User:Suomichris/ISIS Ideology and beliefs

Ideology and beliefs

ISIS is a Muslim extremist organization that follows global jihadist principles. Like al-Qaeda and many other modern-day jihadist groups, ISIS can trace much of its ideology to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that originated in Egypt in the 1920s. In addition to being jihadist, ISIS is also Salafist in ideology, seeking to return to earlier models of Islam that date from around the time that Muhammad lived, rejecting later developments like the Islamic schools of jurisprudence (madhhabs). Salafists reject the caliphates after the rightly guided caliphs and the Ottoman Empire for deviating the Muslim ideal, and seek to establish a single Islamic state. Salafist are also willing to engage in takfir, or excommunication—declaring other Muslims to be outside the faith.

Salafists like ISIS believe that only a legitimate authority can undertake the leadership of jihad, and that the first priority over other areas of combat, such as fighting non-Muslim countries, is the purification of Islamic society. Although the ideology of ISIS is similar to the type of Salafism practiced in Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, it is distinct in that it does not look to the Saudi king or state as an authority.

There is disagreement over whether or not ISIS ideology is Sunni or not. A number of Western sources, such as the Australian government and The New York Times, refer to ISIS as a Sunni movement. However, some Sunni commentators, including Salafi and jihadi muftis such as Adnan al-Aroor and Abu Basir al-Tartusi, have stated that ISIS and related terrorist groups are not Sunnis, but modern-day Kharijites—Muslims who have stepped outside the mainstream of Islam—serving an imperial anti-Islamic agenda. Other Salafists, including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Saleh Al-Fawzan, have also criticised the group, claiming that Western forces are behind ISIS.