Everything Wrong with The Atlantic’s ISIS Cover Story

I realize that I’m late to Graeme Wood’s ISIS party, but bear with me. Two weeks ago, when I heard that a 10,000 word piece about ISIS was the Atlantic’s most-read story, I was hopeful. I imagined that the popularity of such a long article meant that it must get into the Whys and Hows of ISIS, and that answering those questions for a mass audience could only be a good thing.

But after finally reading Wood’s piece, I see that my initial hope was misplaced. This isn’t an article about the why of ISIS. It’s about re-affirming the US’s unbridled Islamophobia. No wonder it’s so popular.

Wood argues that “the Islamic State is Islamic. VERY Islamic.” and cites its many references to 7th century Islamic practices as proof. ISIS wants to bring back slavery! ISIS wants to stone adulterers! ISIS wants to poison our wells!

This is all terrible, no doubt, but slavery, stonings, and poisonings aren’t exclusive to the Koran. In fact, I’m quite familiar with another religious text that heavily promotes these misdeeds: the Holy Bible. Of course, there are no radical Christians committing mass murders and proclaiming a state in someone else’s territory… but what if there were?

If a group of misogynistic, white, slave-owning, murderous despots took up residence in the Nevada desert, claiming that the world was theirs by the divine right of Jesus, what would we call them? Even if they cited Bible verses to support their misogyny (and there are plenty), would Wood write, “These guys are Christian. VERY Christian.” I’m pretty sure that at best he — and corporate media at large — would call them “radical Christians,” but more likely they’d simply be called “extremists.”

Why? Certainly the group is influenced by traditional Christian texts. Isn’t it fair to call them Christians?

I would argue that it’s not, because Christianity didn’t end with the writing of the Bible; it began. It’s a religion that’s evolved over its 2,000 year history, to the point where it’s today practiced by over 2 billion people. It’s so huge, and with so many different groups claiming authority over its identity, that I have to wonder if it’s fair to call anything “Christian” with certainty: Are Jews for Jesus “Christian”? Is Greek Orthodoxy? Are Mormons?

In popular media, we’re often treated to nuanced debates over who is and isn’t Christian. Hence, when a white Christian terrorist killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, media personalities went out of their way to clarify that he wasn’t really Christian. (Interestingly enough, this event was completely forgotten by several media outlets after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.)

But it’s much harder to find such nuanced debates about non-Judeo-Christian religions. Islam, like Christianity, is older than a millennium, with over 1 billion participants and likely thousands of sects each claiming authoritative interpretation. So why does a single murderous cult that by definition is a sect of Sunni Islam get the rare distinction of being “VERY Islamic?”

To answer this question, Wood relies on a few loud-mouth British and Australian clowns who wink-and-nod their ISIS allegiance at him. “These men,” Wood writes, “spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar.” I’m sure they did just that, but to conflate their expertise in the Koran and Islamic history with actual Islam is to misunderstand what a religion is. If Wood were writing about an automobile, I might agree that a person with expertise in its inner workings could safely be called a mechanic. But Islam isn’t a machine; it’s a religious ideology, and to say that the loudest, foulest sect of it gets to be the MOST Islamic is to give ISIS and its supporters exactly what they want. (Indeed, in his follow-up to the piece, Wood notes that ISIS supporters are agreeing with him!)

Wood’s piece gets even grimmer in its suggestions for dealing with ISIS. Apart from generic advice to continue the bombings, Wood’s real shining solution is found in the “Quietist Salafis,” of whom he writes:

Instead, Pocius — like a majority of Salafis — believes that Muslims should remove themselves from politics. These quietist Salafis, as they are known, agree with the Islamic State that God’s law is the only law, and they eschew practices like voting and the creation of political parties.

No doubt someone who views ISIS as “VERY Islamic” would like to see Muslims “remove themselves from politics.” But such a demeaning and bigoted solution can only be the work of a demeaning and bigoted premise, and conflating ISIS with Islam surely fits the bill.

Yes, ISIS is doing terrible things in the name of Islam, but in terms of their brutality and the threat they pose to the US, they’re not terribly different from any of the hundreds of radical groups that exist around the world. (Recall that the Tamil Tigers controlled land and had an air force!) That they’ve chosen Islam as their preferred iconography is understandable, given that belief’s history and prevalence in the region. But all religions — any ideology, really — can be hijacked and put to murderous ends given the right economic and social conditions. Hell, there are killer Buddhists, for chrissake. Maybe the best way to confront ISIS is not to comport with their self-aggrandizing views of themselves as religious warriors, but rather to knock out the complex economic and social issues that give rise to radical ideologies in the first place.

Or I guess we could just keep calling them Muslims, bombing them, and hope for the best.