Chapter 43 - Aḥlām al-Naṣr and the Islamic State’s Justification for Execution by Burning

Summary

This chapter discusses the 2015 Islamic State (IS) publication Bal ʾaṭʿanā allāh idh aḥraqanāhu yā ʿabīda al-rafāhiyya (‘Nay, We Obeyed God When We Burned Him, You Slaves of the Luxurious Life’), which justifies the execution by immolation of Jordanian fighter pilot Muʿādh al-Kasāsba. The act prompted widespread criticism, sparking outrage across the Muslim world. This condemnation was even echoed within the Salafī jihādī, including the notorious Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī (b. 1959). The author of the piece, Shaymāʾ Haddād (b. 1992), more commonly known by her pseudonym Aḥlām al-Naṣr, exploits juristic disagreements in the medieval scholarly tradition to persuade the reader that immolation was never prohibited by the Prophet Muḥammad. Far from presenting the punishment of immolation as a timeless repetition of Prophetic custom, she claims that immolation is a necessary evil in a modern world where ‘incendiary weaponry’ (al-asliḥa fī hi ḥaraqa) - such as missiles, napalm, and cluster bombs - has become a norm in the conduct of war.