The Islamic State: Understanding What It Is, How it Started, and What It Could Threaten 9 pages, pdf  Download Back

 The Islamic State: Understanding What It Is, How it Started, and What It Could Threaten

Publisher: Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies – CEAS

Volume: 9 pages, pdf

Description

During June of 2014, a mysterious new radical Sunni Islamist and militant jihadist group significantly grew in power and attention as a major insurgent offensive swept throughout Northern Iraq. The group, which has been called The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham throughout its short but dynamic history, has recently declared that it is now to be known simply as “The Islamic State.” The group now envisions itself to be a restoration of the Caliphate1 , a massive Islamic empire that, at its height during the Umayyads, ruled huge swaths of territory from Spain to Pakistan; in its modern resurrection, the Islamic State’s Caliphate most simply refers to an extremist, theocratic Sunni absolute monarchic state in which extreme Sharia law rules supreme and its leader, the Caliph, is supreme leader.