“The Perfect Caliphate” — the Salafi ideological revolution

Abstract

Victorious march of the Islamic State (the IS), which a year ago was declared the “Caliphate”, became the number one event of the world agenda in 2014–2015-s. The IS now controls almost half of the territory in Syria and Iraq, there are a lot of reports about transitions of the jihadists in Waziristan, Sinai, Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, the North Caucasus and other regions on the side of the “Caliphate”. Superefficient propaganda pursued by the “Caliphate” attracts recruits from Europe, USA, Russia and China, and also allows them to initiate terrorist’s attacks not only in the Middle East but also in Europe, USA and Australia. The creators of the IS explore in the contemporary ideological and political context the works of the theologians of the Past (including wide popular among the Salafists: Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya, ‘Abd al-Wahhab and others), they also rationally use the books and concepts of the Salafi theoreticians of the XX-th century, e.g. Sa’id Qutb, Abdulla’ Azzam and Bin Laden.
This article focuses on the self presentation of the “Caliphate” through “DABIQ” glossy magazine, and tries to describe the IS as an actor on the world political scene. We suppose to answer on the key questions about the worldview of the “Caliphate”: why it was proclaimed, how its founders do see their own state, do they imagine interaction of the “Caliphate” with the outside world, do they have any allies and what is the exact reason of their extreme radicalism.

Keywords:

al-Qaeda, the Khilafah, the Islamic State, dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, the Salafists, Jihadists, Syria, Iraq, Libya