"ISIS is ahistorical, revisionist, but not inevitable
One of the oft-mentioned criticisms of The Atlantic piece is that it echoed the inaccurate belief that since ISIS’s theology draws upon Islamic texts to justify its horrendous practices, it is an inevitable product of Islam. Haykel didn’t say whether or not he thought Wood’s article says as much, but when ThinkProgress asked him directly whether Islamic texts and theology necessitate the creation of groups like ISIS, he was unequivocal.
“No,” he said. “I think that ISIS is a product of very contingent, contextual, historical factors. There is nothing predetermined in Islam that would lead to ISIS.”"
"Haykel, however, clarified that while he saw ISIS as rooted in authentic Islamic texts, those texts are not above interpretation, and it is only ISIS and related groups — not Islam as a whole — who would consider such challenges apostasy.
“If Muslims start criticizing these texts that ISIS is using, saying that they are no longer relevant or no longer applicable, ISIS would declare them apostate,” Haykel said. “If you start telling ISIS that following a tradition of the prophet has been abrogated, has been superseded by some other tradition or some other verse, or that it’s no longer valid, or that it applies only to the seventh century but not today because we’re modern, you will be declared an apostate on the spot by ISIS.”
The issue, Haykel says, lies in ISIS’s “ahistorical” theology, which justifies their horrific actions by essentially pretending the last several centuries of Islamic history never happened."
"Haykel singled out CNN talk show host Fareed Zakaria as an example of the former, who recently said ISIS’s public execution of a Jordanian pilot by burning him to death — which at least one prominent Muslim cleric in the Middle East also decried as “away from humanity, much less religions” — is “entirely haram,” or forbidden in Islam.
“That’s actually factually wrong — the burning apostates is in the [Islamic] legal code,” Haykel said.
(Zakaria, for his part, also took a swipe at Haykel in a Washington Post Op-Ed on Friday, saying the following of the scholar’s rejection of those who decry ISIS as unIslamic: “Haykel feels that it is what the 0.0019 percent of Muslims do that defines the religion. Who is being political, I wonder?”)"
What The Atlantic Left Out About ISIS According To Their Own Expert
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