Imagining Jihad

The article examines how the Islamic State (IS) has evolved into a community- and initial state-
building project. Using Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined community” (Anderson,
B. [1983]. Imagined communities. London: Verso), we claim that IS is about to construct an
aggressive Sunni national identity with a specific territorial claim, which could have a high
impact on international order. Comparing nationalism and Islamism allows us to understand
the strong appeal of the latter much better than a focus on religion alone.
Keywords: Benedict Anderson; Islamic state; Islamism; nationalism; state building

Introduction
We are witnessing the Islamic State’s (IS) reign of terror as one of the most devastating Islamist
challenges to a cosmopolitan world society (Friedrichs, 2013). Although the self-proclaimed cali-
phate is deeply enmeshed in war, it was able to establish territorial control and to sell its propa-
ganda to a large number of outsiders. Around the world, acts of terror in the name of the IS are
provocative displays of power.
Why has this new non-democratic community- and initial state-building project of IS been
rather successful so far? We believe that the success of IS does not simply rest on a short-
winded coalition of former Baathist commanders and the terrorist ideology of Islamism.
Rather, using Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983), we
claim that IS is about to construct an aggressive Sunni national identity with a specific territor-
ial claim and a mobile notion of sovereignty (Eleftheriadou & Roussos, 2015). This long-
lasting project combines the modern claim of territorial and national statehood with a reli-
giously blended identity construction and a flexible network of individual members all over
the world.
Our argument thus integrates the strengths of existing explanations whilst avoiding their
shortcomings. On the one hand, many argue that IS is “just” another terrorist group and that
its state-building project lacks substance. The movement should be contained and it will even-
tually implode (see Hansen-Lewis & Shapiro, 2015; Khatib, 2015; Walt, 2015). On the other
hand, the attractiveness of IS in European countries is explained by its martial appearance reso-
nating well with a disenfranchised youth (Logvinov, 2012; Sageman, 2004). However, to under-
stand the phenomenon IS, these two explanations have to be understood as co-constitutive and
mutually enforcing factors of internal and external identity construction. Therefore, our focus
on Sunni identity construction as a territorial and mobile state and network-building project com-
bines both aspects in one thesis.
To develop our argument, we firstly elaborate the connection between the internal stability and
external attractiveness of IS based on the literatures on containment and radicalization. Secondly,
we link IS’ specific ideology to the longstanding idea of nationalism. Thirdly, we apply the central
arguments of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983) to analyse current IS practices.
We conclude that the construction of the IS version of Sunni nationalism is potentially a long-
lasting revolutionary threat to international order.

IS success: combining territorial rule and global radicalization

We claim that IS’ military advantages have been transformed into a territorially demarcated proto-
state. And even though it is problematic to speak of success when talking about one of the cruel-
lest movements of the recent past, IS has been capable to recruit foreigners from all over the
world, to keep its ranks together under military pressure and to set up first elements of a state.
How has this been explained so far, and why are these explanations not satisfying?

Successful state-building and the argument of containment

Various authors argue that IS is evolving into a proto-state whilst behaving like a stationary bandit
and building up welfare and security services only to exploit its territory and population. The
appropriate logic of engagement with the pseudo-state should thus be containment. Audrey
Kurth Cronin, who pleas for such a strategy, claims that IS is not a terrorist organization like
Al Qaeda and thus cannot be stopped by a new war on terror (Cronin, 2015). In a similar vein,
Philips states that the more IS becomes state-like, the more it will lose its advantage of “rootless-
ness” and can thus be contained more easily (Phillips, 2014, p. 498). Walt argues that IS is a
“revolutionary state” (Walt, 2015, p. 42). However, in contrast to Revolutionary France and
Russia, IS does not have the power base to really endanger the international system. There
might be a spread of terror but no contagion. Celso predicts that IS will undergo the same cyclical
development from brutality and popular resistance to disintegration as the GIA did in Algeria in
the 1990s (Celso, 2015, p. 37f).
In our perspective, such a strategy has its shortcomings. As Wood (2015, p. 31) reminds us,
IS’ territorial authority reduces a containment strategy to the likelihood of internal strife, the
likelihood of which has been reduced by the movement’s “mixture of coercion and cooptation”
(al-Tamimi, 2015, p. 125). The refusal to be accepted as a peer in the international community
is not perceived as a threat for the Jihadi concept, but rather interpreted as a pre-condition to
destroy the international order. The IS’ external power rests on something else: recruitment
and keeping the ranks together.

