Friday, March 6, 2015

The Veil Across Europe

Countries across Europe have wrestled with the issue of the Muslim veil - in various forms such as the body-covering burka andthe niqab, which covers the face apart from the eyes.

The debate takes in religious freedom, female equality, secular traditions and even fears of terrorism.

The veil issue is part of a wider debate about multiculturalism in Europe, as many politicians argue that there needs to be a greater effort to assimilate ethnic and religious minorities.

France

France was the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil in public places.

France has about five million Muslims - the largest Muslim minority in Western Europe - but it is thought only about 2,000 women wear full veils.

As President, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose administration brought in the ban, said that veils oppress women and were "not welcome" in France.

Under the ban that took effect on 11 April 2011, no woman, French or foreign, is able to leave their home with their face hidden behind a veil without running the risk of a fine.

Pupils attend an Arabic course, on 16 October 16, 2012, in Saint-Leger-de-Fougeret, central France.

Headscarves are allowed at French universities - but not schools

The penalty for doing so is a 150-euro (£133, $217) fine and instruction in citizenship. Anyone found forcing a woman to cover her face risks a 30,000-euro fine.

The French Interior Ministry said, as of September 2012, 425 women had been fined and 66 had been warned for violating the headscarf ban.

The European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban on 2 July 2014 after a case was brought by a 24-year-old French woman who argued that the ban violated her freedom of religion and expression.

Most of the population - including most Muslims - agree with the government when it describes the face-covering veil as an affront to society's values. Critics - chiefly outside France - say it is a violation of individual liberties.

A ban on Muslim headscarves and other "conspicuous" religious symbols at state schools was introduced in 2004, and received overwhelming political and public support in a country where the separation of state and religion is enshrined in law.

Muslim headscarves

: The word hijab comes from the Arabic for veil and is used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in myriad styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West is a square scarf that covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.

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Belgium

A law banning the full-face veil came into effect in Belgium in July 2011.

The law bans any clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in places like parks and on the street.

Veiled women protest against the ban of the headscarf, worn by Muslim girls, at schools on the first day of the new school year in Antwerp on 1 September 2009.

Veiled women in Belgium have staged protests against the ban

In December 2012, Belgium's Constitutional Court rejected appeals for the ban to be annulled, ruling that it did not violate human rights.

Before the law was passed, the burka was already banned in several districts under old local laws originally designed to stop people masking their faces completely at carnival time.

Spain

Though there are no plans for a national ban in Spain, the city of Barcelona announced a ban on full Islamic face-veils in some public spaces such as municipal offices, public markets and libraries.

At least two smaller towns in Catalonia, the north-eastern region that includes Barcelona, have also imposed bans.

A veiled woman sits in a bench in Barcelona on 16 June 2010.

Barcelona was the first major city in Spain to ban the full-face Islamic veil in public buildings

But a ban in the town of Lleida was overturned by Spain's Supreme Court in February 2013. It ruled that it was an infringement of religious liberties.

Barcelona's city council said the ban there targeted any head-wear that impeded identification, including motorbike helmets and balaclavas.

Britain

There is no ban on Islamic dress in the UK, but schools are allowed to decide their own dress code after a 2007 directive which followed several high-profile court cases.

Women, sheltering under umbrellas, wear full face Niqab on the streets of Blackburn on 20 July 2010.

Many Islamic groups see a ban on full-face veils as discrimination against Muslims

In January 2010, then Schools Secretary Ed Balls said it was "not British" to tell people what to wear in the street after the UK Independence Party called for all face-covering Muslim veils to be banned.

In September 2013, Home Office Minister Jeremy Browne called for a "national debate" about Islamic veils in public places, such as schools.

In 2014 UKIP came first in the European elections in Britain, winning 24 seats in Brussels. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has previously said that full veils are a symbol of an "increasingly divided Britain", that they "oppress" women, and are a potential security threat.

The Netherlands

Plans to impose a ban in the Netherlands under the country's previous centre-right coalition were shelved in 2012 when the government collapsed and was replaced by its left-wing rivals.

The earlier proposed ban reflected the influence of the anti-Islamist Geert Wilders, whose Freedom party was at that time the third largest in parliament and the minority coalition government's chief ally.

Dutch right-wing PVV leader Geert Wilders attends a meeting in a bar in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, on 22 May 22

Populist politician Geert Wilders, of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, wants tougher policies on Islam

Attempts to introduce similar legislation in 2006 failed. Lawyers said it would probably be unconstitutional and critics said it would violate civil rights.

