Graeme WoodReseñas

I was given a copy of this book. It intimidated me with a heavy subject but was a lot lighter to read than expected. Think Jon Ronson's Psychopath Test written from someone with a track record of serious journalism. It didn't exactly make me laugh but as the author gets deeper and deeper into the bizarre beliefs of ISIS recruiters and their teachers, the experience becomes intensely surreal.

He also is stubborn enough to ask awkward questions to Islamic scholars and listens carefully to the answers.

This is a book that many people would benefit from reading. He shows the ways our misperceptions are playing into exactly what these apocalyptic cultists want and how they are on a spectrum of religious beliefs that have already shaped our history.

I’ve been struggling to understand the militant Islamist mindset since 9/11, when supporters of Osama Bin Laden destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon. In time, I learned something about Bin Laden's hatred of America because what he saw as (1) U.S. one-sided support for Israel at the expense of Palestinian concerns; (2) our support of authoritarian regimes in Mid-Eastern countries at the expense of their oppressed Muslim citizens; and (3) our military presence in Saudi Arabia which is contrary to Islamic doctrines.

More recently, with the rise of ISIS, I had to work even harder to begin trying to understand the appeal of the Islamic State. Graeme Wood's book "The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State", helped a lot. It may be that "The Way of the Strangers" would have been the only book I needed to gain an understanding of ISIS, but it's also probable that previous readings helped provide additional background which helped make Wood's book so insightful. These previous books, such as Jihad Academy, by Nicolas Henin; Black Flags, by Joby Warrick; and ISIS: The State of Terror, by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger. certainly helped by providing key information and background.

In this book, Graeme Wood shares his understanding of ISIS as obtained by his detailed studies of their statements, as well as insights he gained by his travels through Muslim Countries, and finally through his interviews with a variety of Muslim scholars and leaders. He really did his homework, and instead of simply observing or reading about the reports from the Islamic State, he met with and discussed the workings of ISIS with knowledgeable Muslim leaders. Thus, he was able to provide new insights into ISIS ideology, and the intentions of the new Caliphate. He manages to tell us how ISIS justifies their horrific violence against non-believers, whether Westerners, Christians, or even some Muslim sects as well. Their beliefs are justifiable (to them), and are based on original teachings of Muhammad, as they understand them, reflecting a medieval era of jihad when Islam was being spread by the sword.

ISIS leaders and fighters are throwbacks to early Islam, following past practices such as slavery and beheadings, as found in the original teachings of Islam from periods of war over a thousand years earlier. Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, preaches the importance of establishing the Caliphate, and how it's the duty of all Muslims to swear allegiance to the Caliphate, become members, and follow the examples of Muhammad. Those who do join the Caliphate, and strictly follow the teachings of ISIS, may find a social welfare system in place which works for them. Those who fail to follow the rules may find themselves subject to medieval style punishments such as amputations, beatings, stoning, crucifixion, or beheadings.

Wood also points out that if ISIS is to be defeated, those fighting against it must gain a better understanding of their beliefs and intentions. Since they follow strict interpretations of the Quran and Hadith, knowing that should be helpful in understanding what may work in fighting them, and what is likely to fail. Since end-of-time prophecies predict a great war between Islam and the non-believers, making a great war happen by putting troops on the ground against them only fulfills their dogma and may bring in more supporters. And should they lose that great war, it's not likely to diminish their appeal, since prophecies also discuss losing battles before the ultimate victory. Thus, slowly bleeding ISIS over time may be the better choice, discrediting the leaders, bringing dissatisfaction to the followers, and gradually causing the Caliphate to lose ground, and therefore lose legitimacy.

I learned more about ISIS and radical Islam from this one book than I could have learned from decades of wall-to-wall "news" coverage on the topic.

Solid overview of IS from the perspectives of multiple strains of Islamic Jihadist thought by a former logistics contractor in Iraq who later became a journalist. Makes a compelling case that Islamic State is Islamic, if maybe not a State.

