When ISIS-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced his Islamic state in June 2014, the only thing that was clear about it was that it would be run according to the Sharia law, and based on the reign of the first caliphs after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.
Yet when you build a state in the 21st century, with all the knowledge of the centuries in between, you will have to adapt your concept accordingly.
And so did Al-Baghdadi, who was joined by many former administrators and officials of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party. They must have known that in order to convince civilians to join them, they would have to offer them more than security and services.
Yet the first thing ISIS set up in every captured town is a Sharia court, for marriages, contracts and to make sure the citizens of the state would adhere to the Sharia law. Local police forces were introduced: the male Hisba-brigade and the all-female Khansa-brigade, checking on the activities, clothing and life styles of the citizens.
Prisons were (re)opened, and prisoners tortured into confessions and allegiance, or executed, often in public, to intimidate and scare others.
Security forces, the so called Alamniya, were put in place, that instructed people to report on each other, also making use of children for this purpose.
All these are mainly made up of Iraqis who worked for Saddam, and so is the administration of the caliphate.
But politicians and political parties are absent, as is a parliament. The Islamic state is a totalitarian dictatorship, where the power is in the hands of Al-Baghdadi and a group of trusted followers.
From documents that were captured it is known that his administration has been structured with deputies, ministers and governors, and that a religious council is formed to approve and initiate policies and actions.
For the around 8 million citizens, the decisions that were taken without consulting them had big consequences. The society became divided into two main groups: an upper class of administrators, fighters and their wives, and a lower class of all those who did not pledge allegiance to ISIS.
Discrimination is a major feature of the state: while fighters and ISIS-followers can visit restaurants and cafés, are provided with gas for cooking and all goods they want, and live in the best houses, those outside ISIS are taxed heavily, robbed and mistreated, and often live in poverty, many cooking on wood and growing their own vegetables in order to survive.
Yet in the past months, the malfunctioning of the state has become a problem too.
The first cracks showed in the healthcare system. And it’s not just that it is first and foremost for the upper class or that it has become strictly segregated, moreover it lacks doctors, and especially female ones to treat female patients.
Even though women are allowed to work (only) as doctors and teachers, the changes in the educational system, now focusing on religion, make it just about impossible to ever graduate as such in the caliphate. At the same time, the outflow of intellectuals caused a major brain drain, and partly for that reason most universities are closed.
Efforts to make people completely dependent on ISIS have had huge consequences for the economy. Factories that offered jobs were closed (and sold in parts to provide income to the state), to force people to accept jobs with ISIS and food aid provided.
Because ISIS is so much focusing on collecting income for the state (and its leaders) - from oil sales, taxes, ransoms, the sales of antiquities - many economic principles are neglected. For lack of input, the agriculture is collapsing. If only a small group has the money, and the majority cannot afford to buy goods, the economy will shrink and eventually even collapse. This process is presently going on in the caliphate.
Its main slogan is ‘Remaining and expanding’, but both notions are presently in danger.
ISIS has lost about a quarter of the territory it had captured in Iraq and Syria, as well as thousands of fighters. Because they are convinced that paradise will be their reward when they die in battle, ISIS loses far more fighters than any of its competitors. And the prominent use of bombs and explosives on the battlefield shows that it has lost much of its military equipment too.
Airstrikes did not only take out millions of dollars of the cash ISIS had stacked away and part of its oil production and sales, they also destroyed courtrooms and government buildings. Many leaders got killed, having been replaced with a second trier of less capable administrators.
The ISIS state in Iraq and Syria presently is in no way remaining or expanding, except for new ventures abroad. And it is less and less acting as a state, offering ever less services and executing ever more civilians to scare people out of rising up.
Now the veil is lifted, and the caliphate can be seen as it is: a bandit state, using religion to cover its many criminal activities against the people of Iraq and Syria.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Yet when you build a state in the 21st century, with all the knowledge of the centuries in between, you will have to adapt your concept accordingly.
And so did Al-Baghdadi, who was joined by many former administrators and officials of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party. They must have known that in order to convince civilians to join them, they would have to offer them more than security and services.
Yet the first thing ISIS set up in every captured town is a Sharia court, for marriages, contracts and to make sure the citizens of the state would adhere to the Sharia law. Local police forces were introduced: the male Hisba-brigade and the all-female Khansa-brigade, checking on the activities, clothing and life styles of the citizens.
Prisons were (re)opened, and prisoners tortured into confessions and allegiance, or executed, often in public, to intimidate and scare others.
Security forces, the so called Alamniya, were put in place, that instructed people to report on each other, also making use of children for this purpose.
All these are mainly made up of Iraqis who worked for Saddam, and so is the administration of the caliphate.
But politicians and political parties are absent, as is a parliament. The Islamic state is a totalitarian dictatorship, where the power is in the hands of Al-Baghdadi and a group of trusted followers.
From documents that were captured it is known that his administration has been structured with deputies, ministers and governors, and that a religious council is formed to approve and initiate policies and actions.
For the around 8 million citizens, the decisions that were taken without consulting them had big consequences. The society became divided into two main groups: an upper class of administrators, fighters and their wives, and a lower class of all those who did not pledge allegiance to ISIS.
Discrimination is a major feature of the state: while fighters and ISIS-followers can visit restaurants and cafés, are provided with gas for cooking and all goods they want, and live in the best houses, those outside ISIS are taxed heavily, robbed and mistreated, and often live in poverty, many cooking on wood and growing their own vegetables in order to survive.
Yet in the past months, the malfunctioning of the state has become a problem too.
The first cracks showed in the healthcare system. And it’s not just that it is first and foremost for the upper class or that it has become strictly segregated, moreover it lacks doctors, and especially female ones to treat female patients.
Even though women are allowed to work (only) as doctors and teachers, the changes in the educational system, now focusing on religion, make it just about impossible to ever graduate as such in the caliphate. At the same time, the outflow of intellectuals caused a major brain drain, and partly for that reason most universities are closed.
Efforts to make people completely dependent on ISIS have had huge consequences for the economy. Factories that offered jobs were closed (and sold in parts to provide income to the state), to force people to accept jobs with ISIS and food aid provided.
Because ISIS is so much focusing on collecting income for the state (and its leaders) - from oil sales, taxes, ransoms, the sales of antiquities - many economic principles are neglected. For lack of input, the agriculture is collapsing. If only a small group has the money, and the majority cannot afford to buy goods, the economy will shrink and eventually even collapse. This process is presently going on in the caliphate.
Its main slogan is ‘Remaining and expanding’, but both notions are presently in danger.
ISIS has lost about a quarter of the territory it had captured in Iraq and Syria, as well as thousands of fighters. Because they are convinced that paradise will be their reward when they die in battle, ISIS loses far more fighters than any of its competitors. And the prominent use of bombs and explosives on the battlefield shows that it has lost much of its military equipment too.
Airstrikes did not only take out millions of dollars of the cash ISIS had stacked away and part of its oil production and sales, they also destroyed courtrooms and government buildings. Many leaders got killed, having been replaced with a second trier of less capable administrators.
The ISIS state in Iraq and Syria presently is in no way remaining or expanding, except for new ventures abroad. And it is less and less acting as a state, offering ever less services and executing ever more civilians to scare people out of rising up.
Now the veil is lifted, and the caliphate can be seen as it is: a bandit state, using religion to cover its many criminal activities against the people of Iraq and Syria.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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