Die Kalifats-Utopie des IS und ihre religiöse Rechtfertigung

Is the Islamic State (IS), as Barack Obama claimed, neither Islamic nor a state? This paper strives to un-derstand not only the political, but also the religious motives of IS and its supporters, to take them seri-ously and to examine them critically. Why were tens of thousands of Muslims willing to fight and even to die for a caliphate in the 21st century? The answer to this question can be found in the IS propaganda magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. In order to assess the caliphate utopia described in these magazines, it is necessary to study the political dimension of Islam and the historical caliphates, as well as the arguments of Islamic scholars who criticise the IS’s goals and the religious reasoning.