Around 5% of the Netherlands' 16 million residents are Muslims, but only around 300 are thought to wear the niqab, which leaves the eyes uncovered, or the burka, which covers them with a cloth grid. The wearing of headscarves is far more common, however.

Turkey

For more than 85 years Turks have lived in an officially secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who rejected headscarves as backward-looking.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's wife, Emine, wears a headscarf

Scarves are banned in civic spaces and official buildings, but the issue is deeply divisive for the country's predominantly Muslim population, as two-thirds of all Turkish women - including the wives and daughters of the prime minister and president - cover their heads.

In 2008, Turkey's constitution was amended to ease a strict ban at universities, allowing headscarves that were tied loosely under the chin. Headscarves covering the neck and all-enveloping veils were still banned.

In October 2013, Turkey lifted rules banning women from wearing headscarves in the country's state institutions - with the exception of the judiciary, military and police.

The governing AK Party, with its roots in Islam, said the ban meant many girls were being denied an education. But the secular establishment said easing it would be a first step to allowing Islam into public life.

Italy

Several towns in Italy have local bans on face-covering veils. The north-western town of Novara is one of several local authorities to have already brought in rules to deter public use of the Islamic veil.

Governments have discussed extending the law to impose penalties on Muslim face coverings, but these have not yet been enforced nationally.

A young boy looks at a board on 30 April 2012 in Varallo, Italy, saying that the Burqa, Niqab and Burqini are not allowed in this city..

This sign in Varallo says that the Burqa, Niqab and Burqini are not allowed by communal decision

In 2004 local politicians in northern Italy resurrected old public order laws against the wearing of masks, to stop women from wearing the burka.

Some mayors from the anti-immigrant Northern League have also banned the use of Islamic swimsuits.

Denmark

In 2008, the government announced it would bar judges from wearing headscarves and similar religious or political symbols - including crucifixes, Jewish skull caps and turbans - in courtrooms.

Pakistanis burn Danish flag during a rally in Lahore, Pakistan on 24 February 2006

Thousands of people across the Muslim world protested against Denmark in 2006 over the publication of a controversial cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad

That move came after pressure from the Danish People's Party (DPP), known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric, which has since called for the ban to be extended to include school teachers and medical personnel.

After a Danish paper published a controversial cartoon in 2005 depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bearded man with a bomb in his turban, there were a series of protests against Denmark across the Muslim world.

Germany

There is no national law restricting the wearing of veils.

In September 2003 the federal Constitutional Court ruled in favour of a teacher who wanted to wear an Islamic scarf to school.

A Muslim woman passes a shop on 10 October 2001 in Berlin's heavily-Muslim Neukoelln district.

However, it said states could change their laws locally if they wanted to.

At least half of Germany's 16 states have gone on to ban teachers from wearing headscarves and in the state of Hesse the ban applies to all civil servants.

Russia

Russia's Stavropol region has announced a ban on hijabs - the first of its kind imposed by a region in the Russian federation. The ruling was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court in July 2013.

In Chechnya, the authorities have defied Russian policy on Islamic dress. In 2007 President Ramzan Kadyrov - the pro-Moscow leader - issued an edict ordering women to wear headscarves in state buildings. It is a direct violation of Russian law, but is strictly followed today.

President Kadyrov even voiced support for men who fired paintballs at women deemed to be violating the strict dress code.

Muslim women pray inside a Moscow mosque on 30 March 2010.

More than 16 million Muslims live in Russia

Switzerland

In late 2009, Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said a face-veil ban should be considered if more Muslim women begin wearing them, adding that the veils made her feel "uncomfortable".

In September 2013, 65% of the electorate in the Italian-speaking region of Ticino voted in favour of a ban on face veils in public areas by any group.

It was the first time that any of Switzerland's 26 cantons has imposed such a ban.

Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS - CCIS) member Nora Illi distributes flyers in Lugano against an upcoming cantonal vote on banning face-covering headgear in public places on 18 September 2013.

Swiss Muslim women protested against the cantonal vote in Ticino on banning face-covering veils

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Why do Women Love Be-headers?

ISIS Ability to Recruit Women Baffles West, Strengthens Cause

Success in stemming the youthful allure of the Islamic State group won't come from attack jets.

