What Does ISIS Really Want? Reconsidering Graeme Wood’s Piece in "The Atlantic"

Man, did I pick a helluva week to decide to start blogging again…..Yesterday, a robust discussion of a new article in The Atlantic filled my inbox with e-mails from a variety of folks on the American Academy of Religion’s Islam listserv.  I had skimmed the article online yesterday, but was asked this morning by a dear friend to offer my comments, so having read the article more in-depth, I have several thoughts.

First of all, it should be said that I claim no credentials as a Muslim theologian.  In fact, from an academic perspective, theology is but a tertiary concern of mine.  “Proper” interpretation of religious texts is less important to me than subjective and personal interpretation and the influence of such on people’s actions.  With that disclaimer, I will not deal with the myriad theological issues brought up by the article.  I do not have the necessary credentials to do so persuasively, and, as a non-Muslim, these would be dicey waters to wade into even if I felt I had something intelligent to contribute.  However, scholarly critiques of ISIS, on theological grounds to exist, as with this open letter to the ISIS leader signed by a number of prominent Islamic scholars.  It should also be added that there have been several critiques of Wood’s article, including this one from the executive director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  Another critique includes rebuttals from various scholars of Islam

Second, as a scholar, I cannot make evaluations about the veracity of one’s faith, so I cannot say that ISIS is more or less “Islamic” than any other Muslim group.  I can suggest that this is perhaps an extreme interpretation of Islam, but I can no more judge the sincerity of ISIS than I can the sincerity of the beliefs of Westboro Baptist Church or the Christian Identity movement when it comes to Christianity.  They believe their faith to be genuine, and I am in no position to quarrel with that.

I tend toward the sociological end of the religious scholarship spectrum.  I am far more interested in the multiple moving parts that contribute to the rise of a particular religious stance on an issue than I am on proper textual exegesis.  Thus, it is from a sociological perspective that I find my biggest problem with Wood’s piece.  Wood focuses largely on the theological drive behind ISIS.  However, theology, as with all other things, must be placed in a proper context, and the contexts for apocalyptic movements, of which ISIS could be considered a part, require an understanding of the political, social, and cultural machinations going on contemporaneously.

In many ways, the popularity of ISIS’s millenarian stance reminds me a bit of rise of dispensationalism in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s.  Dispensationalism is an eschatological framework which is premillennial in orientation (meaning Jesus has yet to come back to establish his 1000 year, or millennial, kingdom).  Dispensationalism believes that prior to a 7-year tribulation, all believers will be raptured to heaven, and those “left behind” will suffer at the hands of the Anti-Christ before Jesus comes to establish His kingdom.  Dispensationalism has not been de rigueur for long, compared to other forms of eschatology.  In fact, postmillennialism was the much more widely accepted form of eschatology in the US prior to the Great Depression. 

Postmillennials believe that Christ has already established his kingdom on Earth and that once good triumphs over evil and the message of the Gospel has spread all over the world, Christ will return.  The Social Gospel movement of the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries was very much rooted in postmillennialism.  However, the destruction caused in World War I as well as the extreme economic hardships of the Great Depression caused many to throw up their hands and say, “It’s no use!”  At that point, dispensationalism was able to emerge as the new front-runner of American eschatology.

Dispensationalism took hold because it is much more pessimistic than the revivalist postmillennialism of the Social Gospel movement.  Dispensationalists believe that we are rushing headlong into chaos and as such, we should concern ourselves less with the present time and more with preparing for the end of days.  Because of this, dispensationalists have never really concerned themselves with the threat of nuclear war or environmental catastrophes as those things are merely signs of the times and not something mere mortals can successfully combat. 

In many ways, ISIS’ eschatological bent seems to be on much the same trajectory.  According to ISIS and its supporters, a proper “caliph” (they believe Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to be the 8^th caliph) must be in place and after the 12^th “true” caliph, there will be a final battle against Dajjal, the Muslim anti-Messiah.  In this way, ISIS sees itself as essential to the coming of Armageddon.  With all of the chaos in the Arab world, it is not difficult to understand how this kind of apocalyptic vision might resonate with some.  Like dispensationalists, ISIS has a generally pessimistic view of the world and sees the promise of paradise following the final battle a preferable option.  Furthermore, many fundamentalist movements of all stripes frequently appeal to some sort of apocalyptic future to come precisely because of the promise of future glory even in the face of a world going to hell in a handbasket.

From a tonal perspective, the biggest issue with Wood’s piece is that it suggests that there is one “right” way to interpret Muhammad’s legacy and the Qur’an.  There is not.  Quoted heavily by Wood is Princeton professor Bernard Haykel.  The difficult part of reading any journalistic interpretation of an interview with an academic is trying to ascertain whether the academic was quoted in context.  This is my primary concern with what Dr. Haykel is quoted as saying.  Haykel’s position is presented as one in which “moderate” Muslims hold a watered-down, politically correct version of their faith that ignores many of the earliest dictates of Muhammad and his followers.  However, Haykel is also quoted as saying “[T]hese guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”  It is difficult for me to reconcile these two approaches.  On the one hand, the way in which Haykel is quoted first suggests that he thinks Islam is an inherently medieval or backwards religion.  On the other hand, suggesting that ISIS has as much legitimacy as others suggests, albeit clumsily, that, as I have previously argued, it is not a scholar’s job to judge the sincerity or legitimacy of belief.  These seem to be two very distinct approaches to evaluating ISIS, but Wood does not attempt to explain the discrepancy.

The fact that Graeme Wood is not an expert in Islam or Islamic societies is glaring in his assessment of ISIS.  He uncritically accepts the word of ISIS sympathizers regarding the truth claims of ISIS without appreciating the problem of interpretation and analysis of a religious tradition.  He also, at times, uses “terrorism” and “jihad” interchangeably despite the fact that the two are very different.  Finally, he discusses “Salafism” without properly defining it or plotting its course.  A number of forms of Salafism are quite conservative.  However, the historical arc of Salafism is quite an interesting one, beginning with Egyptian progressive Muhammad Abduh who believed that the key to Islamic modernism could be found in the practices of the “salafs” or righteous ancestors.  Abduh’s argument was that the prophet Muhammad was a visionary who adapted on the fly to a quickly changing environment and that Muslims should follow that example to adapt to the demands and challenges posed by modernity.  Granted, this view is not the most popular of Salafism in a contemporary context, but it is nevertheless an important aspect of the development of Salafism as an ideology that shows the difficulty of pigeonholing any movement in any religion as one thing or another.

As I have previously argued on this blog, the fact that a majority of the world’s Muslims live outside of the Middle East proper even as a majority of the problems with Islam occur inside the Middle East points directly at the issue of whether Islam or the multiple problems in the Arab world is the real issue here.  Libya, Syria, and Iraq exist in total chaos today.  That kind of environment is ripe for the taking for any group strong enough to exert its will.  While the motivations of ISIS may indeed be religious (and there is no reason to believe they are not), the success of ISIS is not linked except perhaps tangentially to religion; rather, it is linked to poverty, corruption, civil war, and general disenfranchisement.

Despite the faults in Wood’s piece, it is nevertheless an important addition to the marketplace of ideas.  Only through discussion and sometimes spirited debate among scholars, journalists, and others can we begin to appreciate the strength and power of a foe like ISIS and begin the process of weakening it as a movement.