Dabiq refutes Obama’s claims about ISIS and Islam

CHARLOTTE,N.C., Jan. 21, 2016 — If, as Hillary Clinton likes to say, ISIS is using Donald Trump as a recruiting tool, you would never know it from the latest issue of Dabiq.

Dabiq is the ultra-slick ISIS publication that is a primer for global terrorists and Islamists: Vanity Fair for jihadis. Yet in the 13th edition of the 52-page publication, there is no mention of Trump or Guantanamo Bay. Rather, as Ryan Mauro of The Clarion Project points out, there is far more detail about why ISIS actually is Islam—which runs counter to what President Obama believes—than material any other subject, .

There is a popular expression that has often been attributed to Sun Tzu, a Chinese general who lived several centuries before Christ, which says “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Niccolo Machiavelli said something similar in “The Prince,” but the most familiar version is Michael Corleone’s in part two of “The Godfather.”.

If you want to know what ISIS is doing and how they think, you can get plenty of information from Dabiq. In fact, the Clarion Project has even provided a link for readers to review every one of Dabiq’s 13 issues to date.

Mauro points out, “The contents of Dabiq expose the error of assuming that the extremism of Islamists is a byproduct of anger over perceived mistreatment of Muslims by the U.S. The Islamic State does see anti-Muslim sentiment as suiting its purposes and it does cite actions by the U.S. to justify its views, but the foundation of their ideology is an Islamic interpretation.”

That statement rebuts Obama’s contention that “ISIS is not Islam.”

Further understanding of the internal workings of Islam comes from the fact that ISIS kills more Shiite Muslims than any other enemy. The West still refuses to recognize that the schism between Sunni and Shia is every bit as significant as Muslim opposition to more traditional foes, the non-believer Christians and Jews. Each side in this Muslim feud regard the other as apostates, and apostasy is punishable by death in Islam.

Arabia gave the world Islam. Later, the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab created the strictest interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, which ISIS uses as its guiding principles. It was an alliance between Wahhab and the house of Saud that unified the Arabs into what is now Saudi Arabia.

Even that is being challenged by ISIS today. Mauro notes, “One of the first declarations in this issue of Dabiq is a call to assassinate Saudi clerics” because, according to ISIS, the Saudis are now disregarding Wahhab’s leadership.

One thing you learn in the Middle East is that nothing is ever clear, and this is a prime example. When you don’t don’t know what the enemy that attacks you is fighting about or angry about and why, how can you challenge and defeat them?

“This issue [of Dabiq] spends a noticeable amount of time deriding scholars who argue that Muslims should only wage jihad against its enemies when the time is right,” says Mauro. “The Islamic State argues for perpetual jihad against its enemies, saying that Allah will bring victory over any militarily superior enemy if the jihad is justified.”

There is historical precedent for ISIS thinking on this dating to the seventh century, when the Prophet Muhammad himself won a remarkable victory at the Battle of Badr with his heavily outnumbered army.

On the key point of the ISIS philosophy, Mauro observes,“As it almost always does, ISIS ties its jihad to the fulfillment of End Times prophecy. A major portion of this issue claims that Shiite Islam was created by Jews pretending to be Muslims as part of a plot to corrupt the faith and divide the Muslim world.” (emphasis added) It says that Christianity was corrupted the same way.

Not only is Shiite Islam a plot of the Jews, ISIS claims, but the Jewish messiah and Shiite Islam’s version of the mahdi (the ‘Hidden Imam’) are the same person. This mahdi-messiah is actually the ‘Antichrist,’ or the Dajjal.

“In other words, in the minds of ISIS, never mind Israel’s worry about Iran’s pledges to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Iran and Israel—Shiites and Jews—are one. (emphasis added) And so the Taliban and other Muslims who play nice with Shiites are complicit with the Antichrist’s agenda.

Don’t expect to hear this explanation coming from the White House, but considering the source, it’s a strong indicator that ISIS is far more “Islamic” than Barack Obama wants us to believe.

One need only look to Dabiq for the answers.

Bob Taylor has been traveling the world for more than 30 years as a writer and award-winning television producer focusing on international events, people and cultures around the globe. Taylor is founder of the Magellan Travel Club (www.MagellanTravelClub.com).

Read more of What in the World and Bob Taylor at Communities Digital News. Follow Bob on Twitter @MrPeabod

Bob Taylor has been travel writer for more than three decades. Following a career as an award winning sports producer/anchor, Taylor’s media production business produced marketing presentations for Switzerland Tourism, Rail Europe, the Finnish Tourist Board, Japan Railways Group, the Swedish Travel & Tourism Council and the Swiss Travel System among others. He is founder of The Magellan Travel Club (www.MagellanTravelClub.com) and his goal is to visit 100 countries or more during his lifetime.