Daesh is just the Arabic acronym (not “loose acronym”) for “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” so this is just camouflage. Fabius just wants to use some name that doesn’t include “Islamic” in it, so that he can continue to pretend that what the Islamic State does has nothing to do with Islam. Unfortunately, however, no matter what France calls the Islamic State, it will still continue to act the way it is acting now, and to justify its actions by reference to the Qur’an and Sunnah.
“France switches to Arabic ‘Daesh’ acronym for Islamic State,” France 24, September 17, 2014:
The French government has come up with an answer to a point of persistent journalistic confusion – how exactly does one refer to the Islamic State organisation brutally carving out a self-declared “caliphate” in Syria and northern Iraq?
From now on the French foreign ministry will be calling it Daesh, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS and IS.
Last week, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius asked journalists and media organisations to do the same.
He said: “This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it ‘Daesh’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats’.”
His first press release using the name was issued on Monday.
Time will tell if the French media decide to toe the line. For the moment, FRANCE 24 is still calling it the Islamic State organisation, abbreviating that to IS.
While there is a great deal of international consensus that the IS needs to be dealt with, this doesn’t stretch to nomenclature.
Both London and Washington refer to IS as ISIL, the anglicised acronym of what IS called itself until this summer when it dropped the “Levant” from its name, betraying its ambitions to restore the Muslim caliphate (which ended in 1924 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist).
The evolution of a name
The group that is now known as IS was founded in 2006 as a fusion of various jihadist groups operating in Iraq, including the Iraqi branch of al Qaeda, then led by the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
This new group called itself the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), and after the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, ISI decided to expanded its operations across the border under the banner of the al-Nusra Front.
In April 2013, ISI chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that the al-Nusra Front and ISI were linked, and that henceforth they would be merged and known collectively as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Arabic for the Levant, hence both ISIS and ISIL being used in the West).
Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani refused to accept the reorganisation, and al-Nusra continues to exist as a separate entity and as the official Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.
Daesh?
Daesh is a loose acronym of the Arabic for “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham).Use of acronyms is rare in the Arabic world, with the notable exception of the Palestinian group Hamas (Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾiSlāmiyya).
First used in April 2013 by Arabic and Iranian media hostile to the jihadist movement, Daesh became a name commonly used by the enemies of IS, notably forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as activists and less fanatical rebel groups also fighting the Damascus regime.
A principal reason for using the acronym was to remove the words “Islamic” and “State” in reference to the group in a bid to stop Muslims in war-torn Syria and beyond flocking to its ranks.
Defiance and disrespect
It is also considered insulting, and the IS itself doesn’t like the name Daesh one bit.
Beyond the acronym, “Daesh” sounds lie the Arabic “Daes”, meaning “one who crushes something underfoot” as well as “Dahes”, which means “one who sows discord”.
Dahes is also a reference to the Dahes wal Ghabra period of chaos and warfare between Arab tribes which is famous in the Arab world as one of the precursors of the Muslim age.
“Daesh” therefore has considerably negative undertones. There can be little political ambiguity behind the French government’s decision to deploy Daesh as a linguistic weapon.
Boston Tea Party says
They should really just go full-on with their worldview and start calling the ISIS the Christian State of Iraq and Syria, because surely the actions of ISIS are more in line with the horrible inherent violence of Christianity, and have nothing to do with the peaceful nature of Islam.
Beagle says
The Ultra-Conservative Christian TEA Party Islamophobic State of Iraq and the Levant
Now can we use heavy bombers and real troops?
Boston Tea Party says
Exactly! (and the Levant refers to Ezra Levant! ) 🙂
John C. Barile says
Right. And I suppose that HAMAS isn’t the Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” either. Nothing to do with Islam, check.
DP111 says
And HAMAS is really an acronym for ” Hama – homeland”, S- Security.
John C. Barile says
You’re on to something there.
mortimer says
DISINFORMATION will not help the narrative. It is an egregious lie and Muslim leaders in Muslim majority countries have no trouble supporting ISIS and agree it is Islamic. As well those Muslim leaders do not wish the West to fight ISIS.
