening of 21 June 2017 must also be understood in this sense. While the Iraqi military, alongside allied militias and Peshmerga units, attacked Mosul on a massive scale as part of Operation ‘Nīnawā, we are coming’ (qādimūn yā Nīnawā) (Al-Sūmarīya News 2016; Williams and Souza 2017), destroying much of the old city centre, the Islamic State had to withdraw from the city with heavy losses. Knowing that the Great Mosque also symbolised the rise of its rule, and had thus also become part of the Islamic State, the group did not want the building to fall into the hands of enemy troops or to be ‘desecrated’ in any way. Consequently, the group’s fighters detonated explosives inside the mosque, destroying it along with the leaning minaret (Bayt al-Maws.il 2017). Thus, while the Islamic State destroyed the structure whose pulpit and mih.rāb had provided the backdrop for its rise like no other site, and had thus become part of the group’s identification repertoire, the latter retained for a moment the power to determine how its opponents could behave towards this part of ‘Islamic State identity’, repelled by its erstwhile appropriators. What is less important in this regard is that the reactions of Maws.ilīs and many Iraqis were

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characterised by dismay (Isakhan and Meskell 2019: 1195–96). According to the inner logic of the Islamic State’s ideologues, it was much more decisive whether the coalition troops advancing into the old town would succeed in taking up this space that was so symbolically important. When Iraqi troops and their allies reached the remains of what had been the Great Mosque of al-Nūrī on 30 June, they did indeed celebrate their victory over the Islamic State, not least through the use of visuality and symbolic means. As in many other instances where territorial control had been regained from the Islamic State, pictures disseminated via Getty Images during the following days show members of Iraq’s security forces posing in front of the remains of the Great Mosque, raising victory gestures and holding the Islamic State’s black banner upside down to emphasize the group’s defeat (Senna 2017). Photographs posted during the following days also showed graffiti sprayed onto the foundation of the remains of the minaret, where members of Iraqi Special Operation Forces had left their mark, together with other individuals whose slogans claimed that justice had been done and the rule of law had been reinstated (Danti et al. 2017: 118–22). However, the rubble that remained of the once-magnificent city of Mosul after the defeat of the Islamic State also demanded a reaction from international institutions, and UNESCO launched a new flagship project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’ (UNESCO 2018).86 As Isakhan and Meskell (2019) show in an empirical study, UNESCO’s efforts to reconstruct these buildings and the historic old town of Mosul ‘to foster reconciliation and social cohesion’ (UNESCO 2019) have provoked different reactions among people in Iraq and Syria who have witnessed the obliteration of cultural properties at the hands of the Islamic State’s fighters. Some have stressed the need for Syrians and Iraqis to become aware of their cultural heritage as a social responsibility and to ‘re-establish intercommunity solidarity’ (Isakhan and Meskell 2019: 1194) through joint reconstruction efforts, while others have criticised the prioritisation of heritage reconstruction over broader humanitarian needs. In comparison to the above-mentioned example of the memorial of Muh.ammad Bāqir al-H . akīm – which involves a restoration of the Imam ʿAlī mosque at Najaf and the enclosure of the latter in a site that provides a range of social and religious infrastructure for the local populace and pilgrims alike – it is not clear whether Mosul’s reconstructed iconic landmarks will provide spaces to which people can relate or which they can include in their senses of self as elements of their social identities.

Iconic Socioclasm: Using Audiovisuality to Ensure the Persistence of Destruction (Audio)visual accounts of destructions such as those described above may powerfully affect various audiences. Arguably, in situations of conflict in particular, still and moving images are not produced simply to symbolically represent or display

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reality, but rather to help sociopolitical actors to create it in the first place.87 These images thus do more than just resemble the facts they represent or illustrate, or reflect a meaning that they do not themselves create. Additionally, images will only become powerful instruments with and through which people act if they evoke an immediate experience of the depicted (reinforced by sounds or verbal messages), reduce the complexity of the context and direct the viewer’s attention to specific messages. Images might thereby help to eliminate the conscious separation between image and object and hamper viewers’ reflection on the depicted practices and contexts. This, in turn, might impede viewers’ ability to take a cognitive distance from what is seen.88 In this sense, it can be argued that the Islamic State’s ideologues have designed and disseminated photo reports and videos in particular in such a way that they will be remembered by their respective publics as formative images (Bredekamp 2003) – images that are never forgotten and that evoke immediate (re)action, not least because they contain a sense of the Islamic State’s presence, even if it is not physically tangible. Images of these destructions are thus not merely ‘symbolic sites of struggle’ (Maasri 2009) or ‘artefacts of ideological discourse’ (Harmanşah 2015: 173), and nor do they resemble the dominance gesture of a ‘symbolic sectarianism’ (Isakhan and González Zarandona 2017) that would aim to demonstrate the Islamic State’s power and its opponents’ vulnerability. Rather, the Islamic State’s ideologues seek to produce formative images, which have such powerful and immediate effects on the targeted audiences that they cannot be ignored. These images support the Islamic State’s narrative of an intractable and everlasting conflict between Sunnis and Shīʿīs, extend tendencies of dehumanisation and de-individuation, and feed into pre-existing sentiments, prejudices and fears. Such (moving) images are part and parcel of the Islamic State’s socioclastic actions and strategy. They manifest the ‘subconscious reconquest of identity’ (Campion 2017: 36) entailed by the group’s visual, verbal, aural and textual rhetoric, employed in the display of violence against cultural properties. As the Islamic State presents itself as an authority striving for a comprehensive purification of the socio-religious landscape, image production around these obliterations is itself a vital part of a strategy that aims at making social and religious practices, and subsequently the ideas and intellectual debates evolving around them, impossible once and for all. The Islamic State does not view the spatial, material and ideational dimensions of deviant practices as mere representations. Rather, they are understood as integral elements of the respective religious communities, which constitute themselves as social groups through collective practices, religious assemblies, pilgrimage sites and their social infrastructure, shared symbols and historical memories, and the intellectual reflection around these. Similarly, this applies to the function of clerics and religious scholars, who are indispensable for the collective identity and the self-conception of religious communities through their role as mediators of religious knowledge, as well as through offering

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guidance and counsel to believers who might identify with them. The destruction of cultural properties, the killing of these people and the (albeit indirect) obliteration of social infrastructure thus creates, at least temporarily, a void that impacts the communities in question on a primarily social level. The Islamic State produces images of these destructions to etch the memory of these events and the sense of their fatality into the minds of individual members of the affected communities, who also define their social identities in relation to holy sites.

Notes   Different versions of parts of this chapter have been published in Günther (2020) and Günther and Pfeifer (2020).   1. See also Bruce, Green and Georgeson (2006); Müller (2003: 3); and Sachs-Hombach and Schirra (1999).   2. Bredekamp and others refer to this process as ‘Bildakt’. See Bredekamp (2015: 60–64) and Feist and Rath (2012).   3. See, inter alia, Majetschak (2005). On methodological problems with regard to interdependencies of text and image, see Voßkamp and Weingart (2005: 8) and Bateman et al. (2012). On the impact of certain fonts on the meaning ascribed to images, see Tabbaa (1991).   4. See Bosworth, Deny and Siddiq (2012). I am grateful to Mohammad Maghout, who made me aware of this historical link.   5. See e.g. Q. 10.24; 14.32; and 22.5.   6. See e.g. Q. 11.40–41; 13.17; and 25.48.   7. See e.g. Q. 8.11.   8. See e.g. Q. 47.15 and 56.28–44.   9. The symbolic power of the colour black is essentially based on an apocalyptic-messianic hadith, according to which the bearers of black flags appear as the revivers of ‘genuine Islam’ (Athamina 1989: 307). 10. On the variety of colours reportedly used on the banners and flags of the nascent Muslim community under the Prophet’s command, and for a recent critique of the great play that is made of the mythical black banners in the present, see Jābir (2015). 11. See https://ctc.usma.edu/harmony-program/a-religious-essay-explaining-the-significanceof-the-banner-in-islam-original-language-2/. See also McCants (2015a: 19–22). 12. This seal is to be found on letters supposedly written on the Prophet’s behalf, which are housed in the Topkapı Museum, Istanbul. On the seal, see Allan and Sourdel (2012). On doubts concerning the authenticity of the letters, see Dunlop (1940). 13. ‘So fight, [O Muhammad], in the cause of Allah; you are not held responsible except for yourself. And encourage the believers [to join you] that perhaps Allah will restrain the [military] might of those who disbelieve. And Allah is greater in might and stronger in [exemplary] punishment.’ 14. The title of the 2010 video refers to the crash (according to the Islamic State’s version, the shooting down) of an American combat aircraft and the retrieval of the corpse of the pilot Troy Gilbert by Islamic State fighters on 27 November 2006 (muʾassasat al-furqān 2010). The mortal remains of the pilot remained in Iraq (Douglas 2012). The footage shown in the video supposedly refers to the bombing of a village near Fallūja, but there is no further information available on this incident.

