In the latest edition of its English-language propaganda magazine Dabiq, the Islamic State goes to great lengths to explain why all alternative voices must be silenced. In an article entitled ‘Kill the Imams of Kufr in the West,’ the group calls for the deaths of several Muslim clerics and other well-known figures, all for the crime of working within government and social systems anathema to the Islamic State. According to the group, there is no government or society other than itself, and thus the list of apostates is impossibly long. The group makes no distinction between democracies and dictatorships, seeing both systems as two sides of the same illegitimate coin.
Since the Islamic State believes it is the world’s one true society, it does not need to make distinctions between viewpoints or exceptions to its rule. The reality, however, is far different than the rhetoric—even in places such as Raqqa where the group maintains control and activists continue to resist. The Islamic State has not only failed to rally the world’s Muslims under its black banners, but it has failed to even rally all like-minded violent extremists to its name.
In Dabiq 14—and previously, in Dabiq 7—the Islamic State reveals that while it rejoices in threatening the West with attacks, it is deeply threatened by Muslim leaders not just standing up against the Islamic State, but standing alongside Western societies. The image of Muslims in Paris after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks holding signs that read ‘je suis Charlie’ is as enraging to the Islamic State as it is bewildering. The image was featured on the cover of the November 2015 Dabiq 7 edition above the title ‘From Hypocrisy to Apostasy,’ where the group laid out its divided vision for the world. It is a vision that is not shared by the overwhelming majority of Sunni Muslims in the world—the very people the Islamic State needs to claim as members, but who in fact are not.