By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 6, 2014

The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech on 30 September 2013, entitled, “Lak Allah Ayatuha al-Dawla al-Mazluma” (لك الله أيتها الدولة المظلومة), roughly: “God Is With You, O’ Oppressed State” (The English translation released by Fursan al-Balagh Media gives the title as, “May Allah Be With You, O’ Oppressed State”.) The speech is primarily a ferocious attack on the Syrian rebel groups, accusing them of being part of a Western-led conspiracy, which includes the media stations of Arab governments and their “mouthpieces” throughout the region, to manipulate the coverage of ISIS such that it blackens their name and turns Muslims away from them.

In terms of the context in which the speech was made: it was at an important—and ambiguous time—in Syria. It was made after ISIS had publicly announced its presence in Syria in April 2013, and that Jabhat al-Nusra was really its front group. Al-Nusra had immediately objected to this hostile takeover and called Al-Qaeda in as arbitrator. In June 2013, Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had ruled in Al-Nusra’s favour, telling ISIS to return to Iraq and leave Al-Nusra as the Qaeda franchise in Syria. Al-Zawahiri had been defied by ISIS—first rather politely by the ISIS emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and subsequently much less politely by Adnani.

By the time of the speech, clashes had begun between the rebellion and ISIS, but it was before the rebels launched a full-scale anti-ISIS offensive in January 2014, particularly around Aleppo. [UPDATE: It turns out that early in this campaign, the rebels killed Baghdadi’s deputy, Samir al-Khlifawi (Haji Bakr), a former intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein’s regime, who had been responsible for displacing the rebels in the liberated areas and replacing them with the structures of ISIS’s nascent police state.] It was also before Al-Qaeda expelled ISIS from its ranks in early February 2014, resolving once and for all the questions about the relationship between ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which had been ambiguous since Al-Qaeda was formally dissolved in Iraq in 2006 and “the State” declared.

Of the rebel groups that are lambasted, Adnani singles out by name Ahfad al-Rasul (Grandsons of the Prophet), Asifat al-Shamal (Northern Storm), Hilf al-Fudul (League of the Righteous), and Alwiya al-Nasr (Victory Brigades). All are said to have demonstrated their “apostasy”—some more obviously than others: Northern Storm brought U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Az.) into northern Syria in May 2013, about four months before this speech, and this is more than enough proof for ISIS that the group is conspiring with the Americans against the jihadists. Ahfad is said to be colluding with the French in the same purpose, though Ahfad had already largely lost its footing around Raqqa to ISIS by the time of this speech.

The rebel groups are all accused of general corruption, abuse, and un-Islamic conduct—while ISIS flatly denies ever initiating hostilities with any of them. By Adnani’s account, ISIS has been the picture of tolerance, even when facing these groups that have transgressed the faith and conspired with “Crusaders” against them—still, says Adnani, ISIS only attacks them in self-defence.

In terms of Adnani’s complaints about the media coverage of ISIS, he is annoyed that ISIS’s “achievements”—like the massive Taji and Abu Ghraib jail breaks in Iraq that had taken place just two months before this speech, in July 2013, the culmination of the BREAKING THE WALLS campaign, had not been given the extent of the coverage they deserved, nor received the praise that was their due. Likewise, the ISIS operations against the Bashar al-Assad regime around Hama were totally ignored, in Adnani’s telling. Yet, when ISIS “allows” rebels to participate in its operations, notably at the Mannagh Airbase in Aleppo a month before the speech, the coverage credits the rebels and writes ISIS out of the story, Adnani complains.

A number of smaller points are raised in the speech that are noteworthy:

