Humanities Viewpoints

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS, also known as ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or just the Islamic State, started as an al Qaeda splinter group. Its aim is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria and is known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions. The group currently controls hundreds of square miles in Iraq and Syria. On June 29, 2014, ISIS announced the creation of a caliphate, claiming to erase all state borders and declaring leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the authority over the world’s estimated 1.5 billion Muslims.While you have likely been following news coverage of ISIS, you may not know the history of the caliphate in the Middle East. Today on Humanities Viewpoints, Dr. Charles Wilkins, Associate Professor of History at Wake Forest University, outlines the history of the caliphate in the Middle East, providing historical and cultural context that illustrates how al-Baghdadi’s claim as caliph is a distorted misrepresen