A 32-year-old American has emerged as one of Islamic State’s (Daesh) top leaders, a recent report by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic magazine revealed. What propelled John Georgelas aka Abu Yahya to the top of the jihadist group?
‘A staggering mastery of Islamic law’
Was it poverty that turned him to terror? No, he was born into an upper-middle class family in Texas. Perhaps, it was American foreign policy? No, there is no indication that he was displeased with the 1845 incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the US
It was ideology that drove him into the arms of the IS. Financed by rich Arabs in Texas, Yahya studied Islam. Initially attracted to Sufism, he soon turned to Dhahirism, an “ultraliteralist legal school”. He has a “staggering mastery of Islamic law” and can even compose poems in classical Arabic off the top of his head. This helped him win support within the terror group
‘Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You’
Yahya now produces the glossy IS magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. The pellucid article titled “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You” reads like a distillation of every conversation I have ever had with a jihadist, writes Wood
Some liberal journalist would like you to believe that we do what we do because we’re simply monsters… The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam IS’s Dabiq magazine