SIS was also known as al-Dawlah ("the State"), or al-Dawlat al-Islāmīyah ("the Islamic State"). These are short-forms of the name "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham" in Arabic.
The name "Daʿesh" (pronounced "Daʔesh" and transliterated as "Dāʿesh") is used particularly by ISIS's detractors such as those in Syria. The term is based on the Arabic letters, Dāl, ʾAlif, ʿAyn and Šīn (Shin), which form the acronym (داعش) of the Arabic name translated as, "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa ash-Sham). The group considers the term derogatory and reportedly uses flogging as a punishment for people who use the acronym in ISIS-controlled areas.
On 14 May 2014, the United States Department of State announced its decision to use "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) as the group's primary name. Which of these acronyms should be used to designate the group, ISIL or ISIS, has been discussed by several commentators.
On 29 June 2014, the establishment of a new caliphate was announced, and the group formally changed its name to the "Islamic State" (IS).[d]
In late August 2014, a leading Islamic authority, Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah in Egypt, advised Muslims to stop calling the group "Islamic State" and instead refer to it as "Al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria" or "QSIS", because of the militant group's un-Islamic character.
Ideology and beliefs
ISIS is a Sunniextremist group that follows al-Qaeda's hard-line ideology and adheres to global jihadist principles. Like al-Qaeda and many other modern-day jihadist groups, ISIS emerged from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s first Islamist group dating back to the late 1920s in Egypt. ISIS follows an extreme anti-Western interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence and regards those who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates. Concurrently, ISIS—now IS—aims to establish a Salafist-orientated Islamist state in Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Levant.
ISIS's ideology originates in the branch of modern Islam that aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting later "innovations" in the religion which it believes corrupt its original spirit. It condemns later caliphates and the Ottoman Empire for deviating from what it calls pure Islam and hence has been attempting to establish its own caliphate. However, some Sunni commentators, including Salafi and jihadist muftis such as Adnan al-Aroor and Abu Basir al-Tartusi, say that ISIS and related terrorist groups are not Sunnis, but modern-day Kharijites—Muslims who have stepped outside the mainstream of Islam—serving an imperial anti-Islamic agenda. Other critics of ISIS's brand of Sunni Islam include Salafists who previously publicly supported jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda, for example the Saudi government official Saleh Al-Fawzan who claims that ISIS is a creation of “Zionists, Crusaders and Safavids”, and the Jordanian-Palestinian writer Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi who was released from prison in Jordan in June 2014.
Salafists such as ISIS believe that only a legitimate authority can undertake the leadership of jihad, and that the first priority over other areas of combat, such as fighting non-Muslim countries, is the purification of Islamic society. For example, when it comes to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, since ISIS regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad, it regards fighting Hamas as the first step toward confrontation with Israel.
Since 2004, the group's goal has been the foundation of an Islamic state in the Levant. Specifically, ISIS sought the establishment of a caliphate, a type of Islamic state led by a group of religious authorities under a supreme leader—caliph—who is believed to be the successor to Mohammed. In June 2014, ISIS published a document which it claimed linked ISIS's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the prophet. That same month, ISIS removed "Iraq and the Levant" from its name and began to refer to itself as the Islamic State, declaring the territory that it occu