Since it was largely interviews with fairly idiosyncratic guys, someone without a reasonable degree of familiarity with the sects and movements within Islam might find it a bit hard to follow; a more structured overview of the topic would be a better introduction.

"The Way of the Strangers" isn't a complete history of ISIS, nor does it present a comprehensive theory of why it came to be. But it is a remarkable feat of reportage that provides real insight as to why people living comfortable lives in the West might be drawn to join what was perhaps the most bloodthirsty organization since the Khmer Rouge. Graeme Wood wisely chooses to stay out of Syria and limits his scope to Westerners who either left their homes to join ISIS or supported it from afar. Most of them are enormously unpleasant characters, but, to Wood's credit, he really got to know them, spending a considerable amount of time with them, researching their personal histories, and, perhaps most importantly, making a real effort to understand their motivations. ISIS might meet every definition of "evil" in common use, but he doesn't want to reduce these people to monsters are cartoons. His description of their lives, their behaviors, and their reasoning remarkably acute and observant: Wood's obviously got a reporter's eye of the first order. His research on the theological roots of ISIS is also extremely commendable: Wood digs through centuries of Islamic scholarship to focus on the thinkers and beliefs that provided the theological foundation for the Islamic State. I found a lot of this to be extremely enlightening and, given that it's a difficult subject that will probably be unfamiliar to most of Wood's audience, it's expressed clearly and cogently. "The Way of the Strangers" presents, among many other things, a good picture of the intellectual preoccupations that have driven Islam since its founding. As sort of a bonus, its last chapter includes a description on Islamic eschatology, which is as wild, or wilder, than what you can find in the Revelation of John. Hoo boy, you won't believe the role that Jesus is supposed to do play right before the world ends.

What might put some readers off about "The Way of the Strangers" is the fact that it doesn't really pretend to be an impartial account. Wood has two important points to make: the first is that the Islamic State envisioned ISIS supporters he interviewed seemed to reflect the failures of the societies to which they already belonged. The second is that more mainline Islamic authorities have done an unsatisfactory job of answering ISIS -- and Islamic fundamentalism in general -- at a theological level. Wood argues that ISIS reflects Islam's earliest roots as a desert religion bent on conquest and moral purity. In his view, it's atavistic, perhaps, but hardly un-Islamic. He charges that many of Islam's spokespeople have whitewashed their religion's most unsavory precepts and its rather violent beginnings both for the benefit of their followers, most of whom would rather not live under ISIS's governance, and for Westerners who are pointedly nervous about the Muslims who live among them. It's an important and interesting argument, and Wood makes it well, but he makes it so often that "The Way of the Strangers" might be called a polemic rather than a merely informative account. That's not necessarily a problem, of course, but readers will have to draw their own conclusions there. Otherwise, this is a highly recommendable, highly readable account of people whose spiritual or emotional yearnings have taken them seriously astray.½

What is driving ISIS? And, more specifically, what is driving converts to join the movement? These are the questions explored by Gareme Wood in this book. The author interviews ISIS supporters from the U.S. and Australia, London and Japan. He tries to find out what the believe and how they think. It's scary reading. These are truly religious fundamentalists, motivated by gains in the afterlife. It is hard to understand how they can be defeated as setbacks only make the struggle more potentially rewarding. They believe Islam will split into 73 factions, and 72 of them are facing eternal damnation; you cannot negotiate peace with people who believe they are the only ones who are following God's word.

I found the early part of the book hard to understand -- I'm not used to Arabic names or language -- but once I got into the style of the book, I was very intrigued.½

Author Graeme Wood is primarily a journalist (although he’s done some teaching in the political science department at Yale); thus this book approaches the Islamic State using primarily journalistic methods – first person interviews. Further, most of Wood’s interviewees are Muslim converts and all live outside the Islamic State area; when one asks why Wood doesn’t go to the Islamic State and see how things are in person, he replies “Because I’m afraid I would be enslaved or beheaded”, which strikes me as a reasonable excuse.

