The Islamic State E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: History
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 58

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the history of the Islamic State in next to no time with this concise guide.

50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of the history of the Islamic State. The brutal terror attacks in Paris in 2015 sent shockwaves across Europe. The group which claimed responsibility for them, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has been active since 2006 and seeks to impose its radical and distorted version of Islam across the Middle East. The international coalition established to combat the organisation has made some significant advances, but the fight against fundamentalism is still far from over.

In just 50 minutes you will:
• Understand the history of the Islamic State and the events leading up to its foundation, including colonial rule and the regime of Saddam Hussein
• Learn about the key figures in the organisation, including current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
• Evaluate the successes and failures of the coalition fighting against the Islamic State

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Leseprobe

The Islamic State

Key information

Year founded: 2006, during the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, which brought together five jihadist groups and around 30 Sunni tribes. The terrorist group proclaimed the Islamic State of Iraq in October 2006, before becoming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2013.Ideology: Salafi jihadism (Sunni Islam).Founders:Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006)Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (died in 2010)Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (born in 1971).Names: al-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī al-ʻIrāq wa-al-Shām, meaning Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in English, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State, or Daesh (Arabic acronym for ISIL, which is considered to be pejorative by members of the terrorist cell). Others prefer to refer to it as the so-called, self-proclaimed or self-styled Islamic State as a way of signalling their refusal to consider the terrorist group as a true state.Objectives:to found a caliphate bringing together the entire Muslim world, on the model of the Abbasid Caliphate;to fight against the West, which it considers responsible for the persecution of Muslims over the centuries;to fight against Shia Muslims.

Introduction

In January 2015, the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was targeted by terrorists, along with a Jewish supermarket, where an armed man took staff and customers hostage. The death toll was high: 17 people were killed during the attacks. On 13 November of the same year, the French capital was once again hit by a series of attacks which claimed 130 victims, who were shot down in the street, in cafés or in the Bataclan theatre. On 22 March 2016, Belgium fell victim to multiple suicide attacks, when bombs were set of at Brussels airport and the Maelbeek metro station, a short distance from the European institutions, leaving 32 dead and over 200 wounded. These are just two examples among many: the USA, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Turkey have also been hit by attacks.

These attacks were claimed by an organisation which was until then largely unknown to the general public, and which goes by the name of the Islamic State or ISIS. This relatively young, but no less powerful, organisation claims to be aligned with Islam and is driven by the desire to wage jihad against all of Western civilisation, as well as by its intention to restore the Abbasid Caliphate, which fell in 1258. The group was founded in 2006 and developed in a specific historical context, namely the war in Iraq and Syria, which favoured the rapid rise of armed extremism, spread by men nostalgic for the former power of the Muslim world.

The flag of the Islamic State.

JIHAD

The concept of jihad was formulated after the death of Muhammad (570-632) by Muslim religious scholars. Originally meaning ‘struggle’, the term refers to the war effort against non-Muslims. It was decreed by the caliph himself, the head of the Ummah (the Muslim community throughout the world), or by one of his representatives. Although jihad has not been officially proclaimed since 1914, it is regularly taken up by groups of independent fighters who give it a warlike meaning. They use it to evoke a sort of anti-Crusade against the West and the fight against colonialism. This fight is waged while threatening Western culture and interests in the Middle East, which they claim corrupt the Muslim elites.

From the 10th century onwards, some authors have developed a more moderate view of the concept by considering jihad as a defensive fight. Sufis (members of a Muslim mystical order) often distinguish between greater and lesser jihad. Greater jihad refers to the daily combat that each Muslim must wage against the temptations around them which could lead them to stray from the right path; in theory, therefore, it is not violent.

Although the Islamic State often makes the headlines, the general public tend to have a poor understanding of it. The group raises many questions: what is really hiding behind the Islamic State? How was it created? How does it work? What are its pressure tactics? All these questions will be answered in this guide.

The origins of the Islamic State

The history of Iraq

An unstable country

The origins of the Islamic State are inextricably linked to the history of Iraq. The country was at one time the centre of the Arab world, but it became a British colony after the First World War (1914-1918) and only gained its independence in the second half of the 20th century, following a coup d’état by General Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914-1963) in July 1958. After the execution of the former leader of the country, King Faisal II (1883-1933), and those around him, the Republic of Iraq was proclaimed. It was led by the Ba’ath Party.

THE BA’ATH PARTY

The Ba’ath (literally ‘resurrection’) Party is an Arab nationalist political party in the Middle East. Its aim is to achieve Arab unification and to promote the economic, political and cultural independence of the Arab world. From 1950 onwards, socialist tendencies were added to this desire, resulting in a revitalisation of society.

The Ba’ath Party has been present in Iraq since 1949. After a long period operating underground, it officially became a prominent part of the political scene after the revolution in 1958, and firmly established its power ten years later.

In Syria, the Ba’ath Party came to power in the early 1960s and embarked on a policy of nationalisation. Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000), the father of Bashar al-Assad (President of Syria, born in 1965) was Secretary General of the party from 1970 onwards, before becoming president of the country the following year.

The al-Assad family: Hafez al-Assad and his wife (seated); behind him are his children, including Bashar al-Assad (second from left).

In 1968, Iraq was shaken by another coup d’état, resulting in the overthrow of the president Abdul Rahman Arif (1916-2007) and the restoration to power of the Ba’ath Party, which had been removed several years earlier. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (1914-1982) then became the leader of Iraq, assisted by his vice president Saddam Hussein (1937-2006). Saddam’s power increased over time, and before long he took advantage of the president’s advanced age to seize the reins of power, before officially succeeding him in 1979. He then embarked on a series of purges, in particular within his party, which led to the deaths of hundreds of people.

Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Saddam led Iraq into a bloody and destructive war against its neighbour, which lasted for eight years and brought the country to its knees. He then attacked Kuwait, aiming in particular to increase his oil reserves, but once again his venture ended in failure. The UN punished him with an embargo on oil from Iraq, which was the country’s main financial resource.