Iconography and Iconoclasm  145 15. ‘hal al-t.ifl yah.milū al-silāh.?’ Interestingly enough, the Islamic State and its predecessors have employed children and teenagers to appear in its videos as ‘young lions’, fully equipped with weaponry. In some videos, children have even appeared killing hostages. 16. ‘hal hādhihī hiya d-dīmuqrāt.īya?’ 17. ‘lah.z.at istihdāf al-t.ayarān al-s.alībiy li-ʿawām al-muslimīn fi-madīna Maws.il’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2015h). 18. However, as Tom Kaden remarked in a personal communication, viewers might interpret these images as originating from contexts other than those described by the Islamic State. This in turn might not even out emotional reactions, but rather the conveyed message. 19. A similar account can be found in a video showing the destruction of an Iraqi village by an air raid on 8 February 2007 (muʾassasat al-furqān 2007b). Recent videos by the Islamic State also frequently feature this motif. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015b). 20. See, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat H . alab (2016) and al-Hayat Media Center (2014a). 21. See, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015i); al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Jazeera (2016a); and al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015g). 22. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa (2017). 23. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Dijla (2015); al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat H . alab (2015); al-Hayat Media Center (2015a); al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015d); and Maktabat al-Himma (2015b). 24. See, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāya al-Raqqa (2015a). 25. Like the Latin virtus, murūʾa was probably originally used to define a man’s physical qualities and, based on this, his moral qualities, but was later used to describe his outstanding features (Farès and Ed. 2012). 26. On the link between the perceived crisis of the Muslim community, the crisis of masculinity in the modern world and jihadi ideology, see Lohlker (2014). 27. See, inter alia, al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Dimashq (2015a) and al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Raqqa (2016). On the role of Arab poetry in jihadist media, see Kendall (2016). 28. For instance, Q. 37.171–73 (see al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Anbār 2016) and Q. 33.23 (see al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Jazeera 2016b). 29. An interesting aspect emerges when the voice of Abu Mus.ʿab al-Zarqāwī is heard reciting a hadīth with a description of paradise, because Zarqawi is – among some jihadis, at least – regarded as a martyr and thus himself in paradise. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2016c). The title of this video, ‘Ilhaq bi-l-Qāfila’ (Join the Caravan), refers to a speech by ʿAbdallāh ʿAzzām, one of the founders of al-Qāʿida during the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union, the aim being to trigger the memory of this glorious battle. There is also a speech by Abū Mus.ʿab al-Zarqāwī with the same title; see al-Zarqāwī (2004d). In some instances, fighters who have been severely wounded on the battlefield are shown with a Qurʾan beside them or even in their hands, obviously ‘fitted out’ for their imminent death in order to save their souls and create a complete image. See al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Jazeera (2016b). James Noyes remarks that images showing dead fighters might at first glance seem to contradict the group’s strict stand against the veneration of saints and martyrs through hagiographic images (Hall and Noyes 2014b). However, the Islamic State produces these images to show that the bodies of martyrs (shuhadāʾ) are incorruptible, which in turn is presented as proof of the blessings the mujāhidīn receive from God. On this category of the Islamic State’s image production, see also the ‘martyrological’ video series fursān al-shahāda, qawāfil shuhadāʾ, among others, as well as the publication series min siyyar aʿlām al-shuhadāʾ.

146  Entrepreneurs of Identity 30. See e.g. al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Anbār (2016). There are also numerous examples of textual reports that introduce individual fighters as role models for others. See e.g. the section in the Dabiq and Rumiyah magazines ‘Among the Believers are Men’ (Referring to Q. 33.23). Similar treatises were also published on the ground and disseminated among the Islamic State’s fighters (see Al-Tamimi 2016c). 31. Despite these aspects, Bredekamp (2003) has argued that the destruction of the statue (erected in honour of Saddam’s sixty-fifth birthday) on one of Baghdad’s central squares (where, furthermore, two hotels that were frequented by Western journalists at that time are located) could also be regarded as an attempt by the US government to overcome the collective trauma experienced by Americans on 11 September 2001. As Bredekamp suggests, the Bush administration directed US citizens’ attention away from New York to a different place that might be connected to the source of this trauma, and sought to heal this experience by shifting the trauma to Baghdad, destroying the city and desecrating Saddam’s statue(s). 32. See, inter alia, muʾassasat al-furqān (2009c) and the Islamic State (2012). 33. I cannot provide a comprehensive overview of the destruction of cultural properties at the hands of the Islamic State in the course of this book. Isakhan and González Zarandona (2017) and Beránek and Ťupek (2018: 178–86) offer a survey of incidents and point to further literature. More detailed information on single incidents can be found at http://monumentsofmosul.com, http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/ and https://gatesof nineveh.wordpress.com/ (accessed 5 May 2021). 34. This conceptualisation refers to the Qurʾanic text, which treats idols of various kinds as the main material manifestations of shirk; among them are statues, talismans and also natural objects such as trees or stones. The Qurʾanic terminology refers to them as s.anam (pl. as.nām) or wathan (pl. awthān), though the two concepts are mostly used interchangeably throughout (Bioly 2016: 29). Beyond the Qurʾanic text, several ah.ādīth present the early Muslim community as determined to eradicate idols at Mecca and elsewhere.   Notably, too, in some of the Islamic State’s publications, the authors label both the Iraqi national guard (al-h.aras al-wat.anī) and the national army derogatorily as the ‘idolatrous guard’ (al-h.aras al-wathanī) and the ‘idolatrous army’ (al-jaysh al-wathanī). 35. The Islamic State’s ideologues use the notion of the timeless struggle between monotheism and its antipodes to identify their own thinking and action as a continuation of what God’s prophets have done before. This is particularly notable in their reference to Abraham (see al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāya Nīnawā 2016b), which was also a prominent trait of the destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan at the hands of the Taliban (Elias 2013). 36. In the course of this book, I cannot offer an extensive survey of the rich body of scholarship that has used the concept of iconoclasm. I will not discuss matters pertaining to the history of images in Islam, Muslim debates on the tension between monotheism and the production of images, or even the cliché of Muslim iconoclasm, all of which have received ample attention (see, inter alia, Crone 1980; Elias 2012: 100–38; Gruber 2019a; Hodgson 1964; Naef 2007). 37. Committing or publishing images of these obliterations in the holy month of Ramadan illustrates the precise timing of these attacks, which, in turn, might increase their symbolic significance. 38. This is not to negate the works of many scholars who draw our attention to, for example, the inherently creative, constructive and performative dimension of historical and contemporary (particularly artistic) acts of iconoclasm. See Gamboni (1997); Fleckner, Steinkamp and Ziegler (2011); and Münch et al. (2018). 39. See Tottoli (2013) and Athamina (2004).

