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Wood writes: “The reality is that the Islamic State (IS) is Islamic. Very Islamic.” The strain of Salafist Islam jihadists embrace derives “from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.” Salafis — all jihadis are Salafist, but not all Salafists are jihadis, who represent, it bears emphasizing, tens of thousands out of 1.4 billion Muslims — “read the Koran attentively, and on certain matters, they occupy ground at least as solid as that of their opponents.” It therefore won’t do, he says, to pretend jihadists are misrepresenting their religion.

Political or psychological explanations for jihadism are all sidebars, Wood maintains: “The notion that religious belief is a minor factor in the rise of the IS is belied by a crushing weight of evidence that religion matters deeply to the majority of those who have travelled to fight,” just as Catholicism mattered to the Crusaders, Protestantism to 16th century Reformation warriors and Buddhism to Burma’s brutally anti-Muslim 969 movement.

The diverse portraits of Wood’s jihadist subjects are the heart of the book. Highly detailed though they are, the jihadist mindset will bewilder the average secular Westerner, who can no longer relate to notions like “the apocalypse” or “end times.” But along with restoration of the Caliphate, these concepts are the key to understanding ISIL.

All visions of a coming apocalypse and end times share a common thread: they cannot take place until certain predicted events occur, and in a specific order. Wood notes, for example, that ISIL “spends less time complaining about Israel and the Jews than any other jihadist organization of the same scale.” Why? Partly because ISIL considers the leaders of Fatah and Hamas apostates. But mainly because the Koran’s apocalyptic texts dictate that the Jews’ fate is contingent on prior met conditions. First Jesus has to return and convert to Islam, ending Christianity; only then will the Jews be dealt with.