• The section that gives the title to this speech involves Adnani complaining that the Arab news channels and commentators are fairer to Iranians and Shi’is than they are to ISIS.
• Adnani claims ISIS has recovered significant popular support among Sunni Arabs in Iraq, and there is other evidence—albeit fragmentary and contested—suggesting he is right.
• ISIS is evidently very sensitive about the claims it is using takfir (excommunication) extensively, even against whole populations. Adnani insists that ISIS only makes takfir on someone when there is rigorous proof and that ISIS polices its own extremists intensively: those ISIS members who are found using too loose a definition of takfir are first given a talking to and told to, as it were, educate themselves. If they desist from their over-enthusiasm, they remain in the ranks; if not, they are expelled, according to Adnani, who says this has happened with some number of jihadists, both locals and foreign fighters.
• Another matter that ISIS is clearly touchy about is that it is building its Islamic state in Syria on territories liberated from regime control by the secular and nationalist groups that ISIS was so obviously, even in September 2013, on a collision course with. The strategic fact that ISIS is focused on displacing the rebels, while leaving the Assad regime alone—and having the favour returned: the regime is selectively attacking the rebels, rather than ISIS, too—has led to many accusations that ISIS and Assad are working together against the rebellion. Added to that, on several occasions, ISIS has attacked the rebels from the rear as they appear to be making gains on one of the fronts. Adnani returns the accusation, saying that it is the rebels that have attacked ISIS during military advances, including one that got near to the heartland of the Assad regime on the Syrian coast. It is partly to refute this accusation that ISIS is colluding with the regime—an accusation Adnani is studious never to mention directly—that Adnani lays so much emphasis on the claim that ISIS has never initiated hostilities against rebel groups, and the claim that the only faction in Syria that ISIS has wilfully set out to combat is the Assad regime.
• Adnani concludes on a theological note, that the believers will have to go through a period of trial and testing in order to weed out the hypocrites and others whose faith is insufficient before Islam can be triumphant. [UPDATE: In this, Adnani was continuing a message set down by ISIS’s proto-caliph, Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), in his speeches in 2007 and 2008, when ISIS was at its lowest ebb—yet keep the faith they did, and revival followed, a seeming vindication for the group’s operatives.]

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In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. All praise belongs to God, the Owner of Power, the Most Strong. Peace and prayers be upon He who was sent the sword and mercy to the worlds.

As for what follows:

God said: “And [those] who were deemed weak will say to [those] who were proud, ‘No! It was your scheming night and day, when you commanded us to disbelieve in God and set up rivals to Him.’ They will be filled with remorse as soon as they behold their doom. And We will put iron collars [or shackles] around the necks of the disbelievers. Why should they be rewarded, except for what they have done?” [Qur’an 34:33]

Today, the infidel West [al-gharb al-kafir] is waging a relentless media campaign against the mujahideen of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [Al-Sham], and has harnessed for this program all the [television] channels of the tawaghit [unjust rulers[1], i.e., the West’s Middle East allies] and the mouthpieces of disbelief everywhere. They scheme against the mujahideen and the Muslims day and night.

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The conspicuous forms of this malignant campaign are:

First: Accusing the Islamic State of bombing mosques in Iraqi Sunni regions.

An example of that: an ordinary oppressed Muslim from Samarra was arrested and lynched in the street, with claims that he was one of the State’s solders who bombed the Musab ibn Umayr mosque.

But—by the grace of God—these accusations and slanders no longer fool the Sunni people of Iraq because they now know the real methodology [manhaj] of the State, and that we are innocent of [the charges of] targeting Muslims or shedding their blood. We never target Muslims or bomb their mosques or markets anywhere. This is done by the Rawafid [derogatory term for Shi’is], in coordination and under the supervision of spiteful Safawi [Iranian] security services, and with support from their infidel backers. This campaign will not affect the State, God willing, in Iraq, because the truth is now clear for ordinary Muslims. They know the truth of the Rawafid and the war against them; they are able to distinguish between the mujahideen and the devious ones who trade on the name of jihad, and [this is why] the tribes have started to once again to support and accommodate the mujahideen. All enemy’s tools failed to break apart the mujahideen and ordinary Muslims, and failed to isolate and discredit them. All of their strategies to cajole and intimidate [Iraqi Sunni Muslims into opposing ISIS]—from providing money to buy loyalty, to tempting them with [government] positions, salaries, and false promises, and arresting, killing, displacing, threatening, plundering, and various methods of oppression and terrorism—have failed.

The support of Sunni people for the mujahideen in Iraq is obvious to anyone observing Iraqi scene, and a good piece of evidence for that is the continuous escalation [of ISIS’s operations], because the escalation could not happen unless Muslims’ houses were open for the mujahideen.

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The second form this campaign takes is reticence [in broadcasting] about the State’s battles, activities, and achievements.

An example of that in Iraq: the media coverage of the Taji and Abu Ghraib prison breaks was minimal and grudging, despite it being a unique battle, one of the largest and most complicated operations, in which a lot of prisoners were freed. Imagine the amount of propaganda there would be if another party freed a captive here or there.

