Islamic State Bids Farewell to the Caliph
This article was published on my old blog before I started with Substack.
The 207th edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), published on 7 November 2019, devotes its main editorial to Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), the first “Caliph” when the “Caliphate” was declared in June 2014, who was killed on 27 October 2019.
The Naba editorial, entitled, “And He Left the Glory of Ibrahim”, contains nothing that could be called information. It begins:
The heart grieves, and the eyes shed tears. We are saddened by your departure, O Abu Bakr, and we only say what pleases our Lord: We belong to God and to Him we shall return. The Commander of the Faithful [Emir al-Mu’mineen], the Mujahid Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has passed away, may God accept him … [H]e could have achieved [death] at any time since he began his jihad 15 years ago, but his Lord, the Almighty, willed it to be delayed for years in which many good deeds were recorded for him, such as fighting in His cause, overcoming the trials and turmoil [or strife: fitna] in his deen [lifeway, Islam], and learning and teaching its rulings, until the Imamate was ordained for him, and he was made the guardian of the Muslims[.]
The editorial goes on in this vein, a hagiographic celebration of Al-Badri’s life. Still, Al-Naba’s obituary is not totally without utility. For example, the next paragraph says:
Shaykh Ibrahim, may God have mercy on him, was martyred so that the end of his life would be like the other imams of the deen and emirs of jihad who preceded him: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, and Usama bin Laden, may God Almighty accept them, and many others who would not mind not being remembered, preferring to be killed for the sake of God rather than be taken captive the mushrikeen [idolaters, polytheists].
IS’s schism with Al-Qaeda is the defining feature of the jihadist world at the present time, so it is instructive about IS’s narrative of that development that it still regards Bin Laden as part of its heritage—the claim being that it is Al-Qaeda that deviated from the righteous path under Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The editorial—as the title indicates—makes play with Al-Badri being “Caliph Ibrahim” and the Prophet Ibrahim (or Abraham) being the fountainhead of Islam.1 Al-Naba writes:
[Al-Badri] died after God Almighty used him and his brothers to revive Millah Ibrahim [the doctrine Abraham preached, which Muslims believe was Islam], reviving traditions that had died out and rituals that had disappeared, and killing many innovations [bid’a] with them. Through them [Al-Badri and his lieutenants], He revived souls that had been exhausted by the long reign of the mushrikeen over the Muslims, when they saw that Islam was no longer possible on earth. [What Al-Badri brought was an Islam] dominating everything and being dominated by nothing, ruling among the people and seeing its subjects governed by it, which induced Muslims to flock to it in droves and as individuals, muhajireen [immigrants, foreign fighters] and ansar [partisans, local jihadists], to join the blessed band, so that they could share in the reward for establishing the deen, and the honour of increasing the numbers of the umma [Muslim community][.]
Al-Badri is lauded by Al-Naba for keeping the banner of Islam free of impurity and upholding the Sunnah and the prophetic methodology, i.e., maintaining the Islamic State’s ideology. Al-Badri “did not deviate to flatter the infidels and murtadeen [apostates]”, says Al-Naba, stood his ground against the calamities imposed on the Islamic State as its enemies attacked it, and inflicted terrible damage on “Christians, Rawafid [Shi’a] mushrikeen, and apostate Sahwat [Awakening]”, meaning anti-IS Sunnis like the Syrian rebels. “Mujahideen operations in [the West] became almost daily events—thanks to God Almighty—just as did the news of the killing of apostates from the Rawafid, Sahwat groups, and tawaghit soldiers in Muslim countries”, Al-Naba writes.
Al-Naba’s view of where Al-Badri leaves IS:
While the life of the Caliph of the Muslims has ended, neither his State nor the jihad of its soldiers have ended—thanks to God Almighty—but rather it remains constant [baqiya mustamira]. Today, the mushrikeen have despaired of ending [the State’s] existence. Their highest hopes now are to contain its expansion and reduce its danger to them as much as they can, despite their certainty that it will continue to gain power on earth—God willing—and will implement the law of God Almighty in other places, and mujahideen from other peoples and tribes will join its ranks.