Most Muslims do not want us to resist their jihad.
voegelinian says
Which Muslims actually “want to resist” jihad? And where are they? Can you identify them with sufficient accuracy? The notion that there exists a viable demographic of Muslims who actually “want to resist” jihad is an outlandish speculation with nothing other than superficial evidence and wishful thinking to back it up.
Emilie Green says
From the “Let’s Continue to Fool Ourselves” file,
The practice of banning J-I-M from being talked about continues. And JIM is not happy about it.
Jihad
Muslim
Islam
Silvia says
What a colossal imbecile!
DAESH is exactly ISIS.
This is the same man who said that they (Europe? The UN) should “force” a solution on the Israelis and the palestinians.
john spielman says
i agree, and to the French foreign minister, a fool by any other name is …..
Aion says
Basically western politicians, pseudo-academics, journalists, etc, are running interference for IS and other Islamic terrorist groups every time they try to convince us they are not motivated, based in or justified by Islam. They are all traitors.
Silvia says
@Aion Spot On!!!!
fair_dinkum says
call it anything but what it is..
meanwhile http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/iraq-premier-says-no-foreign-troops-1.303512
iraq dont want ground troops.
i say we leave them to it.
Champ says
Whatever happened to calling a spade a spade? ISIS and islam are One in the same …end of story!
The BIG LIE that islam is a “religion of peace” is dangerous, misleading and Evil–really, not to mention tiresome.
Budvarakbar says
That abject lie will be inscribed on HWB’s tombstone — it will be his lasting legacy
mariam rove says
Let me rephrase this for you: Another words, let’s white wash Islam is what he is saying. M
Jaladhi says
How does it matter what the Western leaders call it – more important what these jihadis call themselves!! Islamic, Islamic, Islamic … there !!
Islam is so poisonous that Muslims as well as our leaders want to sugar coat it and ask the Westerners to drink this cool aid. Who will survive??
With leaders like this who needs enemies and if these leaders existed in the tenth century, the whole world would have converted to Islam by now!! We are on that path now!!
God save us from these lying traitors!!
Angemon says
Oh, like that scene in Dragonheart where Dennis Quaid gets tired of calling the dragon “dragon” and decides to call it “draco” (latin for dragon) instead.
Thomas Wells says
The term:” Satanic islamic state” is more accurate.
katarzyna says
he is truthful idiot.
” I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats’.”
he says islamic in one language and cutthroats in another. he exposes the connection between islam and smiting neck. some peaceful muslims should find that very offensive.
TH says
Bill Warner suggests that we not use the term “Islam”, but Mahommedan, which is what up to recently it was called. The reason is that only 14% of the islamic texts have to do with Allah, and 86% of it has to do with Mahommad and how they Mahommedans must deal with the “kaffur”, mostly killling them. They don’t want to be called Mahommedans as they say they don’t worship him, but since M was a man, or at least was suspposed to be a man, although the classical narrative is mostly legend, he can be understood. We have no interrest in Allah, but have plenty of interet and capacity to understand Mahommad and his horrendous crimes. That puts them on the defensive.
Bill Warner has analyzed the Qu´ran, the Sira and the Hadith and found out what percentage of them has to do with each of these: Allah, Mahommad and dealing with the “kaffur”. The result is illuminating as mos t of it is not religious but political. Thus one can put the discussion in the field of politics and humanity, not in their skewed theology about Allah. Since ISIS and the rest of them are doing exactly what Mahommad did, one can get over the idea that Islam cannot be understood.
kangi_nunpa says
My grasp of Arabic is not all that great, but I found this enlightening: http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-the-origin-of-the-name-daesh-the-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-as-sham/
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Most likely ISIS opponents are referring to the Arabic verb دعس, meaning : to thread underfoot, trample down, crush (see The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, p. 325 and 326)
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and
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Another theory is that the name refers to the Jāhiliyya (pre-Islamic) strife between two Arab tribes on the Arabian peninsula : داحس والغبراء
Dāhis wa’l-Ghabrā’ can be literary translated as ‘felon and dust’ (see http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/داحس_والغبراء )
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There are also examples of anti-IS propaganda posters, which are quite nice.