ISIL is doomed to be a footnote in the history books of Islam

Violent extremist groups have featured in Muslim history before, but today they are nothing more than footnotes. So one can expect ISIL to suffer the same fate, writes HA Hellyer

Activists carry posters with a portrait of the Jordanian pilot Maaz Al Kassasbeh, in Amman. Khalil Mazrawi / AFP

The news of the killing of the Jordanian pilot, Maaz Kassasbeh, by ISIL has rightly shocked many in the region. It should. The response needs to be effective and proportionate and above all, ensure that the violence of this travesty is not visited upon anyone ever again.

I was in Jordan the day the news was announced. The response of the Jordanian people has been one of grief and sorrow, but also that of a nation seeking justice. The Jordanian authorities will have to react to this righteous rage but they must do so carefully.

There have been two sets of responses with regard to Islam in the aftermath of this repugnant act. The first has been to call for the excommunication of ISIL members by the Muslim community, something that is rather difficult, in a religion that does not enjoy an hierarchical authority. Muslim religious authorities can declare something forbidden and sinful but even so, it is possible in Islam to commit a sin of action while being a believer. Indeed, the belief that sin takes one out of Islam has been the hallmark of extremists, such as ISIL and their predecessors. But belief does not absolve one of responsibility, which is why Muslim rulers throughout history have gone after brigands and bandits, even if they were Muslim.

The second response has been for some on the neoconservative right to question Islam itself, as though it were responsible for this travesty. It does not seem to be sufficient that some of the most renowned experts of Islamic law have condemned these actions not simply as wrong and criminal and that they have decried the perpetrators as gangsters who deserve capital punishment. Many recall the Prophetic hadith or narration, which stipulates, quite clearly that the one who is burnt is a martyr. There is certainly an issue among Muslims around wilful misinterpretations of the faith but within the mainstream, one would be hard pressed to find anyone who was sympathetic to the likes of ISIL.

Ironically, several decades ago, one could find Muslim scholars arguing that modern warfare itself, let alone the method that ISIL used to kill their captive, was not permissible. Their argument was that modern warfare, unlike pre-modern modes of combat, used fire and that this was an inhumane method of killing, even in the course of a war.

But despite the grief over the Jordanian pilot, we must not turn away from the death and destruction that has taken place at the hands of others in the Syrian catastrophe. Bashar Al Assad’s forces have killed many more people than ISIL, with modern technology. The deaths of those innocents are also disasters and they too must also weigh heavily upon our consciences. When a barrel bomb kills a child, her mother and her entire family, they are still all dead even if no videos are shown. The failure of the international community to answer their cries too is deplorable.

In so noting that fact about the brutality of the Syrian regime, let us all be perfectly clear: ISIL members have individual responsibility, they are not simply automatons that just react to Mr Al Assad’s regime. They are all responsible for the acts they carry out and they have perpetrated atrocities time and again. This is not likely to be the last time. Negotiations with groups such as these are rather dubious because they are Manicheans who believe in no compromise with their enemies. They have ridden on the back of the Syrian revolution, but in truth, they are destroying any potential that revolution ever had.

It is important not to recognise the release of this video as some kind of victorious display by ISIL. On the contrary, the video itself ought to be identified as a sign of desperation. For many months in 2013, ISIL was not only holding onto territory but expanding. Showing off that achievement was a significant recruitment tool. In 2014 and 2015, that achievement couldn’t be used anymore for, not only was ISIL not getting new territory, but it was losing in places. Videos like these are probably meant to make up for that. ISIL can no longer show off new territory so it is attempting to instil fear by these horrific videos.

The videos should be recognised for what they are – hollow attempts to show power, for recruitment purposes and to scare opponents into submission. The world must foil both goals. Groups such as these have featured in Muslim history before, but today they are remembered as heterodox blips for the footnotes. One expects that the same will be true for ISIL and their ilk.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer