‘The Euphrates River is almost every newly-married couples’ favourite spot.” This statement is one of the 10 “marriage facts” of ISIL, as posted by one of the groups most prolific writers on social media. That blogger is a woman who goes by the name of Shams, and who claims to be a medical professional who has lost her “doctor’s suitcase” during her “hijrah” (pilgrimage) to ISIL territory in Syria.
This “mujaheda’s” online entries are posted under the banner “Diary of a Traveller”. She hopes she will soon become a “bird of Jannah” (bird of heaven) and her website is adorned with an image of white doves carrying ISIL’s black-and-white flag, suggesting the group brings peace wherever it goes. In reality, that flag is most strongly associated with carnage.
I can’t help but cringe over what this woman has written, although I should stress that it is not possible to verify the site’s authenticity. The writer describes ISIL as “amazing and lovely” and says media reports about death and destruction are all false.
It sounds so fake. It is almost funny whenever she uses Islamic terminologies and puts them in the wrong places – revealing that she doesn’t know Arabic well – and uses sacred ideologies as if she were writing a movie script. The whole blog is filled with blasphemy as are all the entries by ISIL members on their social media outlets.
Since when is Hijrah – a difficult pilgrimage performed by Prophet Mohammed and his followers – comparable to this ISIL member hopping on a plane to Turkey then on a bus or car to Syria?
This blog is trying too hard to be a love story, using terms like “confessions of a muhajerha” and entries like “top ten facts” making it sound like yet another marketing tool for ISIL. It also sounds like they are fishing for a book deal.
Regardless of how ridiculous all of these entries sound, they are still something that connect with people and influences them on some level.
It is often said that desperate times call for desperate measures. But when I start hearing jokes made by successful single women in their 30s and 40s about how the only way they will find a husband is if they join ISIL, I can’t help thinking that this reflects a serious inner need that is not often voiced publicly.
“I heard they teach you how to cook and sew and how “to become a proper ‘rabat bait’ [housewife], skills most of us lack as no one bothered to teach us,” said a friend of mine, who feels she has lost some of her feminine qualities because she has had to support her family for decades.
This need to be a woman, a wife and mother is always there, even if it is buried deep down within.
Many jump at the chance to “belong” to someone.
Even though they could be married off to a really unpleasant character, these ISIL women would still be a “wife”, a Mrs or an Umm. And, whether we like it or not, a married woman is often viewed as being more respectable in the eyes of society.
There is definitely a single versus married divide, where often the single women (and to a lesser extent the single men), feel left out of many events and experiences as the married club does not include them.
However, I was able to burst that particular bubble when I pointed out that even ISIL fighters are “picky”. They are said to prefer younger and “blonder” women, according to some reports. Those women who are over 40 are generally left alone and can decide if they want to get married or not.
I am just waiting for that story to come out where ISIL start bickering among themselves and where they feel threatened by the amount of European wives who show up to help.
You heard it here first.
rghazal@thenational.ae
Twitter: @Arabianmau