Obama certainly had good reasons for attacking ISIS as a cancerous mutation of Islam. He did not wish to give ISIS the legitimacy it so desperately craved, nor did he wish to alienate the overwhelming majority of Muslims who were as repulsed by ISIS as anyone else. However, Obama's claim that ISIS is not Islamic was not entirely accurate. ISIS is as Islamic as the next Muslim sect. The individuals within ISIS—at least those who take its claims seriously and are not in Syria for the joy of riding tanks in the desert—are clearly arguing from within the Islamic tradition, replete with scriptural justifications. They have an imagined past of historical glory, and they look desirously—as all religious cults do—to a promised utopian future. ISIS fanboys and social media starlets argue over precedent, jurisprudence, theology, history, and political economy. Not Islamic? ISIS could rant and rave about Islam until the end of times.
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