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<\/a>President Obama further ventured that when we call them \u201cIslamic,\u201d we grant ISIS the \u201clegitimacy\u201d for which they thirst. For they are \u201cdesperate to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam.\u201d Yet another non sequitur: Christening the group Islamic or not is unlikely to change that its members and a good many Muslims across the Ummah<\/em> regard ISIS as thoroughbred Islamic.<\/p>\nWhat else did Imam Obama\u2014who professes Christianity\u2014proclaim in the name of the ISIS Islamic eschatology? Obama claimed that ISIS has \u201cperverted the religion [of Islam]\u201d and that it is peddling a \u201ctwisted ideology used to incite others to violence.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWeighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate,\u201d warns Graeme Wood, editor at The Atlantic, is something Western officials would probably do best to avoid. \u201cWhen he claim[s] that the Islamic State [is] \u2018not Islamic,\u2019\u201d Obama, in fact, has \u201cdrifted into takfiri<\/em> waters,\u201d explains Wood. For \u201cnon-Muslims cannot tell Muslims how to practice their religion properly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn Islam, the practice of takfir<\/em>, or excommunication, is theologically perilous,\u201d cautions Wood, in a seminal expos\u00e9 on the Islamic State entitled \u201cWhat ISIS Really Wants.\u201d<\/a> \u201c\u2018If a man says to his brother, \u2018You are an infidel,\u2019 the Prophet said, \u2018then one of them is right.\u2019 If the accuser is wrong, he himself has committed apostasy by making a false accusation. The punishment for apostasy is death.\u201d<\/p>\n