The edition of Dabiq, the online magazine of the Islamic State (IS), that followed the horrific Paris attacks (130 dead) glorified the work of what it called the "eight knights" who carried out the killings. It rejoiced, too, in the downing of a Russian airliner (224 dead), picturing the homemade bomb it said caused the crash. Together, these constituted what the magazine called "blessed attacks" against "crusader nations." Other "brave knights" who carried out terrorist attacks in Australia, America, Israel and Jordan in the autumn of 2015 are said to have "sacrificed their souls in the noblest of deeds in pursuit of Allah's pleasure."

The IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is quoted in the magazine's foreword following the rhetoric that praises the acts of terror. In an address during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he said, "The Muslims today have a loud thundering statement and possess heavy boots. They have a statement that will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism, and boots that will trample the idol of nationalism, destroy the idol of democracy, and uncover its deviant nature."¹ One of the central aims of IS is to establish a state governed by Islamic law, shariah; it rejects nationalism and democracy as foreign to Islam. Establishing such a state will provide a home, it says, for all faithful Muslims; promoting such a state is one of the aims of Dabiq.

AN ISLAMIC STATE

With the establishment of an Islamic state, it is the duty of a Muslim, according to Dabiq, to come and be part of it:

The first priority is to perform hijrah [emigration] from wherever you are to the Islamic State, from dar ul-kufr [the house of disbelief] to dar ul-Islam [the house of Islam]. Rush to perform it as Musa [Moses] rushed to his Lord...Rush to the shade of the Islamic State with your parents, siblings, spouses and children. There are homes here for you and your families. You can be a major contributor towards the liberation of Makkah, Madinah and al-Quds [Jerusalem]. Would you not like to reach Judgement Day with these grand deeds in your scales?²

There is in this call the vision of a future in which Muslims take over the three holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem. Although Saudi Arabia is already a Muslim country, the followers of Islamic State believe that its rulers are corrupt and not true followers of Islam.

An article in Volume 8 of Dabiq is entitled, "Abandon the Lands of Shirk [idolatry] and Come to the Land of Islam." Once again, there is a call for Muslims to come and be part of the Islamic State. Five hadiths [sayings of Muhammad] are used as proof texts. Two of these are as follows: "Whoever gathers and lives with the mushrik [polytheist], then he is like him;" and "Allah does not accept any deed from a mushrik after he accepts Islam until he departs from the mushrikin [polytheists] and goes to the Muslims."³ Another article uses pragmatic arguments to encourage migration, itself a pattern set by Muhammad when he migrated from Mecca to establish a Muslim community in Medina in 622 CE.⁴ It argues that the West will simply corrupt Muslim believers, particularly children. They will become involved in drugs, alcohol, teenage gangs and promiscuity; they will be forced to stand for national anthems and to pledge allegiance to national flags rather than God as required by the Quran. The article argues that schools in the West teach the value of tolerating the faiths of others whereas the Quran teaches that Islam is the one true faith. Two verses from the Quran are cited as proof texts (3:85 and 9:28), although they do not actually prohibit the teaching of other faiths at all; one warns against following other faiths, not learning about them, while the other advises Muslims not to let polytheists near a mosque. Abu Thabit al Hijazi concludes his article by saying that schools use science education to inculcate scepticism and disbelief; What, he concludes, would keep Muslims from emigrating to an Islamic environment? For those who have emigrated, another article warns against leaving the Islamic State; abandoning the land of Islam for the land of disbelief is described as a "dangerous major sin." Doing so, the article argues, will see children abandoning their faith and opening themselves to the temptations of illicit sex, drugs and alcohol. They will also forget the language of the Quran.⁵ A quotation from the Quran, a hadith and numerous sayings of Muslim teachers in the past are used as proof texts to make the point.

