I think this article is at-least a few years old. Daesh is not as big of a threat as it used to be, it has lost a lot of land recently and apparently, because of being cut-off from Turkey they couldn't sell "their" oil to the international market which has caused them huge financial problems which in-turn led to wage cuts. According to reports a number of these so-called "Jihadists" fighting for Allah's deen have left the fight after these wage cuts. The reason Daesh restarted slavery seems more obvious after this revelation.
Importance of CaliphateThe creation of a Caliphate has, unfortunately or fortunately, become somewhat of an infatuation for a lot of Muslims. This is literally the objective of the
Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement. Almost all Muslims also share this goal, but most Muslims, probably more than 95%, don't know of one extremely relevant objective that, according to the interpretation of a number of Muslim scholars, a Khilafah is supposed to have. That goal is the forceful enforcement of Sharia' in the whole world, even on peaceful non-Muslims. These people believe that it is the responsibility put on the Muslims by Allah to spread the Sharia' everywhere. Non-Muslims can live peacefully, but it
has to be under Muslim rule and under Islamic law. They believe that this is the
only method of spreading the message of Islam and they even believe that there is no Jihad other than violent Jihad. They claim the other Jihad types are just creation of the disbelievers and their Muslim supporters in order to keep Muslims from attaining their lost "glory".
These people use the so-called violent Hadiths and Qur'an verses, which I suppose everyone here would know about, the ones used by anti-Islamists to claim that Islam is a violent religion. But the most significant factor for this particular violent interpretation of theirs, is the fact regarding how Muslims soon after the Prophet's death came out of Arabia and conquered so many non-Muslim domains.
There are basically three different ways in which these early conquests are interpreted.
1) To fulfil the responsibility of spreading the message of Islam, put on Muslims by God, which is only possible through the means of violent Jihad.
2) These conquests were done, keeping in mind strategic interests. Unlike today's times when nations are usually at peace with each other and they have to declare war, during the early centuries of Islam, these were the times when various world empires used to remain in a state of perpetual war and the uncommon state was to declare peace (completely in contradiction to today's times). Empires used to continuously expand and contract as their power grew or waned. Caliph Abu Bakr, in order to keep the Islamic lands safe from the two surrounding empires captured some areas to create a kind of buffer zones. The Romans were already at war with the Muslims. Regarding the Persians, some traditions tell us that Khosrou of Persia had ordered to arrest Prophet Muhammad, but for some reason it did not happen. In any case, open fighting with the Persians had not started, but it is extremely likely that they would have started it when their internal political disputes got resolved and Muslims became a threat. After all, they had been fighting with the Romans for decades, they had no reason to spare the Muslims (whom they in their arrogance did not believe worthy) and every reason to attack to gain power and wealth (the objectives of those times). After Abu Bakr's action, the Persians started raiding those lands. This led one thing to another and resulted in all-out war between the Muslims, Romans and Persians.
3) This is a fringe group, who believe in the concept of Qanoon-e-Ihtamam-e-Hujjat, which basically means that the message of Islam was spread in such an absolute clear manner by the Prophet Muhammad to those people who had direct contact with him (because any doubt the people would have had, would have been answered by Prophet Muhammad), therefore there was no reason for these people to not accept Islam. During the times of previous Prophets, such Prophet rejecters were destroyed by God's punishment; but in the case of Prophet Muhammad polytheists had to leave the Arabian peninsula and the people of the book had to live under Muslim rule and pay
Jizya. Now, only those lands were conquered by Muslims to which letters of invitation to Islam had been sent by the Prophet and this was only for the people of a particular geographical area and after the Prophet's death such conquests have no religious validity.
As far as I have read, in my opinion the second opinion holds the most ground. The conquests were primarily strategic battles. If the Wikipedia articles are reliable, there were numerous occasions when Caliph Umar and Caliph Uthman were in position to conquer more lands but they chose not to do so. Additionally, aside from strategic benefits, these conquests also allowed the people safety from persecution (Roman emperor Heraclius had previously been guilty of forceful conversions of Jews and minority sect Christians in Egypt), allow the people to safely convert to Islam. Such conditions in most cases do not exist anymore, therefore, as far as the objective of spreading the message of Islam is concerned, violent Jihad is not the only, or the best, method for doing so (if it can even be argued to be a viable method).
Anti-Islamist PointsUnfortunately, one of the things that many Muslims have come to realise, is that the only people in the world who are sure about what Islam is are either "Muslim" extremists or anti-Islamists. These people regard all others of being ignorant or stupid about Islam. Anti-Islamists spread their propaganda while "Muslim" extremists kill whoever disagrees with them. A very significant similarity with the Khwarijites.