An example of this reticence in Syria: if the State conducts an operation and allows another faction to participate, the media will ascribe this operation to that faction without ever mentioning the State’s name. This was the case in ascribing the [early August 2013] liberation of the Mannagh airport in the countryside of Aleppo [Halab] to the Free [Syrian] Army [Jaysh al-Hurr], although the preparation, planning, and execution of the operation were done by the State, with limited participation from some of Free Army soldiers. The media never mentioned the name of the State—until the spokesman for the secularists’ Hay’at al-Arkan [General Staff, i.e. Abdul Jabbar al-Akidi] showed up from his base in the hotels [in Turkey] to adopt the operation [for the FSA] with total insolence!

If an operation is done solely by the State, then it will not be mentioned at all. An example of that: the Islamic State campaign in eastern countryside of Hama. Several villages were freed, several Nusayri [or Alawi, i.e. Assad regime] checkpoints were smashed, a number of large military sites were stormed, and weapons depots were seized as spoils [ghanima]. These sites are known as “Der’ Hama” [the Hama Shield]. This operation was not mentioned, despite it being a large battle and it breaking the back of the Nusayris in Hama.

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Third: Whenever there is any problem with the State, the media will publish it immediately, even before the State’s leaders know about it, and they dramatise and exaggerate what happened. It will be the focus of the media for several days, no matter how small the incident was, or if it only lasted a few hours; they will never let it go, and will keep mentioning it every chance they get. Meanwhile, the [rebel] factions, battalions, and brigades fight [each other] for days and it never gets mentioned, and nobody knows about it, despite the deaths and injuries.

If we were to make a comparison between the number of the problems or instances of fighting that occur between the State and other parties, and the number of the such instances between one [rebel] entity [kiyan] and another [such] entity, everybody would be surprised, because the number of problems and cases of fighting between the State and the factions is much lower than the [rebel-on-rebel fighting] cases. We have the evidence and proofs for this.

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Fourth: Reversing facts and launching false accusations, such as claiming that the State is languishing in the liberated areas, and stabbing the Free Army in the back to stop it advancing on the fronts. The truth is the reverse.

An example of that is what was done by those who are known as “Al-Wiat Ahfad al-Rasul” [Grandsons of the Prophet Brigades], when they opened a front against us in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor on the day when the Islamic State forces were advancing in the countryside of Latakia, and had reached the outskirts of Qardaha, the birthplace of the Nusayris [i.e., the Assad family].

Another example is what was done by those known as “Liwa Asifat al-Shamal” [Northern Storm Brigade] in Azaz city: they opened a front in the northern countryside of Aleppo, after the State’s forces advanced in the countryside of Hama and destroyed the Nusayris’ defences there.

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Fifth: Accusing the Islamic State of refusing to recognize anybody else [as legitimate] and wanting to exclude everybody else. Again, this is the opposite of the truth. Those who aspire to exclude the State are numerous! With some, and this is because of defects in their methodology or doctrine [aqeeda, lit. “creed”], or they are hungry for supremacy and the ruin of the world. There is a third category:

[Poetry] They envied the young man because they did not have his desire / So the people became his enemies and foes / Like the maidens of a beautiful woman, who would say to her face / Out of envy and wickedness: he is reprehensible [End Poetry]

Let everyone know: By God, we do not want to exclude anyone. Whoever wonders why we have moved away from many of the factions [should know] that is because the truth every day takes a friend from us [i.e., reveals how bad rebel groups are]. However, anyone who takes a step towards us, we will run towards them then, and anyone who extends their hand to us, we will open our arms to them.

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Sixth: The infidels have bet that they can fight the State through its defectors, who have painted a picture wherein there is fighting taking place [within ISIS] and blood is flowing, while [in fact] there has not been a single drop of blood spilled—by the grace of God—despite the [possible] reasons for fighting being present. This has enraged the infidels and proven for everybody that all accusations they make against the State are invalid, whether it is [supposedly] fighting and killing anyone who opposes it, breaking its pledge of allegiance [(bay’a) to Al-Qaeda], or have strayed from the path of obedience.

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Seventh: They depict to people, as they have done for some time, a situation in which the State sheds the blood of Muslims, and is wantonly cutting off heads, flogging backs, and flaying skins—and that this is a repeat of what it did Iraq, now being brought to Syria, the same failed strategy that provoked the formation of the Awakening [Sahwa] and caused most of the [Iraqi insurgent] factions to turn against it. Glory be to God! When it comes to these accusations, we have answered them all before.

As far as the accusations surrounding our fighting with the brigades and battalions [liwa wal-kataib] from among the armed factions known as “Ahfad al-Rasul”, “Asifat al-Shamal” and “Hilf al-Fudul” [League/Alliance of the Righteous]: We swear by God that we did not attack any of them. We never initiated hostilities with a single one of them. We were tolerant of them and others, and we still are, even though they are collaborating with the Crusaders and have signed-up with them to fight us—something we have conclusive evidence of—and in spite of all their provocations against the mujahideen and all their transgressions against the deen [faith, Islam] and the Muslims.

As for those known as “Al-Wiat Ahfad al-Rasul” [Grandsons of the Prophet Brigades]: their evil is not hidden from the Muslims. Even the common people call them “Ahfad al-Rayis” [Grandsons of the President (Assad)]. Their commander visited France, and returned with an agreement, a plan, financial support, and weapons to fight the Islamic State in particular and the mujahideen in general. This started in Raqqa—since it is one of the strongholds of the State—where they did their best to provoke the State’s soldiers and push them to [appear to] begin the fighting.

[The provocations by Ahfad al-Rasul included:]

• insulting the Lord Almighty in public and through the radio devices;
• mocking the deen;
• forcing people to do evil [or “abominations” or “vices”: al-munkirat], like arresting a Muslim and forcing him to drink alcohol; and
• assaulting the soldiers of the State several times, and firing at them and wounding them.

Despite of all that we were tolerant and patient towards them. They mistook our forbearance for weakness and our patience for inability, so they killed two of our soldiers and wounded and captured three others, beginning to fight us and declaring their war against us, but God turned their plot against them. The soldiers of the Islamic State repelled their evil design and responded to their transgression by cleansing them from the land of Raqqa. We are still tolerant towards them in other areas. May they turn away from their sins.

As for those known as “Asifat al-Shamal”: everyone also knows about their wickedness and evil [su’hum wa-sharaham]. Everyone knows they received the American pig John McCain and agreed with him to fight the State and make war against the mujahideen, just as they smuggled the Nusayri tanks that had been used to shell the Muslims out of Mannagh airport on the day the State’s soldiers stormed it, and their recent desperate defence of a Crusader spy [a German doctor]—beginning a fight with us over him after the State’s soldiers arrested him because they caught him using his camera to photograph the headquarters of the State and its other positions, and speaking about an American strike!

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This ferocious media campaign against the State has a number of malicious [or malignant: khabiytha] goals:

1. Throwing out false accusations against the State to separate it from the Muslims and incite them against it, and to tarnish its image and reputation abroad so as to sever its connections, supplies, and support from the umma [global Islamic community].
2. Causing fitna [discord, strife] between the State and the armed [rebel] factions [in Syria], especially the Free Army factions.
3. Working to belittle the Islamic State and its strength and influence on the ground by ignoring and concealing its work and activities, and by highlighting some of the factions and exaggerating their size and magnifying them in the media, to make appear as equals to the State.
4. Causing a rift and breach between the foreign fighters [muhajirun] and local fighters [ansar, lit. “partisans”], and portraying the muhajirun as alien saboteurs and havoc-wreakers.[2]
5. The most insidious goal of this campaign is to prepare the Muslims for the launching of a war against the mujahideen. The frequent accusations against the mujahideen in general and the Islamic State in particular, and the constant portrayals of them as deviant, corrupt and criminal on all the [television] channels and mouthpieces of disbelief are bound to affect souls, decreasing the Muslims’ support for the mujahideen, and paving the way for strikes upon the State and a special Crusade against it—assuming that the mujahideen achieve empowerment [i.e., jihadist governance: tamkeen] and the Crusaders fail to create a Syrian Sahwa in Syria, or [more precisely] to strengthen them, or find a strong proxy from among the apostates to fight for them against the mujahideen.

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Based on the foregoing we say:

Firstly: We have responded and will respond to everything that we are accused of and every fabricated slander against us. So, whoever wants to be just, let him fear God in us, and let him judge us by our statements, publications, and speeches, or let him find shari’a evidence that contradicts our claims, rather than listening to hostile depictions in enemy media, or repeating what he hears from the tawaghit, their mouthpieces, and the testimony of our opponents.

Even the channels of the tawaghit that agitate against the Rawafid by orders from the other tawaghit, and for the sake of their own interests, are fair to the Rafidah—they use evidence from their books, statements, and sources. On the other hand, wild accusations are thrown at the Islamic State [by these channels] without a shred of evidence!

So, let us be fair [in understanding] those who go out every day—on satellite television and the forums, and who issue tweets on social media—sitting in judgment upon us: they consider us mistaken and cast us as criminals when they are far away from events, far away from the truth, and have not heard from the party they are judging?

