Introduction
The rise of “The Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in 2013-14 attracted immense attention from the public, policy-makers and the scholarly community. Alternatively dubbed IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, and “the Caliphate”, the group soon became a byword for utter barbarity, bloodshed, and surreal extremism. Incredibly, the group also became a travel destination for one of the largest foreign fighter mobilizations to an armed conflict in modern history, involving tens of thousands of young men and women from most parts of the world.
The spectacular rise and fall of ISIS raises many intriguing questions, not only about contemporary armed conflicts and insurgent movements, but also about Islamist rebel mobilization, governance, and conflict proliferation in general.
Course Content
This interdisciplinary MA-course in Middle East Studies aims at providing historical and conceptual contexts for better understanding the ISIS phenomenon and the wider family of rebel movements and terrorist groups claiming adherence to jihadism. Although ISIS and jihadi movements in the Middle East region are the main focus, attention will be paid to comparative perspectives and analytical insight from non-Middle East cases.
The course will discuss ISIS in the context of its foreign fighter mobilization, popular support, recruitment, territoriality, rebel governance and conflict diffusion. We will also explore approaches to deciphering the Islamic State's use of extreme violence and the role of ideology in jihadist insurgencies. Although Syria and Iraq remain the main geographical focus, the discussions draw upon case studies from the entire MENA-region and beyond, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
Until recently, jihadi movements were studied mostly within the context of specialized terrorism studies. In this course, however, we will draw extensively upon the expanding literature on jihadism from a variety of fields and disciplines, including civil war and armed conflict studies, Middle East studies, religious studies, sociology, and media studies.