BBC “Today Programme” ignores the cult-like nature of ISIS recruitment of young women in the UK

I should begin, perhaps, by declaring my own stance on this. From my professional experience, and given its behaviour towards others, even fellow-Muslims, I believe that ISIS bears all the first-order markers of a malignant, destructive cult. Consequently it is very worrisome that neither governments nor media have courage enough to name that aspect, let alone to act in an intelligent way to combat it. By failing to spell out the cult-like nature of ISIS and other similar closed-off Islamist organisations, media and governments are endangering their people, including the Muslims in the West who want nothing to do with ISIS.
On 30th December 2015, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mishal Husain interviewed a young Muslim woman who had been targeted for recruitment on Twitter by ISIS but who had been rescued by an all faith group which appealed to her interest in football. As the interview unfolded it became clear that the BBC’s questions were selective, and not once did Husain probe or ask questions of the woman which might indicate why she thought she might have been targeted. Also significant by its absence was any acknowledgement by Husain of the sense of alienation of such young Muslim women because of their inferior status in comparison to males among other things, accorded them by Islamic teaching.
I take most of my source material below from the excellent book by Steven Hassan, “Combatting Cult Mind Control” [1] which I have found useful to inform my work with people whose families approached me for help. Although one cannot map completely the effects of cult membership in general onto such a widespread belief system as Islam, I would argue that once Islam shades into Islamism, it takes on many of the psychological characteristics of other closed destructive cults.
Hassan says that cult recruiters are powerfully persuasive and seductive to newcomers. The BBC interview threw up one important nugget of information from the young woman Husain interviewed – about the pleasantness of the approach from the ISIS member. Hassan tell us that recruiters are taught to size up the newcomer, and to package the group in a way which will appeal. The young interviewee told us that ISIS promised to care for her and protect her, which of course begs the question of why this sense of being cared for and protected was missing in the life she already had.
Hassan points up the difference between mind control (for our purposes as exerted by ISIS) and brainwashing. The latter is coercive from the beginning, rather than seductive. We are told that mind control as practised by destructive cults is a social process, enforced by large groups of people, in which the recruit is totally immersed in the cult environment and where, in order to function, he must shed his old identity and adopt the new identity desired by the group. Hassan tells us that hypnotic processes are combined with group dynamics to create a potent indoctrination effect. Destructive cults like ISIS also instil fears and phobias into their recruits in order to control them utterly.
ISIS manages the recruit’s physical reality by behaviour control and the induction of phobias about the punishments meted out to transgressors against the group’s norms beds this in effectively. Individualism is discouraged, if not punished. Ritual behaviours are also employed alongside lengthy sermons from the group’s religious leaders about the necessity to spread Islam by violent means and to obliterate kufr.
Alongside that comes thought control, by which the members of the groups are so thoroughly indoctrinated with the group’s doctrine that they internalise it. This may or may not put a slightly different slant on the mantra usually offered by the families of particularly sociopathic ISIS members such as Jihadi John – that these were good young people, non-violent, etc etc – but it certainly illustrates the success of ISIS indoctrination and those parents’ own failure to form sufficiently strong attachments with their children to confer the necessary emotional resilience for them to be able to withstand such approaches or resist seeking them out.
In addition, there is the accompanying doctrine of absolutist, black and white thinking. There are no shades of grey, no nuanced approaches. Hassan says that destructive cults also employ “loaded language” of words and expressions. Certain words trigger emotional and cognitive responses and complex situations are condensed into cult clichés, all of which influence thought and behaviour.
ISIS probably inculcates thought stopping rituals so that its members can be taught to block out any information which is critical of it and/or does not tie in with its leaders’ teachings. However, whereas in most destructive cults simple denial then kicks in when their beliefs are contradicted, ISIS and Islamist groups in general tend to ratchet up their violent reactions.
