Loretta Napoleoni - ISIS: the terror nation

The rise to power of the armed organization that in June 2014 took the name Islamic State has been swift and, until recently, largely undetected. In recent years this group has frequently changed its name. Originally part of Abu Mussab al Zarqawis organization Tawhid al Jihad, it later became the Islamist State in Iraq (ISI), which eventually merged into al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2010, when Abu Bakr al Baghdadi became its leader, the group reverted to its former appellation the Islamic State in Iraq. In 2013, following its merger with a section of Jabhat al Nusra, a Syrian jihadist group affiliated with al Qaeda, the organization renamed itself Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (al Sham), better known by the acronym ISIL or ISIS. Finally, just before the declaration of the Caliphate, ISIS became the Islamic State. In Syria, however, right from the beginning, and today in Iraq also, the group has been known simply al Dawlat, the State.

Each new term corresponds with major developments and important changes in the life of the organization. As such, the semantics of the Islamic State constitute one additional piece of the Middle Eastern political puzzle that the West and the world are trying to put together.

The name al Tawhid al Jihad, often translated as Monotheism and Jihad, conveys a sense that God is everything and everywhere; life can exist only within His rule. Accordingly, Muslims consider the original Islamic State, the first Caliphate, the seventh-century creation of the Prophet Mohammed and his companions, a perfect society ruled by divine mandate. In short, it was the political expression of the will of God. Today, the trademark gesture of al Tawhid, the thrusting of ones index finger to the sky, has become the all but official salute of the contemporary Islamic State.

The transition from al Tawhid al Jihad to the Islamic State in Iraq coincided with the efforts of al Zarqawis armed group to focus on Iraq, to confine its jihad to this country, as a launching pad to re-establish the Caliphate. In similar fashion, al Baghdadis decision to add the words al Sham, the ancient Arabic denomination of Damascus and surrounding territories, from which some of the first Caliphs ruled, represents a step forward from his predecessor and marks the beginning of a cross-border effort to achieve the organizations final goal: the reconstruction of the Caliphate.

The birth of the Islamic State, the newest name taken by ISIS, just a day before the declaration of the establishment of the Caliphate, signifies a major new stage of nation-building, the process of recreating the circumstances that in the seventh century led to the establishment of Islams ideal society.

Today, Western media and politicians use various designations to describe the armed organization led by al Baghdadi. The White House and Downing Street use ISIL, while the US media prefers ISIS. PBS, however, favors the Islamic State, while some in the Australian media have adopted the terminology Islamic State Group, to avoid giving the impression that it is a state instead of an armed organization. Overall in English, the acronymic ISIS and ISIL sound better than IS, hence their popularity. The reluctance of politicians to use the word state springs from the fear of accepting, if only with a word, the claim of the Islamic State to be not a terrorist organization, but a state legitimized by a war of conquest and internal consensus.

In the course of this book I have used the term Islamic State because this is how the group has most recently defined itself and likely how it will continue to be known. It is my opinion that the term Islamic State carries a much more realistic message to the world than does ISIS or ISIL. This message conveys the groups determination to succeed at building the twenty-first-century version of the Caliphate. Using less precise acronyms for propaganda reasons, for example, to hide the true nature of the Islamic State, will not help us face the current threat. On the contrary, it will most likely, yet again, prevent us from developing an ad hoc strategy to bring peace once and for all to the Middle East.