An Iraqi Assyrian woman who fled from Mosul to Lebanon holds a placard depicting the map of Iraq and Syria, during a sit-in for abducted Christians in Syria and Iraq, at a church in Sabtiyesh area east Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday.

By Paul D. ShinkmanMarch 2, 2015 | 12:01 a.m. EST+ More

A young woman who says she lives in the United Kingdom posted last August to a Tumblr page reportedly run by recruiters for the Islamic State group.

“i so badly want to go to raqqah and live under the shariah and live in the land of khilafa but as a young muslimah in the uk it's rly difficult,” she wrote, using another term for the “caliphate” the extremist network also known as ISIS or ISIL claims to have founded. “it hurts my heart to live here. I yearn to be the wife of a mujahid and support him and khilafa all the way.”

Moments later she received the same warm, welcoming and thoughtful response that so many others on the site had received before, reminiscent of a well-trained college campus tour guide.

“I swear by Allāh I completely understand the feeling,” the responder began, piling on empathy for the young woman’s fears of leaving her family at home for an unknown cause abroad. But the responder assured her she would find even more stability and support were she to travel to Syria and help solidify territory the group had claimed proudly, in blood.

“I refused in the west to marry anyone unless he was a mujahid, I wanted someone who fought for Allāhs deen,” the responder wrote. “And it is a beautiful feeling being married to a mujahid.”

A Danish trainer tells an Iraqi army trainee to correct his weapon's position during simulated room clearing exercises, as part of multinational efforts in helping combat the Islamic State militant group in Iraq on Feb. 10, 2015.

Why the Military Is Giving Part of Its Playbook to ISIS

The danger of sites such as these has grown incrementally stronger since last summer, as the Islamic State group continues to strengthen its gains in Syria and defy what Western intelligence agencies thought they knew about Islamic extremist networks.

As many as 20,000 foreign fighters have flocked to Syria and Iraq since the Islamic State group first laid siege to the region last summer, according to numbers compiled by the London-basedInternational Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. Of those, as many as 4,000 have come from Europe, 600 from the U.K. alone. Roughly 100 have originated from the U.S. Of the Western migrants, as many as 550 have been women, according to New York-based security firm The Soufan Group.

If the British government and its Western counterparts have any inkling into what actually attracts their young people to an active war zone in Iraq and Syria, it so far hasn’t yielded that publicly. Officials have offered a range of factors: Perhaps disenfranchised Muslim youth feel they can find the stability and acceptance under the Islamic State group that so far has eluded them in their adopted homes, as European countries struggle to shift from monochrome to increased multiculturalism. Others may simply want to participate in the gruesome violence they see constantly splattered across cable news reports. And maybe all believe there is at least some truth to the Islamic State group’s assurances that Western governments have waged war against Islam itself.

The response from the West has been haphazard and largely ineffective. Most recently, headline space has been occupied by still puzzling reports of three healthy, affluent and educated young British women who reportedly traveled to Islamic State group strongholds to support the movement.

Amira Abase, 15, Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, went missing and were last seen having arrived in Turkey. The British government confirmed last week they had indeed crossed over into Syria, likely with the help of human smugglers. All three were described as “straight-A students” at their highly regarded east London school where they were studying for college entrance examinations. The girls’ families have made emotional pleas for their safe return.

What inspired their journey is yet undetermined, though they will likely become brides of the extremist fighters there.

The Islamic State group now must reinforce a perception it has established a haven where Muslims, including young women, can enjoy the kind of excitement and purity they could not find in their Western homes, and directly contribute to breeding a new generation of believers.

According to propaganda videos, women can marry handsome fighters and raise strong warriors to protect their adopted homeland. Unlike most other Muslim extremist organizations, the Islamic State group has also not ruled out the possibility of women taking up arms themselves.

“The best thing for a women is to be a righteous wife and to raise righteous children,” wrote one recruiter on a propaganda blog, according to a February study from The Soufan Group

“‘This [migration] was never meant for ease but a lesson of patience & hardship to understand what jannah [heaven] was always meant for & see if we’re worthy of it,’” another wrote, according to the report.

Kashmiri demonstrators hold up a flag of the Islamic State group during a demonstration against Israeli military operations in Gaza, in downtown Srinagar on July 18, 2014.

The Reality

The truth these women face upon arrival is nothing short of bleak.

“It’s heartbreaking to me whenever I look at their pictures,” says Karima Bennoune, an Algerian-American professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law who studies the female casualties of Islamic extremist movements.