ISIS also controls its members by fear, of its own violence towards anyone who does not conform to its rigid teachings, including its own members. Islam in general is inclined towards a fortress mentality which, along the same lines as I have already described above, thrives in the rigid, dichotomous, black and white thinking which typifies Islamic teaching in general. Such a mentality predisposes to suspicion about outsiders and also makes reality testing difficult generally, but for an ISIS follower that becomes impossible, which means that ISIS leaders exercise information control too:
The controlling of information by leaders is the last component of mind control, according to Hassan. Deny a person the information s/he needs and you paralyse the ability to make decisions. It is likely that ISIS’ behaviour is similar to that of other destructive cults in that it either actively lies to its followers and/ or withholds information. That it does lie is evidenced in the accounts of Muslims who have fled from it, particularly the women, who had joined because their recruiters had promised to take care of and protect them but then relegated them to slavery to the ISIS males.
The young Muslima interviewed by Husain was rescued by the interfaith group, and this indicates that ISIS’ hold over her was minimal at the time of that intervention. However, rather than posit intelligent, analytical reasons for the success of online recruitment to ISIS, Husain could offer nothing beyond the usual “alienation from wider society” excuse for the young woman having been such a ready target for them. Instead we got the usual BBC default value – the implication that “alienation” was, as always, the fault of non-Muslims was allowed to continue unchallenged.
From my own literature searches, very few have addressed even in a rudimentary way, the ongoing emotional alienation of the young within Muslim families and Muslim societies. One thought-provoking article by Mohammed Ilyas in the Journal of Terrorism Research[2] – whilst it does attempt psychological analysis – at times comes close to the usual excuse making and fails completely to address what may well be one of the root causes of the radicalisation of Muslim young – the effects of emotional attachment difficulties on the young in the Muslim family and their possible role in radicalisation. All attachment difficulties, in all cultural groups, stem from negative childhood experiences and these may well be the drivers which predispose such youngsters from Muslim families to seek out ISIS or make them ideal targets for online recruitment. I single out ISIS simply because at present no other entity is as dangerous, as open in its aims or has gained so much publicity or is as sophisticated in its recruitment techniques.
The BBC, by failing to apprehend or address this at all, let alone honestly and in depth, has let its audience down yet again.
Postscript: In response to a friend to whom I sent this to be critiqued, I searched out the relevant BBC podcast on its webpage. I, of course, heard the entire original interview, but the podcast gave us something from the young Muslima, but nothing at all of the questions asked her by Husain.
[1] Hassan, Steven, Combatting Cult Mind Control Rochester, Vermont 05767, 1990
[2] Ilyas, Mohammed, Islamist groups in the UK and recruitment. Journal of Terrorism Research, St Andrew's University Vol 4 Issue 2, September, 2013.
Dear Babs,
thank you for your responses which were interesting.
With regard to denial I think that there is another strand operating here and that is aspects of honour/shame. One reason for denial would be the intent to transfer blame for radicalisation away from the family if it is perceived as “shaming” to the family or community (we can also see this shaming in terms of “harm” to the public perception of Muslims/Islam).
You may recall the several recent cases where parents/friends of “Jihadi John” and one of the three Jihadi brides blamed the Police (J.John), teachers, society etc. for their radicalisation or not spotting the same (“J.Bride”); in the latter case hard evidence later emerged of said father at al-Mujhiroon meetings accompanied by his now absconded daughter, so daddy was actively radicalising her yet blaming just about everybody else when she made her “radicalisation” public by decamping to Syria.
With respect to alienation: although I entirely agree with your point about women, I was making a broader one.
To extend it somewhat. Many people see alienation as a cause of “radicalisation”, in my opinion this muddles cause and effect.
I alluded to the fact that the “radicalised” are invariably described as being nice, kind, friendly, etc. – i.e. well integrated young folk right up to a short time before they left for Syria; just occasionally someone notes that “s/he became much more religious recently” or similar.
Having studied the Koran and Sunnah I know that Islam teaches alienation, Muslims are taught that they should not befriend non-Muslims (though they can be friendly, especially if that enhances their own security) and that their only “true” friends must be other Muslims.