Iconography and Iconoclasm  147 40. ‘Wa-attakhadha Allāh Ibrāhīma khalīlā’ (And God took Abraham as a true friend). 41. Q. 21.51–58 presents Abraham’s encounter with the idols worshipped by his father and his people, ending with the description of Abraham smashing the statues into pieces. Q. 37.85–93 gives a similar account, at the end of which Abraham directs a blow at these idols with his right hand. Mentions of an axe, however, do not appear in the Quranic text, but in the exegetical works of al-T.abarī and al-Rāzī. See Mirza (2005). 42. ‘When he said to his father and his people, “What are these statues to which you are devoted?” | They said, “We found our fathers worshippers of them.” | He said, “You were certainly, you and your fathers, in manifest error.”’ 43. Interestingly, in 2010, ISI announced a military campaign directed against Iraqi regional and national parliamentary elections under the title of faʾs al-khalīl, within which the group mainly targeted polling stations and representatives of the state. See Al-wizāra aliʿlāmīya li-dawlat al-ʿIrāq al-islāmīya (2010); al-Baghdādī (2010). This label has also been invoked by Jihadi-Salafi circles protesting against the parliamentary elections in Bahrain in 2013. 44. ‘He sends down from the sky, rain, and valleys flow according to their capacity, and the torrent carries a rising foam. And from that [ore] which they heat in the fire, desiring adornments and utensils, is a foam like it. Thus Allah presents [the example of ] truth and falsehood. As for the foam, it vanishes, [being] cast off; but as for that which benefits the people, it remains on the earth. Thus does Allah present examples.’ 45. ‘muʿizz al-muslimīn bi ’l-tawh.īd wa-mudhill al-kāfirīn bi ’l-shirk wa ’l-tandīd’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2016b). 46. ‘Fa-aqamnā ’l-s.alāt wa-ataynā ’l-zakāt wa amarnā bi ’l-maʿrūf wa-nahaynā ʿan al-munkar’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2016b). 47. Later in the film, two other spokespersons for the Islamic State appear and present the destruction of the temple of Nabu at Nimrud, again without specifying where the site is. On both destructions, see Jones (2016b). 48. ‘Azalnā maʿālim al-shirk wa ’l-awthān wa h.at.tamnā l-as.nām wa-nasharnā al-tawh.īd wa ’l-ʿaqīda al-s.ah.īh.a’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2016b). 49. Analysing another instance where the Islamic State’s fighters sought to destroy a lamassu statue, Gruber (2019: 129–30) notes that the sheer size of the object forced ‘the (comparatively diminutive) militants to resort to using bulldozers in order to complete their task’. 50. In doing so, the regime partially revised the work done by prominent figures such as Saʿti al-H.usrī, who had served as the first director general of education under King Fays. al after the creation of the modern Iraqi state in 1921, and conceived of ‘Mesopotamian antiquities more [as] liabilities than inherited treasures’ (Tugendhaft 2020: 59). However, subsequent governments gradually began incorporating ancient heritage into their national identity narratives (see Bernhardsson 2005). 51. Conversely, others suggest that the link between people’s social identities and ancient remains is rather tenuous, given that archaeological sites have long suffered from illicit excavations and ransacking. The fact that the number of such incidents significantly increased after the fall of the Baath regime in 2003, the outbreak of the civil war in Syria after 2011, and the revitalisation of ethnic and religious patterns of identity might indicate the regimes’ ‘failure to inspire a sense of patrimony and respect for one’s heritage in average Iraqis’ (Abdi 2008: 31) and Syrians. Since these acts were, however, largely regulated by social pressure, economic hardship and the financial interests of various militias (Jones 2018: 42), they are in and of themselves not sufficient as an indicator of neglect of or disdain for these objects and their ontological relevance for people’s social identities.

148  Entrepreneurs of Identity 52. The authors do not disclose that this photograph was shot during the Islamic State’s raid of St George’s monastery, located on the north-western edge of Mosul, in early March 2015. See https://gatesofnineveh.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/171.jpg (accessed 24 January 2020). 53. As if this depiction was not explicit enough, the capital ‘T’ of ‘The Cross’ in the headline resembles the shape of a shattered cross. 54. ‘Say, “O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you – that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah.” But if they turn away, then say, “Bear witness that we are Muslims [submitting to Him].”’ 55. The text, which names several other restrictions to be imposed on Christians and Jews under the Islamic State’s rule, references a covenant purportedly made by the Caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khat.t.āb with a Christian community in the Levant, granting them protection, but also restricting their religious practice (see Levy-Rubin 2009). On the concept of jizya in Islamic history and jurisdiction, see, among others, Abdel Haleem (2012); Bravmann (2008: 199–212); and Cahen, İnalcık and Hardy (2012). 56. Beyond its ‘purification’ of urban and rural landscapes from Christian symbols, the Islamic State also plundered libraries in churches and monasteries and burned their books in public. See Bioly (2016: 58). 57. The video’s title references Q. 9.29: ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizya willingly while they are humbled.’ 58. On the ‘Contract of Protection’ as a regulatory instrument in Islamic legal thinking, see Emon (2012: 69–72). 59. ‘Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near [to Him]. And whoever disdains His worship and is arrogant – He will gather them to Himself all together.’ 60. This idiom references letters that Muhammad sent to various rulers in his time, but it has also been used by different Islamic religio-political actors in modern times. 61. ‘Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah. So they will spend it; then it will be for them a [source of ] regret; then they will be overcome. And those who have disbelieved – unto Hell they will be gathered.’ 62. Consequently, the video is titled ‘destruction of a Polytheist Temple’ (hadm maʾbad shirkī). Compared to the destructions in Nineveh discussed above, the Islamic State’s approach to videographic documentation of the site to be destroyed, the destruction itself and the theological framing presented through text inserts and by a male spokesperson follow similar patterns, and even the nashīd in the background is the same as in the above example. 63. This initiative had been established by the monastery’s superior, Jacques Mourad, who himself had been taken hostage by the Islamic State in May 2015 and was only released in October 2015, some two months after his monastery had been destroyed. 64. On the Islamic State’s image production as vexation operations, see Gruber (2019b). 65. The site is also known as Jāmiʿ al-Sayyid Jawād al-Barzanjī. 66. According to unverifiable local Shia sources, the shrine was probably erected in 1142 CE/532 AH, and is designated to the memory of Saʿd b. ʿAqīl b. Abī T.ālib. 67. Both social modalities – that is, structure and communitas – are part of what Tönnies (2019) has termed Gemeinschaft. See also Turner (1974: 201–8). 68. See Danti et al. (2015: 55).

Iconography and Iconoclasm  149 69. It is believed that Al-Qaranī and b. Yāsir were killed at the battle of Siffīn, fighting on the side of ʿAlī against the Umayyad governor Muʿāwiya. See Baldick (2012) and Reckendorf (2012). 70. Quite similarly, Pierret (2013a: 107) notes that the shrine of Sukaya bint Ali, constructed in Darya from 1999, ‘aroused strong suspicions among Sunnite religious leaders, who . . . interpreted the building of her mausoleum in a Sunnite area as part of a strategy of progressive encroachment: a shrine attracts pilgrims, the presence of pilgrims entails the creation of shops selling religious literature and souvenirs, and Shiite influence inevitably spreads among the local population.’ Judging from this example, one might indeed argue that these experiences among the Sunni population fed into the Islamic State’s protectionist discourse and were thus deployed to promote sectarianism. 71. One may consider this a process wherein instances of linking social capital and bonding social capital (see Putnam 2000) become interdigitated. 72. In this regard, Elias (2012: 41) draws on Gadamer ([1960] 2006) and reminds us of the ontological communion that any religious image has with what it represents; thus, the affective relationships that people develop with the represented ‘are the ultimate determinants of the value of a religious image’. On the fusion of the signifier and the signified, see also Freedberg (1991). 73. Harbouring the tombs of ʿAlī al-H . ādī al-Nāqī and al-H.asan al-ʿAskarī, the tenth and eleventh Shiite Imams, as well as the graves of several other members of the Ahl al-bayt, and marking the place where the twelfth Imam, Muh.ammad al-Mahdī, is believed to have disappeared into occultation (ghayba) (Ghaidan 2012: 70), the golden dome in Samarra is one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites, visited by thousands of believers every year to venerate and seek the intercession (shafaʿa) of the Imams. On 22 February 2006, the mosque’s golden dome was severely damaged by bombs, which were set off by several men inside the shrine (Worth 2006; Knickmeyer and Ibrahim 2006). Though no casualties were reported and the Shiite religious authorities called on their followers to remain calm, this attack seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it unleashed sectarian fury. In the aftermath, Shiite militias carried out reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and raided Sunni homes throughout the southern provinces and Baghdad. Ethno-sectarian cleansing also occurred, changing the appearance of entire cities, with people seeking shelter from their former neighbours behind concrete walls. 74. Another example of an exhumation can be found in the case of the tomb of H . ujr b. ʿAdī al-Kindī (see Lammens 2012; Nabsh qubr ‘Hujr bin ʿAdī’ fī-ʿAdrā 2013). In this context, Chapman (2018: 21) reminds us of the similarities between attacks on the human body and on images. See also Gruber (2019b). 75. His approach was shaped by the teachings of Khomeini, which were not unproblematic for Iraqi Shiites, particularly with respect to constitution-building. See Allawi (2007: 111–13); Gleave (2007); and Visser (2008b). 76. Similarly, Abū Anas al-Shāmī, the Muftī of the group, praised the suicide bomber who had carried out this action in a statement published on the internet. In an excerpt from al-Shāmī’s statement, which could not be obtained in full, a man called T.āmir Mubārak ad-Dulaymī is referred to as ‘the person responsible for the assassination of the chairman of the high council for the Islamic revolution’. Other sources, however, point to an Iraqi citizen named Yāsīn Jirād, who was the father of al-Zarqāwī’s second wife, as a possible suspect. See Husayn (2005: 41) and Hafez (2007: 256). 77. The fact that ʿAlī, who was assassinated in the prayer niche at the great mosque of Kufa, is also referred to as ‘the Martyr of the mihrāb’ provides semantic continuity and may