WAR

Various articles propagate the idea that Muslims must be involved in fighting to establish and expand an Islamic state. In the very first edition, the Quran is quoted in support of this idea: "And fight them until there is no fitnah [sedition], and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah" (8:39).⁶ In Volume 7, an article entitled "Islam Is the Religion of the Sword, Not Pacifism" reinforces the point that Islam is primarily a religion of war. A string of quotations from the Quran is given to prove the point: "and when the sacred months have passed, then kill the mushrikin wherever you find them" (9:5); "fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and 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 Book — [fight them]...." (9:29). Other verses from the Quran are presented, including 9:73, 49:9, 5:54, and 8:12. For the writer, the lesson is obvious: "Allah has revealed Islam to be the religion of the sword and the evidence of this is so profuse than only a zindiq [heretic] would argue otherwise."⁷ However, Syrian Muslim scholar Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi argues strongly against the idea that non-Muslims should be expelled or killed, pointing to the fact that in "the first Islamic State of Medina," Jews and Christians lived side by side with members of the Muslim community.⁸

The article in Volume 1, "From Hijrah to Khilafah," outlines the IS strategy with regard to war, a strategy adopted by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006. The strategy involves establishing an Islamic state by creating as much chaos as possible through the use of vehicle bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the targeting of the army, police and intelligence forces, and Shia Muslims (regarded as apostates) who might be attacked by bombing their markets and mosques. With Zarqawi initiating this strategy in Iraq, the article argues, the country was reduced to chaos, thereby enabling Sunni forces to come in and fill the vacuum and to announce, shortly after Zarqawi's death, the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq; this new state would bring stability. This strategy of establishing of a state by first engendering chaos or mayhem (tawahhush) was given support from a jihadi text written by an ideologue known as Abu Bakr Naji, a text that has been studied by leaders of the Islamic State.⁹

In Volume 4, two articles recognize that not everyone will be able to perform hijra and come to the Islamic State; in that case, they assert, Muslims living elsewhere should kill Europeans, Americans and citizens of any country supporting the anti-IS coalition in their own country. The Islamic State's official spokesman, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, said,

If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone's advice and do not seek anyone's verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military....¹⁰

In the second article, Muslims living abroad are again encouraged to attack members of countries who oppose the Islamic State: "Every Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader, and kill him." A hadith is given as encouragement: "A kafir [unbeliever] and his killer will never gather in Hellfire."¹¹

Many Muslims believe that the IS interpretation of the Quran as a call for war and killing is wrong. In the United Kingdom, a number of imams have published their own online magazine, Haqiqah [truth], aimed at countering what might be read in Dabiq. Qari Asim likens members of Islamic State to the Khawarij (a seventh-century sect that left mainstream Islam), arguing that, like them, IS misinterprets the Quran. He suggests that a hadith might well refer to them: "In the last days [of the world] there will appear young people with idiotic thoughts and ideas."¹² Musharraf al-Azhari argues that in today's world, rather than engaging in war and conflict, Muslims should concern themselves with establishing peace, goodness and kindness among people and that, where there are disagreements, they should be engaging in dialogue.¹³

At a more academic level, Muslim scholars argue that if the Quran is studied as a whole rather than choosing texts at random, Islam will be seen not as a religion of war at all, but as a religion of peace and tolerance. War is permitted only within certain limits. Indonesian scholar Ansari Yamamah, for example, argues that war is only permissible when Muslims have been attacked or when they need to defend themselves.¹⁴ The Quran says that "permission is given to those who fight who have been wronged," (22:31) and "fight for the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not be aggressive" (2:190). Two Jordanian Islamic scholars challenge the idea propagated in Dabiq that Islam requires the use of violence so that Muslims can establish a government under shariah. Emad M. al-Saidat and Mohammad I. al-Khawalda carried out an analysis of the use of the word jihad [striving, sometimes meaning holy war] in the Quran and concluded that the word is primarily used only to describe a response to Muslims being tortured. Dabiq's use of two verses in the Quran, 9:73 and 66:9, is therefore invalid. Rather than proving that Islam is the religion of the sword rather than of peace, the verses actually refer to a specific situation in which non-Muslims betrayed Muslims and should not be used to legitimize war and conflict.¹⁵ Abdus-Sami Imam Arikeywyo, a Muslim from Botswana, uses verses from the Quran and examples from the life of the prophet to demonstrate that, rather than being a belligerent religion in the way it is portrayed by IS, Islam actually calls for peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths.¹⁶