“Groups like ISIS believe they have a theological right to the bodies of women and girls,” she says. “It’s the most tragic thing you can imagine – I don’t know whether they have an understanding or not.”

Bennoune's book, “Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here” documents the untold stories of female involvement – either by temptation or by force – in previous Islamic extremist movements and the consistent tragedies that traditionally befall them, such as forced marriages and sexual enslavement.

The U.N. documented some of the staggeringly gruesome accounts of rape and torture of women under Islamic State group control in a November report. Fighters prey particularly on unmarried women and girls as young as 13, the report states, forcing them to become brides. Captured women and children of enemy groups, such as the Yazidis in Iraq, were sold in public markets as “war booty.”

A Coptic clergyman shows a picture of a man whom he says is one of the Egyptian Coptic Christians purportedly murdered by Islamic State group militants in Libya, on Feb. 16, 2015, during a memorial ceremony in the village of al-Awar in Egypt's southern province of Minya.

ISIS' Perceived Expansion Yields New Power

A large contributor to the potent recruitment’s success, Bennoune observes, is the immediate media attention to these actions of the Islamic State group, further magnified by its unprecedented ability to manipulate social media to glamorize its vicious conquest

One of the most high profile cases involves two Austrian teen girls, Samra Kesinovic, 17, and Sabina Selimovic, 15, who reportedly left a note to their parents saying they planned to fight with the Islamic State group. They now apparently claim they wish to come home, infuriating Islamic State group leadership.

The slick videos and flashy recruitment materials the group produces is much easier to pick up on and document than, say, the efforts of someone like Samira Salih al-Nuaimi. The Mosul-based human rights lawyer and activist was a leading voice against the Islamic State group’s vicious actions against her countrymen, particularly young girls, before she was executed by the extremist network in September.

Peshmerga fighters inspect the remains of a car, bearing the Islamic State group flag, which belonged to ISIS militants after it was targeted by an American air strike in the village of Baqufa, north of Mosul, Iraq, on Aug. 18, 2014.

A Halting Response

The response from the West has so far been insufficient, at times seeming slow to recognize the complicated influences that lead young women and young men to gravitate to a life among terrorists.

When asked how the FBI can offset this troubling rise in Islamic State recruitment domestically, former Director Robert Mueller offered a tactical strategy of attacking the group from the top down, similar to the approach in supposed victories against al-Qaida during the last war in Iraq.

“My own view of ISIS is we need to go after the leadership,” he said, while speaking at a breakfast meeting last week organized by the American Bar Association. He referenced U.S. coordination with U.K. and Turkish counterparts, as well as what he considered successes during the last decade in hunting al-Qaida in Iraq, the Islamic State group’s precursor.

“You did not want to be the No. 3 person in al-Qaida in 2007, 2008, because the life expectancy in that particular position was rather short,” he said. “Our success on the ground there was dependent on great intelligence, and focus, through our troops on the ground.”

He later declined to comment on whether military gains abroad would overwhelm the Islamic State group’s ability to recruit inside Western countries.

The quick and tidy victories from intelligence-gathering and military strikes create a partial illusion of success that could slowly erode perceptions of the group’s invincibility. Meanwhile, the grueling, long-term and difficult work at home of addressing radicalization domestically continues.

“It’s bloody difficult to do,” says Robert Milton, a retired commander of the U.K. Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard. “It’s so much easier to do the hard things, it’s so much easier to have border control.”

“It’s so much harder to deal with the human mind, the psychology of this issue,” he says. “It require a huge amount of resources. It requires communities to trust us, and that’s been a problem in the past.”

Milton, now a consultant, has lectured at colleges in the U.S. that prepare students for law enforcement careers. He emphasizes the importance of finding the root of Islamic extremism in the true intentions of these groups and what they believe they can tangibly achieve. It isn’t difficult to target and kill a leader, but it is extraordinarily difficult to address and offset why a young person believes Islamic State rhetoric that Western forces have declared war on all Muslims.

Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks with Syrian troops during his visit to the front line in eastern Damascus on Dec. 31, 2014.

Syria's Shadow Over America's Anti-ISIS Campaign

The British government has employed a program called “Channel.” Instead of necessarily surveilling and arresting potential terror suspects, police spend time identifying young people who may begin to align themselves with extremist causes, then meet with them directly to determine whether they have the potential to develop into actual extremist fighters themselves.

