firstlook.org: Some 120 Muslim religious scholars this week published an open letter refuting the Islamic State’s claim to be a religious political movement, joining a series of high-profile condemnations of the extremist group by Islamic religious and political leaders.
The letter, signed by current and former grand muftis of Egypt, the former grand mufti of Bosnia, and the Nigerian Sultan of Sokoto, along with many other prominent Muslim leaders from around the world, offered a thorough, 24-point condemnation of the Islamic State’s behavior. But it still left the question of how a group that calls itself the “Islamic State” and uses religious scripture to justify its actions can possibly be described as not Islamic.
The answer is complex, but boils down to the fact that while the Islamic State is superficially and opportunistically Islamic, it owes at least as much to secular revolutionary ideologies as to its claimed religion, and borrows heavily from Western systems of organization and pop culture as well.
How ISIS Actually Works
In their “Open Letter to Baghdadi” the scholars – who hail from the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Africa as well as North America – provide their own critical examination of the group’s practices from a purely theological standpoint.
Categories: Accepting Islam, Anti Islam act by Muslims, Anti-Islam Attitude, Arab World, Asia