Building a Jihadi nation abroad

While its tactics are contested within the Muslim world, the territorial idea of an Islamic state is
attractive to many (Jabareen, 2015). We thus face a puzzle of an extremely successful transna-
tional mobilization movement. About 3000 individuals have left Europe to join the Jihad
(Franz, 2015, p. 6). And this does not include the huge number of IS fighters from Tunisia,
Egypt and Libya. Furthermore, IS has attracted more than 30 oaths of allegiance from other
Islamic organizations (Armborst, 2015). Still, current research shows that these large numbers
have to be put in context and should not be interpreted as one large Jihadist army (Bakke,
2014, p. 185). Nevertheless, the recent terror attacks in Europe and the US show that besides
having to retreat militarily within Iraq and Syria, IS is still attractive to many.
 In order to understand the external success, it is necessary to bring in existing research on radi-
calization, whilst acknowledging the difficulties of data acquisition on Jihadism. Current research
highlights the difficulty to define radicalization due to its context-dependent and contested char-
acter (see Constanza, 2015, p. 4; Mandel, 2009, pp. 101–103) and thereby questions earlier classi-
fications that either depict radicalization as the result of intergenerational conflicts, feelings of
injustice, identity crises or disenfranchisements (see Lynch, 2013, pp. 244–247).
In reaction to this critique, a perception of radicalization as an increase in extremism of some-
one’s “thinking, sentiments, and/or behavior” (Mandel, 2009, p. 111) helps to stress the possible
cognitive as well as behavioural aspects. Even though the linkage between extremist beliefs and
violent action is a source of debate (e.g. Schmid, 2014, pp. 587–588; Sedgewick, 2014, p. 490),
the former is believed to be paramount for understanding the latter and the role of ideology as well
as the political and social context represent important factors in the radicalization process
(Neumann, 2013, pp. 880–884). This understanding of radicalization is reflected in recent in-
depth case studies of youth radicalization processes (Constanza, 2012; Wolfberg, 2012) that
depict social isolation and discrimination as radicalizing factors.
Additionally, feelings of responsibility for the Ummah – the collective community of Muslims
worldwide – and discontent with the increasing globalization and military involvement by Western
states are also key in explaining the radicalization of Muslims in the West (Al-Lami, 2009, pp. 4–8;
Sirseloudi, 2014). In other words, even though the psychological constitution of individuals, for
example, the idea of a “deprived adventurer” (Sageman, 2004, pp. 69–98), holds some truth, even
the lone wolf needs a context to legitimize his or her action. Peer-groups and the social environ-
ment are important explanations and one has to understand with whom radicalizing youths are in
close contact with (Kühle & Lindekilde, 2010, p. 135; Sageman, 2004, pp. 69–98). Islamist groups
and training camps therefore function as recruitment and indoctrination centres where the prefer-
ences of the group members become alike (Waldmann, 2005, p. 203).
Although all these explanations are extremely helpful in understanding the micro level of indi-
vidual motivation, they have less to say about the macro level and why the particular ideology of
IS is being followed. As outlined by Orofino (2015) in her account of the Islamist group Hizb ut-
Tahrir, once the individual is taken in by the group’s world vision and has fully internalized the
religious character, the person tends to be faithful to the group. Wiktorowicz and Kalthenthaler
(2006) come to the same conclusion by explaining the high-cost/risk activism of Islamic radicals
in terms of rational choice behaviour: To backslide from the respective group’s ideology means no
entrance to Paradise or “free-riding jeopardizes salvation” (Wiktorowicz & Kalthenthaler, 2006,
p. 301). Applying this rationality to IS, the spiritual incentives of the group are central for estab-
lishing a long-term dedication. Current research based on the IS’ original documents concurs with
this and proves that IS “is largely able to maintain morale through appeals to ideology, through
victories, and through intimidation” (Johnston et al., 2016, p. xxiv). We thus have to combine
micro and macro level explanations of why recruitment and keeping the ranks closed has been
rather successful.

