ISIS and the Caliphate

What is it about?

ISIS and the Caliphate The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, the violent extremist Sunni militia has roots in Al Qaeda and a network of Sunni jihadi groups that coalesced in the midst of the Iraq War. After being subjected to years of political and economic marginalization, state-sanctioned repression, lawlessness and corruption in the hands of Iraq’s Shia-led government, Sunni Iraqis rebelled by joining militant groups that pledged allegiance to ISIS. Many ISIS fighters are from the Sunni Awakening Movement which helped the United States to counter the insurgency of 2008 to 2011. Temporarily subdued in Iraq, the extremists relocated to fight in Syria’s power vacuum. It has established an Islamic Caliphate based on a puritanical form of Sunni Islam with close theological links to Saudi Arabian Wahabbism. The idea of Caliphate is part of the normative history of Sunni Islam. The ISIAS ambitions to expand the Caliphate’s boundaries to neighbouring countries is now being thwarted by the US-led airstrike, Iraqi-Kurdish armies and Russian military intervention in support of the Syrian regime. In the final analysis ISIS is a war within Islam, with extreme Sunni fundamentalists pitted against Shias, moderates and non-Muslims. It is not the Western opposition but the reality of hybridity and diversity of Muslim world that will consign ISIS and its Caliphate to the pages of history.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

ISIS is a war within Islam, with extreme Sunni fundamentalists pitted against Shias, moderates and non-Muslims. It is not the Western opposition but the reality of hybridity and diversity of Muslim world that will consign ISIS and its Caliphate to the pages of history.

Perspectives