Isis: The March to Dystopia

How should we understand ISIS today?

The most comprehensive study of ISIS to date, this book benefits from Arabic sources previously unavailable to an English-speaking audience. Renowned scholar and political philosopher, Azmi Bishara, stresses the need to place ISIS in its historical, social, and political context - shifting the focus from Salafi ideology - to understand its rise and expansion. This includes a discussion of how regional wars, the occupation of Iraq, sectarian politics, the outbreak of civil war in Iraq and Syria, and the decline of the central state contributed to both ISIS’s formation and the unprecedented merger of Jihadism and Salafism.

The book counters a wide misconception in the West that ISIS’s control of Syria and Iraq can be attributed to a Sunni environment, separating the rise of the organization from its exploitation of religious texts. It presents a rebuttal of arguments that hold Islamic civilization responsible for ISIS ideology by reviewing and deconstructing significant jihadi Salafi texts and demonstrating how they depart from Islamic thought and culture. Beyond ISIS, the book offers an original comparative analysis of the ideology of jihadism, as well as matters of governance, recruitment, and radicalisation.

Azmi Bishara is one of the most prominent scholars in the Arab world. He is currently the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Qatar and chairs the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Bishara received the Ibn Rushd Prize for Free Thought in 2002 and the Human Rights Award from Global Exchange in 2003.