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“There are striking parallels between the Abbasid revolution and the Islamic State revolution. They share a name (dawla), symbols and colors, apocalyptic propaganda, clandestine networks, and an insurgency in Syria and Iraq. They also claim the right to rule as the Prophet’s descendants. The Abbasids had provided a blueprint for how to overthrow a Muslim ruler, establish a new caliphate, and justify both. Apocalypse, caliphate, and revolution were inseparable, just as they are for the Islamic State.”
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
“Anticipating Jesus’s descent and executing his followers probably strikes most readers as odd. The Qur’an portrays Jesus as a messenger of God and his followers as those “nearest in love to the believers” (5:82). But the prophecies attributed to Muhammad outside the Qur’an foresee Jesus returning to fight alongside the Muslims against the infidels. As in the Bible, the appearance of Jesus heralds the Last Days. But instead of gathering the faithful up to heaven, he will lead the Muslims in a war against the Jews, who will fight on behalf of the Antichrist, called the Deceiving Messiah. Jesus will “shatter the crucifix, kill the swine, abolish the protection tax, and make wealth to flow until no one needs any more,” says one prophecy attributed to Muhammad and quoted by the first emir of the Islamic State.”
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
“Although the Islamic State’s soldiers might not know Islamic scripture very well, some of its leaders do. The caliph has a Ph.D. in the study of the Qur’an, and his top scholars are conversant in the ahadith and the ways medieval scholars interpreted it. There are many stupid thugs in the Islamic State, but these guys are not among them.”
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
“As for Muslims who leave infidel lands, Awlaki invited them to come to Yemen. The Prophet had prophesied the appearance of an army of “twelve thousand” men who would “come out of Aden-Abyan” in the south to “give victory to Allah and His Messenger,” Muhammad. Awlaki believed the fulfillment of the prophecy was fast approaching.”
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
“To be sure, many of the Islamic State’s foot soldiers are ignorant of their own scriptures. Islamic scripture is vast, encompassing not only the Qur’an but also the ahadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad by his followers. Collections of ahadith run into the hundreds of volumes, and that’s just the Sunni variety. The Shi’a have their own collections, adding more volumes to the pile. Want to find passages justifying peace and concord? They’re in there. Want to find passages justifying violence? They’re in there too. Medieval Muslim scholars spent their whole careers trying to reconcile the contradictions between them. It’s extremely difficult to do, which is why early Muslims called the effort ijtihad, or “hard work.” People chuckled at the news of two men buying a copy of Islam for Dummies on their way to join the Islamic State.14 But having spent two decades studying the intricacies of Islamic scripture, I empathized with their bewilderment.”
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
― The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
Ruby’s 2025 Year in Books
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