150  Entrepreneurs of Identity bolster the symbolic relation between ʿAlī and al-H . akīm in the eyes of pilgrims and local Shia. 78. ‘And [He revealed] that the masjids are for Allah, so do not invoke with Allah anyone.’ 79. ‘hudimat jamīʾ maʾābid shirkīya’ (al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā 2016a). 80. In addition to footage showing ‘the alleged mausoleum’ (al-d.arīh. al-mazʿūm) of the Prophet Jonah and the detonation of the mosque, the video documents the mosque of Qad.īb al-Bān al-Mūs.ilī and a shrine attributed to Seth. The video also features footage from inside the mausoleum of Yahya Abu al-Qāsim, the mosque of Ah.mad al-Sabʿāwī, in which ‘according to common knowledge no grave is located’; as the floor is lifted, however, the video shows images of the looted tomb. Further footage shows the destruction of three other sites, which are unknown to the author. Satellite images and more information on many properties destroyed in Mosul since 2014 can be found at http://monumentsof mosul.com/ (accessed 20 March 2017). 81. See also al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat Nīnawā (2015c, 2015e); al-maktab al-iʿlāmī liwilāyat Karkūk (2016); and al-maktab al-iʿlāmī li-wilāyat al-Khayr (2015a, 2015b). 82. See Maktabat al-Himma (2014). On the conceptualisation of destructions of tombs as places of idolatry and paganism, especially among the Wahhābiyya, see Noyes (2013: 59–94); Ende (2012); Steinberg (2002: 535–38); and Peskes (1993: 24–25). On saint and grave veneration in Islam, see, inter alia, Gramlich (1987); Kriss and Kriss-Heinrich (1960); Meri (2002); de Jong (1976); and Goldziher (1971). 83. See, inter alia, Nováček (2019). 84. On pluri-denominational sacred places in the Middle East, see also Albera and Couroucli (2012). 85. The issues evolving around the quest for people’s inner state or ‘purity of heart’ have been discussed by Rosen (1995) and Seeman (2003), among others. 86. More information can be found at https://en.unesco.org/fieldoffice/baghdad/revivemosul (accessed 7 February 2020). 87. Flood (2016) has succinctly characterised the image operations of the Islamic State around destructions of cultural heritage as ‘Idol-Breaking as Image-Making’. Bredekamp (2016) also argues that the destruction of the Palmyra amphitheatre and the executions that were filmed there were primarily carried out to produce images and create a certain reality in the first place. 88. Bredekamp and others refer to this process as ‘image act’. See Bredekamp (2015: 60–64) and Feist and Rath (2012).

Conclusion

During its heyday, the Islamic State attracted a lot of attention in politics and society across the globe. This attention rapidly declined when the group lost control over those cities and wider areas in which its fighters and bureaucrats had actually exercised authority. It has often been emphasised that the power of the Islamic State – and the threat emanating from the movement – does not primarily hinge on its military capacities, but rather that its ideology is the decisive and powerful instrument. As agreeable as this hypothesis is, it is inaccurate, because it fails to define the locus of this power – that is, the sense-making activities of ideologues in times of ontological and existential crisis. In this book, I have proposed a more comprehensive perspective on these activities, taking the Islamic State’s ideologues as a case in point. First, I suggest understanding the Islamic State’s leadership as entrepreneurs of identity, that is, sociopolitical actors who seek to further their cause by defining categories of social identity in accordance with their ideological framework and to use these categories as tools of communicative and cognitive structuring. I argue that this concept helps us to focus our attention on the people who articulate ideological principles vis-á-vis an audience, whether in writings, speeches, songs or (moving) images. It cannot be overemphasised that ideologies are not active entities, but always require people who cognitively process a world view and articulate it towards others – whether or not they are known to a broad public, and whether or not their positions can be associated with a face, a habitus, a certain way of speaking or other recognisable characteristics. More important, secondly, are the ways in which their propositions provide hooks for people to latch onto their

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own historical memories, horizons of experience, norms, values, beliefs and future aspirations; thus, their lifeworlds and social identities. For these reasons, this book may contribute to our understanding of how the Islamic State’s ideologues have forged such hooks through the definition and classification of categories of social identities, which are shortcuts to potentially complex systems of beliefs, normative appeals, practices and orientations, and which help people understand who they are, how they are related to others and how they should behave in certain situations. Defining and enacting ‘true’ Islam may thus help the Islamic State’s ideologues create cognitive and emotional bonds that tie together a range of people from different backgrounds and link their personal identities to the Islamic State’s state-building project, in doing so durably shaping people’s selfunderstandings, their conceptions of and relations to others, and the ways in which they behave in certain situations. I have shown in Chapter 1 that the Islamic State’s ideologues were able to build upon knowledge and memories associated with the sectarianisation of political discourses and sociopolitical structures under the rules of Saddam Husayn, Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad. The regimes of these leaders sought to forge alliances across the boundaries of ethnic, tribal, religious and sectarian identities, which they embraced in order to display Iraq’s and Syria’s flourishing cultural plurality. However, the increasing salience of supranational collective identities and their links with nation-building projects, as well as patrimonialism, cults of personality, policies of divide and rule, crony capitalism, and clientelist networks favouring the ruling families and their wider kin, fed into perceptions of asymmetric power relations and the domination of the body politic in both countries by one particular sect – Sunnis in Iraq and Alawites in Syria. Although power relations in Iraq were fundamentally turned upside down after 2003 to the advantage of some Shiite and Kurdish actors, the new powerholders took advantage of the debilitation of state structures and the ensuing existential and ontological insecurities felt by many Iraqis both individually and collectively. They embraced and furthered individual orientations of Iraqis towards family, kin, and tribal and sectarian networks, instigating shifts in categorisations of self and other in order to foment tendencies towards the wholesale favouritism of the in-group over the out-group. Likewise, as anti-government protests in Syria became militarised in 2011, the regime used its discursive and classificatory power to create perceptions of its opponents as a collective of ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘terrorists’ intent on rupturing the integrity and stability of the Syrian nation. It also sought to provoke fears among religious minorities of a Sunni Islamist coup, thereby seeking to solidify group bonds and strengthen shifts in categorisations of self and other. In the course of the militarisation of protests and evolving rifts in the social fabric, Sunnis tended to identify with the opposition, whereas non-Sunnis increasingly sided with the regime. I have thus argued that the Syrian conflict became sectarianised to a significant extent be-

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cause the actors involved had learned from intra-Iraq conflicts that ethno-sectarian identities provided a meaningful frame for their own sociopolitical projects, were suited to dismissing their opponents’ causes and presented useful instruments of mobilisation. The ideologues of the Islamic State and its predecessors, whose organisational and ideological evolution I have outlined in Chapter 2, sought to facilitate and capitalise on these tendencies after the group emerged in 2003. They have appropriated and furthered widespread beliefs that Iraq’s sociopolitical reorganisation was in fact a ‘de-Sunnification’ and part of a wide-ranging plot against ‘genuine’ Muslims on the part of Western ‘Crusader’ forces and their allies among ‘rejectionist’ Shiites, ‘traitorous’ Sunnis and others deemed enemies of Islam. Against this backdrop, the Islamic State’s ideologues appealed to an emotional climate of hate, anger and fear to bolster intragroup solidarity and hatred of the out-group and to eventually shape collective action as they promised to resolve Sunni Muslims’ state of crisis and to provide plausible prospects for the restoration of their honour, pride and dignity. At this particular point of organisational evolution, their definition of ‘genuine’ Muslimness was determined by an imagination of total difference, as they exaggerated those few features that differentiated Iraqi Sunnis from their Shiite compatriots, with whom they shared a common language, customs and historical memories. Simply negating the sectarian and social ‘Other’, however, could not provide substantiation of what ‘genuine’ Muslimness ought to be, and thus an ontological framework within which potential supporters could find plausible and meaningful prospects. The contours of such a framework were shaped in late 2006, when the establishment of an ‘Islamic State in Iraq’ was declared and a black banner depicting the shape of the Prophet Muhammad’s signet ring alongside pseudo-Kufi writing was raised on the plains of western Iraq. The black banner is certainly an essential part of what I have identified as the group’s symbolic repertoire, that is, a set of concepts appropriated from Islamic intellectual history, social practices and certain forms of cultural production that all helped the movement to elaborate its vision of a ‘genuine’ Sunni identity by accentuating distinctive and constitutive features of the idealised Muslim community that it claimed to establish. The specific design of the group’s black banner further epitomises its claim to revive the caliphate, which is sanctioned by divine ordinances and indispensable to fulfilling individual expectations of salvation. The conceptualisation of the ‘caliphate upon the prophetic way’ (khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa) became the centrepiece of ‘genuine’ Muslimness as a category of social identity. The Islamic State’s ideologues had understood that this idea appeals to a considerable number of Sunni Muslims across the globe, as it calls to mind idealised historical memories of a past shaped by social, economic and intellectual prosperity, sharply contrasting with today’s perceived ‘crisis of meaning’ within the umma. Moreover, their concept of the caliphate mainly