SEX SLAVES AND MARRIAGE

Two articles in Dabiq have been written by a woman, Umm Samayyah al-Muhajirah. One discusses the practice of taking female slaves in war; the other, the reasons Muslim men can have up to four wives. The first article explains that the phrase "those who your right hand possesses" in the Quran refers to women who have been taken as slaves in war (cf. 23:5-6). The Quran allows them to be taken, even if their husbands are alive but in captivity. Tradition has it that Muhammad took four such slave girls as concubines. His companions followed his example, with one reporting that he had 19 such slave girls. Al-Muhajirah speaks of the practice in glowing terms: "Saby (taking slaves through war) is a great prophetic sunnah [teaching or example of Muhammad] containing many divine wisdoms and religious benefits, regardless of whether or not the people are aware of this."¹⁷ The media reported widely that, in 2015, Yazidi women were taken as slaves by members of IS after their husbands had been killed; the author expresses consternation that IS supporters rushed to condemn the practice. Reporting a hadith in which Muhammad said that Allah rejoices at slaves who become Muslims and enter paradise, al-Muhajirah assures her readers that the ultimate aim of taking slaves is to have them convert to Islam: "So whoever thinks that the ultimate aim of saby is pleasure, then he is a mistaken ignoramus."¹⁸ Taking girls as slaves, looking after them and having them convert to Islam is far better, she argues, than the practice in the West of having prostitutes who simply offer themselves as sex workers for money.¹⁹

In the second article, she seeks to defend the Muslim practice of allowing men to have up to four wives. The practice is sanctioned in the Quran: "Marry such of the women as appeal to you, two, three or four; but if you fear that you cannot be equitable, then only one, or what your right hand owns" (4:3). This verse is, Umm Muhajirah suggests, "a verse as clear as the sun that does not require extensive explanation or interpretation."²⁰ She backs up her argument not just by quoting from the Quran, but also by giving pragmatic reasons why it is good for a man to have more than one wife: a woman might be infertile or have restrictions on when she can have intercourse, such as during menstruation or around the birth of a child. By having more than one wife, she argues, a man is kept from falling into what is forbidden; he is always able to have sex with at least one of his wives. She acknowledges that, for a woman, the practice of a man having more than one wife is difficult and can lead to jealousy on the woman's part. Aisha, one of Muhammad's wives, found it difficult when Muhammad took other wives but she nevertheless accepted it. Because the principle is laid down in the Quran, God's revelation to man, she asserts that one simply has to accept it. In support, she quotes a verse from the Quran that says you cannot accept one part of the Quran and not another (2:85). She scorns women who argue against the practice: "So pay no attention to the statements of unprincipled women whose sources of reference are vile plays and soap operas. Rather, let our example be the women of the prophetic household," Muhammad's wives.²¹

KILLING AND EXECUTING

Islamic State avidly publishes film of its gruesome killings and punishments online: the beheading of Coptic Christians who refused to convert, the shooting of 25 Syrian soldiers at Palmyra and the shooting of various "spies." On one occasion, three spies were locked into car that was then blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade. Another group was drowned after being placed in a cage lowered into water. Still another was killed by explosive charges placed around their necks. Dabiq often publishes pictures of these events, such as PKK "apostates" and Shia soldiers who have been killed, the severed head of journalist Stephen Sotloff resting on his torso and a woman being stoned to death for a sexual misdemeanor.

