... Muslims Are Joining the Islamic State Barbara Franz “I ignite the bomb in the center of the crowd,” announces the German jihad- ist and former rapper Denis Cuspert in his song “Abu al Amlani” (I’m wait- ing for death). Cuspert, alias Deso Dogg, now calls himself Abu Talha al-­ Alman...

... and not a Western analysis of that perspective—is a sine qua non to understanding what happened and how to begin to formulate policies and actions to deal with the new reality. The Islamic State has become the champion of disaffected Sunni Muslim youth building on those perceptions, and the West underestimates...

...Lukáš Tichý This essay focuses on the global terrorist and militant group the Islamic State (IS), specifically on its use of terrorism targeting the energy sector as a strategic political instrument in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2014–16. The essay has two main thrusts. First...

...Robert J. Pranger Kemal H. Karpat: The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State . New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 533 pages. ISBN 0-19-513618-7.$50.00. Robert J. Pranger is a private consultant specializing...

...Anthony N. Celso This essay studies the rise, decline, and rebirth of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its transformation into the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It first examines AQI’s distinctive vision and its defiance of al Qaeda central. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s anti-Shiite jihadist...

...J. S. Krasna Reports of the demise of the Arab state have been exaggerated, despite claims that the postcolonial, state-based paradigm is collapsing under the pressure of “people power,” the resurgence of premodern loyalties, and the rise of nonstate actors. Even Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic...

...Evaghoras L. Evaghorou In recent years, the eastern Mediterranean has been characterized by instability and intense competition among states and nonstate actors. This is mainly because of the Syrian crisis, the terrorist activity of the Islamic State in Syria, the competition over energy sources...

... in the Syrian conflict. However, there was a visible shift in public opinion after the involvement in Syria started to be framed as a fight against terrorism, mostly referring to the so-called Islamic State and, in Turkey’s case, Kurdish groups. Turkey formation of foreign policy Syria Islamic State...

... non-oil-producing states struggled to provide better living conditions to their populations. Meanwhile, the war in Syria continued, the Islamic State (ISIS) was extending its efforts to establish a caliphate, and a massive influx of refugees was reaching Central Europe seeking asylum. In this context...

...Spyridon Plakoudas By June 2016, the Kurds of Syria (just 12 percent of the country's total population) controlled almost all of the 822-kilometer Turkish-Syrian border and advanced against Manbij and Raqqa — the Islamic State's resupply center and capital, respectively. How did the Syrian Kurds...

... terrorists and Islamic Union forces.3 US Special Operations troops from Task Force 88 were reportedly deployed to Ethiopia and entered Somalia. Moreover, the United States reportedly shared intelli- gence with the Ethiopian military and used an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia to launch attacks inside...

... to safeguard the interests and well-being of Muslim minorities in nonmember states led to the formation of the Department of Muslim Minority Affairs in 1978.1 This however, was not complemented by the OIC initiating a similar move toward the welfare of the non-Muslim minorities living in the Islamic...

... Taymiyyah, who posited that the Alawis were not real Muslims, the Brotherhood was eager to present the Baathist state as an anti-­Islamic apostate regime. Assad’s early efforts at constitutional reform — notably that the country’s president need not be a Muslim — sparked widespread protests...

.... Almost all recent attacks in Turkey have been blamed on either the Islamic State in Syria or the Kurdistan Workers Party. In addi- tion, the failed military coup in July 2016, which led to a clampdown on civil 1. World Bank, “World Development Indicators: Turkey,” World Bank, Washington, DC...

... cases, Islamists were seeking to set up a new kind of state—the Islamic state—in order to give the Algerian and Sudanese people respectively a sense of “national” pride and identity after years of misgovernment and high levels of corruption in public administration...

... by the so-­called Arab Spring (started in Tunisia at the end of 2010), which entailed overturn- ing several authoritarian regimes that for a long time had been EU part- ners, the rise of Islamic terrorism (since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, or 9/11), and the emergence...

... will disguise themselves as refugees to gain access to Europe. The Islamic State has already claimed that it has sent more than four thousand fighters into Europe.3 In addition, two of the per- petrators of the November 2015 attacks in France were identified as asylum seekers from Syria.4 On the other...

...Constantine A. Pagedas Copyright 2015 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2015 From the Editor As fighting continues in the eastern part of Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea; as violence between Israel and Gaza has reached new heights; as the self-­declared Islamic State...

... Mediterranean Quarterly focus on this issue from various perspectives. Barbara Franz, professor of political science at Rider University, takes on this issue head-­on with her essay “Popjihadism: Why Young European Muslims Are Joining the Islamic State.” She examines in detail the factors that exist...

..., it is worth noting that the Islamic Declaration is not a clarion call for a strict fundamentalist Islamic state à la the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But that does not mean that Izetbegovic was champi- oning Western liberal democracy. For example, rather than a strict theocracy, Izetbegovic...