It posted notices advertising job opportunities within the newly established department of zakat or tithes – akin to a social services department. Then around the turn of this year, Isis appeared to seize the momentum, issuing a slew of documents directly relating to state building and job creation. And in one of the more bizarre rulings, Isis banned rooftop pigeon-keeping because it was deemed a waste of time.
Fatwas were issued on playing billiards and table football. These included a prohibition on selling and displaying tight-fitting and “ornamented” garments. In the early days after the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014, the emphasis was on regulations on dress and behaviour.
A 24-page statecraft blueprint obtained by the Guardian, written in the months after Isis’s declaration of a caliphate, shows how deliberate the state-building exercise has been, and how central it is to its overall aims.Įxamined together the Isis papers build a highly detailed picture of what is going on in the militants’ putative state. They have also established 16 centralised departments including one for public health and a natural resources department that oversees oil and antiquities. Hundreds if not thousands of cadres have set themselves to work creating rules and regulations on everything from fishing and dress codes to the sale of counterfeit brands and university admission systems.Ībout 340 official documents, notices, receipts, and internal memos seen by the Guardian show that they have been trying to rebuild everything from roads to nurseries to hotels to marketplaces, from the Euphrates to the Tigris. But Islamic State is much more than that.Īs newly obtained documents demonstrate, Isis is also made up of bureaucrats, civil servants and jobsworths. John Kerry has branded its members psychopathic monsters, François Hollande calls them barbarians, and David Cameron describes them as a death cult. © Provided by Guardian News Isis fighters in Raqqa, Syria