* “The potential implications for the world are absolutely profound. First, according to Islamic jurisprudence, once a caliph has been declared, it is mandatory upon all Muslims to make a pledge of allegiance to the sitting caliph..."
Extremely misleading. According to Islamic scripture Muslims are obliged to pledge their allegiance to the current Muslim ruler. It can be a President, a Prime Minister etc. Because the title of Caliphs has been around for 13 centuries, the term Muslim ruler and Caliph became synonymous. In short, there is essentially no difference now as compared to before. Al Baghdadi is like any other modern Muslim ruler.
Although, according to my understanding, this belief has no explicit theological support, unfortunately, this belief
is kept by the "enforcement of Sharia' on all non-Muslims" group.
* The pledging allegiance Hadith
In Islam huge importance is given to being loyal to the ruler of the time. According to some scholars, it would be incorrect to rebel against the ruler even if he is oppressive because the rebellion would cause even greater corruption in the land than the ruler's own oppression, for this reason this loyalty is important. But, as has been mentioned in the previous point, there is no reason for that ruler to be Al Baghdadi.
* Terrorist groups allegiance to Al Baghdadi
This is because of the narrative I mentioned before about forcing Sharia' law on even peaceful non-Muslims.
* Richardson notes, “The dangers of a snowballing trend [are] profound. Rather than having an Islamic State spanning segments of Syria and Iraq, there could be smaller segments of the Islamic State in numerous other nations.” Muslims from other nations are already supporting ISIS, even in America and Britain.
The same terrorist mentality groups that were supporting Daesh-like groups before, are supporting them now. Not much has changed.
* Now that a Caliphate has been proclaimed, it is actually mandatory for them to engage in “jihad until there are literally no non-Muslims left throughout the world, or they submit to being subjected peoples...
The same narrative, I alluded to before. This is what most, if not all, terrorists have believed before, nothing much has changed. From my experience most Muslims don't even know of such narratives, let alone believing or rejecting them.
* Hadith: ’Allah’s Apostle [Muhammad] said: “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle.’ (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24)
This is kind of a co-incidence, I just, two days ago, came upon this narration.
This is an incomplete narration. Complete narration:
And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "I have been ordered to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship other than Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish the prayer, and pay Zakah, and if they do this, then their blood and money shall be protected from me, except by an Islamic right, and their account will be with Allah."
When I read this narration, I almost missed the most obvious problem with using it to conclude that Muslims are religiously obligated to fight in order to spread Allah’s message “to the whole of mankind”. It is being alleged that Prophet Muhammad is saying that he has been ordered to fight the disbelievers until they “establish the prayer and pay the Zakat”. But Muslims understand the accepted Islamic principle of “no compulsion in religion” and in addition, they also accept that the disbelievers cannot be forced to pray or pay the Zakat. Therefore, it is argued that this fighting could not possibly be talking about fighting with the disbelievers, at-least not because of their disbelief.
According to aboutjihad.com, the “fighting being ordained here refers to the enforcement of laws and regulations within an Islamic state.” Even Sheikh Ahmed Ibn Taymiyah, apparently the person who is most famous for spreading the concept of violent Jihad to spread the message of Islam, said about this narration:
“It refers to fighting those who are waging war, whom Allah has permitted us to fight. It does not refer to those who have a covenant with us with whom Allah commands us to fulfil our covenant.” [Majmu` al-Fatawa 19/20]
The narration becomes more clear when we remember that the first Caliph Abu Bakr fought the hypocrites in the Riddah wars for exactly this reason, i.e. not paying the Zakat. Additionally, a similar (quite possibly the same) narration is recounted by ‘Umar to Abu Bakr on the matter of those who did not pay Zakat. Interestingly, this Hadith is recorded by Imam Bukhari in his chapter “Killing those who refuse to fulfil the duties enjoined by Allah, and considering them as apostates”, pointing towards the idea that hypocrite Muslims are being talked about and not the disbelievers.
Mufti Shafi Usmani in his commentary of Qur’an verses 8:39-40 recounts a very similar narration, claimed to be also from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, so possibly the same narration, but the words “the people” have been replaced by “the enemies of Islam”
* Regarding "...lone-wolf terrorism attacks throughout the world has just absolutely ballooned".
The writer unfortunately was correct on this account, as we have observed in recent months. However, how "Islamic" were these lone-wolves, take a look at this story by Al-Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan:
https://www.facebook.com/DeStilleWaarheid/videos/1249044585109066/It was found that these lone-wolves were alcohol drinkers (one of the few prohibitions most Muslims actually stay away from in today's age) and a couple of them had even sold their
pub just a week before committing the terrorist attack. The best description of these terrorists is that they are Khwarijites who do not understand religion and yet regard everyone else as either apostates or hypocrites.
