Apocalyptic UtopiaDiscursive Development of Salafi-Jihadi Groups from Al-Qaeda to ISIS

In the studies of fundamentalism, two types of analyses are predominant. The first, which is mainly influenced by the methodology of geopolitical and international studies, seeks to explain the dominance of Jihadi groups in Syria with reference to counter-revolutionary attempts to manipulate the uprising. The second, widespread in the European Academy, tends to analyze fundamentalism mostly as a form and ignore its content development. In both types of these analyses, ISIS is considered as an intensified form of al-Qaeda whose difference from the established Salafi-Jihadi tradition is merely strategic. In contrast, this article aims to study the formation of ISIS ideology as embedded within inner debates of Salafi-Jihadi field. In other words, it seeks to examine the germ of emergent ISIS within the ideological struggles of Jihadism rather than tracking the origin of ISIS, as a counter-revolutionary manifestation, outside the field and explaining it with the recourse to external forces (namely measures of intelligence services). Thus, it aims to answer how ISIS intertextuality was constructed? How did ISIS choose, reproduce and consume the inspiring texts of Salafi-Jihadi field? In this regard, it studies the founding text of Milestones</em> written by Qutb as the point of departure. Then, it turns to examine the relations between Management of Savagery</em> by Abu Bakr al-Naji and The Global Islamic Resistance Call</em> by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri with Qutb’s idea of vanguard group to identify points of rupture. This article indicates how the transitory project from the elitist approach of al-Qaeda, configured by inner critics of jihadi tradition, formed the impetus to rupture from Qutb’s tradition leading to the emergence of ISIS. Findings of this research shows that ISIS took on epistemological presumptions of Naji and Suri to materialize a form of Jihad which has individualistic sides, is centered upon primacy of Jihad over belief and finds its audience among the masses rather than a vanguard group. At the end, it acknowledges that the study of the discursive development reveals its genuine meaning only when examined in the relation with non-discursive elements; therefore, this article should not be regarded as the final phase but the first step in the analysis of ISIS.