JASON BURKE
Refugees flee IS in Iraq—as the war goes on, al-Qaeda is preparing to return
© AFTONBLADET/IBL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Some time within the coming weeks, Iraqi forces will reach the great mosque of al-Nuri, in Mosul. It was from the pulpit in this small, 900-year-old complex that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (IS), declared the foundation of a new caliphate with himself as caliph in 2014. The mosque was not chosen at random. Nur ad-Din Zangi, the man who ordered its construction, and after whom it was named, fought crusaders and their allies in the 11th century and carved out a short-lived territory across what is now Iraq and Syria. Baghdadi’s choice of this location encapsulated IS’s distinctive, animating ambition: the rebuilding of the lost caliphate, that transnational state that fused faith and empire and is, for many conservative Muslims, symbolic of a golden age when Islam was a superpower. Researchers have found that, when not fighting, IS members listen to al music, poetry, weep together, discuss and interpret dreams. And, for many among them, the greatest dream of all is the return of the caliph at the head of a refounded, resurgent caliphate.