Do you think most ISIS soldiers are sincerely devoted to God? If not, what would you guess about their motivations?
One who sincerely believes in God is called Muttaqui in the Quranic term; a Muttaqui always thinks about the best possible way to act so that it would be pleasant to God, in all walks of life; Taqwa makes him a selfless man.While ISIS believe in the true one God – the Omnipotent, Omniscient; at the same time they believe in the extra-Quranic narratives as the other source of Islam; they take almost all their lessons from these secondary sources. They overrule, abrogate Quranic commandments/ narratives by the interpretations in these secondary sources to tailor with their preconceived/self-centered views and agendas. As such God has said:“The majority of those who believe in GOD do not do so without committing idol worship.” (Al Quran# 12:106)There are people who blame Wahabism for their beliefs and practices. But Mohammad Abdul Wahab didn’t come up with any new kind of religion; all he believed was the same God and the traditional extra-Quranic narratives; and he invited others to believe in the same during the time of King Saud’s reign with his patronage. Hence one can fairly infer that Mohammad Abdul Wahab and ISIS both have the same source of their knowledge and understandings – they both have been more influenced by the extra-Quranic narratives – more than the Quranic texts.Here in the video below, a Saudi scholar Aadel Al-Kalbani says that ISIS’ belief is not something alien. “They (ISIS) draw their ideas from what is written in our books and from our own principles”- the scholar says.As such, all their horrendous acts including raping of female captives – Yazidi women, slaughtering of captives comes out of these extra- Quranic narratives they take as their guideline of legislation.
Does ISIS intend to invade Mecca at some point? If yes, what is their justification for this?
It is highly unlikely that ISIS would open up that can of worms with Saudi Arabia any time soon, however such a prize would help their public relations campaign because Riyadh has long been trying to be the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, as much as its own salafist ideology may be at odds with it. And as Eybi said they want to establish themselves as the leaders of the Ummah, as Sunni Islam allows for those other than descendants of the prophet Mohammad to have positions of leadership.In addition, ISIS has focused on non strategically imperative cities and townships before - and suffering a substantial amount of attrition in the process - in order to take over symbolically important places (such as Kobani and Tikrit). This shows that they are willing to spend a great deal of blood and treasure to boost morale and increase recruitment through the media magnification of these undertakings,