Rejecting the idea that Al-Badri’s loss has damaged IS, Al-Naba says “a new phase of its jihad” has begun that will continue “until it purifies the earth from the filth and oppression of idolatry and establishes the deen of God Almighty on it”:
Just as the mushrikeen rejoiced at the killing of Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may God accept him, then their joy was overturned by worry and grief at what they saw in the days of Shaykh Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, may God accept him—the transformation of the spite of the mujahideen into tamkeen [lit. “empowerment”, ruling territory] for them [the jihadists] on earth. Then they rejoiced at the killing of him [Abu Umar] and his [War] Minister [Abu Hamza al-Muhajir] and thought it would break the back of the mujahideen, then they discovered the scale of their calamity when the Islamic State of Iraq was extended into Syria and then it became a Caliphate State that included Muslims everywhere after the accession of Shaykh Abu Bakr, may God have mercy on him.
God willing, the enemies of God Almighty will be dismayed in the coming days by what God Almighty will serve up as conquests for His slaves in terms of lands and the hearts of His servants, and how He will empower them with land, the help He will give them in establishing the deen and ruling according to the law of the Lord of the Worlds in an area many times greater than what was seen at the time of the Caliphate of Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may God Almighty accept him.
The final paragraph of the Naba editorial is a prayer for the new Caliph: “We ask God Almighty to help our Imam, Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi [al-Qurayshi], may God protect him, to bear the hardships He has imposed upon him, to guide his banner [raya], to provide him with that which enables him to fulfil the command of God Almighty, to correct what has been corrupted, to bring back those who have gone astray, and to strengthen whoever is weak and negligent, for He is the Master of all of that, and praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.”
The last page of Al-Naba 207 had a summary infographic of Al-Badr’s life that was rather more informative, specifically in confirming that Al-Badri was not “radicalised” after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but had become a jihadist during the time of the Saddam Husayn regime, under a regime that was significantly Islamized in its last decade or so in power. Immediately after the old regime came down, Al-Badri joined the current of the insurgency oriented around the Islamic State movement, which was a highly ideological decision in 2003 and 2004. At that time, the insurgency was dominated by a large number of more powerful and better-funded Ba’thi-Islamist groups, and it was these groups that Sunnis joined if they were motivated to fight the new order by considerations of power and prestige—by a desire to restore Sunni hegemony in Iraq.
The text reads (roughly):
Stations From the Life of the Mujahid Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
1424 [March 2003 – January 2004]: The Beginning of the Jihad
The beginning of the jihad [for Al-Badri] against the Crusaders in Iraq [was] within a jihadist group called Jaysh Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaa that was very close to Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad [the IS movement’s name from 2003 to 2004], and he—may God have mercy on him—was the emir for this jihadist group, which from the time of its establishment focused on the issues of monotheism and following the Sunna, jihad against the infidels and apostates of all sects, and striving to establish the deen and restoring the Islamic Caliphate.
1426 [February 2005 – January 2006]: Hilf al-Mutayibeen [The Alliance of the Scented Ones]
Jaysh Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaa joined Hilf al-Mutayibeen called for by Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may God accept him, and on its basis the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen [MSM or Mujahideen Shura Council] of Iraq was formed, with its leadership assumed by Shaykh Abu Ali al-Anbari, may God Almighty accept him.
[Both the narrative and the dates are somewhat confused here: MSM was announced on 15 January 2006 and Hilf al-Mutayibeen was elaborately proclaimed on 12 October 2006]
1427 [January – December 2006]: Establishment of the Islamic State
Jaysh Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaa was dissolved after the announcement of the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq [on 15 October 2006], like the rest of the Majlis Shura [al-Mujahideen] groups, and Shaykh Abu Bakr became a soldier of the Commander of the Faithful Shaykh Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, may God Almighty accept them both. During that period, he [Al-Badri/Abu Bakr] assumed several responsibilities, including as emir of the shari’a committees in the Islamic State.