Wood does do some explication of Islamic history and theology – perhaps not quite enough, as he seems to assume his readers are familiar with the basic tenets of Islam and some of the finer points of Islamic law – the difference between something from a hadith and something from the Koran. There are numerous transliterations from Arabic, which really can’t be helped given the material – a single Arabic word can be used to summarize something that would take a whole English sentence to explain. (Interestingly enough, Wood notes that the IS does the same thing in their English language publications, apparently with the hope that the reader will gradually be converted to Islam by such exposure). One such key transliteration is takfir – accusing another Muslim of disbelief. There’s a hadith that explains the problem (paraphrasing): “If one Muslim accuses another of disbelief, then one of them is not a Muslim” – i.e., takfir is dangerous to the accuser if they’re wrong. This explains the superficially puzzling tendency of “moderate” Muslims to refrain from criticizing the IS, regardless of whatever atrocity is on YouTube today. The IS, on the other hand, is fully confident of the correctness of their religious interpretation and has no problem at all accusing other Muslims of takfir; the disbelievers include all Shiites, and any Sunnis not fully committed to IS – including the Taliban, Al Qaida, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the government of any nominally Muslim state, etc. In fact, Wood points out that in theory you are better off being an infidel or a “person of the book” than a Muslim who disagrees with IS; in the first case you have a chance to be merely enslaved or subject to the jizya but in the second you’re an apostate and deserve death (Wood does stress that this is theory and what IS actually practices may be different).

And death is what IS is all about. In their interpretation of Islam, you are not assured of salvation and the houris until the moment of death; if you make a mistake and have a BLT just before getting hit by a drone strike, it’s off to Jahannam for you, regardless of your piety for the rest of your life. One way to avoid this problem is martyrdom; you affirm the unity of God just before setting off your bomb vest and you’re home free. Paradoxically, another way is to be executed; repentance gets you credit. Wood notes a rather creepy hadith illustrating this situation (and making an interesting contrast to Jesus’ reaction to the woman taken in adultery). A woman approached the Prophet, said she was a fornicator, and requested punishment. He tried to dissuade her but she was persistent. Finally he told her to come to him again when her child was weaned. She did so and was duly stoned to death; however the Prophet remonstrated with one of the stoners who was insulting her, noting that the woman had made a great repentance. Wood also claims that this explains why many of the victims in IS videos seem to be cooperating or even rejoicing over their fate, just before they are beheaded or thrown off a building or burned alive or chopped up with an antiaircraft gun or hanged from a construction crane or (well, it’s pointless to go on – google “ISIS executions” if you’re morbidly curious) – they’ve repented and are now assured of salvation since there won’t be any possibility of backsliding.

Wood is pretty hard on Western commenters (he explicitly cites the New York Times) that try to explain IS as some sort of national liberation movement and therefore “not really Muslim” rather than what they actually are – religious fundamentalists that make the Westboro Baptist Church look like Unitarians. He tries a couple of analogies, neither of which work very well: one is it’s as if people who had never read anything by Lenin or heard of Stalin were claiming that the former Soviet Union was “not really Marxist”; the other is comparing IS to a “strict constructionist” who only accepts the 1789 version of the Constitution, without the Bill of Rights or any of the subsequent amendments or court interpretations.

Wood’s interview subjects are an interesting lot; one of his theses is that each of them sees IS through the lens of their own political views. For example, Yahya Abu Hassan, a person Wood spent considerable time tracking down, espouses a sort of libertarian Muslim legal tradition called Dhahirism. The example Wood uses of Dhahiri thinking is a hadith saying “If a dog licks your bowl you should wash it seven times”. Other Muslim legal traditions expand this into a general condemnation of dogs as unclean animals; i.e. they are not allowed as pets, if a dog licks you, you’re ritually unclean for prayers, etc. Dhahiris say that if a dog licks your bowl, you should wash it seven times but otherwise dogs are OK – i.e., anything that is not explicitly prohibited by the Koran or hadith is allowed and you shouldn’t overthink the text. Yahya Abu Hassan turned up on many Islamic internet sites and was frequently cited by other Wood correspondents as an authority on IS; he eventually turned out to be John Georgelas, son of a retired US Army officer and born in Plano, Texas. Wood attributes Abu Hassan’s religious theories to a libertarian upbringing; Wood notes parenthetically that Abu Hassan’s spent considerable online and publication effort arguing that marijuana is not an “intoxicant” and therefore not prohibited to Muslims.