Thus Islam drives alienation from the host culture of non-Muslim countries and “radicalisation” only drives it further and faster – from disdain to hatred and violence.
Thus “radicalisation” – i.e. deepening Islam faith – generates alienation, not the other way around.
Folk Islam vs. real Islam.
I do not doubt that you are correct about cognitive dissonance between the folk Islam young Muslims received from their parents and what the Koran itself teaches, but Islamic teaching specifically repudiates the sort of syncretism that would be needed to reach such a synthesis between forms of “folk Islam” and what we might term “real Islam”.
Neither do I doubt your point on ISIS et al targeting those at a vulnerable stage, though I would say that since ISIS can’t know who these “vulnerable” young people are unless they “pop up” through social media, then I think that the young person’s direction of travel may well be set before such “outreach” by ISIS etc.
In essence they contact ISIS, not the other way around.
I also think that there is another mechanism active here, unrelated to ISIS, al-Qeada etc.
It is simply that as the young person comes to understand what islam teaches and contrasts it to what their parents practice, they wish to follow a “purer” form of Islam. That too will point them towards Salafist and Wahabist Imams.
Where I do think ISIS et al is greatly involved is in accelerating radicalisation to the point that it becomes actively violent.
Prof. Haykel has pointed out that many Salafists (who are “radicals”) are in practice non-violent. He calls them “quietist salafists”.
Many Muslims can be “radicalised” to the extent of seeking to practice a “pure” Islam without becoming violent – Islam’s doctrines of Tayseer and Darura come into play here.
But for me the real significance is that it is the younger generations, who have access to the Islamic canon that are more “radical” and violent than the peaceable older generations who generally did not. This is strongly suggestive (at least) that the “peaceful” forms of Islam are far less tied to the canon (or perhaps more selectively tied) than the more “radical” manifestations.
Hello, Jon MC – good to hear from you and I am glad that you enter the discussion.
To respond to your points in the order you wrote them:
1. As regards the parents being in denial when they insist that they have no clue that their daughters are becoming radicalised,I believe you are correct. We know that in Islam women are mere objects to be dealt with or to according to the wishes of powerful men – imams,fathers, husbands, brothers, even sons. It follows therefore, to me, that since objects are rarely perceived in the way that most intelligent people perceive their fellow humans, the radicalisation may well be ignored (denied), or, where it isn’t, it may be employed as a “protection” against dishonour, or even to big up the status of the head of the family in the eyes of his community, or, worst of all, to punish a daughter for having betrayed the family’s honour.
2. Again, I agree with you. These women, never having been perceived as fully human in the sense that I mean it, are indeed alienated from the wider human race and this is thrown into sharp relief for them when Islam meets the permissiveness of wider society.
Your information about “folk Islam” is thought-provoking. It seems to me that the recipients of “folk Islam” choose to follow ISIS and the like because they cannot achieve the consonnance necessary for being able to synthesise the Islamic cannon and the folk Islam. ISIS and other Islamist terror organisations may deliberately target those in the throes of such cognitive dissonance and deliberately exacerbate it, and then provide ISIS extremism as the panacea
Three things should be made known. The first is to reiterate, in a more specific way concerning the topics of women , ISIS, Islam and polygamy As stated before Jesus taught “For this cause a men shall leave his father and mother ,and shall cleave to his wife…” Matthew 19:5.{K.J.V.] The whole point in this reiteration of the Wise instruction of Jesus is that Jesus had said “Wife.” Not “wives.”Therefore the ISIS militants and as we other Muslims should heed the teaching of Jesus, Since they do claim to respect Him and do accept Him as a prophet,they should then stop practicing polygamy. Still, they will not change in the wicked ways. Second , the villains who compose ISIS will use and exploit as well as use them as tools in their mad Islamic quest. Nevertheless the fiendish men of ISIS do view all females, both, girls and women, with little no worth or value. As Brigitte Gabriel, who is the founder and head of actforamerica.org , had explained in her book THEY MUST BE STOPPED informs her readers by letting them know that “Women in Islam are considered unclean ,deemed inferior even to dirt.” Third, with the ISIS savages having total control of all those women,the time will then come ,for some of them, the brutally cruel, vicious ,malicious and murderous violence of receiving the malice-filled evil of an Islamic “honor killing.” As also explain in the same book just mentioned. Which reads Honor killings are executed by slitting the victims throat , hatching them, stabbing , burning them to death, decapitation, bullets to the head and chest, or by any other means imaginable.” As for ISIS and women. It may truthfully said that callous and ruthless ways the ISIS jihadists treat girls and women ,very much, reflects the hideous misogyny the is so,very much, part of the essence of Islam.
