The Islamic State (IS) did not originate from barbaric communities or prehistoric peoples. In fact, instead it is a fundamentalist Islamic group stemming from the core of radical Islamic jurisprudence. The organization adheres literally to the fatwas and dogma of radical Islamist scholars, mainly Sheikh Taqi ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328).

This does not apply only to the IS, but to all fundamentalist Islamic organizations and Salafist jihadists such as al-Qaeda and its branches, the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamaa Islamiya in Egypt and, formerly, the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia. All these movements based their beliefs on the radical dogma of Ibn Taymiyyah.

Al-Qaeda — the forerunner of IS — mixed Salafist ideology and political Islamic doctrine, for which the Muslim Brotherhood laid the foundations in Egypt in the mid-1900s.

Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual father of al-Qaeda, was one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s members in Jordan. He left the country to fight in Afghanistan against Soviet forces.

Ibn Taymiyyah required Muslims to wage wars of jihad against those he described as infidels, apostates, doubtful Muslims and other classifications. The Muslim Brotherhood ideology, on the other hand, stresses that all countries of the world are infidel states. By mixing these two concepts, radical Islamists saw the need to wage war and establish an Islamic caliphate.

The most important fatwa upon which IS bases its holy war or jihad is the "Mardin" fatwa.

The historical frame of this fatwa can give us an image of the cause of this extremism, which marked all Ibn Taymiyyah fatwas. He was born in Mardin on the border between present-day Syria and Turkey in 1263.

When he was 7 years old, the Mongols attacked and overran his town. Ibn Taymiyyah was moved to Damascus to live with his grandmother. Jihadists believe that when he became an Islamic jurist, Ibn Taymiyyah issued a fatwa encouraging the fight against Mardin and its people (although the fatwa has been a source of disagreement among Muslim scholars for a long time). Many hard-liners and advocates of the Salafist jihadi ideology perceive this fatwa as a permission to wage war to impose Sharia even within Islamic countries.

Ibn Taymiyyah had another fatwa on "collateral damage," which stipulated that the “mujahedeen” (fighters) who intended to target “infidels” were allowed to kill other Muslims who might stand in the way of reaching the mujahedeen's goal.

Al-Qaeda used this fatwa to justify the killing of large numbers of Iraqis with car bombs and improvised explosive devices after the US invasion in 2003.

As for cutting off hands and heads, jizya tax imposition on non-Muslims, female genital mutilation, destruction of tombs and shrines and other practices carried out by IS, they are all enshrined inSalafist doctrines set forth mainly by Ibn Taymiyyah. His doctrines are gathered in a book titled “Majmu' al-Fatawa” by Ibn Taymiyyah.

The truth of the matter is that these doctrines are taught regularly in schools and universities in many Arab countries. It is worth mentioning that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current leader of IS — who proclaimed himself a caliph of Muslims in Mosul — studied these doctrines in the Faculty of Islamic Sciences in Baghdad.

Given that IS acts are based on authentic Islamic faith [principles] and doctrines, many Islamic institutions in the Arab and Islamic worlds have yet to condemn it. They perceive the organization’s acts as adhering to the principles of Sharia. The only difference between the two sides is the timing of the proclamation of the caliphate.

The only religious institution that condemned IS is Al-Azhar. The institution does not espouse the doctrine of Ibn Taymiyyah — known as the Hanbali School — it rather advocates the Ash’ari theology, which is characterized by moderation. Al-Azhar is at variance with these organizations in many of their beliefs. It has its own vision about the concepts of jihad and the state, which differ from the doctrines espoused by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, IS and al-Qaeda.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/08/religious-origins-of-islamic-extremism.html?

#7402: - IS emerges from radical Islamic jurisprudence 

 The author is right in general but wrong in some details. Yes Ibn Taymiyya is a big influence and these extremists hail Ibn Taymiyya as the only scholar without error between the ages of 300-1200 Hijra years, but on the other hand the interpretation of Ibn Taymiyyas views that underwent through 18th century Wahhabist movement was even worse and added extremism to the finest possible extent. If one reads the biography of the 18-19th century wahhabist movement instead from the arabic sources, you can find exact mirror of much of ISIS. So in many cases Ibn Taymiyya is innocent of what these people do, just for sake of example Ibn Taymiyya himself was a practicing sufi himself following the Qadiri order of sufism, which was a major sufi order among hanbalis. There were and are hanbalis in Syria and Egypt and they have all been united in voicing opposition to Saudi Wahhabism from its earliest emergence. And infact even the hanbalis of Arabia opposed, the first ones to oppose, Muhammed ibn Abdul Wahhab when he emerged on the scene.

Also note that ISIS opposes the older Qaeda leadership because ISIS opposes the Muslim Brotherhood influence on Qaeda (which was an Egyption phenomenon that inturn obtained from Maududi of Pakistan) that mixed up with Saudi Wahhabi ideology. So ISIS basically is a purification of Qaeda from many of Muslim Brotherhood views and going to raw ideology of the early 18th century Wahhabism.

#7402: - IS emerges from radical Islamic jurisprudence 

 This article presents a gross distortion of Ibn Taymiyya's beliefs as provided in his fatwas. The author obviously knows nothing about Ibn Taymiyya and is repeating the standard falsifications about him. On top of that, Mr. Khilkhal completely confuses even the most basic facts about Ibn Taymiyya. One brief example must suffice. Ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran in what is today Syria. "Mardin" is not a town. Rather it refers to a status of certain regions that form what Ibn Taymiyya called a status between Dar al-Silm (abode of security), which refers to Muslim lands, and Dar al-Harb, which refers to lands that exist in either a potential or actual state of war. The "maridin" territories have what we would call non-aggression treaties with Muslim lands. Ibn Taymiyya says that Muslims can live and work in these regions so long as they can practice the basics of their religion. The details of this fatwa can be found in Majmu' Fatawa Ibn Taymiyya, vol. 28, p. 240. As for the misuse of Ibn Taymiyya,'s fatwas by modern militant sects, this is a deplorable situation in and of itself. Ibn Taymiyya lived during a turbulent time of the later Mongol invasions. He certainly advocated a jihad against the invading Il-Khans who had only nominally converted to Islam in the 1290s. It was a series of invasions that prompted him to petition the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria to fight against them. All of his actions were directed to the Mamluk government, and he never advocated independent military action outside the authority of the rulers. In general, I would close this post by saying that Ibn Taymiyya was not a radical preacher. His views were grounded solidly in the opinions of earlier scholars such as Malik ibn Anas, al-Shafi'i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. I am rather disappointed at the shallow and superficial reporting that makes up this article.