On the Matter of the perverted Messianic romanticism of Islamic State.

Via @cayankee comes this article with a provocative (to me) title, but that’s mostly because the article actually understated the influence of the Arthur legend on Tolkien.

But the story of the arrival and lingering global charisma of ISIS features something that sets it apart: the idea of the Caliphate. Last June, the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself caliph. The grandiosity of the claim was likely lost even on many educated non-Muslim observers. A position that has been gone from Islam in anything but name for 1,000 years, the caliph has to meet certain requirements: he must control territory, must enforce sharia law within it, and he must descend from the Quraysh tribe, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad (the Ottoman emperors claimed the title into the 20th century, but their claim is widely rejected because they did not descend from the Quraysh). Pledging allegiance to a valid caliph, when one is available, is an obligation that ISIS supporters view as binding on all Muslims. And while Baghdadi’s claim has been divisive even in the world of violent jihadism, groups in Nigeria and Libya have apparently made this vow of allegiance.

[snip]

Far from being a parochially Islamic impulse or a nerd’s fantasy – something you can get involved in from ‘your mama’s basement’, as one counter-terrorism expert has said – the myth of the Caliphate echoes dreams of transcendent legitimacy that are deeply embedded in European culture and literature. To find a story of a sovereign authority long lapsed in kingship but still entitled to the allegiance of all the just, and fated to reappear at an auspicious moment, we need look no further than The Lord of the Rings (1954-55).

The fantasy ideology of hardcore violent Islamism is well known: Lee Harris more or less pegged it over a decade ago. But this is still of interest.  If you were to ask a Sunni Muslim what he* thinks of Messianic thinking, he’d almost certainly scoff at it, or make a snide comment about the Shi’ites, or both. But the idea of the Caliphate seems to be a full-bore mythological scratch for that particular itch.

All of this would have bemused JRR Tolkien, of course.  I’m pretty sure myself that his interest in the Arthur legend was inextricably linked up with Tolkien’s interest in Christian symbolism and myth (I assume I do not have to explain the symbolic parallels between King Arthur and Jesus Christ?). It would not even remotely surprise JRR Tolkien that some deep-buried part of the Islamic State cult was yearning for a Returned King that would set things right; nor that the Great Enemy would have cheerfully perverted that yearning into something monstrous. That’s what Evil does, after all: pervert, because it cannot in fact create.

Moe Lane

*Use of pronoun there deliberate, and slightly disapprovingly so on my part. Call me a chauvinist, if you like.

3 thoughts on “On the Matter of the perverted Messianic romanticism of Islamic State.”

  1. I recall the last fellow to claim the mantle of Islamic Messiah, “Mahdi”, did a great deal of damage around Khartoum.
    .
    All three major Monotheistic religions seem to have that Messiah itch.

  2. Sadly, most people only study their own history, and that cursorily…. (tip of nonexistent hat to Bujold). Else, the Islamists would recognize the Tsar-as-hero meme when they choke on it.
    .
    Mew

  3. As I understand it, Romanticism (not love romance) goes hand-in-hand with Nationalism. Romanticism – in its 19th century form was a competitor with Internationalism (Marxism) with intellectuals, artists, and the like, and by and large, Romanticism won up until WWI and finally WWII (what was Nazi Germany’s propaganda, Imperial Japan’s propaganda otherwise?)
    The Arthurian legends, Wagner and “The Ring”, the legend of Roland and so forth but that?
    Now Secular Internationalism is faced with Muslim Romantic Nationalism – and I will say “Good Luck with that one, boys,” because even Stalin had to turn to Romantic Nationalism after June 1941.

    **
    Romantic Nationalism is one heck of a force, it beats Secular Internationalism all hollow every which way – which is why Vlad Putin keeps appealing to it (if he hasn’t made a reference to ‘Holy Russia’ yet I’ll be surprised.)

Comments are closed.