Jihadi nation- and state-building: the need for de-secularization

The successful combination of collective identity construction and territorial rule is not new. It is
widely debated as nationalism. However, a Jihadi nation- and state-building project has a stronger
focus on the religious aspect of identity construction. We argue that desecularizing Benedict
Anderson’s classical approach on nationalism and the nation-state enables us to deliver a coherent
analysis of IS’ attractiveness.
We prefer the approach of nationalism over a comparison with fascism (Abdel-Samad, 2014)
or totalitarianism (Perthes, 2015, p. 105) not because we do not agree with the normative verdict
or the analytical appropriateness of the focus on exclusivist ideology, state terror and the celebra-
tion of violence. However, we believe that the expansive nation-state building project of IS can
better be understood as a Jihadi state-building project (“jihadistisches Staatsbildungsprojekt”, see
Perthes, 2015, pp. 91–92) that rests on a blend of religious and nationalist components to imagine
a Jihadi community.
Arguing for a nationalist framework when analysing the IS, we have to adjust the nationalist
studies in a crucial aspect: secularism. In the context of the debates on nation building, Benedict
Anderson’s approach shares the premise of an uncontested theory of secularization with other
neo-Marxist (Hobsbawm, 1983) or modernist (Gellner, 1983) contributions. We are aware that
the debate has moved beyond Anderson’s arguments (Brubaker, 2004; Calhoun, 1997; Hastings,
1997) and that religion has been integrated into its framework. However, to define nationalism as
a concept that brings “state, territory, and culture” (Friedland, 2002, p. 387) together and to simply
insert “religion” to tackle religious nationalism is not sufficient. As the term “religious national-
ism” already implies, religion has only the role of an attribute.
Instead of moving from nationalist studies to fundamentalist studies, we need to “de-secular-
ize” (Berger, 1999) nationalist studies. A research agenda based on the concept of fundamental-
ism (Marty & Appleby, 1991) focuses on a process whereby religious identity construction
trumps national identity construction by replacing it. For example, for Olivier Roy, fundamental-
ism boils down to “holy ignorance” that has lost the culturally embedded knowledge of traditional
religions (Roy, 2010). Indeed, religions with universalist ambitions struggle with the problem of
how to differentiate the cultural surroundings of their origin from the essence of the faith that they
want to plant in every culture. However, religious revivalism, like Salafism, does not only ignore
tradition and culture, but constructs its own specific blend of fragments from the old traditional
order, just like the nationalist Baathist awakening or nationalism in general does. The de-secular-
ization of nationalist studies can, therefore, help to understand how religious identity construction
integrates narratives of national identity. Such an approach can analyse how universalist religious
claims and their attractiveness for external radicalization are being combined with a modern ter-
ritorial rule. Elements of the classical features of the secular nation-state as well as traditional reli-
gious concepts of rule, for example, the caliphate, thus create a new blend of identity construction.
In the next section, our desecularized approach will be developed along these lines and we adapt
and apply Anderson’s categories to IS.

Imagined Jihad
What we currently label “nation-building” is called “official nationalism” in Anderson parlance
(1983, p. 86). In order to analyse the IS’ Jihadi state-building project as a community construction
through imagination, we apply his categories in a de-secularized version.

Community building
Anderson claims that all communities are imagined as “deep, horizontal comradeship” (1983,
p. 7). The comradeship of IS includes all who follow this version of Islam and is, at least
within the male population, imagined to be horizontal. The geographer Jabareen thus claims
that IS establishes an “imagined community”, although he restricts it to a religious commu-
nity-building project (2015, p. 53).
Going back to the classic reference of Renan (1882/1990), the question concerning Islamic
nation- and state-building is if IS can win the “daily plebiscite” that creates a nation within a ter-
ritory. Within the conquered areas, the Sunni population suffers under the cruellest atrocities of the
new law of the land while the minorities have been killed, enslaved or have fled. Hence, the current
community-building exercise is characterized by its sectarian homogenization agenda, which
builds on “Sunni enchantment across the Iraqi-Syrian territorial divide” (Celso, 2015, p. 22).
Nevertheless, by means of a powerful social media campaign, IS has succeeded in construct-
ing a strong feeling of belonging inside and outside its territory and simultaneously invites local
Jihadist groups and foreign fighters to join forces on the IS’ soil (Celso, 2015, pp. 25–26). The
underlying strategy has been to build a comradeship that will not be easily defeated in one
strike. The caliphate of IS is meant to include the Ummah on its territory (Jabareen, 2015, p. 52).
The claim to foster the Ummah by means of a strong political meaning is not new. Neverthe-
less, it is an invented history, to use Hobsbawm’s phrase (1983), as no Caliph has fused its terri-
torial rule with the comradeship of the Ummah yet. The combination of territory and comradeship
of a homogenous people is a basic idea of nationalism. The global religious reach of the Ummah
adds an additional aggressive blend to the IS version. What Brubaker has shown with respect to an
ethno-national practice (Brubaker, 2004) is also true for a religio-national practice. If the elite con-
stantly refers to the Ummah as a political nation and manages to establish a state on its behalf, the
meaning of Ummah changes accordingly.