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helped to delineate the core of Sunni identity and its boundaries, because it was realised through institutionalised practices such as the oath of allegiance (bayʿa), as well as through a range of bureaucratic and legal institutions that aimed to implement the dictum ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar). In sum, these elements and their material manifestations help the Islamic State’s ideologues to legitimise the large-scale regulation of human communitarisation, but also render the social contract (ʿahd) between the Islamic State and its subjects tangible for the people. As I have detailed in Chapter 2, the Islamic State’s ideologues drew on theories of the caliphate developed during the tenth/third and thirteenth/sixth centuries CE/AH, which, along with a seemingly arbitrary selection of Qurʾanic verses, Hadith, exegeses and works on Islamic law fitting the group’s teleology, helped them present the caliphate as the sole appropriate form of organising politics and society in accordance with divine ordinances. This also accounts for regulations around the investiture of both ‘the leader of the faithful’ (amīr al-muʾminīn) and the caliph. As a person, the latter is ascribed a range of positive values, including descent from the Prophet Muhammad, theological erudition, military capabilities and much more, qualifying him for the office whose establishment epitomised the fulfilment of divine ordinances. As a figure of identification, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (much more so than his predecessor or successor) was rendered viable for the definition of the Islamic State’s offer of social identity, because he was recognised – by supporters and antagonists alike – not only as a political functionary, but rather as an important element of the Islamic State. As such, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did not merely represent the Islamic State; he embodied, and at the same time he was, the Islamic State’s caliphate. As he ascended the steps of the pulpit of Mosul’s Great Mosque of Al-Nuri at the beginning of Ramadan 1437 AH/July 2014 CE and began his sermon with the words used by the caliph Abu Bakr al-S.iddīq in his investiture speech, the video of al-Baghdadi’s performance served as an epitome of the Islamic State’s visual and sonic practices. In Chapter 3, I scrutinised some examples of how the group’s ideologues created audiovisual content that is full of allusions to the above-mentioned concepts and is constructed for its sensitive effects to produce a socially effective symbolic repertoire, communicate with the group’s audiences, describe and appraise sociopolitical developments and facts, and propose and justify specific visions of individual life and society that resonate with the group’s (potential) followers’ aspirations. The black flag, the figure of the caliph, social practices such as the bayʿa and many more elements of this repertoire have become constituents of the social collective that is the Islamic State – a process that I have characterised as ontological amalgamation. Against this backdrop, I have proposed the concept of audiovisuality to draw attention to the multiple and highly volatile links between people’s sensation, the mediations they encounter and the modes deployed to create meaning and knowl-

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edge. Scrutinising one such mode – that is, audiovisual media – in Chapter 3, I use the concept to understand the ways in which the Islamic State’s ideologues, just like other entrepreneurs of identity, produce, appropriate and (re)interpret images and videos to offer shortcuts to a complex system of religious beliefs, normative appeals, social practices and orientations. Seeking to influence people’s understandings of who they are, how they are related to others and how they should behave in certain situations, the Islamic State’s ideologues employ sonic and visual manifestations of their symbolic repertoire to establish a specific perspective on the world that is intended to create a sense of ‘we-ness’ among (potential) supporters, shape the group’s targeted audiences’ perceptions, elicit their emotions and influence their behaviour. I argue that, at least in the territories under its command, the Islamic State managed to shape and control a distinct body public, not only by exerting a range of authoritative measures, but also through creation of a soundscape comprised of a variety of sonic events. Calls to prayer intoned by members of the h.isba forces in public places, the public performance of anāshīd, the screams of victims of atrocious violence heard in the public sphere, and civilian voices as witnesses of aerial bombardments can all be considered part of these sonic events, which were all the more effective in combination with the simultaneous silencing of certain musical instruments, musicians, church bells and versions of adhān different from accepted jihadi versions. Add to this the sounds of drones, fighter jets, weapons and various other ‘belliphonic’ (Daughtry 2015) expressions brought about by the war between the Islamic State and its opponents, and the transformation of the soundscape becomes overwhelming. In many instances, members of the Islamic State have cited such sonic events as evidence of the group’s existence and power. Considering the sound of an American fighter jet to be equally integral to this soundscape as the voice of Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, they construct an ontological framework within which all of these sounds are inherently bound to the mujāhidīn’s modes of creating knowledge and meaning. Many of the examples mentioned above also rely on visual components, as well as on haptic, olfactory and other sensual stimuli. The members of the Islamic State’s forces who regulated public life in Mosul, Falluja, Raqqa and the many villages on the roads between them were usually clearly identifiable by their demeanour and uniforms, while public performances of anāshīd are just as carefully stage-managed as public corporal punishments or burnings of destroyed musical instruments. The remains of civilian houses clouded in black smoke are as prominent in the visual field as the fighter jets (and sometimes drones) that caused the devastation. Further features of this scenery include the remnants of shrines, mausolea and graveyards, as well as countless military defences, bureaucratic buildings and Islamic State media kiosks, most of which bear the black banner. When audiovisual representations of these and similar scenes are circulated, they not only testify to the conditions of life under the Islamic State, but

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also provide evidence of the power of the group’s ideologues to impose upon audiences their particular interpretation of what is to be seen and heard. Moreover, the camera’s gaze (and the ways in which it is sculpted in post-production) shapes the link between the sensations experienced by mujāhidīn and the mediations they encounter. It makes their visual experiences manifest and relates the persons depicted to their ideology, actions, cultural practices, experiences and modes of creating knowledge and meaning. Whereas the above-mentioned concepts and practices are crucial for the creation and ‘fortification’ of the classification of ‘genuine’ Muslimness advanced by the Islamic State’s ideologues as a category of social identity, their separative potential becomes particularly apparent as they are used to justify ruthless brutality against various individuals and social collectives. Beyond the obliteration of human life, the Islamic State’s mission to purify the earth of any material and immaterial manifestations of monotheism’s opposites also included the destruction of cultural properties ranging from ancient Mesopotamian sites and places used by ethnic and religious minorities to mosques, shrines and tombs used by Shia and Sunni communities and even natural objects. Framed as enactments of the Qurʾanic dictum ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar), these acts are described and analysed in Chapter 3. I understand these acts as performances of socioclasm, because they do not merely target figurative representations or sites of worship practices that are deemed heretic. The Islamic State’s ideologues (rightly) assume that the targeted communities understand these sites not as interchangeable spaces of assembly and communitarisation, but as places of central importance to their collective identity as social collectives and religious communities. The Islamic State’s fighters thus act on the premise of an ontological amalgamation of religious community and sacred buildings, meaning that these sites are constitutive of the religious community as such, and therefore of the group itself. Targeting these sites as ‘signs of belonging in shared memory’ (Mieth 1988–2001: 135) aims to obliterate their social function and make impossible the social practices that evolve around them. Such attacks are to be understood as immediate attacks on the religious community itself; the destruction of a site of worship thus ought to be perceived as the destruction of a vital element of the targeted community’s very identity. Capturing these moments of destruction in (moving) images, I have argued, is an important part of the Islamic State’s audiovisuality, because for as long as these images exist, the memory of the extinction of destroyed sites is kept alive, and so are memories of the erasure of important elements of the social identity of the community concerned. After the physical dissolution of the ‘khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa’, many questions remain unanswered – questions that directly build on the issues I have examined throughout this book. With the killing of al-Baghdādī and many of the group’s ideologues, bureaucrats and fighters, as well as the capture of many of its

