Future and Prophecies in the World Vision of the Islamic State Organization
This chapter examines the Islamic State’s conceptualization of history and the future in relation this movement’s understanding of eschatology and the ‘End of Times’. Drawing on a veritable stream of jihadist literature, this chapter sheds light on the organization’s theorization of history, and the ways in which the Islamic State’s consistent jihadist millenarianism echoes an incessant dialectic between the past and the future to the detriment of a depreciated and sacrificed present. Adraoui demonstrates the way in which the Islamic State’s fundamentalist (mis-)interpretation of Islamic prophetic discourse merges terrestrial and celestial time, which is used to justify and exacerbate the use of extreme violence in pursuit of the organization’s aggressive political aims.