Being limited
Anderson believes that the nation is a special case, as it is not only an imagined community but
also a “limited” one (1983, p. 6). “Limited” is of importance as it allows a clear demarcation
between in and out; or in the words of Anderson: “No nation imagines itself coterminous with
mankind” (1983, p. 7). Can IS really be understood with the oxymoron of a “transnational
nation” that is universal and limited at the same time? Referring to Anderson’s defining aspect
of nationalism as a limited concept, which pictures the nation as being one nation among
many, Brubaker concedes that nationalism, as a secular category, goes together with religion
but stays a category on its own (Brubaker, 2012, pp. 14–16). However, IS seems to give credit
to a new mutation of nation and religion beyond religious nationalism. In fact, IS imagines the
Ummah as a strictly limited warrior community among other infidel communities. It is confined
to a small population that is open to outsiders only under very specific circumstances. A strict elite
group that echoes the vanguard concept popular in Leninism, but also vibrant in Sayyid Qutb’s
thinking, decides over an individual’s or local group’s affiliation. Thus, IS is constructing “a
population for its authority, much as nation-states did in the past” (Eleftheriadou & Roussos,
2015, p. 11). For this reason, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi aims at annihilating all Shiites and Alawites
from the Muslim world in order to install a “modern version of the Abbasid caliphate”1 that is
based on strictly limited rules of belonging. Therefore, IS is “as an amoeba-like entity, with
fluid control” (Eleftheriadou & Roussos, 2015, p. 17) over a limited population on a specific
territory.

Being sovereign
According to Anderson, the nation is sovereign because legitimacy does no longer rest on the
“divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm” but on the “sovereign state” (1983, p. 7). The
objective of IS is certainly not a secular “Weberian Anstaltsstaat” with international recognition.
However, IS attempts to set up a demarcated territorial space in which control can be exerted in an
extremely hierarchical manner. Thus, IS pursues the project of building a sovereign state – a ter-
ritory that is under supreme and complete control of Islamic authority even though its final objec-
tive is to establish a caliphate that comprises the entire globe.
Cronin convincingly claims that IS is a “pseudo-state led by a conventional army” (Cronin,
2015, p. 88). IS provides an “order of violence” (Marcks, 2015) and its brutal tactics, as well
as the strategic exploitation of the power vacuum in the two failed states of Syria and Iraq,
exceed earlier attempts of deconstructing the colonial boundaries (Jabareen, 2015, p. 54). The
notion of an Islamic statehood and a caliphate is certainly something that other Islamic groups
have also adhered to, but no group has so far established such a degree of sovereign rule
(Cronin, 2015, p. 88).
In addition, IS has developed an administrative structure consisting of ministerial councils and
civilian administrators (Cronin, 2015, p. 91; the administrators are listed in Spencer, 2015,
p. 294). Once new territory was occupied, IS forces took over the police and the core infrastruc-
ture, thus enabling them to hold control over the local population for a long period of time
(Hashim, 2014, p. 78). Importantly, the setup of IS aims at governing the “everyday practices”
(Jabareen, 2015, p. 53) and the group’s hold on territory even seems to be strong enough to be
independent of outside funding (Cronin, 2015, p. 92). In addition, the “government” seems to
be doing well by looting the existing infrastructure (e.g. provincial central banks) and by estab-
lishing a rudimentary tax system (Cronin, 2015, p. 92). IS has also introduced its own currency
based on gold, silver and copper (Spencer, 2015, p. 380) and it thus seems to have turned from
being a roving bandit, to being a stationary bandit, to being a state (Olson, 2000). To balance the
self-image of a brutal movement, it has also set up a distorted kind of welfare system on its ter-
ritory (Winter, 2015). IS thus attempts to not only outgun but also “outgovern” its enemies (Phil-
lips, 2014, p. 496), even issuing passports in Mosul and setting up a national anthem.

