An Islamic caliphate has been declared in Iraq and the Levant. The jihadist group, a breakaway from al-Qaeda, is usually called ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), although it claims for itself territories that stretch to Cyprus, Turkey and, it would seem, the whole of the Middle East.

It’s like a jihadist group operating in Benghazi claiming the whole of North Africa, parts of Spain, Sicily and Malta for itself.

In Iraq and Syria, the group is making rapid military gains. Its latest claim to found an Islamic State, however, has seen it being accused of a lack of perspective, including by rival jihadists.

On the other hand, the group boasts, in a recruitment online video (briefly on You Tube) called ‘No life without jihad’, that it attracts the most fighters from around the world. It seems to be overtaking al-Qaeda as the leading terrorist organisation in the region.

So how seriously should we take its prospects? In seeking to understand it, four factors are worth noting.

First, there has been some comparison between the spectacular success of ISIS and the early spread of Islam, which in the space of a few years emerged out of Arabia, overran the Persian Empire and pushed back the Byzantine frontiers. It’s a comparison that the ISIS leaders themselves relish and the glamour, combined with the organisation’s fluent use of social media, helps promote recruitment for global jihad.

But no serious historical sociologist would think there is anything more than a superficial similarity between the two eras.

One fundamental reason is that ISIS is using the concept of ‘jihad’ (which means ‘struggle’) in a completely different sense than that used in early Islam.

Originally, the notion, as applied to war, served not merely to legitimise some kinds of armed struggle but also to regulate and limit violence. (Later, the classical theologians gave more importance to ‘jihad’ as spiritual struggle.)

It was only in the 20th century, however, that the broad concept of jihad was stretched, by a small violent minority within Sunni Islam, to include waging war and terror on fellow Muslims, even fellow members of the same denomination.

This understanding is alien to early Islam. It’s rejected by the vast majority of modern Muslims, including some radical groups. However, it’s embraced by the violent fringe, which is why Islamist terrorists have murdered many, many thousands more Muslims than non-Muslims.

The reasoning is that ‘who is not with us, is against us, and cannot be a real Muslim’.

The invocation of ‘jihad’ by a group like ISIS should not be understood as a call to arms that will be embraced by anything other than a fraction of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims.

Early Islam spread by conversion. ISIS is spreading by imposing itself on fellow Muslims, murdering them where necessary. Its fighters have boarded buses in Syria and stopped them if there were women on board wearing trousers or make-up. Seventy lashes have been imposed as a penalty for anyone calling the organisation by its Arabic abbreviation (‘Daish’), which ISIS considers derogatory.

In Iraq, it has been less brutal with fellow Sunnis. The corruption of Nuri al-Maliki’s government, which is Shia-led, has enabled ISIS to pose as a champion of Sunni rights. It has, however, been brutal with ordinary Shiite Iraqis.

ISIS is demanding that its leader is recognised as the religious leader of all Muslims. There is no doubt what fate will befall anyone who challenges this demand.

So, this is not the beginning of a Muslim empire peopled by citizens eager to serve it. It’s the beginning of a new occupation of the Levant.

The second factor worth noting is the relationship ISIS is claiming, in proclaiming a new ‘caliphate’, to other Muslim states, including those that may have initially been patrons. In announcing that, henceforth, it wants to be known simply as ‘the Islamic State’ (note the definite article), and no longer ‘the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria’, it is implicitly delegitimising all other Muslim states.

While claiming to unify all Muslims, ISIS is in fact announcing a war on multiple fronts

Roll over, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While claiming to unify all Muslims, ISIS is in fact announcing a war on multiple fronts. Its rule over parts of Syria and Iraq, it is explicitly saying, is only a first stage. It does not recognise any modern borders or State entities. Nor, clearly, does it recognise any Islamist group that is not its ally. That includes al-Qaeda.

Third, it is worth noting that there appears to be an original organisational aspect to ISIS. The sheer range of Islamist groups has long been wide and varied. Some are little more than a Muslim version of Christian televangelism – good at raising funds for entrepreneurial star preachers, who are little more than apologists for consumerism (some years ago, an Egyptian wit called it ‘air-conditioned Islam’).

At the other extreme end of the spectrum, there have been various violent groups, such as al-Qaeda, with no vision other than of what they wish to destroy.

In between, there have been many groups focused on changing the world but without destroying it – groups urging social change, even radical reform, but with a focus on delivering social welfare and organising micro-credit.

Those efforts have not always been as benign as they sound. Some of them, like Hizbollah of Lebanon and Hamas of Gaza, have combined a political wing with violence. In these cases, however, the violence had a nationalist agenda, which kept military operations and murder within boundaries.

ISIS has something new. In the territories it controls, it has an effective welfare service. Unlike Hamas, however, its violence is not limited by an idea of national borders. It wants to expand to encompass, at the very least, the whole of the lands of Islam.

Will the welfare arm strengthen the transnational violence? Or will the latter fatally overstretch the welfare provision? We cannot be sure, although the second possibility seems more likely.

Fourth, what are the chances that, just as ISIS arose out of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a similar organisation will arise in North Africa, perhaps out of Benghazi or Algeria? One that will claim not just the whole of the ‘Islamic Maghreb’ to itself but also various parts southern Europe, including Malta?

Grandiloquent claims are always possible (and indeed they have already been made). But, in practice, such an organisation will probably find it more difficult to gain traction in North Africa.

In the Levant, ISIS has gained traction by fuelling sectarian war – against Shiites and Christians. Paradoxically, the greater religious homogeneity of North Africa, whose population in its vast majority is Sunni Muslim, will make it more difficult for a group to assert religious superiority.

In Iraq, a tribal leader praised ISIS for standing up for Sunni rights against Shiite discrimination. But, according to The New York Times, when the journalist played a recording of the declaration of the caliphate, Sheikh Zaydan al-Jabiri called the ISIS spokesman “a son of a dog”.

As he said, the tribes were already Muslim and would not let anyone claim to rule in Islam’s name.

It’s difficult to imagine North Africans reacting with anything other than the same indignation.

ranierfsadni@europe.com