Female followers of the group are banned from fighting. But to ensure they are working for the cause, a new foundation offers them tips on recipes and first aid

After Isis’s success in recruiting women to its cause, the insurgents have launched the Zora Foundation – a media arm that has been dubbed an Isis “finishing school”, and offers tips, advice and even recipes. It’s a guide for women that puts the “domestic” into “domestic terrorism”.

Female followers of Isis are banned from fighting, and told to focus on marrying jihadi fighters and becoming mothers. But the group wants to make sure they are still working hard for the cause, and don’t turn into the Real Housewives of Raqqa.

According to its website for women, the foundation is “interested in explosive belt and suicide bombing more than a white dress or a castle”. Something for everyone then. Videos are illustrated with clip-art-style animation of sewing machines and cooking hobs. The website also carries health tips – such as jogging (“Keep adding distance every day in order not to be a burden on your jihadi brothers”), or watching first aid videos (“Try to apply them on your young sister”). And there is the video on what “feminine manual labour” is acceptable – sewing and creating online propaganda.

The latest post is a recipe for date and millet balls – and while it wouldn’t win any prizes on The Great British Bake Off, it is touted as the perfect “between battle” snack, which contains “significant calories and will extend the power and strength of the mujahideen”.

The foundation, which has more than 2,800 followers on Twitter, is in Arabic and so does not focus on advice for the wives of foreign fighters. (Who, according to their Twitter timelines, are keener on Nutella and M&Ms than dates and millet flour.)

The advice may sound regressive, but is in keeping with the information being spread among western women who have been lured to join the caliphate. While tweeting pictures of roses and sunsets, women with handles such as “Birds of Jannah” show their adherence to the cause by posting listicles such as “Marriage in the land of jihad: till martyrdom do us part,” which informs prospective jihadi brides: “We don’t have fireworks, but we celebrate the wedding by gunshots.”

According to counter extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, the women also encourage male recruits, by “shaming” Muslim men who don’t join the insurgency, and are now said to play an important role in two all-female brigades that enforce strict Sharia law.