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remaining adherents, the Islamic State did not cease to exist. Certainly, the group has lost its former ability to shape collective identities (Amarasingam and Berger 2017) and is not likely to regain it, despite the nimbus kept alive in the online sphere and reports of a potential resurgence on the ground (International Crisis Group 2019a; Heller 2020; Knights and Almeida 2020). However, the group’s activities are mostly limited to the rural periphery in Iraq’s north and north-east, as well as north-east Syria, where they still find support from the local population and can maintain their activities (McLoughlin 2019; Al-Hashimi 2020a, 2020c, 2020e; International Crisis Group 2020b). The group’s new leadership not only seems to be readopting guerrilla strategies to which it had resorted during times of weakness between 2008 and 2014; it also seeks to find a new balance between ideological purity, building alliances with other militant factions and launching a reconciliation process with the Sunni community (Al-Hashimi 2020d). Whether and to what extent this is affecting their aim to recruit among locals and internally displaced persons, however, is unclear. This is happening in a context where ‘Iraqi politics is characterized by formal democratic institutions that are overshadowed by patronage politics and extra­ legal practices’ (Hasan 2019). Political grievances endure among Iraq’s Sunnis after the fall of the Islamic State (Jones 2017), and it is not too difficult to imagine how such a sociopolitical context could affect the chances of Salafi-Jihadi actors to return and successfully provide hooks for local Sunnis to latch onto. At the same time, one might sense some hope in the fact that Iraqis have increasingly questioned the legitimacy of Iraq’s political system and the ruling elite. Their protests since 2015 have indicated that socio-economic demands are of prime importance, while identity- and ideology-centred issues are losing relevance (International Crisis Group 2018; Hasan 2020). In addition, Iraqis are working hand in hand to clear their neighbourhoods of the debris left by fighting between the Islamic State and Iraqi security forces. They are, as Al-Assaf (2019) describes it, ‘determined to move forward. They want to demonstrate that life will – and must – continue despite the grief, sorrow, and destruction.’ Many Syrians are experiencing exactly the opposite. Despite small protests against the socio-economic situation enduring in Syria’s south (McLoughlin 2020a), Bashar al-Asad’s grip on power remains largely uncontested. His regime was able to withstand the tide of uprisings that dramatically reshaped the whole SWANA region from 2011 and, with the help of Russia, Iran and a disengaging international community, wage a brutal war against his people, in which he regained control over a large part of Syrian territory (McLoughlin 2020b, 2020c). Apart from most of Idlib province, where H . ayʾat Tah.rīr al-Shām (formerly known as al-Nus.ra) has a strong presence, Turkish- and Kurdish-controlled north-eastern governorates, and the desert areas on the Iraqi border, the Syrian dictator, with the help of his loyal security apparatus and a military leadership stacked with Alawis, seems to be successfully asserting his power in a country

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where nearly four hundred thousand have been killed, more than half of the prewar population displaced, tens of thousands detained and political and military opposition fragmented (The New Arab 2020). Against this backdrop, Iraq’s communities might be in a slightly better position than many people in neighbouring Syria to address another challenge: that is, post-conflict reconciliation, which requires a lot of psychological labour and monetary effort. In contrast to Syria, where an ongoing war still causes devastation and pain every single day, many observers assert that Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s government must make efforts towards post-conflict reconciliation and forgiveness. This involves, among many other issues, tackling the situation of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Iraqis, who suffer from dire living conditions in provisional camps and risk becoming a new lower class (International Crisis Group 2020a). This task, however, also requires addressing the fate of the Islamic State’s (former) adherents, some of whom are detained across central and northern Iraq and northern Syria. Although debates around the return of these people and their families to their homes have focused almost exclusively on the context of Europe and North America, where most of the nations have been fairly reluctant to repatriate their citizens (International Crisis Group 2019b; Middle East Eye 2020; van der Heide and Alexander 2020), this issue also concerns the fate of foreign supporters coming from the broader region and, even more importantly, Iraqi nationals who have joined the group or perpetrated violence under the black banner. The late Iraqi security researcher and adviser to Iraq’s government Husham Al-Hashimi (2020b) remarked that ‘throughout much of Iraq, residents and authorities consider these [‘ISIS families’] potential enablers of renewed ISIS activities’; for this reason, efforts towards reconciliation after a conflict that played out as a war within Iraq’s Sunni community are contingent upon a resolution of ‘security concerns, tribal and sectarian issues, and other formidable obstacles’. The latter refers not only to rifts that run through many Sunni clans and families in general (Arango and Hassan 2016), but also concerns adolescents who fought and worked for the Islamic State, whose retributive punishment could have detrimental effects for any effort aimed at intra-Iraqi reconciliation (Mironova and Whitt 2020). In the light of these social fractures, significantly more empirical research is needed to determine the relevance of the Islamic State’s identity offering, its individual elements and its methods of dissemination to people who have lived within the sphere of influence of the group’s authority. This concerns people from outside Syria and Iraq who have joined the Islamic State or fought for it and are now imprisoned in detention camps or are trying to return to their home countries. But even more importantly, more research should be done in order to understand the Islamic State’s impact on local communities in Iraq and Syria and on these societies as a whole. The group’s ideologues, its bureaucratic and legal apparatus, and its fighting forces operated in these countries as entrepre-

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neurs of violence and identity, leaving their traces not only by killing people and destroying houses and material culture, but also by trying to regulate day-to-day orientations and social practices along fortified categories of social identity. Very little is known about how this has affected the hearts and minds of Iraqis and Syrians, and about what they need to actively transform the discourses, narratives, ideas and ideologies that have justified social separation and violence, and to find ways to deal with this past in a manner that allows for apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Glossary of Frequently Used Arabic Terms

ʿahd

(social) contract

ahl al-h.all wa-l-ʿaqd

People who loosen and bind

al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar

To command good and forbid wrong

amīr al-muʾminīn

Commander of the believers

ans.ār

‘The helpers’, usually designating those men of Medina who supported the Prophet Muh.ammad, used by the Islamic State to designate Syrian and Iraqi members

bayʿa

Oath of allegiance

diwān/dawāwīn

Government office/ministry

fard. ʿayn fard. kifāya

Individual obligation Collective obligation

h.adīth/ah.ādīth

Muslim tradition concerning the exemplary practice of the Prophet Muh.ammad

h.isba

The duty of all Muslims to promote moral rectitude and the supervision of public behaviour

khilāfa ʿalā minhāj al-nubūwa

Caliphate upon the prophetic way

kufr

Disbelief

Glossary of Frequently Used Arabic Terms

161

muhājir/muhājirūn

‘One who emigrates’, usually designating the companions of the Prophet Muh.ammad who emigrated from Mecca to Medina, used by the Islamic State to designate members who emigrated to Syria and Iraq

mujāhid/mujāhidūn

‘One who strives’, designating a fighter for the faith or one who wages war against the unbelievers

muʾmin/muʾminūn

Believer

nashīd/anāshīd

A cappella hymn

shirk

Polytheism

(majlis) shūrā

Consultative and advisory body

sunna

The generally approved standard or practice introduced by the Prophet Muh.ammad and the revered Muslims of the first three generations

t.āghūt

Idolatry, designating pre-Islamic deities but also contemporary tyranny

tawh.īd ulū-l-amr/wulāt al-amr

Monotheism Those vested with authority

umma

The Muslim community

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Index

al-ʿAdnānī, Abū Muh.ammad on the black banner, 102 Islamic State’s regulatory authority, 54–5 oath of allegiance (bayʿa), 65–6, 67 proclamation of the caliphate, 1, 46–7, 49, 61–2 on the virtues of Abū Bakr, 61, 62 al-Hayat Media Center, 95–6, 100–2, 125–7 al-ʿAlī, H . āmid, 64–5 ʿAlī b. Abī T.ālib, 14 anāshīd (cappella chants), 6, 92, 120, 167 Anjum, Ovamir, 57, 63, 68 al-Ans.ārī, Abū-l-H.assan, 119–22 AQI (Tanz.īm al-Qāʿida fi-bilād ar-rāfidayn (al-Qaʿida (AQI))). See Tanz.īm alQāʿida fi-bilād ar-rāfidayn (al-Qaʿida (AQI)) Arab Spring uprisings, 43 al-Asad, Bashar authoritarian regime, 28–9, 157–8 religious nationalism, 6, 29–30 response to the Syrian uprising, 30–1 al-Asad, Hafez Alawi Islam, 27–8 image of national unity, 28 sectarian regime of, 6, 26–8 use of religious symbolism, 27–8

audiovisual productions attacks on Christianity, 127 ‘Axe of the Khalīl’ video, 119–22 of cultural destruction, 142–4 destruction of Shiite cultural sites, 130–1 ‘Fervour is a Duty’ video, 100 ‘The Missing One’ video, 105 purification of Sunni mosques, 138–9 ‘The Structure of the Caliphate’ video, 51–2, 63–4, 75, 107 of toppling of S.addām Husayn’s statue, 112 validation of legitimate authority, 51–2, 63–4 videos of bayʿa, 69–72 audiovisuality affective power of, 94–5 appropriation techniques, 92–3 concept of, 91, 154–5 figure of the Islamic State fighter, 108–9, 155 humiliation of the enemies of Islamic State, 111–12 ideological role of, 90, 91, 100–2, 155–6 intragroup solidarity and, 92, 102, 109–10 role in social identities, 90, 91 soundscapes, 155