God is with you, O’ Islamic State! God is with you, O’ oppressed State! The Muslims were fair to their enemies, but—with a few exceptions—they refused to be fair towards you!

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Secondly: We would like to clarify a misconception that has been fostered by this campaign, namely that we say people are unbelievers by default, and that this is [an ideological] innovation [bid’a] by the Kharijites of our time.

The State is innocent of this charge: its doctrine [aqeeda], methodology, and what it believes before God is that the majority of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria are Muslims, and we do make takfir on anyone, except those whose apostasy is proven to us with definitive shari’a evidence.

When we do find State soldiers advocating this bid’a we teach and educate and explain to him; if he doesn’t repeat the offence, we excuse him, but if he will not stop then he will be expelled from our ranks and disowned. We have done this many times with ansar and muhajirun.

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Thirdly: The Islamic State does not fear the wrath of God: it has never concealed the truth, nor has it soft-peddled, what it believes in.

We remind and confirm: we didn’t begin—and we won’t begin—fighting with anyone. We will remain peaceful with those who are peaceful to us, and we will fight those who fights us.

[Poetry] I will return evil to the people of evil and to the peaceful I’m more servile than the earth [End Poetry]

We do not fight even those whose apostasy has been proven, except if they attack us, such as what was done by the leadership of those known as “Hilf al-Fudul”, in Hazan in the Idlib countryside, who signed on with the Crusaders to fight us, shed our blood, mobilised the people against us, and incited them to fight us day and night, while gathering further recruits for this, and claiming that we are the Kharijites!

God knows that the only ones we fought willingly in Syria were the Nusayris. In general, it is wiser to neutralise enemies and reduce the number of fronts [to fight on]; it is foolish to open multiple fronts and fight all people. We grieve that any bullet not fired at the Nusayris has been aimed at anyone other than the Jews or Crusaders. We swear by God that we will not attack anyone unless they attack us.

As for the individual judgments and actions and mistakes: no one can control and totally prevent them in the ranks of a whole army. They existed even in the army of the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him. Whoever proves an injustice against us: here is our money, here are our backs, and here are our necks. We are submissive to the shari’a of God, from the emir of the State to the youngest soldier in the ranks. The channels of communication [to report complaints against ISIS] are open, and [the location of] our headquarters is known.

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Fourthly: We remind all the armed factions in Syria, led by the Free Army factions, that the goal of this heinous media campaign against the Islamic State is to create fitna—to make us fight each other. So be alert and cautious, and beware of believing [what you hear from] these [regional state television] channels and their mouthpieces, and being dragged along behind them.

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Fifthly: America and its allies, after the harsh lessons they received in Afghanistan and Iraq, realised with certainty their inability to directly confront the mujahideen, so they have cast around for agents behind the lines to fight the mujahideen. Obama admitted as much at the last United Nations meeting, demanding the support of factions to stand against the mujahideen, whom he called “extremists”!

America learned its lesson from fighting the mujahideen [in Iraq from 2003 to 2011], and understood that what it spends on the Sahwat and supporting costs a tiny fraction of what a direct confrontation would cost, so it has worked—and is still working relentlessly today—to form a Sahwat and recruit agents [in Syria], by pumping in money and distributing jobs.[3]

You must know, O’ my umma, that what is happening now in Syria is the same as what led to the creation of the Sahwat in Iraq. No sane person can believe that all these [rebel] factions in Syria have gone into battle for the sake of God or to support the oppressed. Rather, among these factions are people who are undoubtedly from the Shabiha of the regime and its supporters, as well weak souls, the ignorant and the deviant, those who are easily seduced [or “tempted”] and deceived. An example of this is those known as “Alwiya al-Nasr” [Victory Brigades] in the city of Al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside, which used chips [tracking devices] for the Nusayri and Iranian warplanes to direct their airstrikes to the headquarters of the mujahideen and to gatherings of Muslims. But God has disgraced [or “shamed”] them and empowered the mujahideen.

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Let everyone know that the mujahideen will be victorious, God willing, and no Sahwat agent or lethal weapons will stand in their way. The ranks should be differentiated, and they won’t be differentiated without fitn [trial, testing, tempting, tribulations]. God Almighty says: “Do men think that they will be left at ease after saying, ‘We believe’, and not be tested? We certainly tested those before them. [This is how] God will know with certainly those who are truthful and those who are liars” [Qur’an 29:2-3].

