On Jan. 4, 2024, the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) claimed the terror attack on Kerman, Iran, where 100 were killed on Jan. 3. In the same audio recording, titled “And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them [Koran 9:5],” IS unwittingly underscored the rigidity of Islam, and how some of its demands may appear counterintuitive to even “radical” Muslims.

The statement begins with a predictable encomium to jihad and the importance of al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ (love for Muslims and hate for non-Muslims). It then moves on to “the crimes of murder and ugly massacres perpetrated by the Jews against the Muslims of Gaza.”

While also predictably denouncing the Jews as “one of the sects who holds the most animosity to Muslims,” the statement urges a more focused jihad, one not based on modern or secular priorities -- such as human, national, or territorial rights -- but rather jihad in keeping with Islam’s worldview:

The battle with the Jews is a religious one and not a national or populist one! It is not a battle for land, soil, or borders! In fact, it is a war that is legitimized by the Book [Koran] and the Sunnah, and not through national rules or jahiliyah [pagan] laws. A Muslim fights the Jews because they have committed kufr [disbelief] against Allah Almighty, they have fought His prophets, and have held animosity toward Muslims.

Thus, Muslims must fight Jews for no less a reason than that Jews reject Islam. This, of course, is very consistent with Islamic doctrine: Muslims must hate, fight, and subjugate all non-Muslims “until all religion is Allah’s (Koran 8:39).”

IS especially emphasized that true jihad has nothing to do with either national (Palestinian) identity or territory:

[T]he purpose of battle is to impose tawhid for Allah and upholding His word. This purpose has been absent from the latest battle in Gaza, and was very apparent in the official speeches and declarations made by the [Arab/Muslim] leaders of the various groups. The battle from its beginning to its end is being fought over soil, and a country that they have made into a reason to spill blood for!

Thus, Muslims must not support the Palestinian Authority, because the PA does not represent Islam, but rather national secularism. As the statement goes on to say:

Islam is what granted Palestine its place, and land has no value if it was not to be ruled by the Shar’iah of the Merciful, whether it was to be ruled by ‘Abbas or Dahlan, and it will all be the same whether Gaza and the West Bank are ruled by America’s allies or Iran’s allies… O fighter: Know that Allah only commanded you to fight for His sake, and a fight for His sake can only be in the light of the divine Shari’ah, establishing its rule and lifting its banner. The fight cannot be for national legitimacy, and the kufr covenants of the United Nations.

Even the very idea of “Palestinian liberation” is a farce, said the IS statement:

[T]his interpretation of liberation itself requires liberation. Liberating a land does not mean to free it from one secular government in favor of a democratic one, and it does not mean releasing it from a Jewish constitution only to be governed by a Palestinian constitution, for the laws that govern Palestine and the Jewish statelet are one, they are man made and all such governments are alike to the Almighty Allah. A land not ruled by Islamic Shari’ah is not liberated even if all Jews and invaders leave it. In fact, it is still a captive of kufr laws, and international jahiliya codes.

IS continued by condemning Iran, which it had bombed a day earlier, as a false Muslim entity due to its Shia nature, just as evil and devious as Israel, America, etc. If Iran does not uphold true Islam, the Sunni terror group argues, why should any Muslim root or fight for it?

Forging an alliance with the Rafidah [Sunni term for Shia] is a mistake made by the Brotherhood since they were bewitched by the shirk [paganism] of the Iranian Revolutions. This bewitchment reached its peak in the last few years and was manifested by the Palestinian factions throwing themselves into Iran’s lap, and announcing what they called “The Axis of Resistance” and “The al-Quds Axis.” In doing so, the Palestinian factions allowed Iran to take center stage on the Palestinian scene, making them appear like the saviors and defenders of Palestine… The Rafidah [Shia] have waged war upon Islam past and present. Their expansions [sic] plans, their projects, and their plots against Muslims are no less dangerous and spiteful than those of the Jews or Crusaders…

Not only are the Shia of Iran false Muslims, no better and possibly worse than the “Crusader-Zionist” alliance, but so too are the rulers of most Sunni nations:

The war against Gaza has again revealed the truth about the Arab tawaghit [tyrants] who rule over Muslim lands, in Egypt, Jordan Lebanon, the Gulf countries and others, that they are part of the Jewish-Crusader war against Muslims. They are not only their allies in the war against Gaza, but have been for years in their previous wars against Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Sham, and others. …we assert that, today, the battle with the Jews today is really a battle with the allies of the Jews more so than with the Jews themselves…. Collectively fighting all of those is what will pave the way to the defining battle with the Jews and in which the Jews will find no one to protect them or behind whom they can hide...”

So what is the Islamic State’s solution? Wage random and horrific terror attacks on all of the above (Note: readers are urged to read the following excerpt especially closely):

Lions of Islam: Chase your preys whether Jewish, Christian or their allies, on the streets and roads of America, Europe, and the world. Break into their homes, kill them and steal their peace of mind by any means you can lay hands on. Understand that you are the arm of the Islamic State hitting in the kuffar’s [infidels’] homelands, and are avenging the Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Sham, and other Muslim countries. Solidify your plans and diversify the attacks: detonate explosives, burn them with grenades and fiery agents, shoot them with bullets, cut their throats with sharp knives, and run them over with vehicles… Come at them from every door, kill them by the worst of means, turn their gatherings and celebrations into bloody massacres, do not distinguish between a civilian kaffir, and a military one... Intentionally seek easy targets before hard ones, civilian targets before military one, religious targets like synagogues and churches before others, for this will satisfy the soul and will demonstrate the characteristics of the battle, as our battle with them is a religious one and we kill them wherever we come upon them in response to Allah Almighty’s command.

As counterintuitive as the above assertions may seem, they do, alas, comport with Islamic teaching: all non-Muslims are enemies to be terrorized and slaughtered; national and territorial disputes are and always have been superfluous.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Image: Public Domain