An Islamic perspective on the beheadings carried out by the Islamic State

Rasa - Over the past few weeks the group calling itself the Islamic State has carried out a series of executions, the latest execution was the beheading of a British aid worker David Haines. Now from an Islamic perspective, where do such actions lie?

News ID: 1146

Date: 15 September 2014 - 23:25

RNA - Over the past few weeks the group calling itself the Islamic State has carried out a series of executions, the latest execution was the beheading of a British aid worker David Haines.

David Haines was the third western victim to have been beheaded by IS over the past few weeks, the other two previous victims were Americans, both of whom were journalists.

The world has rightfully come out in condemnation against these actions, including condemnation from the Muslim community.

Now from an Islamic perspective, where do such actions lie? Does IS have any Islamic basis for their recent actions? From an Islamic perspective, IS have no basis at all for their recent acts.

All three victims that were beheaded by IS were non-combatants, the latest victim as we mentioned was an aid worker, an aid worker who was in fact in Syria, a Muslim country, to help Muslims that were suffering due to the civil war. So this alone shows how illogical the actions of IS are, they killed a person who was involved in humanitarian aid for Muslims.

The other two American victims were both journalists who were covering the civil war in Syria, so none of the victims were combatants, none of the victims had anything to do with America’s role in taking military action against IS in Iraq.

In Islam, it’s quite clear that non-combatants are to not be targeted during the fighting, after all they are non-combatants and so they are left alone. This would apply to the three men that have been executed by IS, which reeks of desperation from IS, rather than any ‘Islamic’ action by them.

The men’s nationalities does not count against them, which is essentially what IS used to justify their actions by, just because someone is an American citizen, or a British citizen, does not make them culpable for the actions of their government, this is an absurd equation. This line of thinking is no different to Islamophobes who blame all Muslims for the actions of some groups that happen to be Muslim.

So the men may have been citizens of nations that were militarily involved against IS, but the men had nothing to do with those military actions, they played no role in them whatsoever.

From another angle as well, not only does the Islamic State’s action have no Islamic basis, even from their own defined strategy it makes no sense. The Islamic State are deluding themselves and their supporters if they think such beheadings will deter further military action against them, if anything such beheadings give further moral authority for military strikes against them, all President Obama has to do is simply point to such beheadings to note how barbaric IS are, and why there is a need for action against them.

In essence, IS are doing a great PR job for the justification of further military intervention, rather than the opposite.

By The Muslim Debate Initiative Blog