The Mind of the Islamic State

This work discusses the pattern of ideas that have shaped the leaders of Islamic State (p. 10). According to the author, the ideology of IS is founded on the writings of (i) Sayyid Qutb, especially his views in Milestones where he calls upon a small number of true Muslims to form a revolutionary vanguard to restore the light of Islam to the world (pp. 29–45); (ii) Muhammad [Abd al-Salam Faraj in his The Neglected Duty, who called upon Muslims to fulfil their religious obligation of jihad, lay the foundation of a truly Islamic state and kill the ‘near enemy’ (pp. 51, 55–56); (iii) [Abdullah [Azzam in his books, The Defence of Muslim Land and Join the Caravan, where he called upon Muslims to defend the ummah and pronounce jihad as an individual duty for each Muslim rather than being a collective duty (p. 76); (iv) Osama bin Laden, who was mainly responsible for making the ‘Crusader-Jewish alliance’ the target of global jihadist movement (pp. 87, 89); (v) and Ayman al-Zawahiri for providing the theological justification for martyrdom operations (p. 103). He argues that IS was transferred to reality by Zarqawi and implemented by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.