Excellent article Babs. I’d like to add two points.
1. I watched (now many years ago) a Muslim adult transition from being a “cultural” Muslim to an al-Qaeda supporter. I must admit that I was unable to stop this happening.
But my point is this: the signs were OBVIOUS. That is why I frankly do not believe the “By Allah we had no idea s/he was becoming radicalised!” or the “good young people, non-violent, etc etc.” responses. IMO this is simply denial of what they saw going on.
That said, one can envision families so disfunctional that such blatant evidence (as I saw) was ignored, but whilst I share your opinion on Islamic parenting, I think this is mostly unlikely – particularly for young girls who are generally watched much more closely.
2. Neither am I convinced about “alienation” be it from Western or “Islamic” society.
A point to keep in mind is that it is only relatively recently that the Islamic Canon has been widely translated from Arabic and made available to Muslims in their native tongues.
It’s also worth pointing out that illiteracy, even in the mother tongue, is quite high in many Muslim majority Countries – unlike in the West.
It follows that it is those more recent generations that have had direct access to the Islamic canon without the mediation of the local Imam and who thus discover for themselves the violence inherent in Islam along with the rigid and dogmatic nature of Islam.
Putting this another way: I think that many older Muslims actually practice what I call “folk Islam”. It is an Islam based not on the written canon but on the basis of “what everybody knows”. This folk Islam is mutable and influenced by all sorts of external factors not found within Islam itself.
Thus when the later generation of young Muslims read the Islamic canon they may well become “alienated” from the Islam of their parents which they see as riddled with “Bid’r” (Innovation) at best and Kufr at worst.
As a response to this, a very black-and-white version a la ISIS, al-Qaeda etc. etc. will seem attractive since it is closely based on the canon.
Many of the girls and women who will become captives of ISIS will also become entrapped in “marriages” of polygamy. On the subject of polygamy it should be stated that God gave Adam one wife. Further,in the New Testament Jesus taught “For this cause shall and man leave father and mother ,and shall cleave to his wife…” Matthew 19:5. [K.J.V.] Nevertheless there are some people who will act as apologists for polygamy by saying that king David and then king Solomon did practice it. Nevertheless, such people aren’t taking into account that the only reason that God did tolerate this tradition was not because it was right or that He approved of it. It was tolerated because it was such an entrenched custom in the ancient Middle East at that time that God allowed it for the above mentioned kings of Israel. This did not mean that polygamy was a good thing and was meant to keep on going in other times and places. Still the callous men of ISIS will still use and exploit those young females as tools for their own Islamic agenda.
To state the obvious, the deceptive and insidious jihadist thugs of ISIS will try to do all they are able to entice ,with falsehoods and sly deception, to cause young and impressionable women to actually want go to the lands that ISIS now controls. The ruthless and cruel fiendish men of ISIS will use and exploit them .As in to manipulate and use them as tools and stooges for their Islamic cause . How totally unconscionable of the ISIS Muslim men. Those girls and women will have a very strong ,rude and harsh reality check when they find out the hard way that the brutal men who composes ISIS were lying to them. How completely despicable of men of ISIS. So sad and tragic for those girls and women who are and who will be victims of ISIS.