Abdel Bari Atwan - Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate

Under International Law the criteria for statehood are relatively simple. The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States concluded that there are two types of statehood: the declaratory and the constitutive. The former requires that, in order to declare itself a state, the entity must have a clearly defined territory, a permanent population, and a government capable of exercising authority over the population, its territories, and its resources. Montevideo also determined that declaratory statehood is independent of recognition by other states. Constitutive statehood, by contrast, requires recognition by existing states; but this has proved untenable, since there is no official international body with the authority to recognize states on behalf of the entire world community of states. (The UN cannot do this.) The authority exercised by government is generally accepted to include a judicial system and the capacity to engage in international relations with foreign states. The political or ideological tenets of a state are not prescribed, and at the moment, our planet boasts democratic and theocratic states, dictatorships and kingdoms.

In January 2015, the Institute for the Study of War released new maps showing the extent of territory controlled by Islamic State. Despite ongoing bombardments by the US-led alliance, it had continued to expand and now controlled almost half of Syria and at least one-third of Iraq.240,000 square miles. By way of comparison, the whole of the UK (including Northern Ireland) is less than 3,000 square miles bigger. The population under Islamic State control currently numbers at least six millionlarger than many European countries, including Denmark and Finland. That they are willing citizens of the state is not stipulated under international law.

In October 2014, Islamic State announced online that it had struck its own coinage, reviving the silver and golden dinars of the First Caliphate, and that this is now the official currency of the state. In January 2015, it opened its own bank in Mosul, offering Islamic loans (it is haram [sinful] to charge interest) and a facility for exchanging damaged notes. It also has its own car number plates, police force with brand-new, freshly painted police cars, uniform, and flag.

Although it may at some point in the future seek international recognition (as did the Taliban), Islamic State is unlikely to be particularly concerned with the demands and principles of international law, believing that its moment has come. The Salafists (who adhere to the earliest versions of Islam) have a vision of history that sees a period of ignorance ( Jahiliyyah ) followed by an Islamic stage. They believe that the world has been in a state of ignorance from which it can only emerge through three steps: faith (Salafist Islam); hijra (the migration of Muslims from infidel countries to communities of the faithful); and jihad (struggle to establish an Islamic state for the ummah , or nation). All Islamic State propaganda focuses on these three stages. The migration of large numbers of foreign fighters to join its cause is a crucial aspect of its online PR and recruitment material. Online videos often show joyful new arrivals burning their passports. The jihad stage has been under way for the best part of two decades, and Baghdadi and his followers are clearly convinced that the momentum for re-establishing the caliphate is now unstoppable. This is why they have confidently declared an Islamic State (although rival organizations such as al Qaeda believed the declaration was premature).