![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper looks at the ways in which culturalist discourses have influenced our understanding and representation of the rise of the so-called Islamic State. It argues that, in keeping with older narratives on the motives of ‘bad’ Muslims, its political and economic objectives have been overlooked and/or downplayed. Instead, I propose, there has been a strategically efficacious focus on its appeal to Islam, on its sectarian rhetoric and on its use of violence. By continuing to emphasise the ethical over the political in these ways, the culturalism that underpins the dominant representation of the Islamic State’s emergence has, I conclude, served three key purposes – the mobilisation of the ‘good’ Muslim, the exculpation of Western foreign policy and the legitimisation of force.
Notes
1. Sowell, Iraq’s Second Insurgency, 4–5.
2. Lewis, Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent, 7.
3. Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, xi.
4. van Veen and Grinstead , Iraqi Imbroglio, 7.
5. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20141210/102795/HHRG-113-FA00-Wstate-McGurkB-20141210.pdf.
6. http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/iraq-syria-and-the-middle-east-an-essay-by-tony-blair/.
7. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 17.
8. Balibar, “Is there a Neo-Racism?” 25.
9. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 17–8.
10. Said, Orientalism, 300–1.
11. Duffield, “Symphony of the Damned,” 175.
12. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 106.
13. Quoted in McAdams, George W. Bush, 212.
14. Mamdani, “Secular Roots,” 154.
15. Quoted in Croft, Culture, Crisis, 74.
16. Rabasa et al., Building Moderate, 70–4.
17. Quoted in Bartolucci, “Terrorism Rhetoric,” 572.
18. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, 160; Bar, “Religious Sources,” 17.
19. Kundnani, Muslims Are Coming, 74.
20. Wahid, “Right Islam.”
21. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 4.
22. Kalyvas, “Logic of Violence,” 36.
23. Haykel quoted in Kirkpatrick, “ISIS’ Harsh Brand”; Husain, “Saudis Must Stop.”
24. Quoted in Blair, “Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”
26. Husain, “Saudis Must Stop.”
27. Hegghammer, “Jihadi-Salafis or Revolutionaries?,” 255; Paz, “Debates within the Family,” 279.
28. Dabiq, Issue Six, 38.
29. Dabiq, Issue Four, 43.
30. Quoted in Gerges, “ISIS and the Third Wave of Jihadism,” 340.
31. Arraf, “Islamic State.”
32. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-25/tony-abbott-speaks-at-un-general-assembly/5767576; Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants”.
33. Dabiq, Issue One, 7.
34. Lambton, State and Government, 85.
35. Gerges,” ISIS and the Third Wave of Jihadism,” 342.
36. Mamdani, “Whither Political Islam?,” 153.
37. Shaikh, Present as History, 100.
38. Abu Ahmed, former ad-Dawlah member, quoted in Chulov, “Isis: The Inside Story.”
39. http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/iraq-syria-and-the-middle-east-an-essay-by-tony-blair/.
40. Phillips, “How al Qaeda Lost Iraq,” 70.
41. Crooke, “ISIS’ Management of Savagery.”
42. Burleigh, “Ancient Muslim Hatreds.”
44. http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/iraq-syria-and-the-middle-east-an-essay-by-tony-blair/.
45. Neep, Occupying Syria, 31.
46. Simmons, Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam, 195.
47. Nakash, Shi’is of Iraq, 135–40.
48. Chapin Metz, Iraq, 97, 261.
49. Davies, Blood on Our Hands, 233.
50. MacLeod, “Gore to Rebels.”
51. Ricks, Fiasco, 104–5.
52. Jabar, “Postconflict Iraq,” 6.
53. Davies, Blood on Our Hands, 174.
54. Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 54; http://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publications/swp-comments-en/swp-aktuelle-details/article/us_led_air_campaign_challenges_is.html.
55. Schwartz, War without End, 243.
56. Schwartz, War without End, 244.
58. Phillips, “How al Qaeda Lost Iraq,” 71.
59. Long, “Anbar Awakening,” 77.
60. MacDonald, Networks of Domination, 214.
61. MacDonald, Networks of Domination, 204, 214.
62. Sowell, Iraq’s Second Insurgency, 5.
63. Ricks, Fiasco, 436; Dabiq, Issue Seven, 1.
65. Rashid, “ ISIS.”
66. Mamdani, Imperialism, 52.
67. Quoted in Miller, “Obama Calls on World.”
68. Eichenwald, “ISIS's Enemy List.”
69. Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 124.
71. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 4.
74. https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc11804.doc.htm.
75. Crooke, “ISIS’ Management of Savagery.”
76. Nance, Terrorists of Iraq, 311.
77. Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, 18, 26.
78. Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, 26.
79. Stern and Berger, ISIS, 23.
80. Crooke, “ISIS’ Management of Savagery.”
81. al-Naji, Management of Savagery, 72.
84. Sly, “Pro-Iran Militias.”
85. George, “Breaking Badr.”
86. Katzman et al, “Iran’s Role,” 14.
87. Sly, “Pro-Iran Militias.”
88. Khedery, “Iran’s Shiite Militias.”
89. van Veen and Grinstead, Iraqi Imbroglio, 16.
90. Khedery, , “Iran’s Shiite Militias.”
91. Quoted in McAdams, George W. Bush, 212.
92. Roberts et al., “Mortality,” 1863.
93. Hoge et al., “Combat Duty,” 2004.
94. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 3, 190, 193.
95. Freedland, “Isis and Ebola.”
96. Mamdani, “Secular Roots,” 154; Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 15.
97. Schlesinger, “Sand Trap.”
98. Wuthnow, Be Very Afraid, 112.
99. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 24.
100. Mamdani, “Secular Roots,” 154.
101. Mamdani, “Secular Roots,” 160.
102. Mamdani, “Secular Roots,” 154.
103. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 25.
104. Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants.”
105. Murray, “Iran.”
106. Campbell, National Deconstruction, 84.
107. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 24.
108. Jackson, “Constructing Enemies,” 421.
110. Miller, “Obama Calls on World”; Dent, “Teenage Girls Want to Join”; Roy, Politics of Chaos, 53.