Index of the suffering of the Muslim community, 105–6 use by entrepreneurs of identity, 89–90, 91–2, 154–5 See also images; media strategies al-Awlākī, Anwar, 58 al-Badawī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim, 38–9, 43, 65 Badry, Roswitha, 52 al-Baghdādī, ʿAbd al-Qāhir, 48, 49, 61 al-Baghdādī, Abu Bakr as Caliph Ibrāhīm, 43, 58–9, 68, 119, 154 death of, 156 as a figure of identification, 65 oath of allegiance (bayʿa), 69–72 oversight of Syria and Iraq, 44 personal characteristics, 61–2 and the Prophet’s authority, 99–100 speech from the Great Mosque of alNūrī, 43, 140–1, 154 al-Baghdādī, Abū ʿUmar, 43, 58, 59, 65, 69 Beranek, O., 139 bin Ladin, Usama, 24, 38 al-Binʿalī, Turkī, 61 black banner in Fervour is a Duty video, 100 group identity-role of, 96, 99, 100–2 IS’s link with the Prophet, 97–100 Legal Permissibility of the Banner in Islam, 97–8 in ‘The Prophet as Leader’ text, 97–9 symbolic composition, 96–7 territorial demarcation of IS spaces, 102–4, 141 in videos attacking Christianity, 125–6, 127 in videos of the destruction of Shiite sites, 130 visuality of, 95, 99–100, 153 Boldrick, Stacy, 116 caliph, the as an anonymous figure, 64–5 Caliph Ibrāhīm, 43, 58–9, 68, 119, 154 genealogical criteria, 59–61 as the leader of Islamic State, 58–9, 63–4 naming practices, 57–8, 59

203

oath of allegiance (bayʿa), 5, 56, 59, 65–72, 80 personal characteristics, 5, 61–3 regulatory function, 56–7 selection by the shūrā, 56 symbolic link with Islamic tradition, 57–8 caliphate the caliphate as a collective religious duty, 4–5, 46–7, 48, 49–50, 107–8 caliphate model, 48–51, 153–4 classical Sunni Islamic foundation for, 48–9, 54, 57, 61–3, 66, 153–4 cultural memories within Islamic State’s ideology, 47–8 iconographic strategies, 46 institutional structure, 49, 51–2 within the Islamic tradition, 24, 46, 47, 99–100 legitimate authority sources for, 48–9 narratives of life in the caliphate, 107–8 proclamation of the caliphate, 1, 44–7, 54–5, 61–2 regulatory authority, 50–1, 54–5, 56, 58, 68 ruler-centered vs community-centered structure, 48–9, 64, 68–9 as sanctioned by divine ordinances, 4–5, 24, 46–51, 72, 74 shūrā council, 51, 52–6, 72 the soldiers of, 46 cappella chants (anāshīd), 6, 92, 120, 167 Clay, Richard, 116 Crone, Patricia, 52 cultural artefacts ancient Mesopotamian complexes, 118–25 ‘Axe of the Khalīl’ video, 119–22 Christian sites, 125–9 community identity formation and, 117, 122–4, 125, 128–9, 131–3, 143–4 destruction of, 112–14 Great Mosque of al-Nūrī, 140–2 as landmarks of polytheism, 114–15 Mashki Gate, Kalhu, 119–21 Nabī Yūnus mosque, 139–40 ontological importance of graves, 129, 135 reconstruction of Mosul, 142

204

Index

reconstruction of Najaf cultural sites, 137–8 Samarra bombing, 25–6, 39, 134 sites of Shiite religious practice, 129–31 sites of Sunni religious practice, 138–42 twin shrine of al-Raqqa, 132–3, 135 Dabiq, 22–3, 125–7 Dauber, Cori E., 92 Daughtry, J. Martin, 92 Donner, Fred, 48 Eder, Jens, 89 entrepreneurs of identity classificatory power, 32 definition, 2 exploitation of ethno-sectarian identities in Syria, 30–3 function of the bayʿa, 66–7 group-based emotions, 23–4 incitation of violence, 25 individual conceptions of self, 2, 4 intergroup manipulation, 2, 7, 24–6 the Islamic State as, 1–3, 151–2 Sunni victimisation narratives, 7, 21–3, 33 use of audiovisuality, 89–90, 91–2, 154–5 use of collective identities, 17–18 use of images, 88–9 use of social identities, 2, 12, 17–18, 79–80 Falāh.a, T.aha S.ubh.ī, 44 Gatt, Kurstin, 45 Gerges, Fawaz, 42 al-Ghazālī, Abū H.āmid Muh.ammad, 48, 57, 63 Gruber, Christiane, 93, 114, 119 Haddad, Fanar, 11, 20, 22 al-H.akīm, Muhammad Bāqir, 136–8 Hassan, Mona, 45 h.isba administrative structure, 6 destruction of cultural artefacts, 119–20 muh.tasibūn’s enforcement of, 76–7, 80 Husayn, S.addām Qādisīyat S.addām, 14

regime of, 6, 12–13 statue, 112 See also Iraq iconoclasm as an act of communication, 116–17 definition, 115–16 figure of Abraham, 118–19 within Islamic State’s ideology, 112–16, 124–5 See also socioclasm identity politics Arab secular nationalism in Iraq, 12–15 classificatory power, 32 collective identities, 2 collective identity-formation in post-war Iraq, 19–20 of cultural artefacts, 121–4 Islamic State identity, 75 social practices, 5–6 See also social identities identity-building black banner symbolism, 96, 99, 100–2 function of the bayʿa, 67, 110 intragroup solidarity, 3, 5, 7 under S.addām Husayn, 12–16, 27, 29 supranational collective identities, 6, 12, 152 through pilgrimage, 131–5, 138, 139–40 See also social identities ideology audiovisual dissemination, 90, 91, 100–2, 155–6 cognitive maps, 2, 7 ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ tenet, 72–4, 75–6, 114 cultural memories, 47–8 cultural purification, 113–15, 118, 119–21, 124–5 iconoclasm in, 112–16, 124–5 purified Sunni Muslim identity, 2, 4, 6, 138–42, 153 in relation to Christian theology, 126–7 socioclasm’s ideological function, 113–14, 156 threat of Shia Islam, 22–6, 51, 109–10, 129–30 images affective power of, 89, 105–6

Index appropriation of Islamic visual culture, 99–100 audiovisuality and, 89 of civilian injuries/deaths, 105–6 of cultural destruction, 142–4 figure of the Islamic State fighter, 108–9 in Islamic State’s publications, 90 role in modern conflict, 88–90 visuality of the black banner, 95, 99–100, 153 institutional structure administrative offices (dawāwīn), 75–7, 138–9 buildings, 78 to reinforce the social contract, 75–6 Iraq archaeology and national identity, 122–4 Awakening Councils, 41, 42 clientelist networks, 13 current situation, 157, 158–9 dissolution of Baathist institutions, 18–19 ethno-sectarian model, post-S.addām, 15–17 failed state-building, 3, 41, 42–3, 79 Great Mosque of al-Nūrī, 140–2 Iraqi Shiite scholars, 15, 17, 33, 136–8 Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC) in, 38–9 Nabī Yūnus mosque, 139–40 parallels with Syria, 26–7, 32–3 Samarra bombing, 25–6, 39, 134 sectarianisation of the political landscape, 6, 12, 17, 18–23, 39, 42, 129–30, 152 Shiite community, 14–15, 16, 17, 20–1, 23–4, 25–6 social identities during the regime of S.addām Husayn, 12–14 Sunni Arab Iraqi identity, 7, 18–19, 20–3 Sunni victimisation narratives, 7, 21–3, 33 tribal structures, 13 See also Husayn, S.addām; Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) Islamic State classical Sunni Islamic foundation for, 45, 47, 48–9, 54 current form of, 156–7

205

guidance of the Muslim community, 72, 75, 107–8 institutional structure, 49, 51–2, 73–4, 107 intergroup manipulation in Iraq, 25–6 Islamic State identity, 1–2, 4, 75, 79–80, 90, 151–2 legal system, 74–9 legitimate authority source for, 48–9 and the prophetic way, 45, 46, 47, 55 regulatory authority, 50–1, 74, 107 as sanctioned by divine ordinances, 4–5, 24, 46–51, 72, 74 the soldiers of, 46 Sunni victimisation narratives, 7, 21–3, 33 See also caliphate; ideology Islamic State of Iraq and Shām (ISIS), 44 Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) Awakening Councils, 41, 42 conflict with other Jihadi-Salafis, 40, 41 expansion into Syria, 43–4 former Baathists in, 40–1 ideological framework, 40 Iraq’s failed political system and, 3, 41, 42–3, 79 legal institutions, 77 Strategic Plan document (2009), 41–2 Sunni Iraqi identity, 41 Sunni Islamic mode of governance, 40 Jabhat al-Nusra, 33, 43, 44 al-Jawalani, Abū Muh.ammad, 44 Jihadi-Salafis al-Qaida/ISIS tensions, 44 epistemic and ontological orientation, 3 in Syria, 28, 31, 33 Jones, Christopher, 122–3 al-Jubūrī, Abū Bakr, 51 al-Juwaynī, Abu-l-Maʿālī ʿAbd a-Malik, 48, 54, 62, 63 Lahoud, Nelly, 92 Latour, Bruno, 124, 125 Lefevre, Raphael, 28 legal institutions ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ tenet, 74–6 court buildings, 78–9

