Ruby Khaja

“Second, the Islamic State’s desires: The Islamic State’s politics differ profoundly from that of most Wahhabis, who view the Saudi kingdom as a legitimate Islamic government. As the State sees things, no Muslim-majority state in the world deserves to call itself Islamic, which is why it set up its own state and declared a caliphate. To achieve that end, the Islamic State had to wage an insurgency, which it justified with scripture.”
― William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State

“Their apocalyptic and puritanical religious rhetoric is designed to appeal to people who are interested in that sort of thing, but the Islamic State’s leaders don’t really believe it themselves. They’ll dress their actions up in prophecy and adopt the trappings of an austere Islamic caliphate but it’s not from conviction. They see religious symbols and laws as useful vehicles for realizing their ambitions, which is not an irrational viewpoint,”
― William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State

“Religious convictions and political benefit are not always antithetical.”
― William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State

“To be sure, many of the Islamic State’s foot soldiers are ignorant of their own scriptures. Islamic scripture is vast, encompassing not only the Qur’an but also the ahadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad by his followers. Collections of ahadith run into the hundreds of volumes, and that’s just the Sunni variety. The Shi’a have their own collections, adding more volumes to the pile. Want to find passages justifying peace and concord? They’re in there. Want to find passages justifying violence? They’re in there too. Medieval Muslim scholars spent their whole careers trying to reconcile the contradictions between them. It’s extremely difficult to do, which is why early Muslims called the effort ijtihad, or “hard work.” People chuckled at the news of two men buying a copy of Islam for Dummies on their way to join the Islamic State.14 But having spent two decades studying the intricacies of Islamic scripture, I empathized with their bewilderment.”
― William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State