Some pictures are published with an apologetic purpose, with a comment that justifies both the death and the method of killing. One edition depicts the killing of a homosexual thrown off the roof of a building in Raqqah; and it publishes both "before" and "after" photos. The method is unusual, so a justification is given: the punishment was first carried out by a companion of the prophet, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq.²² Children are also pictured taking part in executions. In Volume 8 of Dabiq, child soldiers are shown with guns in their hands standing in front of dead bodies. The article says the prisoners had been killed by the child soldiers because they were Russian and Israeli agents. The magazine justifies Islamic State's actions:

As expected, the kuffar [unbelievers] were up in arms about the Khalifa's [caliph's] use of 'child soldiers.' Yet this was the Sunnah of Allah's Messenger (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), who would allow those capable from amongst the young Sahabah [the prophet's companions] to participate in his battles against the mushrikin [polytheists]. It was two young boys from the Ansar who struck down Abu Jahl in the battle of Badr.²³

The editors of Dabiq were aware that there had been a great deal of criticism of IS in the Muslim world for burning alive a Jordanian pilot whose plane crashed in Syria in 2014. They were aware of the hadith stating that only God can punish with fire, but the author of an article in Volume 7 argues that this stipulation is abrogated in the case of retaliation in accordance with Quranic verse 2:194. He notes that Muhammad himself on one occasion gouged out his enemies' eyes with a heated iron, and cites five occasions when the prophet's companions also punished their enemies by burning them. Thus, he argues, in burning the Jordanian pilot, IS was simply following the example of Muhammad and his companions.²⁴ Muhammad al-Yaqoubi strongly refutes Islamic State's analysis, arguing that retributive justice is restricted to what is permitted by Muslim law and that Muhammad's prohibition of the use of fire takes precedence.²⁵

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Dabiq is a medium of propaganda, information and apologetics. Professionally produced, it aims to recruit for the Islamic State and to show that it is the sole Muslim homeland: the caliphate. Pictures show smiling soldiers, converts to Islam, social and medical facilities, and diligent children eager to learn about their faith and train for war; interviews with soldiers are a regular feature. Each edition has a round-up of news, particularly military successes, and advertises DVDs of its exploits. "Knights" who have killed "apostates" abroad receive much publicity — including Amedy Coulibaly, who was responsible for the killings in a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January 2015. The March attack on a museum in Tunis, killing 20, is also lauded, together with the killing of 38 people on a beach in Tunisia in June. The November 2015 Paris attacks are also glorified. The magazine runs a regular commentary on how the world outside the Islamic State is working unsuccessfully to destroy it. It aims to justify and explain what the Islamic State is doing, especially where it has attracted criticism from both the outside world and the Muslim community — inside and outside the territory it has conquered. Its photographic material shows pictures of dead soldiers, for example, from the PKK and from Shia forces. It is not afraid to picture what it terms its own martyrs and those who have been punished for various crimes, including spying, sexual offenses and theft. Executions of prisoners dressed in orange suits are regularly printed. Often execution is by throat cutting, but other methods are shown — as with the Jordanian pilot, whose death by burning is depicted together with his charred remains.

Authors of Dabiq articles always show that what the Islamic State is doing is in accordance with its interpretation of Islam. Justification, although sometimes put forward partly on the basis of pragmatic argument, is always offered: by arguing that the practice is in accordance with the Quran, the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, or the practices of the early Muslim community. This means that, whatever other Muslims and non-Muslims think of the Islamic State, most of its members and certainly its leaders believe they are carrying out God's will and obeying his commands. They believe it is they who are being true to their faith. It was the same with those who carried out the attacks of 9/11; they, too, thought they were being faithful Muslims. If the justifications in Dabiq reveal the faith component of IS's actions, the instructions written for the 9/11 hijackers also reveal their faith: "Pray during the night. Remember God frequently, and the best way to do it is to read the Holy Quran. Purify your heart from all unclean things."²⁶ Some individuals may certainly be attracted to the Islamic State by its brutality, but it cannot be denied that, for many, the attraction is at least in part religious.