Police had reportedly held such meetings with the three young British women who disappeared into Syria last week under the auspices of the Channel program. Troublingly to Milton, they passed the test.

“They persuaded that person ... that they were fine, that they weren’t going to do anything,” he says. “They hoodwinked these people. That demonstrates to me, you have to have the right level of training and expertise to have the right intervention.”

“We’re halfway down the route,” Milton says.

Last week, the White House assembled domestic experts and international leaders to a first eversummit on Countering Violent Extremism. President Barack Obama challenged his foreign counterparts to develop internal plans for fighting extremism ahead of the next U.N. General Assembly in the fall.

By then, perhaps the U.S. too will have some comprehensive plan for providing an alternative narrative to those who believe American fighter jets bombing Syria and Iraq deserve a militant response.

Who Fatwaed?

Militants fighting for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have issued a new set of rules jihadis must live by - including restrictions on when to utter curses and a ban on women slapping their thighs.

A fighter calling himself Abu 'Umar al-Masri, who claims to be based in the terrorists' capital Raqqa, tweeted photographs of flyers containing fatwas imposed on local residents in recent weeks.

Providing a unique glimpse in to life under ISIS' brutal and oppressive control, each of the 32 slips of paper - which are headed with the terror group's chilling black and white logo - gives a detailed explanation of various bizarre rules and regulations laid out by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Among the more unusual commands are orders that men must refrain from swearing while playing billiards or table football, and information on exactly when it is permitted for women dye their eyebrows blonde or carry assault rifles beneath their niqabs.

Militants: A fighter calling himself Abu 'Umar al-Masri, who claims to be based in the terrorists' capital Raqqa (pictured), tweeted photographs of flyers containing fatwas imposed on local residents in recent weeks

Dictats: Each of the 32 slips of paper - which are headed with the terror group's chilling black and white logo - gives a detailed explanation of various bizarre rules and regulations laid out by ISIS

Each of the 32 paper fatwas seen in Abu 'Umar al-Masri's tweets last month are numbered and dated, and are written in Arabic. It is understood the 32 fatwas are taken from approximately 70 new rules and regulations issued by the Islamic State in 2015.

The letters are written in Arabic and address the city's population, which terror analysis website Jihadica claims proves they are meant for local use, not wider propaganda purposes.

The fatwas are unlikely to have been issued by any body other than ISIS' official Sharia Council, to whom even leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi reports. Jihadica claims that this means 30-year-old Bahraini scholar and council leader Turki al-Bin'ali is the likely author.

Abu 'Umar al-Masri's tweets show that the list of new rules have been issued in a kind of stapled book and are structured in a question and answer format.

Although they pieces of paper are dated using an official Islamic State calender, Jihadica converted the dates to show that they were issued to citizens between December and February this year.

Oppressed: Among the more unusual legal explantions is information on exactly when it is permitted for women living under ISIS to dye their eyebrows blonde or carry assault rifles beneath their niqabs

Horror: At times the fatwas make harrowing reading, such as the rule justifying jihadis burning 'unbelievers' to death because the Prophet Mohammed ordered his enemies' eyes to be gouged out with hot iron

The fatwas issued by the Islamic State are highly bureaucratic, demanding fighters hand over one fifth of all money and items looted to the terror group's officials, insisting fighters cannot leave territory under ISIS control under any circumstances, and banning women from showing their eyes.

At times they make for harrowing reading, such as the rule justifying jihadis burning 'unbelievers' to death because the Prophet Mohammed ordered his enemies' eyes to be gouged out with hot irons.

The bulk of the fatwas deal with administrative matters, such as when citizens are due compensation, how women should ensure they are dressed, and explaining the incredibly strict terms and conditions under which seriously ill women can visit a male doctor.

Despite rumours to the contrary having circulated for many months, they fatwas clearly state that the issuing of Islamic State passports is banned as they enable citizens to 'travel to the lands of disbelief' - something expressly forbidden in an earlier dictat.

On a lighter note, both billiards and table football are allowed - albeit under strict conditions and with a warning that God does not look particularity favourably on such trivial pursuits.

Gambling on matches is, predictably, banned, but so is using table football characters shaped like humans, as the creation of anything imitating humans or animals is banned under ISIS' exceptionally strict interpretation of Islamic law.

A SELECTION OF ISLAMIC STATE FATWAS ISSUED SINCE DECEMBER 2014

Fatwa 35: December 11, 2014

One fifth of all war booty it is to be given to the office of war booty.

