Tackling Terror: A Response to Takfiri Terrorist Theology

Quilliam International is pleased to present its new report, “Tackling A Response to Takfiri Terrorist Theology”, authored by Dr Salah Al-Ansari and Dr Usama Hasan. This core ISIS jihadist manual, that has been acquired by Quilliam, has been translated and dissected for the first time ever. The report constitutes a closely-argued examination and principled rejection by our theological experts of one of the main jurisprudential texts that are used by Salafi-jihadist terrorist groups in general, and ISIL/ISIS and its associates in particular. The 579-page text, “Issues in the Jurisprudence of Jihad” (Mas’ail Fi Fiqh al-Jihad), is commonly described as the “bible for jihadists”. Written by one of the key ideologues of ISIS, Abu ‘Abdullah al-Muhajir, it seeks to establish a justification for acts of terrorism by employing detailed warped theological and legal arguments, acts such as assassinations, kidnapping, suicide bombings, beheadings, the killing of children, and the enslavement of women for sexual purposes. For example, from the very beginning of the manual, the author creates a division between dar al-Islam (land of Islam) and dar al-kufr (land of unbelief). In the case of ISIS, dar al-Islam has taken the physical form of an Islamic Caliphate, whereas dar al-kufr is anything outside of this land, and therefore “made legitimate for His servants that wage Jihad in His path to shoot the warring infidels, kill them, fight them by every means that may snatch away their souls, drive their spirits from their bodies, cleansing the earth of their filth and removing their scourge from mankind, whatever that means may be.” The manual is also consistent in constantly projecting a victimhood narrative and justifying their terror as self-defence. Of the West, the author claims that the Muslim community does “nothing about the fact that [with their superior power] they (Western powers) seek to pervert the Muslim’s faith; to establish their own collective market that is filled to bursting with unbelief, apostasy and the like; to impose their desires upon the Muslims and intervene in the affairs of any people that they intend.” Quilliam has drawn upon both the expertise of our own theologians and the work of other leading contemporary Islamic jurists to produce a first-of-its-kind point-by-point refutation and rejection of ISIS’ arguments, demonstrating their ignorance and disregard for traditional Islamic scholarship as well as for the basic humane and Islamic values of mercy and compassion. This refutation is intended to be a comprehensive answer to the arguments of Takfiri jihadists, and a tool for countering radicalisation, extremism and terrorism that this ideology promotes.