The yardsticks Dabiq uses to justify its actions mark the organization as fundamentalist in nature. Religious fundamentalists believe their scriptures to be God-given and inerrant, a source of divine guidance. Fundamentalists also look to the early days of the faith as a time when things were authentic and often use what took place then as a pattern for what should be happening now.²⁷ The Quran describes itself as a revelation from God: "The revelation of the Book from the Lord of the Worlds, wherein there is no doubt. Or do they say 'He invented it?' Rather, it is the truth from your Lord..." (32:2-3). "The sending down of the Book is from Allah, the All-Mighty, the Wise. We have, indeed, sent down the Book to you in truth..." (39:1-2). Fundamentalists believe that what is said in holy scripture should be taken literally and obeyed to the letter. The Islamic State, therefore, sees itself as obligated to follow what it believes is commanded in the Quran.

The Quran sometimes gives contradictory instructions. For example, the verse that enjoins Muslims to "fight those among the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, do not forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden and do not profess the true religion..." (9:29) contradicts the verse that says "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256). The verse enjoining the killing of unbelievers (4:89) contradicts the one that says anyone who kills, unless the killing is in retaliation for murder or sedition, should be regarded as if he has killed the whole of mankind (5:32). The Quran itself provides a solution to these contradictions, suggesting that some verses can be replaced by others (2:106; 16:101). This is known as the doctrine of abrogation. One of the founders of al-Qaeda, a similarly fundamentalist group, was Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. In his tract enjoining jihad (by which he meant holy war) where Muslim countries had been invaded, he outlined his interpretation of abrogation, which is followed by other jihadi groups. He suggested that, if the chronology of verses in the Quran is studied, it will be found that at the start of Muhammad's religious career, he began to receive revelations; and when the people of Mecca persecuted him and his fellow believers, scripture gave him permission to "proclaim what you are commanded and turn away from the polytheists" (15:94). Later on, he was instructed to "call to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and mild exhortation, and argue with them in the best manner" (16:125). This was followed by a revelation telling him that he could fight defensively (22:39), and later came another giving him permission to fight with conditions (9:5). Finally, Muhammad was told to fight in a more aggressive manner: "Fight them until there is no sedition and the religion becomes that of Allah" (2:193). Azzam held that the more "passive" verses revealed early on are abrogated by the more aggressive later revelations.²⁸ Azzam was primarily concerned with fighting to protect Muslim countries from being invaded by foreign forces. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have given a more international perspective of the Quranic command to fight, with Dabiq suggesting that Muslims should kill non-Muslims in countries that oppose the Islamic State.

Not all Muslims follow this fundamentalist line of reasoning; many who believe the Quran is a direct revelation from God nevertheless do not follow every rule and prescription in it. They give priority to the book's peaceful texts; they give weight to Islamic tradition; they "park the problem" or they are not aware of it. Many conservative or fundamentalist Muslims may not know that in the early period of Islamic history — a period that is for them an exemplar of Muslim practice — leaders of the Muslim community felt free to use their reason to amend stipulations in the Quran. For example, Umar (583-644 CE), the second Muslim caliph, changed the rules for the distribution of zakat [a tax used for charitable purposes] so that money was no longer given to those who were considering converting to Islam (cf. 9:60). In a similar way, he changed the rule about waiving the need for purification in water before prayer when traveling (5:6), arguing that if water were not available prayer could not be offered. He also amended the rules for divorce (2:230). The Australian Muslim scholar Abdullah Saeed concludes that, by the beginning of the eighth century, there was considerable fluidity of Quranic interpretation on account of regional and cultural differences in the Muslim empire, the varying approaches of Muhammad's successors, and the variety of hadith texts and the different ways in which they could be interpreted.²⁹ One can argue that, if fundamentalists had remained true to their own practice of following the ideas of the early Muslim community, they would be able to be more flexible in their interpretation of the Quran.

