Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS

by Azadeh Moaveni

IN POLICY CIRCLES, THERE IS something called the “al-Qaeda narrative” of contemporary history—the idea that the West invades Muslim countries, cultivates and backs corrupt dictators who subvert the will of their people, and overthrows popular leaders it deems hostile to its interests. In response to this, political violence in places like Palestine and Iraq is an acceptable form of self-defense against occupation. To many Muslims the world over, this doesn’t just sound like the “al-Qaeda narrative.” It sounds like a recognition of their lived reality. This perception is chiefly political rather than religious, held by even secular or liberal Muslims (or indeed Middle Easterners of other religious backgrounds) who have lived in the West for decades. It is discomfiting, because it runs at such crosscurrents to acceptable opinion in the West, where political violence of many varieties had long been referred to as “terrorism.” Terrorism, as the word is presently used, is a condition of ideological wickedness, stripped of any rational or legitimate context or motivation, and associated culturally with Islam and racially with Muslims.