The Islamic State has released a video of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the group’s reclusive emir, leading prayers in the city of Mosul.
In late June, the Islamic State declared that it had established a caliphate with Baghdadi as its ruler. According to his group, Baghdadi is now known as “Caliph Ibrahim.”
The group’s caliphate declaration has been controversial within jihadist circles. A common critique has been that followers cannot and should not pledge their allegiance to a ruler they haven’t even seen. In an era in which images and video are easily disseminated and broadcast, this critique carried some weight. The Islamic State’s leader was rarely heard from and never seen. Only a few confirmed photos of Baghdadi existed prior to the newly-released video.
But Baghdadi and the Islamic State have now answered that criticism by posting a significant video of its leader delivering a sermon with a relatively calm and assured delivery.
Baghdadi addresses another criticism of the Islamic State’s caliphate without explicitly telling the audience that he is doing so.
Jihadists and other Islamic organizations have dismissed the caliphate because the Islamic State formed it without consulting other recognized authorities. Baghdadi answers this charge by claiming that the jihadists, buoyed by recent victories in Iraq, were simply fulfilling their “duty” to declare a caliphate.
“As for your mujahideen brothers, Allah has bestowed upon them the grace of victory and conquest, and enabled them, after many years of jihad, patience, and fighting the enemies of Allah, and granted them success and empowered them to achieve their goal,” Baghdadi says, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. “Therefore, they hastened to declare the Caliphate and place an imam, and this is a duty upon the Muslims – a duty that has been lost for centuries and absent from the reality of the world and so many Muslims were ignorant of it.” Baghdadi concludes, “The Muslims sin by losing it, and they must always seek to establish it, and they have done so, and all praise is due to Allah.”
The Islamic State has earned a bloody reputation in Iraq and Syria because the organization is frequently at odds with other jihadist groups, even those that are supposedly its ideological kinsmen. This has opened up Baghdadi and the Islamic State to the charge that declaring the caliphate was merely a self-serving attempt at a power grab.
Baghdadi responds, without recognizing his critics, by portraying himself as a humble servant. “I have been plagued with this great matter, plagued with this responsibility, and it is a heavy responsibility,” Baghdadi says, according to SITE. “I was placed as your caretaker, and I am not better than you. So if you found me to be right then help me, and if you found me to be wrong then advise me and make me right and obey me in what I obey Allah through you.”
The Islamic State’s jihadist critics will surely scoff at Baghdadi’s claims. As the infighting between groups has raged in Syria, the Islamic State has refused various peace entreaties from some of the most widely-respected jihadist ideologues. He has shown no desire to be advised by anyone outside of his most trusted inner circle.
The video sends other signals to would-be supporters as well. Baghdadi is secure enough in Mosul, which was seized by a coalition of his forces and its Iraqi allies last month, that he can record a lengthy sermon without fear of being struck down by his enemies. And because he is shown leading prayers, Baghdadi is hoping to convince his audience that he has the proper religious credentials to be a legitimate leader.
The future is, of course, uncertain. It is unknown if the Islamic State will be successful in ruling over its newly-acquired territory, or if it will falter.
But if the group holds onto the fruits of its land grab, then the world has just been given its first look at an aspiring dictator.
12 Comments
Question. So isis has declared a Caliphate, have media outlets translated this to Islamic State? Or is the system of government a so called Caliphate with its name being the Islamic State?
“aspiring dictator”? bit of a leap there
My observations of this video:
1. Baghdadi kooks very much like a Greek Orthodox Christian priest with the black outfit and big beard.
2. Baghdadi seems very stiff when speaking, as if he has some injuries on his body.
3. Baghdadi doesn’t seem to bother enforcing men to have beards, unlike the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Reuters article today (Title: Iraq says footage purporting to show Islamic State leader is false) says Iraq’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Saad Maan, denies it’s al Baghdadi. They say they injured Baghdadi in an airstrike, and he was in Syria for medical care.
Do we know which is true yet?
It is amazing we can not eliminate a 20-40 car armada carrying “Smilin” Ibrahim in the middle of the day in Mosul! Obviously, we (defined as our government) think that this psychotic is not a real issue.
Do the LWJ followers here think the internal contradictions among Jihadists, Baathists and disgruntled Anbar Sunni’s and Tribes mean the Caliphate falls apart before it becomes an international threat, or is the threat already here (and growing)?
Just curious how the “let Allah sort them out” strategy flies here.
Come on, is it not clear that all these so called Imams’ seek, is to be declared the Hidden One. HUBRIS, is the word that comes to mind.
After killing its cleric.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/08/4223130/un-islamic-state-executed-imam.html
U.N.: Islamic State executed imam of mosque where Baghdadi preached
By the way Nabeel Naim says AQ changed and becamse Takfiri. He has starnge things to say:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39005.htm
My info (mainly open source correlation) is that Iraq 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, and 17 Divisions are ineffective or non-existent. Only 6, 9, 10, 11, and 14 Divs left. 8 Div (Diwaniyah, 200-km south of Baghdad) has disintegrated without a shot being fired – I’m assuming IS/Sunnis did their advance undermining that has been so successful.
Given that Shia militias (main ones are Iran backed and Al-Sadr) are not going to let the US anywhere near their troops, and that the IRG will reform the army along its lines (as they have done in Syria), who exactly is the US going to train and rebuild in Iraq?
Your thoughts? Please email me, I will acknowledge your contribution in orbat.com
sorry – should have clarified I was primarily seeking Bill and Thomas’s comments, but of course anyone is welcome
Mr. Bill Barr
Re your comment
You may be interested to know that a great many 3rd worlders think that is precisely US strategy, aid both Sunnis and Shias to wipe each other out. I have had zero luck trying to convince people US has no such devious strategy re Islam, that it is simply confused as has been the case since 1991. People retort NO ONE can be that stupid. Alas, our ruling elite can.
@Ravi, I’m not certain the “third worlder”s that far off, or –in my more Metternich moods– the strategy not that bad from the US perspective. I grew up among midwest isolationists who thought it would have been wiser to let Stalin and Hitler just slug it out.
Our current Prez a very midwestern sort too.