ISIS and the Sectarian Political Ontology: Radical Islam, Violent Jihadism and the Claims for Revival of the Caliphate

Abstract

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a radical organisation acquired a massive global appeal by virtue of stretching its ideological influence beyond Arab-centric focus and recruiting followers from across the world. Central to such widespread popularity was the conception of a unified Islamic Ummah which is located in a transnational Islamic State (IS) (Caliphate) that is governed in accordance to the tenets of Islamic law (shari’a). However, at the heart of this idea was a militant sectarian political ontology that distorted the notion of a unified Islamic Ummah. Articulated as a global grand strategy, the cosmopolitan Islamic imagination of the ISIS has been nothing more than a myopic assertion of a fanatic ideology of violence and terrorism. By sustaining such a notion through a forceful imposition of a Kharijite brand of extremism and sectarianism, the ISIS sought to contort the tolerant multifaceted and multilayered fabric of Islam that tends to accommodate diverse ethno-nationalistic, linguistic and racial pluralities and believes in the metaphysical communion of multiple faiths. The aim behind such an endeavour was the elimination of all those whom the ISIS considers as opposed to its ideology which is embedded in a narrow sectarian interpretation of what it designates as pure Islam. The genealogical impulse that lies at the bottom of such an ideology was its grand vision to assume a hegemonic position in the sphere of global jihadi movements.