The Islamic State was born from a warped theory of war

For Islamist militants like the Islamic State, there is only one definitive guide to the art of war. But the way they understand conflict, argues Faisal Al Yafai, makes them even more dangerous than Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda's leader Ayman Al Zawahiri delivers a speech in 2011. Considered the mastermind behind Al Qaeda, Al Zawahiri's theory of war differs from that of the Islamic State, writes Faisal Al Yafai (AFShow more

Around the autumn of 2005, Al Qaeda’s then No 2 sent a message to the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, urging him to tone down his sectarian rhetoric and the targeting of Shiite Muslims.

Remember, he advised, in the manner of a father to a wayward son, the importance of popular support.

“The goal [of establishing a caliphate] will not be accomplished without public support, even if the movement pursues the method of sudden overthrow,” he wrote. Without a mass movement by Muslims, the “Islamic movement would be crushed in the shadows”.

Al Zarqawi didn’t listen and within a year he was dead, killed in a US airstrike – betrayed, some said, by Al Qaeda itself for disobedience.

But the disagreement between Al Zawahiri and Al Zarqawi goes to the heart of the battle of ideas within militant jihadism, a battle that still goes on, and which will set the tone for the wars raging today in the Middle East.

It can be seen in the release this week of a US journalist held by Jabhat Al Nusra in Syria, an attempt to draw a contrast between Al Qaeda and the brutal beheading of James Foley by the Islamic State.

It can be seen, too, in the way that Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, has worked hard to retain popular support and not alienate Syrians.

The strategy of Jabhat Al Nusra is a gradualist one: win Syrian hearts and minds, win the war against Assad, and then seek power in a new government. Al Baghdadi and the Islamic State, by contrast, have decided to shoot straight for the prize.

Only time will tell whether Al Qaeda’s approach or that of the Islamic State will triumph.

Militant groups are vehicles for an ideology, much like political parties. In that regard, longevity is itself a sign of success. And Al Qaeda is entering its 14th year as the foremost Islamist militant group. The Islamic State, by contrast, has already alienated most Muslims, as well as Al Qaeda itself, and may eventually face so many enemies that it will implode.

Yet even if it does, the Islamic State’s brief Icarus moment has established a key strategy for militant groups. In an arena of chaos, money and recruits can bring power as much as popular support.

The Islamic State group is uncompromising. But this very lack of compromise has drawn recruits and funds from across the world. It is noticeable that while Al Qaeda initially drew its followers from a limited range of nationalities – the “Afghan Arabs” in particular – the Islamic State has, within a matter of months, drawn recruits from all over the world.

Moreover, the group has appropriated the ideas of Al Qaeda but has taken them in surprising new directions.

The foundation of Al Qaeda’s philosophy comes from a philosopher and Islamic scholar called Ibn Taymiyyah. His ideas were born out of the chaos of war – and have thus attracted renewed interest during times of great upheaval.

Ibn Taymiyyah lived in Syria in the 13th century, a time of enormous change in the Middle East. Just five years before he was born, the Mongols sacked Baghdad, then the centre of the Islamic empire, bringing to an end half a millennium of Abbasid rule. The reverberations of that act continued for centuries and Ibn Taymiyyah’s thought was born out of that chaos. His desire for renewal in the Islamic world saw him overturn some of the classically-understood Islamic tenets of war.

In particular, the general prohibition on killing other Muslims. The Islamic State has no compunction in doing so, reinterpreting Ibn Taymiyyah’s teachings to declare that even the murder of Muslims is sanctioned when it is done for the sake of establishing the caliphate.

Al Qaeda, which was influenced by Ibn Taymiyyah but which also borrowed from the political realism of Islamism, used to declare that war against Muslim governments was legitimate because the rulers had become “corrupt”.

This was a way of separating the rulers from the ruled, allowing Al Qaeda to infiltrate and find followers within a country whose rulers it was fighting.

The Islamic State, on the other hand, has modified this doctrine to believe that all those who don’t follow its hardline philosophy – or even those who espouse and express it differently – are legitimate targets. Thus, it can expect more resistance from people on the ground, but balances this with gaining more recruits, drawn to its uncompromising attitude, allowing it to make swift gains.

Behind the gruesome theatre of beheadings and massacres and the public relations of pre-emptively declaring a caliphate stands a philosophy of war, one that, as Al Zawahiri said in his letter, believes in a “swift overthrow” more than maintaining popular support.

What can seem like an arcane debate over philosophy and military tactics is profoundly important to the wars taking place in the Middle East today. Arab governments, as well as the West, dislike both groups, but have so far failed to crush either.

That is because it is the ideology that needs to be attacked as well as the military expression of it. It is out of the swamp of jihadist thought that the weeds of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have grown.

On Twitter: @FaisalAlYafai