Most Islamic State recruits know next to nothing about Islam

The extremist group targets people who have little knowledge of Islam

A survey conducted by AP found that most Islamic State recruits know little about Islam and hardly care about religion.

After examining thousands of leaked Islamic State documents collected by a Syrian site and conducting numerous interviews with former Islamic State fighters, the agency found that nearly 70 percent of the recruits had only “basic” knowledge of Islam. The probe found that some 24 per cent of Islamic State recruits could claim “intermediate” knowledge of Islam and only about 5 per cent considered themselves “advanced” learners. Only five recruits claimed to have memorised the Quran.



The documents studied by AP included entry forms filled out by around 4,030 foreign recruits who crossed into Syria in 2013 and 2014. On joining, recruits had to fill out special employment forms which asked them to rank their knowledge of Islam on a scale from one to three. The results indicate that most Islamic State recruits had trouble answering questions which testing their knowledge of Islam.

“I realised that I was in the wrong place when they began to ask me questions on these forms like when you die, who should we call?'” a 32-year-old European recruit told AP on the condition of anonymity. Those interviewed included a European convert who identifies as gay, a group of Frenchmen and two Britons. In order to prepare for Jihad the latter two purchased The Quran for Dummies and Islam for Dummies from Amazon.

For the most part, the findings suggest religion has nothing to do with people joining Islamic State. Moreover, according to the findings, the extremist groups targets people who have little knowledge of Islam and the less they know the easier it is to recruit them.

“Religion is an afterthought,” according to Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer and director of special projects at security consultancy The Soufan Group told AP.  Most of the recruits, he says, are people in need of “a sense of belonging, a sense of notoriety, a sense of excitement.”



Frenchman Karim Mohammad-Aggad whose brother was one of the assailants at the 2015 Bataclan theatre massacre says he traveled to Syria to join Islamic State in 2013 and that the extremists used “smooth talk” for recruitment. “Islam was used to trap me like a wolf,” he said.

According to Muslim scholars, Islamic State members fabricate their own notions about what is allowed and forbidden in Islam which completely contradict the faith. Further, scholar Tariq Ramadan said, “The people who are doing this are not experiencing martyrdom, they are criminals. They are killing innocent people. Nothing in Islam, nothing ever can justify the killing of innocent people, never, ever.”

This article originally appeared on RT