This Reuters story doesn’t include this salient fact, and of course the establishment analysts it cites don’t mention it, but this concern for the proper distribution of the spoils of war is yet another example of the Islamic State’s scrupulous adherence to the Qur’an. The eighth chapter of the Qur’an is entitled al-Anfal, “The Spoils of War,” and contains detailed instruction for the distribution of booty, including the stipulation that the messenger of Allah (Muhammad) gets his cut of everything that is captured: “And know that anything you obtain of war booty – then indeed, for Allah is one fifth of it and for the Messenger and for near relatives and the orphans, the needy, and the traveler, if you have believed in Allah and in that which We sent down to Our Servant on the day of criterion – the day when the two armies met. And Allah , over all things, is competent.” (8:41)
This also bears out what I demonstrated in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS: that the Islamic State is setting out to establish all the elements of a modern state, as well as the offices required of the caliphate.
“Seized files reveal ISIS’s dept of ‘War Spoils,'” Reuters, December 27, 2015:
Islamic State has set up departments to handle ‘war spoils,’ including slaves, and the exploitation of natural resources such as oil, creating the trappings of government that enable it to manage large swaths of Syria and Iraq and other areas.
The hierarchical bureaucracy, including petty rivalries between officials, and legal codes in the form of religious fatwas are detailed in a cache of documents seized by U.S. Special Operations Forces in a May raid in Syria that killed top IS financial official Abu Sayyaf. Reuters has reviewed some of the documents.
U.S. officials say the documents have helped deepen their understanding of a militant group whose skill in controlling the territory it has seized has surprised many. They provide insight into how a once small insurgent group has developed a complex bureaucracy to manage revenue streams – from pillaged oil to stolen antiquities – and oversee subjugated populations.
“This really kind of brings it out. The level of bureaucratisation, organisation, the diwans, the committees,” Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s special envoy for the anti-IS coalition, told Reuters.
For example, one diwan, roughly equivalent to a government ministry, handles natural resources, including the exploitation of antiquities from ancient empires. Another processes “war spoils,” including slaves….
The documents show the Islamic State is not immune to the rivalries and personality clashes that typify bureaucracies everywhere. A Nov. 21, 2014 letter from the Diwan of Natural Resources emphasises that Abu Sayyaf is in charge of handling antiquities.
“The reason being is that he is very knowledgeable in this field and that Abu Jihad al-Tunisi is a simpleton who can’t manage the division,” it says.
Kindness and cruelty
Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents it obtained, which represent a fraction of the material seized in the Syria raid. U.S. forces captured a huge amount of data in the form of computer hard drives, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs and papers.
Many of the seized documents are fatwas, or religious rulings, covering issues from rape of female prisoners and the treatment of slaves with minor children to when it is permissible for a son to steal from his father to fund travel to fight jihad, or holy war.
Reuters reported last week on a previously undisclosed ruling by the Islamic State’s Research and Fatwa Committee that sanctions the harvesting of human organs.
The fatwa raises concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.
A booklet entitled “From Creator’s Rulings on Capturing Prisoners and Enslavement,” lays out rules on enslaving women seized from vanquished “infidels.”
The October 2014 document, reviewed by Reuters, attempts to ground the rules in Islamic law.
Citing sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, the booklet calls for both kindness and cruelty to captives by Islamic State fighters. Enslaved women should not be separated from their children, it says, but elsewhere the rules allow Islamic State fighters to have sex with female slaves….
The rules not only apply to captured territory in Iraq and Syria but also its self-declared provinces in Africa, the Sinai and South Asia. They cover even mundane issues.
In the documents, there is a ruling on proper procedure for filling out the personal details of prospective fighters: name, gender, and communications method – telephone, telegram, Skype or the mobile messaging service WhatsApp.

Michael Copeland says
“When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.”
(Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller”, (o9.13)).
“Muslims in the past conquered, invaded, and took over countries. This is agreed to by all scholars – there is no disagreement on this from any of them, from the smallest to the largest, on the issue of taking spoils and prisoners.”
Sheikh Huwayni
http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6562-and-take-their-wives-as-war-booty
mortimer says
Mohammed required a divine revelation to coerce his pirates with the threat of hellfire. That shows they were uninterested in his religion and more interested in the quick riches of killing and robbing wealthy victims.
What sort of false religion condones and sanctifies murder, rape, enslavement, and plundering? Islam is totally amoral, opportunistic, self-referentially incoherent and morally contradictory. Therefore, it is false.
Marisol Enrique says
“disinterested” ….
TH says
Mahommad’s revelations opportunely justified his sexual proclivities when these were not in agreement with the already extremely lax sexual mores of the muslim. When he wanted to give into his sexual urges, he simply declared that he had just reveived arevelation from the moon god Allah.
Pig Jizya says
This only proves that the Muslims of the Islamic State are as purely Islamic as an adherant to Islam can get. You can’t get any more Islamic than that. Period.
For all you “moderates” out there, this is what your religion teaches. Look and learn.
Shane says
We must encourage peaceful Muslims to have the courage to leave Islam as there really is no hope for reformation for this religion which is violent and misogynistic to its core. Muhammad was a warlord, murderer, rapist, pedophile, and a slave trader and he is just the worst role model any spiritual person could ever have.
milad meah says
Please read article in Daily Mail UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3377731/Brave-Muslim-tried-warn-extremists-taking-community-tragedy-PC-politicians-not-know-writes-KATIE-HOPKINS.html
Jerry says
Let’s stick to principle reciprocity and proportionality.
Let’s visit upon them the same as they try to visit upon us.
In pursuit of proportionality, however, since there are about
100 Muslim for every single Jew on this planet, the Jews
ought to be advised that they need to remove at least
100 Muslims from this planet for each Jew the Muslims
remove, and a multiple thereof, if is needed to establish
a deterrent to the Muslim genocidal agenda towards Jews.
Angemon says
I bet that being recognized as a legitimate form of rule by the local population helps greatly…