What’s in a name? The many faces of the ‘Islamic State’
BEIRUT: The jihadists who have declared a “caliphate” in parts of Syria and Iraq call themselves the Islamic State, but detractors say they represent neither Islam nor any state.
In a speech outlining his strategy against the group Wednesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama pointedly denied the extremists their chosen appellation.
Instead,
he referred to them by the acronym ISIL, which stands for the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant, and is a translation of a name that the
group used before declaring their caliphate in June.
“ISIL ... calls itself the ‘Islamic State,’” Obama said.
“Now
let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’ No religion
condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIL’s
victims have been Muslim,” he added.
“And ISIL is certainly not a
state. It was formerly Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken
advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on
both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border.”
That predecessor group was known as the Islamic State of Iraq, and was formed in October 2006, when the group known as Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia merged with various Iraqi Islamist groups.
After years of vicious battle in Iraq, the group’s influence waned following a turn against them by many of Iraq’s Sunni tribes.
But
the civil war in neighboring Syria offered the remnants of the
organization an opportunity to form in another guise and under a new
name.
As early as August 2011, the group was calling on its
backers to go to Syria to fight alongside “the Muslims” against
Alawites, a sect to which Syria’s President Bashar Assad belongs.
The
group dispatched members from Iraq to Syria to help found the Nusra
Front, and in April 2013, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq
announced the groups would merge to form ISIS.
But the Nusra
Front’s leader rejected the merger, as did Al-Qaeda chief Ayman
al-Zawahiri, who designated Nusra to be Al-Qaeda’s official Syria
affiliate and ordered the Islamic State of Iraq to return across the
border.
The order was ignored, and the new name came to refer to a
separate jihadist group from the Nusra Front, with cross-border
aspirations and capacity.
The name has created confusion for some.
The
Arabic word for Levant, al-Sham, is also used to both refer to the city
of Damascus as well as indicate Syria alone, leading some to call the
group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and others the
Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS.
Others chose to use ISIS, with the final ‘s’ a reference to the Arabic word that can indicate Syria or the Levant – Shaam.
In
the United States, the Washington Post reported that Democratic
lawmakers have officially decided to use ISIL because Isis is the name
of an ancient Egyptian goddess and a female name.
Republicans, however, the newspaper said, appear to favor ISIS in their references to the group.
In
Arabic, ISIS has come to be known by many as Daesh, an acronym for the
group’s full Arabic name. Jihadists consider the acronym to be
derogatory.
Both French President Francois Hollande and French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius have publicly used “Daesh” when
referring to the group.
And in some parts of the Arab world,
including Lebanon, it is now used as an adjective – a “daeshi” referring
to a bigot who imposes their views.
Last month, Saudi Arabia’s
highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh,
branded ISIS jihadists and Al-Qaeda as “enemy No. 1” of Islam.
And
Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the top authority in Sunni Islam, has urged foreign
media to stop referring to the militants as the Islamic State.
In a speech outlining his strategy against the group Wednesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama pointedly denied the extremists their chosen appellation.
Instead,
he referred to them by the acronym ISIL, which stands for the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant, and is a translation of a name that the
group used before declaring their caliphate in June.
“ISIL ... calls itself the ‘Islamic State,’” Obama said.
“Now
let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’ No religion
condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIL’s
victims have been Muslim,” he added.
“And ISIL is certainly not a
state. It was formerly Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken
advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on
both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border.”
That predecessor group was known as the Islamic State of Iraq, and was formed in October 2006, when the group known as Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia merged with various Iraqi Islamist groups.
After years of vicious battle in Iraq, the group’s influence waned following a turn against them by many of Iraq’s Sunni tribes.
But
the civil war in neighboring Syria offered the remnants of the
organization an opportunity to form in another guise and under a new
name.
As early as August 2011, the group was calling on its
backers to go to Syria to fight alongside “the Muslims” against
Alawites, a sect to which Syria’s President Bashar Assad belongs.
The
group dispatched members from Iraq to Syria to help found the Nusra
Front, and in April 2013, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq
announced the groups would merge to form ISIS.
But the Nusra
Front’s leader rejected the merger, as did Al-Qaeda chief Ayman
al-Zawahiri, who designated Nusra to be Al-Qaeda’s official Syria
affiliate and ordered the Islamic State of Iraq to return across the
border.
The order was ignored, and the new name came to refer to a
separate jihadist group from the Nusra Front, with cross-border
aspirations and capacity.
The name has created confusion for some.
The
Arabic word for Levant, al-Sham, is also used to both refer to the city
of Damascus as well as indicate Syria alone, leading some to call the
group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and others the
Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS.
Others chose to use ISIS, with the final ‘s’ a reference to the Arabic word that can indicate Syria or the Levant – Shaam.
In
the United States, the Washington Post reported that Democratic
lawmakers have officially decided to use ISIL because Isis is the name
of an ancient Egyptian goddess and a female name.
Republicans, however, the newspaper said, appear to favor ISIS in their references to the group.
In
Arabic, ISIS has come to be known by many as Daesh, an acronym for the
group’s full Arabic name. Jihadists consider the acronym to be
derogatory.
Both French President Francois Hollande and French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius have publicly used “Daesh” when
referring to the group.
And in some parts of the Arab world,
including Lebanon, it is now used as an adjective – a “daeshi” referring
to a bigot who imposes their views.
Last month, Saudi Arabia’s
highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh,
branded ISIS jihadists and Al-Qaeda as “enemy No. 1” of Islam.
And
Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the top authority in Sunni Islam, has urged foreign
media to stop referring to the militants as the Islamic State.
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