206

Index

delegated committees, 64, 74–5 dīwān al-h.isba, 76–7 Dīwān for Judgements and Grievances, 77 of Islamic State of Iraq, 77 oversight of religious law, 76–7 sacralisation of, 76–8 Li, Darryl, 94 al-Maliki, Nuri, 42 Mandoki, Katja, 92 al-Māwardī, Abu-l-H . asan ʿAlī b. Muh.ammad, 48, 54, 59, 62, 63, 68 al-Mawla, Amīr Muh.ammad Saʿīd al-S.albī, 59 McCants, William, 96 media strategies appropriation of global media practices, 92–3 audiences for, 92, 93, 99 control over the interpretation of, 93–4 destruction of cultural artefacts, 112–14 narratives of life in the caliphate, 107–8 narratives of the strength of the Islamic State, 108–9 narratives of threat to the Muslim community, 104–6, 109–10 performative aspect of oath of allegiance, 66 power of images, 88–90 See also audiovisuality; images memory cultural memories within Islamic State’s ideology, 47–8 historical memory genealogical links to the Prophet, 59 historical memory of the Hama massacre, 28 Mirzoeff, Nicholas, 99 monotheism (tawh.īd) in ‘Axe of the Khalīl’ video, 120–2 destruction of Shiite cultural sites, 130–1 figure of Abraham, 118–19 iconoclastic destruction, 112–16, 119–21, 125 in Islamic jurisprudence, 72 within Islamic State’s ideology, 63, 115–16 al-Muhājir, Abū H . amza. See al-Badawī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim

Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC), 38–9 Muslim Brotherhood, 28 Noyes, James, 115 Pfeifer, Simone, 91 Pieslak, Jonathan, 92 Pinto, Paulo, 31, 32, 132, 133, 135, 137 polytheism (shirk) concept of, 114–15 destruction of Shiite cultural sites, 130–1 iconic socioclasm’s opposition to, 112–18, 124–5 imagery of, 105, 115 in Islamic jurisprudence, 72 landmarks of, 115 muh.tasibūn’s destruction of cultural properties, 77, 80 of the Nabī Yūnus mosque, 139–40 sites of, 114–15, 117, 121–2 Poole, Deborah, 94 Powell, Colin, 38 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 33 al-Qurashī, Abu Bakr al-Baghdādī alHusaynī. See al-Baghdādī, Abu Bakr al-Qurashī, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Hāshimī, 59 Ramsay, Gilbert, 94 Revkin, Mara, 74, 75 Robinson, M., 92 al-Sadr, Musa, 27 Salamandra, Christa, 28, 29 Schlee, Günther, 2 sectarianisation definition, 12 political sectarian identities in Iraq, 6, 12, 14–16, 17, 18–23, 39, 42, 129–30, 152 political sectarian identities in Syria, 6, 12, 28, 29–30, 152–3 sectarian identities, 11–12 sectarianisation of the Syrian uprising, 30–3, 43 Shia Islam Alawis, 27–8 cultural sites as shirk, 114, 115

Index destruction of cultural sites, 114, 129–31 Iraqi Shiite scholars, 15, 17, 33, 136 killing of Shiite clerics, 136–7 reconstruction of Najaf cultural sites, 137–8 under S.addām Husayn, 14–15, 16 sites of Shiite religious practice, 129–31 Tal ʿAfar mosque, 130–1 threat to the Muslim community, 22–6, 51, 109–10, 129–30 twin shrine of al-Raqqa, 132–3, 135 shirk. See polytheism (shirk) shūrā, 5, 38–9, 51, 52–6, 72 social contract (ʿahd) bayʿa practice as, 66–7, 71–2, 80, 110 h.isba oversight of, 76–7 institutionalisation of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong,’ 75–6 regulatory authority to oversee, 50–1 as sanctioned by divine ordinances, 5, 50, 80 shūrāʾ councils and, 53 social identities categories, 4, 12 collective identities of religious communities, 123–4, 125–35 ‘to command right and forbid wrong’ tenet, 74 destruction of cultural artefacts, 117, 122–4, 125, 128–9, 131–3, 143–4 exploitation of ethno-sectarian identities in Syria, 30–3, 43 group identity-role of the black banner, 96, 99, 100–2 identity spaces, 24 identity-creating function of pilgrimages, 131–5, 138, 139–40 intragroup conflicts, 6–7, 23–4 intragroup solidarity, 3, 5, 7, 17–18, 66–7, 73, 92, 102, 109–10 Islamic State identity, 2, 4, 79–80, 90, 151–2 political sectarian identities in Iraq, 6, 12, 14–16, 17, 18–23, 39, 42, 129–30, 152 political sectarian identities in Syria, 6, 12, 28, 29–30, 152–3 protesters as terrorists narrative in Syria, 30–1

207

during the regime of S.addām Husayn, 12–14 in relation to ‘the Other,’ 24–5, 26, 32, 51, 91–2, 113, 130, 153 sectarian identities, 11–12 use by entrepreneurs of identity, 2, 12, 17–18, 79–80 See also identity politics; identity-building socioclasm concept of, 117 definition, 114 iconic socioclasm, 118, 124–5, 142–4, 156 ideological function of, 113–14, 156 imagery of, 118, 156 social identity confirmation through, 117, 122–3 See also iconoclasm Sunni Islam classical theories of state, 45, 47, 48–9, 54 destruction of cultural sites, 114, 138–42 Great Mosque of al-Nūrī, 140–2 opposition to the Islamic State, 130 purified Sunni Muslim identity, 2, 4, 6, 138–9, 153 repentant Sunni sinners, 109–10 ‘righteous’ Sunni Muslimness, 2, 153 under S.addām Husayn, 13–14 sites of Sunni religious practice, 138–42 Sunni Arab Iraqi identity, 7, 18–19, 20–3 Sunni victimisation narratives, 7, 21–3, 33 in Syria, 28, 29, 33 Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 136 symbolic strategies destruction of monuments, 112–13 figure of the Islamic State fighter, 108–9 of Hafez al-Asad, 27 humiliation of enemies of Islamic State, 111–12 logo of the al-Hayat Media Center, 95–6, 100–2 oath of allegiance (bayʿa), 71, 154 of The Prophet as a Leader, 98–9 for state-building, 58

208

Index

transmission through images, 90 visual narratives, 102 See also black banner Syria Alawi minority, 27–8 archaeology and national identity, 122–4 al-Asad’s sectarian narratives, 2 civil war, 43 current situation, 157–9 Islamic State’s expansion into, 43–4 massacre of Hama, 28 Muslim Brotherhood in, 28 parallels with Iraq, 26–7, 32–3 protesters as terrorists narrative, 30–1 sectarianisation of the political landscape, 6, 12, 28, 29–30, 152–3 sectarianisation of the Syrian uprising, 30–3, 43 Shiʿi holy sites, 132–3 Shiite community, 27–8, 29 Sunni community, 28, 29, 33 Tanz.īm al-Qāʿida fi-bilād ar-rāfidayn (alQaʿida (AQI)) alliance with Mujahidin Shura Council, 38–9 al-Badawī’s leadership, 39–40 formation of the Islamic State of Iraq, 40 Jabhat al-Nusra’s links with, 44 operations in Iraq, 39 shūrā concept, 38–9 al-Zarqāwī leadership of, 38 tawh.īd. See monotheism (tawh.īd) al-Tawh.īd wa-l-Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad), 37–8 text production amīr al-muʾminīn, 57–8

Declaration on the Constitution of its Ministries, 107 Legal Permissibility of the Banner in Islam, 97–8 muddū-l-ayādī li-bayʿat al-Baghdādī (Stretch out Your Hands for an Oath of Allegiance to al-Baghdādī), 61–2 proclamation of the caliphate hādha waʿd Allā, 1, 44–7, 54–5, 61–2 The Prophet as a Leader, 97, 98–9 Qurʾanic text in, 57, 127 use of h.adīth, 47, 56, 71, 97 umma communal obligation to the caliphate, 4–5, 46–7, 48, 49–50, 107–8 history of, 2 narratives of threat to the Muslim community, 104–6, 109–10 as represented by the shūrā, 56 violence against cultural artefacts, 112–13 against enemies of the Islamic State, 111–12 figure of the Islamic State fighter, 108–9 al-Zarqāwī, Abū Mus.ʿab allegiance to Usama bin Ladin, 38 al-Tawh.īd wa-l-Jihad statement, 37–8 call for all-out war, 25, 26 description of paradise, 145 n29 as the founder of Islamic State, 38 and the Jihadi-Salafi ideology, 38 on the Shiite community, 24–5, 136 al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 44