1431 AH [December 2019 – November 2010]: Commander of the Faithful
The Shaykh—may God have mercy on him—ascended to the leadership of the Islamic State of Iraq [on 16 May 2010], succeeding Shaykh Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, who was killed [on 18 April 2010] along with his War Minister, Shaykh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, may God Almighty accept them. [Al-Badri/Abu Bakr] worked with his brothers to strengthen the ranks and intensify the work in terms of quantity and quality, and its spread [throughout Iraq] until the war intensified again in that land. This coincided with the beginning of the demonstrations in the countries of the region [i.e., the “Arab Spring”], so the Shaykh sent some of his soldiers to Syria [Al-Sham, lit. “the Levant”] and provided them with half of the Islamic State’s treasury.
1434 [November 2012 – October 2013]: Victory in Syria [Nusra al-Sham]
The Shaykh announced the expansion of the Islamic State to Syria [on 8 April 2013], after his soldiers had operated there for a while under the name Jabhat al-Nusra. God ordained for the State in Syria what He ordained for their brothers earlier with the Awakening: fitna, until He gave them victory over them and tamkeen.
1435 [November 2013 – September 2014]: Declaration of the Caliphate
The Majlis Shura of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS] came together after the conquests that God bestowed upon His slaves in Syria and Iraq, and they announced through Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani—may God accept him—the restoration of the Caliphate [on 29 June 2014] and the appointment of Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may God accept him, as Imam and Caliph of the Muslims.
1441 [September 2019 – July 2020]
After a career full of sacrifice and jihad, the Shaykh was martyred, may God accept him, preferring to be killed in the cause of God Almighty rather than be taken prisoner by the mushrikeen, acting according to the advice he gave to his soldiers and refusing to surrender.
NOTES
Islam emerged over 200 years or so as the Imperial creed of the Arab Empire created by the conquests that began in the 630s. A key part of this process was the Arabs separating their creed from Ioudaismos and Christianity, which required an explanation of why large parts of the Tanakh and the New Testament appear—often in slightly modified form—in the Qur’an. From a historical perspective, the obvious answer is that the Qur’an emerged in a Biblical milieu and appropriated these texts, making errors in transcription along the way. But Muslim Tradition posits essentially the reverse: that the Qur’anic versions of these stories are the perfect Word of God, which was given to earlier Prophets, from Abraham to Moses to Jesus, all of whom were Muslims, and the discrepancies are proof that the Jews and Christians corrupted their scriptures, the very thing that necessitated God sending a final Prophet, Muhammad, to set things right.
There question is why the Arabs took this course when other peoples had conceived of themselves as having an exceptional place in God’s scheme and yet remained within the Biblical universe. In the very period—the late seventh and through the eighth century—where the Arab Empire began taking the steps that would separate its monotheistic doctrine from the two predecessor monotheisms, to fashion Islam as the creed of an elect, a similar process was happening at the other end of the old Roman Empire. Bede and his successors were imagining a united England that had the particular favour of God, but this remained within a Christian framework. The English might be a Chosen People, but it was more like primus inter pares within Christendom, rather than something truly distinct.
What set the Arabs apart was their special identification with Abraham because of the beliefs about Arab genealogy. The Arabs could claim—and Jews and Christians agreed with them—that they were descended from Ishmael, the first son of Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian concubine (or Abraham’s second wife, according to Muslims). This Abrahamic inheritance—Abraham is the most mentioned person in the Qur’an, except for Moses—was to prove an important factor in Arabs coming to the sense of their distinctiveness from Jews and Christians, and ultimately forging Islam as a creed that claimed to supersede them both.