Islam and the Question of Confessional Religious Identity: The Islamic State, Apostasy, and the Making of a Theology of Violence

The Islamic State (ISIS) has sought to realign the role of public religion in the modern secular space by proclaiming to contest all forms of apostasy and re-interrogate the conceptual formulations of belief/unbelief in Islam. Through such quests for realignment, it has sought to revive the medieval debate on the question of confessional religious identity which involved definitional disputations concerning true Muslims. The debate surfaced during the formative phase of the Muslim society and led to the engendering of competing sectarian religiosities. For the Islamic State, its urge for reviving this medieval discourse on confessional religious identity of Muslims is embedded in a romantic vision of the abode of pure Islam, to be inhabited only by true Muslims. However, such a geopolitical imaginary is deeply grounded in a sectarian Sunni political ontology coupled with a prejudicial interpretation of jihad. To accomplish its objectives and for enunciating the attributes of the land of pure Islam, the organization has transformed the Qur’an, which is in the intransitive form, into a transitive form so as to theologize the sacred text into a radical instrument of violence. It has also attempted to transfigure the spiritual character of Islam, referred to as the deen (a pluralistic system), into a cult.