What is ISIL - ISIS - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant?

ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), known as ad-Dawla al-Eslamiyya al-3iraaq w'ash-Shaam or the acronym Daa3esh in Arabic, is an extremist Sunni Islamist organization. It is important to clarify what Islamism is. While Islam is a religion, Islamism is a political ideology whose goal is to bring the religious tenets of Islam into the daily functioning of a government and its laws. Islamism is a modern movement whose roots began contemporaneously with the rise of Salafism in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Egypt. ISIL practices a particularly violent form of Islamism called Jihadism, which not only wishes a particularly repressive version of Islamic Law to be instituted, but believes that violence in defense of the faith is the preferred way to do this. Jihadism, like Islamism, is a political ideology rooted in Islamic religious concepts, but distorted. The distortion here is that there are many ways to advocate on behalf of the faith and the choice to exclusively use violence is a misinterpretation of the doctrine.

ISIL used to have links to al-Qaeda before al-Qaeda condemned them for their barbarity. They are fighting to bring the Sunni majority into power, especially in Sunni majority regions of both Syria and Iraq, and impose a more fundamentalist view on politics. They consider themselves to be fighting the injustices and violence of the current Assad regime and the inequalities of the US-supported Government of Iraq. ISIL is primarily supported and armed by Saudi Arabia, but the US and UK have indirectly given ISIL millions of dollars and equipment since US and UK military vehicles and assets left to the Government of Iraq have fallen into ISIL hands (especially with the fall of Mosul). ISIL controls significant amounts of land in Syria and Iraq and conquered much of its Iraqi territory in June 2014.

What is the relationship between Sunni Islam to ISIL?

ISIL is an Internationalist Sunni Islamist organization, meaning that ISIL sees itself as "the True Implementation" of Sunni Islam in the world. (Even though its reading of Sunni Islam is just one of a multitude of readings of Sunni Islam.) As a result, they feel it proper to determine laws based on Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence. For example, Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence holds that drinking and smoking is haram (forbidden). As a result, ISIL has banned alcohol and cigarettes. Another aspect of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence is that a Non-Muslim adversary must be asked to capitulate to Islamic States before Muslims can declare war on them. It is for this reason that ISIL sent a letter to the Assyrians demanding that they capitulate to Islam before attacking Mosul and surrounding Ninewah Province (which had an Assyrian majority in certain areas).

Since ISIL considers itself in alignment with Sunni principles, Sunnis are not targeted based on being Sunnis, as opposed to Non-Sunnis who are targeted for death, enslavement, conversion, or dhimmi status. However, ISIL does target any Sunni Muslims for elimination if they disagree with the actions of ISIL or provides an alternate Sunni Islamic interpretation (usually a more lenient one) to the one implemented by ISIL.

What is the relationship between Shiite Islam to ISIL?

ISIL as a fundamentalist Sunni group, ISIL sees the Shiite Muslims as tafkiris or apostates and treats them as the "enemies of the Muslims". ISIL attacks and detains Shiite Muslims caught in its territory. (Thankfully, there have not been many Shiites in the area that ISIL controls.) This position towards Shiites has resulted in the Republic of Iraq, which is majority Shiite, and Iran, which is also majority Shiite and ruled by Shiite clerics, aligning together to target ISIL for attacks and violence. Press TV, Iran's state news media, has responded to ISIL allegations that the Shiites are takfiri by naming ISIL as takfiri. Additionally, the Assad Regime is led by the Alawite minority which were granted "honorary Shiite status" by the Iranian Shiite Clerics. As Assad is also opposed to ISIL, it amplifies the Shiite hatred of ISIL and ISIL's hatred of Shiites.