Fadel Boula on the Islamic State: Nothing to do with Islam?

Fadel Boula
Al-Akhbar, Iraq
MEMRI

The journalist Fadel Boula, resident of Iraq, asks aloud the question on everyone's mind:

Does terror truly have no religion?

We know this is on everyone's mind because everyone is so quick to disavow any link between terror and Islam, but Boula then surprises by undertaking to answer his own question without self-deceit:

This slogan ["The Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam"] is uttered regarding terror, as though [terror] reflects a picture that is completely unrelated to its perpetrators' religious affiliation, and as though there are no religious goals or values behind it, but only a state of insanity that causes those afflicted with it to run amok, unaware of what they are doing or what [they seek] to achieve by their actions – [actions] that disgust not only human beings but [even] the beasts of the jungle.

Boula's initial approach already notes the improbability that the terrorism supported by millions of people is either like unto a natural disaster or merely the work of primitive tribes:

The terror that is shaking the world today is not a natural disaster like a tornado, a thunderstorm or an earthquake, and it is not perpetrated by savage tribes. It is perpetrated by people who enlist [because they are] inspired by a religious ideology. [These people] advocate enforcing and spreading [this ideology as a set of] dogmatic principles that must be imposed by the force of the sword, and which [mandate] killing, expulsion and destruction wherever they go.

The Islamic State's motivation is religious, and that religious ideology is the Sunni version of Salafi Islam:

Since its inception, this movement of terror has espoused a Salafi ideology that champions religious extremism, and brainwashed people of all ages have rallied around its flag, [people who were] trained to kill themselves and kill others in order to attain martyrdom.

Boula continues, but he has already made his point, as noted on Memri, "Special Dispatch 6288" (February 1, 2016). We can add that not only is Salafi Islam like this, so is the Iranian version of Shia Islam that undergirds the theocratic state in Iran, but I don't know if Boula went that far since he was writing this piece for the pro-Iranian Iraqi newspaper Al-Akhbar . . .