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#Yazidi women are legitimate ‘spoils of war’ in #ISIS ideology

As reports begin to emerge on the fate of Yazidi women captured in the Sinjar region of Iraq, it is as well to understand the ideology that enables ISIS to consider its actions legitimate:

The rules on ghanima (booty or ‘the spoils of war’) are clearly laid down in the Koran, Sura 8, verse 41, and ISIS is following them to the letter in its treatment of Yazidi women:

“Know that a fifth of what ye have won belongs to Allah – to his prophet, his family, to the orphan, the needy and the traveller.”

The verse was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad after the Battle of Badr in 624, the first decisive military victory won by Muhammad and his followers against those who opposed his new religion of Islam. As part of the pre-Islamic Bedouin raiding culture of the Arabian Peninsula, Arab chiefs had by tradition kept a share of the booty. It was the norm of the times. One fifth was later considered by Muslim scholars to be the share needed to support the Islamic state’s expenses as it expanded its empire. The remaining four-fifths were divided among the fighters who had won the booty.

This same concept of booty is being followed now by ISIS 14 centuries later, and they are defining it in the same way. The accepted definition by Muslim scholars of ghanima includes all weapons and all movable possessions. It also includes ‘non-believers’ who can be taken as prisoners of war – be they men, women or children. These prisoners are to be divided as slaves among the fighters. ‘Liberating’ the women is even considered an act of pious charity, especially if the women in question happen to be Yazidi, wrongly labelled ‘devil-worshippers’.

How in the 21st century does one even begin to combat such an ideology, when it is so convinced of its own legitimacy?

Yazidi children during a religious ceremony [Getty]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-isis-militants-plan-to-marry-captured-yazidi-women-9674922.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28686607

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29001357