And the Almighty says: “We alternate the days [of good fortune] among people so that it is evident to God who truly believes, and that He [may] take to Himself the shuhada [witnesses or martyrs[4]] from among you—and God does not love the evildoers[5]—and that He may purge[6] [the community of] those who believe [through trials] and destroy the disbelievers. Do you think that you will enter Paradise[7] without God first proving you did jihad in His cause and remained steadfast?”[8] [Qur’an 3:140-42].

O’ God, whoever wishes evil against Islam and the Muslims, take him [up to heaven, i.e. kill him], as you are the Mighty, the Powerful.

O’ God, whoever fabricates accusations against the mujahideen: expose them before the witnesses [al-ashhad], silence their tongues, and let their plotting turn back on them and their scheming lead to their destruction.

O’ God, who unlawfully sheds blood: cut off his hand, break his back, and make him an example for others who are considering such crimes.

La ilaha illa anta subhanaka [there is no God except You, glory be to You]: you know the corrupter from the reformer. La ilaha illa anta subhanaka: nothing is hidden from you on earth or in the heavens.

Peace and blessings be upon our Prophet, Muhammad, upon his household, and all the Companions [Sahaba].

Our last prayer is that all praise is due to God, the Lord of the Worlds.

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REFERENCES

[1] “Tawaghit”, plural of “taghut”, is often translated as “tyrant”, and this is not exactly wrong in the sense that it does mean a bad ruler. But the connotations are wrong in a Western sense: when Westerners hear “tyranny”, they assume that what has gone wrong is that “freedom” in a liberal sense has been trampled. But in classical Islam, the opposite of “tyranny” (zulm) was not “freedom”, but “justice” (adl). As used by jihadists, the accusation that a ruler is tyrannical/unjust, summarised in the term “taghut”, is quite specific: it means that the ruler is guilty of shirk (idolatry or polytheism), that he has set up equivalents in worship to God, in this case by using man-made laws when the Law of God (the shari’a) is, by their lights, the only acceptable legal code.

[2] The exact phrase used is “al-ghuraba al-makhrabun al-mufsidun”. “Al-Ghuraba” is translated as “alien” here to convey the sense of how Adnani is using it—it could also be translated as “intruder”—but often the word is translated more neutrally as “stranger” or “outsider”. “Al-makhrabun”, given here as “saboteurs”, can also be translated as “vandals” and even as “arsonists”. “Al-mufsidun” is a Qur’anic term: translated here as “havoc-wreakers”, it is more usually translated as “evil-doers” or “corrupters”; the connotation is of those who spread sedition and chaos among the believers.

[3] The word translated as “jobs” is “manasab”, which can be translated as “positions”, “offices”, or “appointments”.

[4] The word “shuhada” is at the present time almost invariably used to mean “martyrs”, and by jihadists to refer to suicide bombers. And this sense of the word is present in the Qur’an: it means those who have been killed in battle for the sake of the faith, and thereby earned a place in Paradise. (The sharp contrast with the way modern jihadists have weaponised the term “martyr” is that the Qur’an will apply this to someone killed while on jihad, even if the person has got themselves killed recklessly in battle, but the Book and traditional Islam regard this as night and day different from suicide, which is a sin so grievous it obliterates even a lifetime of goodness and consigns the person who does it to hell, where he will endlessly repeat the act of suicide). The complication in giving the translation for “shuhada” simply as “martyrs” is that in the Qur’anic sense of “martyr”, with Islam’s heavy stress on God’s awesome power and predestination, the focus is less on the individual who has died, and more that what the person has done is “witness” for God’s grandeur. This is why “shuhada” is sometimes translated as “martyr-witnesses”.

[5] The word used for “evildoers” is zalimin, which can also be translated as “wrongdoers”, “unjust”, or “oppressors”.

[6] The word translated as purge is “yumahis”, which could also be translated as “purify”, “cleanse”, “remove”, or “expunge”. Those to be eliminated from among the community of believers are “the hypocrites” (munafiq).

[7] The word translated as “Paradise” is “Janna”, which is to say the Islamic heaven, but it literally means “Garden” and the vision it sets out—essentially of a return to the Garden of Eden, where people are close to God and His angels—is derived from the Jewish concept of what Paradise will be after God sets the world right. (The Jewish perspective on this has somewhat changed over time: in its foundational phase, Judaism did not have an afterlife, as such; there was to be a universal resurrection—a physical restoration of people from the dead to earth—when God instituted a reign of justice and peace. In the centuries after the advent of the two daughter monotheisms, this has somewhat shifted.)

[8] The word translated as “steadfast” is “sabreen”, which can also be given as “the patient ones”.