Old as a form of modernity

Analysing the cultural roots of nationalism, Anderson shows how the propagators of nationalism
were capable of relating historical events to a national narrative, thus providing the individual with
a chance to “glide into a limitless future” (Anderson, 1983, pp. 11–12). Nationalism hereby con-
stituted a new cosmology that integrated fragments of the previous order into a new one.
Religious revivalists like national movements contain the revolutionary critique that the estab-
lishment has not preserved the link to the authentic beginning. These movements thus claim to
restore the broken chain (Hervieu-Leger, 2000; see also Kratochwil, 2005). Their failure to lit-
erally go back to the origins is, as in the case of the nationalist myth of pre-historic foundations,
insignificant if these attempts manage to establish a political system that turns peasants into
national Muslims – like secular nationalism previously turned peasants into Frenchmen
(Weber, 1976). Much has been written about the absurdity of re-establishing the caliphate, of
IS Jihadis on horses following Mohammed’s example of a mounted warrior, or of their use of
an older version of Arabic. But the absurdity is completely irrelevant; it is about creating a tra-
dition that relates historic events in such a way that they justify current forms of identity.
The move from a secular awakening based on a glorious past to a religious identity construc-
tion becomes apparent in the role of the former Baath party members. While Baathism – meaning
renaissance or awakening – was formerly a secular project of Arab unification, it is now turned
into an expansive Sunni project of Arab state- and nation-building to attract followers by means of
adventure, personal power and sex (Cronin, 2015, p. 94).

Overcoming death and the disintegration of paradise

Anderson ascribes the success of nationalism to the national imaginary that transcends individual
death in a way that formerly only religion was able to do (1983, p. 10). What we witness in the
case of IS is not just a return to religion but also a new combination of nationalistic and religious
motivations. IS Jihadis are willing to die for a cause beyond the idea of receiving an individual
reward in paradise; rather, death in battle is the noblest way of serving IS. One is easily reminded
of the saying “Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori”. It fits that the Levante has often been
described as the place where the final battle between the believing and the unbelieving (or
Rome) will take place (Celso, 2015, p. 31). Here, the apocalypse is used as a leitmotif in IS pro-
paganda (Wood, 2015) and also supports the territorial claim of re-establishing paradise.
Nationalism was able to fill in the void that the “disintegration of paradise” (Anderson, 1983,
p. 11) had left after the foundations of Christianity were shaken by the European Enlightenment.
Our claim is that the perceived failures of today’s cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism – vividly
depicted in IS’ Dabiq magazine – are the analogue of the “disintegration of paradise” in eight-
eenth and nineteenth century Europe. It is apparent that within the banlieues of European
cities, the notion of a multicultural society has lost appeal. Often mosques become a place
where the ones who feel rejected by Western society “are given self-worth because they are
given a choice: if they choose the ‘right’ side, Salafite Jihadism, they are promised that they
will become heroes” (Franz, 2015, p. 11). The attacks in Paris, Brussels and Berlin exemplify
how an attack on European soil can be used as a symbol signifying IS fidelity. Thus, the idea
of history culminating in a liberal cosmopolis is clearly under siege and a sinister political alterna-
tive of community-building through war and terror could emerge out of the broken dream of
multiculturalism.

Technology
For Anderson the technological progress, in particular the printing press, is the core of capitalism,
labelled thus as “print capitalism” (Anderson, 1983, p. 40). Without such technological advances,
nationalism would not have been possible in his view. Today, it is the Internet, and in particular
specific blogs, which allows anonymous users to upload propaganda videos and to start building a
community. The IS’ innovation of terrorist strategy is thus to transform “social media into an
offensive strategy of psychological warfare” (Klausen, 2015, p. 20).
The BBC Journalist Charles Winter followed IS propaganda between mid-July and mid-
August 2015 and counted 1146 new units of propaganda, most of these videos were distributed
online using six languages (Winter, 2015). Thus, cyber Jihad is in vogue and Jihadi internet games
display a highly modern aesthetic. The distribution of the video and (rap-) music propaganda
occurs via chat rooms, Youtube, Muslimtube or Islamist blogs (Thamm, 2004, p. 89; von
Behr, Reding, Edwards, & Gribbon, 2013). Social media and the respective profiles on these plat-
forms (e.g. Facebook, WhatsApp, PalTalk, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram) are also increasingly
used for radicalization and recruitment. The underlying message of the sometimes rather trivial
and harmless twitter posts is that it is an individual obligation for every Muslim to become a Jiha-
dist and that the fighting for the IS gives one’s life meaning and is exciting and fun (Klausen,
2015, pp. 19–20).
But IS also uses more old-fashioned media, like the publication of Dabiq or lately of Rumiyah
(Rome), to portray its most important messages in the form of a glossy magazine (Simons, 2016),
and the magazines have been adopted and translated as a means for recruiting followers in Europe
(Heinke & Fouad, 2015, p. 9). IS also has media centres and press officers. Twitter is a particularly
popular form, as it allows the building of a community and is hard to censor; or, as one Jihadi puts
it: “Praise be to Allah, who gave Twitter to the mujahideen so that they may share their goals and
not have to listen to the BBC” (quoted in Spencer, 2015, p. 1595).

