It seems that what ISIL spread with its terror actions is going to stirrup many debates. The question is beyond the terror since it involves fields such as sociology, theology, political sciences, Islamic movements and Islamophobia.
The discussions are circulating around what kind of sociological and theological fundamentals this terror group has. The foundational theological and sociological principles of ISIL are being inquired. Concerning the research on ISIL (a German scholar’s sociological research and analyses of certain strategy journals) and through the news reports, we may have the possibility of an accurate analysis within an integrative scope.
Theology is the term for a religious system which interprets the world. It involves certain principles, norms and perspectives. This applies to the warfare and commercial relationships, too. Theology is identified as the systematic worldview and universal norms of the human being, society and nature. It includes a consistent perspective. Therefore, people do not act arbitrarily. Reflexes are not a part of the theology.
For example, when we consider the theology of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, we recall a normative system of morality and laws. When we consider ISIL from this perspective, it is impossible to mention a theology, because it does not have any universal norm or legal principles or worldviews. When looking at it, it’s totally a rhetoric deprived of theology actually. It legitimizes everything to suit its clan violence or reflexive violence. It does not hesitate to hold the gun to any oppressed person, Muslim or non-Muslim, without discrimination and kill them by praising the name of God. The phrase “praising the word of God” only functions as a legitimizing excuse for its violence. They commit murders while carrying black banners and these serve to function as religious symbols, which relieve the conscience of their perpetrators. The concept of khilafa is used for the subconscious level of mobilization.
It activates the subconscious with the hopes of reviving “fallen politics”. Everything becomes legitimate for slaughtering and ruining. Theology is nothing but a way of rhetoric for instrumentalization in this context. From this perspective, ISIL resembles a hunting party group, because they represent the hunting instinct. They are crying out loudly with the group psychology by praising the name of God. It does not have its message or essence in it. They are crying, attacking, chasing and terrorizing.
Just as it has no theology, it does not have any sociology either. The meaning of a movement extending to sociology is that it derives from a social existence. The occurrence of social dynamics, its support, means that it operates in social activities and posses a specific history. In this case, movements such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Nahda arise from sociological movements, because they access to the dynamics of the society. They have social activities. They propose a political and social reasoning to the society. Therefore, despite all the pressures, violent interventions and exclusion mechanisms, they still survive. However, ISIL is simply a reactionary movement, which only addresses a physiological body. In short, it is born from physiology and psychology rather than sociology.
The German sociologist who researched ISIL indicates that ISIL is a matter of psychology and physiology rather than an issue of sociology. In this study, 400 profiles who participated in ISIL were examined. According to the results of the research, the persons, who were alcoholic, drug addicts and were into nightlife, all of a sudden found the truth[sg1] and this truth somehow led them to participate in ISIL.
In fact, there is an easy explanation for this psychological situation. The Muslim youth who were immersed in big sins realize their situation after a time and fall into a deep identity crISIL. In order to overcome this, in other words to recompensate their faults with great deeds, the idea of saving the khilafah or the jihad became their dominant method which they devote themselves to.
The Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who pointed out this identity crISIL in the youth, deals with it in his book “Muslims in France” published in 1999. According to him, these are the young French Muslims. They are at their houses here. However, they are strange and different from the French people in terms of culture and religion. The young Muslims in French have this great duality problem. (p.22). The Muslim identity crISIL, which Tariq Ramadan indicated 15 years ago, is now causing great trouble.
This phenomenon of alienation and otherization in Europe and the issue of being stuck between modernity and Islam is one of the most significant sources of the crISIL.
Of course, this does not mean ISIL is only being fed from Europe and USA. There are participants coming from over 70 different country backgrounds. Hence, the approach on the identity crISIL is not solely adequate. Besides this, what constitutes the most important account is the chaos, the anomy of warfare and clash. From this angle, it’s a counteracting barbaric response to the barbarically committed crimes in warfare, chaos situations.
However, this does not justify ISIL. There is no Islamic foundation in the counteracting barbaric response to the barbaric invasion of the US hegemony and their local collaborators.
No one can put forward to us the immoral and arrogant proposal of a bilateral choice such as “either the US hegemony or ISIL”, because the Ahl as Sunnah theology is clear and the experiences of the Islamic movements in the region are clear, too. For example, Hamas is a significant example of this.
Even when it confronts a non-Muslim, Zionist state, the routine of which is war, it always acted in certain norms and paid attention not to derail into terrorism. It always avoided the attack, slaughter and assassinations to the Israeli civilians. Even in the hardest times, it retained this attitude.
However, the greatest persecution of ISIL is that it applied violence persecution, violence and terror upon the Muslim people. It does not mind whether people are civilian or military personnel. It carries out the struggle in a barbaric hunting party manner. It leans on the reconciliation of Arab Sunni tribes and yet rather than Sunnism, it represents the tribal barbarism and its physiological aggression. It has nothing to with the political theory of the Ahl us Sunnah or its political culture.
In short, ISIL is a pathological situation in the anomy of war, which is deprived of theology and sociology.
