IS-K is violently opposed to the Taliban. The reason for this is that the extreme, politicized version of Islam that the Taliban follow is rooted in Deobandi Islam with a much later added overlay of Saudi tawheed as a result of contact with the Saudi mujahideen who flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Deobandism is an austere, anti-colonial focused version of Islam that originated in British controlled India in the late 1860s. The Saudi concept of tawheed, the radical unity of the Deity, is the central teaching and foundation of Adbul Wahhab’s theology that provided the doctrinal focus for ibn Saud’s conquest of the Arabian peninsula and formation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For all that we see the Taliban as being extreme and unyielding, the Islamic State perceives them as not being pure enough in their understanding and application of tawheed.
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The Islamic State, whether the original movement, the Islamic State in Iraq and al Shams (ISIS), or its offshoots like Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), is simply the most extreme, hardcore, politicized evolution of tawheed as an organizing doctrine and driver for violent extremist Islamic movements that we have yet see emerge. They are far more extreme than al Qaeda, who they are also in competition with and violently opposed to. For ISIS, IS-K, and the other IS offshoots, their doctrine is built around the teachings of Abdul Wahhab. Wahhab asserted that not only was the Deity one, which is not in and of itself a particularly radical idea in Islam, but that any innovation that took away from this glorious reality counted as shirk or polytheism. As a result he inveighed against the building of shrines and monuments, as well as the tradition of subordinate, intercessory prayers in addition to the mandated salat or Islamic understanding of prayer. Those who engage in such innovations are, at best, engaged in kufr and ridda – unbelief in the one G-d and apostasy. Moreover, Abdul Wahhab’s conceptualization of tawheed teaches that unbelief and apostasy must be stamped out, through violence if necessary. It also teaches that one can only be a real Muslim, a muwaheedun, if one lives where tawheed has been established as the rule for the ummah/community of the faithful. As Moussalli interestingly asserts*, the Wahhabi muwaheedun have been arguing for over 200 years that they are the true defenders of Sunni Islam, while at the same time being in direct and active opposition to 90% of Sunni Islam.
What makes this extreme understanding of tawheed, as the core doctrine, theology, and ideology of the Islamic State so dangerous is its unwillingness to tolerate non-muwaheedun Muslims and its ability to travel. Unlike bin Laden’s underlying doctrine for al Qaeda, which was partially rooted in bin Laden’s personal adherence to and understanding of tawheed as practiced in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic State’s application of tawheed and its theological component calls for targeting non- muwaheedun Muslims. While bin Laden did call for the removal, by violence if necessary, of the leaders of Muslims states and societies who were themselves unbelievers and/or apostates, he also made it clear that non-muwaheedun populations were off limits for targeting. The Islamic State makes no such distinction.
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ISIS has two strategic objectives. The Islamic State, organized around the doctrine of tawheed, seeks to destroy the civil space, often referred to as the grey zone, in which Muslims live their day to day lives as the citizens and residents of Muslim and non-Muslim states and societies alike. This civic space, especially in Western liberal states and societies that allows people from different religious and ethnic background to have membership in the state and society despite not necessarily belonging to the majority ethnic or religious group. The concept of extreme tawheed obliterates this space. It tells Muslims, specifically Sunni Muslims, that they cannot separate their religious lives from their civic ones and promotes this idea to non-Muslims. Moreover, its focus on being unable to be a good Muslim, a muwaheedun, unless one lives where tawheed has been established as the governing concept reinforces the argument that proper Muslims must relocate to the Islamic State and its self declared caliphate. It is also the Islamic State’s argument for expanding the caliphate. Additionally, it supports the assertion that Muslim communities in the West cannot assimilate, are susceptible to ISIS’s information operations, and are a threat to the domestic security of the states in which they reside.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/08/26/todays-bombing-in-kabul-islamic-state-khorasans-objectives-in-todays-attack-in-regard-to-the-us-are-the-same-as-those-of-isis-overall/
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