• Merci d’avoir signalé ce texte important (long à lire mais je crois que ça vaut la peine. ça recoupe souvent les observations de l’article publié sur Médiapart par l’ancien président de MSF.

      Les deux montrent le fonctionnement de la pensée, la « biodiversité » de ces mouvement, et les paradoxes :

      The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

      Ce sont des millénaristes, ils veulent que le nouveau cadre légal soit ce qui se faisait au 6e ou au 7e siècle, mais ils utilisent efficacement les infrastructures des Etats nations et la technologie du monde moderne pour faire leur marketing, diffuser leurs idées et donner de leurs nouvelles... C’est pas vraiment comme les Amish.

      A la fin de la lecture, on pense quand même que « si ce n’est pas seulement un groupe de psychopathes », il le sont quand même beaucoup.

    • Et encore ce passage :

      If the caliph consents to a longer-term peace or permanent border, he will be in error. Temporary peace treaties are renewable, but may not be applied to all enemies at once: the caliph must wage jihad at least once a year. He may not rest, or he will fall into a state of sin.

      One comparison to the Islamic State is the Khmer Rouge, which killed about a third of the population of Cambodia. But the Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations. “This is not permitted,” Abu Baraa said. “To send an ambassador to the UN is to recognize an authority other than God’s.”

    • Du même auteur, je trouve aussi ces deux contributions très intétessantes :

      ISIS’s Three Types of Fighters | The New Republic

      http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119395/isiss-three-types-fighters

      By Graeme Wood

      In February 2012, a young, beefy Egyptian named Islam Yaken took a shirtless selfie and posted it on a Facebook competitor called vk.com. The picture wouldn’t have attracted attention outside his circle of friends, were it not for the photos of himself he tweeted two years later. In that time, the Wahlberg wannabe with tidy, cropped hair had transmogrified into a bushy-haired hipster with heavy-rimmed glasses—who had gone to fight for ISIS. The jihadi accessories in his new photos included a Kalashnikov, a sword, and a bucket of Shia heads.

      –—

      ISIS: A History of the Islamic State’s New Caliphate in Syria and Iraq | The New Republic

      http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119259/isis-history-islamic-states-new-caliphate-syria-and-iraq

      By Graeme Wood

      On June 29, 2014—or the first of Ramadan, 1435, for those who prefer the Islamic calendar to the Gregorian—the leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) publicly uttered for the first time a word that means little to the average Westerner, but everything to some pious Muslims. The word is “caliph.” ISIS’s proclamation that day formally hacked the last two letters from its acronym (it’s now just “The Islamic State”) and declared Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, born Ibrahim ibn Awwad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai, the Caliph of all Muslims and the Prince of the Believers. For Muslims of a certain hyper-antiquarian inclination, these titles are not mere nomenclature. ISIS’s meticulous use of language, and its almost pedantic adherence to its own interpretation of Islamic law, have made it a strange enemy, fierce and unyielding but also scholarly and predictable. The Islamic State obsesses over words like “caliph” (Arabic: khalifa) and “caliphate” (khilafa), and news reports and social media from within ISIS have depicted frenzied chants of “The Caliphate is established!” The entire self-image and propaganda narrative of the Islamic State is based on emulating the early leaders of Islam, in particular the Prophet Muhammad and the four “rightly guided caliphs” who led Muslims from Muhammad’s death in 632 until 661. Within the lifetimes of these caliphs, the realm of Islam spread like spilled ink to the farthest corners of modern-day Iran and coastal Libya, despite small and humble origins.