Besides its para-military campaign, ‘Islamic State` (IS) is also waging a global battle for ideological hegemony over Islamic concepts of statehood and governance. An important part of this strategy is its use of offline and online pledges to create long-range command patterns and to radicalise individuals.

The Islamic State (IS) group which has swept across large swathes of Syria and Iraq with its para-military campaign, has also used offline and online pledges of allegiance to assert its ideological interpretation of Islamic concepts of statehood and governance. It has become clearer that the ritual not only plays an important role in physical reality, but online and offline pledges to IS are closely intertwined and meant to reinforce each other.

Online pledges are supposed to stimulate rites of passage, which immerse sympathisers ever deeper into jihadi ideology and increase a feeling of shared brotherhood and communality, eventually turning them into active supporters and actors.

…Philipp Holtmann is a Middle East analyst who has lived and worked in several Arab countries. He conducts research on Muslim media, Islamic governance and leadership topics. He contributed this to RSIS Commentary.