Daesh — exploiting religious sentiments

In his book “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,” Drew Westen, professor of Political Psychology at Emory University, US, argues that the human brain is not merely a rational cluster of nerves that are able to balance the objectivity of evidence and to draw the right conclusions to make the right decision, but it is a responsive unit that can be emotionally affected and provoked. Therefore, emotion overwhelms most of its decisions.
Westen reached this conclusion through the evaluation of speeches from a number of US presidential elections between 1950 and 2000. He examined the use of human emotions in the candidates’ speeches, both in advertising campaigns and in debates between presidential candidates to win the hearts of the voters.
Based on what Westen says, I think one of the most important attractions of Daesh is its concentration on the emotional aspect in its political speech through its presentation of the “utopia” of a caliphate state to millions of Muslims. This utopia forms a firm cultural and religious component of the Arab and Islamic mentality. Islamic history has been a part of the concept of Islam as a religion and a state, from the Umayyad Caliphate in the first century until the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate in the 14th century. The fall of the Ottoman Empire, or the so-called Ottoman Caliphate, was a significant milestone in the history of the Islamic movements as it was the first time in history that Muslims found themselves without one state bringing them together.
With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the issue of “restoration of the Islamic Caliphate” gave rise to numerous Islamic movements in the Muslim world in the 20th century. Starting with Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Nur cemaat in Turkey and Jamaat-e-Islami in India etc. Every Islamic movement, party, or organization claimed to be more entitled to raise the flag and restore the Islamic caliphate ruled by one caliph who governs all the Muslims around the world. They also claimed to abrogate all the national entities, “nation-states”, that are established based on Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Daesh was able to turn this utopia into a reality with the announcement of the “establishment of Islamic State,” which it claims is applying Shariah and moving away from man-made law. The organization has inaugurated its leader Abubakr Al-Baghdadi as the “caliph” of Muslims everywhere. In an audio recording broadcast on the Internet on June 28, 2014 said to be by Daesh, the organization said that it had established the “Islamic State” in territories of Iraq and Syria over which it has control.
This announcement represented a landmark event in the history of jihadi groups, as it was the first time that a militant organization had declared the “caliphate” and inaugurated a “caliph”, an objective sought by most militants around the world. The declaration was made in such a way that it incited many militants to join Daesh.
I believe that the refutation of the “establishment of caliphate” has to be on three main levels:
Intellectual level: Education of youngsters through modern religious speech and teaching that could correct their misconceptions about the establishment of the Islamic caliphate in its utopic form and strengthen national identity and a sense of belonging to the homeland.
Legal level: Concerned authorities of public and private media have to obtain a resolution that prevents the use of the term “Islamic State,” and only refer to the organization as “Daesh” in all official correspondence and media messages. Using the term “Islamic State” is giving legitimacy to this criminal organization.
Military level: Assessment of the international coalition strategy against Daesh as, so far, military action has not achieved the desired results. Military victory over Daesh would reduce its legitimacy and its ideological attraction. A small, fragile, failed and internationally outcast country cannot be a convincing caliphate.
I believe that working within these parameters would lead to the organization’s regression and a significant deterioration in its attractiveness and its ability to recruit.