Language
Closely related to the technological aspect of “print capitalism” is the question of language.
Anderson argues “that from the start the nation was conceived in language, not in blood, and
that one could be ‘invited into’ the imagined community” (Anderson, 1983, p. 145).
IS ‘invites’ in Arabic and it is polyglot when recruiting foreigners as, for example, IS’ Maga-
zines Dabiq and Rumiyah are published in English. However, the frequent use of Arabic terms
and phrases turns the English text into a specific blend, which shows the leading role of Arabic in
IS discourse. Internally, the extinction of religious minorities impacts the use of language because
minority languages are under pressure.
However, it is not only the Arabic language that is of importance. What we also observe is a
specific semiotic of IS, for example, the symbols and images of the black flag of IS and the
orange jumpsuits of the beheaded hostages. A Dabiq front-page article argues for the end of the “grey-
zone” and urges Muslims to decide between the two camps: IS or its enemies (Dabiq Magazine,
2015, pp. 54–66). In the final decision, these camps are either black – the victorious Jihadi – or
orange – the captured enemies before their execution. Similarly, the demolitions of cultural artefacts
are attempts to reduce the range of alternative semiotic systems (Dabiq Magazine, 2014, pp. 14–17).

Pilgrimage
A last category – pilgrimage – enables us to grasp the identity-building process that is triggered by
these factors. The Hajj to Mecca certainly constitutes a central component of Muslim identity con-
struction (Bianchi, 2004) and traditional Islam also stipulates to pilgrimage to shrines, which,
however, are destroyed by IS in their territorial re-ordering of memory. Pilgrimages are funda-
mentally contested concepts that vary and change over time (Eade & Sallnow, 1991, p. 3) and
IS applies the feature of pilgrimage to a project of nation-building. Anderson identifies a
secular pilgrimage in which administrators travel from post to post, encounter other functionaries
on their way, and “in experiencing them as travelling-companions, a consciousness of connected-
ness […] emerges” (Anderson, 1983, p. 56).
Applying this understanding of pilgrimage to the journeys of the foreign fighters, we face a
religiously backed identity transformation process that exposes youngsters to a process of
extreme liminality and turns them into a new communitas. Like a pilgrimage, a journey from a
Western country to IS converts the person from someone who is integrated in Western society
into an IS fighter with no loyalties beyond the group. This pilgrimage forces individuals to
leave behind their old life in order to gain a new, heroic self. This interpretation of a pilgrimage
also resonates in recent radicalization research which shows that most Jihadists prefer to fight
outside their Western homes (Hegghammer, 2013, p. 12).

Concluding remarks on the imagined Jihad

Based on the debate of radicalization and adapting and applying a desecularized version of Ben-
edict Anderson’s approach of imagined communities to nationalism, we have argued that IS has
started a nation- and state-building project. We first discussed the findings of the radicalization
literature and concluded that the argument of “unprecedented threat” (United Nations Security
Council, 2016) rests on the ability of IS to turn the diffuse challenge of Islamism into a territorially
based threat of world order. The second part started with a discussion of how a desecularized
version of nationalist studies better captures the challenge of IS than the alternative of fundamen-
talist studies or the approaches on religious nationalism. We argued that religious revivalism as a
political state-building project rests on a fusion of nationalist and religious aspects.
To analyse the challenge of IS, we then adapted and applied the categories that informed Ben-
edict Anderson’s approach on national identity construction. We used Anderson’s arguments
about community-building and about this being limited as well as sovereign. We also focused
on his notion that the nation is old and at the same time modern, on his idea of the disintegration
of paradise, of overcoming death, the role of technology, language and, finally, pilgrimage.
We conclude that the territorial claim to power and sovereignty does not come with a Westpha-
lian restriction of sovereignty. Rather, imagining a Jihadi community combines the internal success
of a nation- and state-building project with the external attractiveness of a global Ummah.
Combining the modern territorial nation-state with the imperial religious claim of the caliphate, IS
is in the process of constructing an aggressive national Sunni identity. It contains a mobile concept
of sovereignty, which integrates not only people of the conquered territories, but also supporters
worldwide. Salafist narratives of Sunni power, its memories and symbols are being combined to
strengthen the “imagined community”. Unfortunately, the IS might thus stay highly attractive to
its old or potential new followers, even if the movement is defeated militarily.

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