.... Hasan closes with the observation that “To claim that Isis is Islamic…is dangerous and self-defeating, as it provides Baghdadi and his minions with the propaganda prize and recruiting tool that they most crave”. But this is a tactical approach – one currently favoured by the Obama admin – and irrelvant to the question of whether or not such a claim is objectively true. And it is with this question that analysts ought to be preoccupied.
A discussion about the *degree* to which piety informs IS beliefs and actions and membership is one worth having. But that is not the aim of Hasan’s article. As Hasan remarks in the 5th para: “The rise of Isis in Iraq and Syria has been a disaster for the public image of Islam – and a boon for the Islamophobia industry.”
Hasan wishes to exonerate Islam entirely and to lay the blame for the Islamic State’s ideas and even its very existence at the feet of the West.
This is not analysis, but apologetics. 5000 words with which to advance a No True Scotsman fallacy. And, if the comments below the line are any indication, people aren’t buying it. [Harry’s Place] Read more