Noting that Quranic interpretation was fluid from the earliest times and that scholars were not afraid to interpret the text according to changing circumstances, Saeed proposes what he calls a "contextualist" approach. This involves looking at the context in which chapters were originally given and determining the objective of any ruling, with the purpose of implementing it in a way that is appropriate to the modern world. So, for example, a Muslim might find a more appropriate way in the twenty-first century of punishing thieves than the Quranic punishment of amputation. Abdullah Saeed argues: "In the early Islamic community, amputation was used to prevent theft. Without changing the underlying objective, one could argue, a Muslim community could today find a means of prevention that is more in line with its circumstances."³⁰ Abi ibn Abi Talib (599-661 CE), the fourth of the rightly guided caliphs, himself complained that amputation was an inappropriate punishment and suggested it should be replaced by whipping and imprisonment. Saeed maintains there is nothing sacred about early interpretations of the Quran and that, like Abi, Muslims should feel free to re-interpret it according to modern circumstances, particularly the light of verses enjoining Muslims to "ponder" the holy book (47:24 and 38:29). The fundamentalist "textualist" approach taken by the Islamic State is therefore seen as inappropriate.

Other contemporary Muslim scholars similarly reject a fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran. Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan, acknowledging that the Quran is "the word of God," points out, like Abdullah Saeed, that it was revealed in a certain historical and social context. Although, he argues, it sets down a number of universal principles (the need for faith in God, the shared origin of humanity, the need for truth and justice), when it comes to social matters, Muslims should acknowledge that the stipulations of the Quran were given in a "certain context, expressed in pronouncements affected by circumstance, open to evolution, accessible to reason."³¹ The Muslim, according to Ramadan, while remaining aware that the Quran "remains the final Revelation," should use reason to identify the essential principles behind the injunctions it lays down. Remaining faithful to the principles cannot mean keeping to the regulations as they were set down at the time of Muhammad; times and circumstances change. If Muslims stick to the letter of what is written, there is a danger that they will become unfaithful to the principles. So, as Ramadan somewhat humorously puts it, "the concern should be not to dress as the Prophet dressed but to dress according to the principles (decency, cleanliness, simplicity, aesthetics and modesty) that underlay his choice of clothes."³²

When Muslim scholars begin to offer a more liberal interpretation of their holy book, problems sometimes arise. Egyptian professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was forced to leave his post and his country for arguing, like Saeed and Ramadan, that the Quran was given in a particular context, and that to suggest there is a single universal interpretation of it for all time amounts to polytheism. He subsequently accepted an appointment as a professor at the University for Humanistics in Utrecht. Another Muslim scholar, Fazlur Rahman, was forced to resign his post as director of the Islamic Research Institute in Islamabad because his interpretation of the Quran was seen as too liberal; he accepted a chair at the University of Chicago.

CONCLUSIONS

In an excellent article, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby argues that the fight against the atrocities of the Islamic State might well involve armed force, but that the conflict is also one of ideology. We need, he said, to fight not just against the violence and guns of the Islamic State but against its ideas.³³ Muslims have realized that they have a problem. After the Paris attacks, Singaporean Muslim Sulaiman Daud wrote on his Facebook page, "We have to own the problem. We have to admit that this is a religious problem, and we need to renew our commitment to a secular country which treats all religions equally."³⁴ In 2014, leaders of Arab states gathered in Manama for a conference on security made exactly the same point over and over again. Speakers repeatedly argued that IS is a Muslim problem and that Muslims must rise up and counter its ideology. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa of Bahrain called for coexistence among different sects and religions in the region and for an educational system that promotes tolerance. Jamal Khashoggi, general manager of the al-Arab News Channel, dared to suggest that part of the reason for the growth of IS was the lack of human rights and democracy in the Arab world, together with failed governments and failed educational systems and social injustice.³⁵

Throughout this article, there have been references to Muslim scholars and leaders who are opposed to IS and who believe its ideology is very far from what Islam teaches. As each attack by IS-inspired "lone wolves" takes place around the globe, Muslim leaders are quick to distance themselves from the group and from what Dabiq calls their "knights." It is not for members of other faith groups or civic or political leaders to suggest that IS flouts the norms of Islam or that "real Islam" is different to what it is peddling. Such comments are theological in nature and can only be made by Muslims themselves.³⁶ However, what those of us who are not Muslims can do is to stand behind and support our moderate Muslim colleagues in their fight against what Muhammad al-Yacoubi calls "a deviant group of gangsters driven by anger, hatred and a thirst for power, using Islam as a pretence to reach their goal."³⁷