“Islam according to ISIS has no basis in the actual scriptures” of Islam. So wrote the authors of the new book ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate. While the many interviews with Islamic State defectors – including their brutal eyewitness accounts of the group’s atrocities – do provide compelling reading, this volume often suggests a more agnostic assessment of the militant group’s Islamic legitimacy than the authors may have intended.
Terrorism researcher Anne Speckhard and former Turkish police detective Ahmet S. Yayla wrote the book while leading the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, an “action-based, interdisciplinary research center working on psychosocial, cultural, political, economic, ideological and technological topics impacting global peace and security.” The book’s translator-assisted interviews demonstrated the authors’ belief that “disillusioned ISIS defectors who tell their authentic stories about life inside the Islamic State are the most influential tool to counter ISIS’ robust propaganda.” Deserters – who spoke to Yayla in southeastern Turkey and to Speckhard from Istanbul and Washington, D.C. via Skype – said that ISIS (or Ad-Dawlah, which in Arabic means “the state”) “does not represent Islam. Ad-Dawlah are kafirs [unbelievers].”
According to the book’s authors, their view of the Islamic State’s “perfect young candidate” as a naïve, believing Muslim who is unfamiliar with his or her religion, is contradicted by what they are often told about the ISIS fighter sharia indoctrination. Yayla said that he was surprised to find that a certain well-educated law school student’s critical thinking and training did not keep him from admiring his ISIS mentor, a Jordanian sheikh and former university English professor. That student and his fellow ISIS recruits actually admired the militant who taught them. “Ad-Dawlah chooses very high-level teachers who are well educated in shariah,” Yayla said, adding that those in the militant group are often looked at as having “very good characters.”
Similar admiration came from a former high school teacher and senior Islamic State commander in Raqqa, Syria the de facto capital of the group’s caliphate. Commenting on the group’s foreign fighters, he said, “I looked at the mujahideen and saw them as heroes – like the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. [They] always talk about Allah, Prophet Muhammad and jihad … the life hereafter and more divine things, [while] alcohol, gambling – vices were all banned.”
Speckhard herself provided insight into the Islamic doctrine that motivates individual jihadists to sacrifice their lives on behalf of groups like the Islamic State. “The vision of hell in Islam is fiery and horrific, and there is no way – aside from relying on Allah’s compassion – to guarantee on the final day of judgment that one’s good deeds will outweigh the bad – except by dying as a ‘martyr,’” she said. Thus, “desiring to martyr oneself is a story I’ve heard many times from Islamic extremists who fear the everlasting repercussions of their sins.
“For Muslims growing up in Western culture, a strong tension exists between conservative Islam and Western freedoms,” Speckhard added, pointing out that this mindset makes jihad martyrdom particularly attractive. Muslim teenagers often assimilate to the behavior of their non-Muslim friends, who “drink and smoke pot, wear revealing clothing, have sex.” The resulting Muslim “hidden ‘sinful’ self is something terrorist recruiters in Europe know how to manipulate.”
A Flemish Muslim convert in Belgium who spoke with Speckhard about his troubled childhood and riotous adolescence demonstrated how such Islamic doctrines could also appeal to non-Muslims. The former altar boy said that his “father and mother were very religious and took us to church, but I had only Western society borders and those of the Catholic Church – and those two borders were not very good.” By contrast, the former ISIS supporter said that Islam “is clear cut; no grey. Black and white – no doubts.” This individual turned himself over to the Belgian authorities, yet said that he considers the group’s 2015 Paris attacks to be “understandable.”
As a university professor in Brussels, Speckhard learned that those clear-cut, black-and-white standards can have brutal results for women who do not conform to Islamic dress codes. “All the female students I taught had their stories of being threatened and assaulted by North African immigrants (first or second generation; no one was sure),” she said, while writing about several vicious, often maiming attacks. While “dressed in an acceptable manner for Western culture,” the women “apparently made the men believe they were nothing more than prostitutes.”
Although not specifically discussed by Speckhard, European Muslims also appeared to exhibit to her the Islamic doctrine (noted in the book’s glossary) of al Wala wal bara, or “amity among Muslims; enmity toward non-Muslims.” “You risk having your building set on fire if you rat out community members,” said a second-generation Moroccan immigrant in Brussels’ Molenbeek Muslim neighborhood, following Paris jihadist Salah Abdeslam’s arrest there. Another Muslim in Antwerp, who refused to betray a local Al-Qaeda recruiter, argued, “You don’t understand our culture. We would never turn someone in our community into the police.”
These criminal manifestations of Islamist ideas concerning veiling and communal loyalty undercut the book’s thesis of the rampant discrimination against – and unemployment among – European Muslims that drive them to jihad. The authors wrote that “many economically and socially disenfranchised youth find the dream of trying to build an alternative Muslim utopian universe with ISIS attractive.” But studies have disproven this commonly contended link between deprivation and jihad, and the Islamic State’s “sophisticated propaganda campaign that is dominating in the social media” has revealed a savvy management that is not materially disadvantaged.
The book also contains other questionable issues, like the misspelling of right wing, anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ name as “Girt Wilders,” which is the same spelling found in an Al-Qaeda hit list.
The authors conceded that the Islamic State has a “historic basis in Islam for taking unbelievers as slaves,” but merely dismissed evidence of ISIS fighters enjoying prostitution-like “temporary marriage” (jihad al-nikah) as “pure and simple Russian propaganda.” And the book’s glossary defined military jihad as the “defense of Muslim lands, people and honor” without any reference to goals of Islamic global supremacy.
In ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate, Speckhard and her Muslim colleague Yayla indicated that an atrocious ISIS has no monopoly on interpreting Islam, and that – notwithstanding the zeal of some – the group suffers from all-too human vices. While they said that “hypocrisy with ISIS is a recurrent theme” among the defector interviews – such as with respect to tobacco or marijuana use – they added that the Islamic canons motivating the “true believers” of ISIS will continue to inspire jihadist dreams long after the forthcoming collapse of this current “caliphate.”
Cross-posted from Philos Project.

Angemon says
“ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate”? Why not be honest and call it “A Defence of Islam in Face of the Islamic State”?
Jaladhi says
Just study the history of Islam and Mo/allah and one will find that what ISIS is doing is following Mohammad step by step. That is the history of “violent extremism” euphemism for real Islam!! But Muslims and their apologist friends just sweep this history under the prayer rug!! Ha, ha,..
Angela says
Really?The Prophet said the own is mightier than the swords, the greatest Jihad is combating evil whithin oneself. The Qur’an tells Muslims to defend themselves but that peace is better, ice and over again.
ISIS considers Muslim Shias (majority Iraq and Iran, apostates and kills them. So, we are on the side of ISIS, when it comes to Iran.
Ritch says
Please cite the verses so that they can be verified.
Babs says
Yes, and the earth is flat, the moon is made of green cheese and all pigs are fueled and ready to fly
Alan Jennison says
One must always remember that Muslims will lie about their beliefs to help promote their own agenda. And, very few of their liberal leftist apologists will ever read the Koran or the Hadith but will just accept what Muslims say.
It was ever thus!
cranberry says
Most of these ISIS defectors seem to have parents who lack parenting skills and rely on their religious doctrines to teach their children self discipline and integrity. Simply being “religious” and forced to go to your church, temple or mosque does not give one the ability to live a pious life, because no one is pious.
I wish muslims would not blame non-muslims for their inability to handle everyday temptations, fasting, and normally dressed western women. They seem to be immature, lack critical thinking and life skills.
How many young adult Muslims have recently made up stories because they are afraid to tell their parents they were drinking alcohol and dancing with non-muslims friends? I believe that the woman who lied about being abused on the train in New York is an adult and should act like one. She should become independent of her parents, take responsibility for her actions, and grow up. I don’t have one American friend who would allow her parents to shave her head or are afraid of their parents in this way. It’s a shame that their is no forgiveness in Islam, only the fear of Hell without martyrdom. Only people who lack critical thinking skills would believe that killing non believers gets one to heaven with plenty of wine and virgins.
Not all western teenagers engage in underage drinking, drugs, and sex; these defectors should blame themselves for their inability to be self disciplined. One does not have to have a belief in a God to live a life of integrity. Joining a religious group like ISIS or FPI is only a crutch because they control every aspect of your life and will kill you if you drink alcohol, smoke, or have sex without being married, or are homosexual. People like these defectors can’t handle the freedom that most Westerners and Christians believe is their God given right that allows free will along with self-discipline and the rule of law; ordered liberty at its best.
gravenimage says
cranberry wrote:
Most of these ISIS defectors seem to have parents who lack parenting skills and rely on their religious doctrines to teach their children self discipline and integrity.
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cranberry, the problem is that Islam *doesn’t* teach these things–instead, it teaches oppression, rape, and murder.
If you have Jewish or Christian parents who are not engaged and loving and just hammer religious teachings into their children, you are bound to have problems–but those kids are probably *not* going to run off to fight for a state that enslaves and butchers anyone who they deem an unbeliever.
More:
I wish muslims would not blame non-muslims for their inability to handle everyday temptations, fasting, and normally dressed western women. They seem to be immature, lack critical thinking and life skills.
……………………………..
I’m afraid it’s worse than this, though–they are taught that they can and should rape such women as part of Jihad–this is more a tactic of war than it is poor self-control skills.
More:
Not all western teenagers engage in underage drinking, drugs, and sex; these defectors should blame themselves for their inability to be self disciplined. One does not have to have a belief in a God to live a life of integrity. Joining a religious group like ISIS or FPI is only a crutch because they control every aspect of your life and will kill you if you drink alcohol, smoke, or have sex without being married, or are homosexual.
……………………………..
This is all true–but, with respect, it is a mistake to think that what ISIS and the rest of Islam teach is integrity or morality. In the Islamic State one can marry children, buy sex slaves, burn Infidel girls to death who refuse to “marry” their rapists, and force children to behead victims.
*None* of this is moral–it is, instead, the exact opposite of morality.
Wellington says
Studying the life of Mohammed alone should be reason enough for anyone with sense to realize that Islam is a giant fraud, and a very desultory, punitive and lethal fraud at that. Destroy Mohammed and that is enough. The rest will collapse like a house of cards.
gravenimage says
New book tries, fails to show that ISIS’ Islam has no basis in Qur’an and Sunnah
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What a shock…sarc/off
George says
“…So wrote the authors of the new book…”
Something is missing in that phrase…
So wrote the taquiyya authors of the new book…
Ahh, that sounds better.
Sam says
I am sick of the laziness of liberal Amercans in not learning about Islam
If Americans could bring themselves to read the Koran and visit this site few times, there would not be any discussion about what Islam is or not. These enablers of Islam are doing so much damage to us by indicating that there is this Islam so wonderful somewhere which nobody sees.
There is no good Islam or bad Islam. There is one evil Islam. Period.