A counterpoint to Yahya Abu Hassan is Anjem Choudary, of Pakistani ancestry and now living in the UK. Choudary. Choudary sees IS as a welfare state where everything the believer needs is taken care of; Wood notes that this may be a reflection of Choudary’s life in London, where he reportedly collected ₤25000/yr in welfare benefits – before he was sentenced to prison for complicacy in the 2005 London bombings. Choudary has attracted quite a following – who Wood calls “Chouderheads”; Wood also notes that Choudary is a frequent television guest, where he adopts a “clownish, weird-beard” personality that is inconsistent with his more serious and therefore more frightening behavior in a personal meeting with Wood.

Wood has several other subjects; an Egyptian tailor who lived in New York and made suits for Paul Newman; an Australian of Italian ancestry who wants to convert part of the Philippines to a caliphate, a Japanese who converted to Islam, and American convert to Sufism (who is under an explicit death sentence by IS for apostasy) and an American “moderate” Muslim (who’s also under an IS death sentence) who blames IS on – George Bush. Their stories are all interesting but I would have preferred more analysis and less anecdote; however this does illustrate the wide variety people who find some sort of appeal in IS.

Wood discusses a couple of things I didn’t know anything about; there’s sort of a Muslim Purgatory – “The Punishment of the Grave” – where the souls of the unrighteous have various unpleasant things happen to them while the souls of the righteous are shown their place in Paradise (you don’t actually get to Paradise – unless you are a martyr – or Hell until the Day of Judgement, but apparently you get to read the brochures). There was also considerable explication of the Muslim Apocalypse, where there are various battles with the infidels, the Antichrist (who is currently imprisoned on an island in the Red Sea), and Gog and Magog (who are subterranean-dwelling subhumans rather than individuals, and are imprisoned inside a mountain in Central Asia). The Muslims will be reduced to a tiny holdout taking refuge in Jerusalem until Jesus returns to lead them to victory. In a strange resonance with Christian apocalyptic groups, Muslim fundamentalists keep finding signs in current events indicating the imminence of the Apocalypse, and as Wood notes are not discouraged when prophecies fail to fulfill (Wood comments that this is a general characteristic of apocalyptic groups).

Wood’s a good writer with a dry sense of humor. No illustrations except a Venn diagram in the front matter showing the attitude of IS toward various other groups. Good and useful endnotes but no bibliography (although most references can be picked up from the text or notes). The index seems sparse but I didn’t have any trouble locating things I was looking for. Recommended.

Can be considered an update of earlier work on Al Qaeda by Scott Atran, which ends in 2010. Wood gets us through October 2016, and focuses on the Al Qaeda successor ISIS. Although Atran writes as an ethnographic anthropologist, and Wood as a journalist, both favor in-depth descriptions of specific individuals and their stories.

Wood has a definite position (as contrasted with the more distanced, less judgmental Atran), but his subjects seem to tolerate his slightly condescending reaction to what he is hearing. The background is good, and provides a helpful context to what one hears on the news.

In a sense, he does here for ISIS what Ruth Benedict did for the Japanese during WWII in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Even when locked in opposition, nothing is served by dehumanizing and dismissing the arguments and beliefs of opponents; lasting resolution comes only from first understanding the conflict from the perspective of the adversary.

Compelling non-fiction, driven by two deeply reported relationships and one good piece of detective work, although of course there is more here. Enlivened throughout by Wood's gallows humor.

So the young lovers blissed out under the Texas sky, shrooming after the example of the prophet himself.