Fatwa 36: December 11, 2014

Tax should be levied on agricultural holdings that once belonged to apostates.

Fatwa 37: December 16, 2014

It is not permissible to travel to the lands of the unbelievers - including areas controlled by the Assad regime.

Fatwa 38: December 2, 2014

It permissible to curse by accusing someone of being a disbeliever, but you must never say they are destined for hellfire.

Fatwa 40: December 17, 2014

Women should not wear make-up or show any part of their face, including their eyes, in case lures men into temptation.

Fatwa 41: December 17, 2014

Women can carry weapons such as Kalashnikov rifles under their robes providing they do not add definition to her body, luring men into temptation.

Fatwa 42: December 17, 2014

Female nurses must not work in an office with a male doctor unless they have a male guardian.

Fatwa 43: December 17, 2014

Women must see only female doctors for treatment. If a female doctor cannot be found, then it is permissible to see a male doctor, but on the condition that he not be alone with her.

Fatwa 44: December 17, 2014

Women must cover their entire body in thick, loose fitting material that does not resemble the clothing of men or that of women in the West. They must not slap their thighs or act flirtatiously as it is highly arousing, nor can they wear perfume.

Fatwa 45: December 17, 2014

A woman must travel with a male guardian at all times

Fatwa 46: December 17, 2014

Women whose husbands have been killed must be punished if they try to leave ISIS-held territory for the lands of the unbelievers.

Fatwa 47: December 18, 2014

The length of time between the call to prayer and the call just before prayer must vary from prayer to prayer, according to the sunnah.

Fatwa 48: December 20, 2014

You must not sell Islamic State passports to allow citizens to travel to the land of unbelievers.

Fatwa 49: December 28, 2014

It is permissible to play billiards providing the game does not allow gambling, encourage cursing, or inhibit the worshiping or God

Fatwah 50: December 28, 2014

It is permissible to play foosball [table football] providing the game does not allow gambling, encourage cursing, feature characters in human or animal form, or inhibit the worshiping or God.

Brutal: The bulk of the fatwas deal with administrative matters, such as how women should dress and explaining the incredibly strict terms and conditions under which seriously ill women can visit a male doctor

Fatwa: Despite rumours to the contrary having circulated for many months, they fatwas clearly state that the issuing of Islamic State passports is banned as they enable citizens to 'travel to the lands of disbelief'

One chilling fatwa appears to confirm reports that ISIS operates an organ harvesting scheme.

'It is permissible to transplant the healthy organs of the body of an apostate to the body of a Muslim, in order to save the latter's life or improve his condition if he has lost organs,' the letter states

'The jurists of the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools of Islamic law, among others, permitted killing belligerent unbelievers or apostates and eating their flesh as a life-saving measure. The case of organ transplantation as a life-saving measure is similar,' it adds.

'Moreover, it is established that the lives and organs of apostates are fundamentally licit. Their organs may thus be taken, whether or not the apostates are alive or already dead, and whether or not doing so results in their death,' it goes on to claim.

AK-47 assault rifles, one fatwa insists, are perfectly acceptable to be carried beneath a women's clothes, providing it doesn't add definition to her body that could be deemed tempting to men.

Likewise all forms of Western clothing are banned in order not to 'imitate the unbeliever', although the fatwas still feel the need to say it is illegal to sell counterfeit brand-name clothing and household products, as selling fake produce is a form of deceit.

One surprising law bans the practice of men swapping sisters or daughters for brides of their own, apparently because it 'does an injustice to the bride'. Instead, ISIS demand, the bride must grant permission for any marriage to take place.

HOW ISLAMIC IS THE ISLAMIC STATE? NOT VERY, SAY EXPERTS: HOW GROUP HAND-PICKS WHAT IT WANTS FROM THE KORAN AND ACCOUNTS OF MUHAMMAD'S ACTIONS TO WAGE ITS JIHAD

The Islamic State cherry picks sections of the Koran and misinterprets the accounts of the Prophet Muhammad in order to wage jihad and sign up new recruits, experts say.

It is estimated that 20,000 people have streamed into the territory in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS has proclaimed what it calls a 'caliphate', ruled by its often brutal version of Islamic law.

The group purport to recreate the conquests and rule of the Prophet Muhammad and his successors and maintains its worst brutalities - such as beheading captives - only prove its purity in following what it contends is the prophet's example.

But now Muslims clerics and other experts are speaking out, saying that the group hand picks what it wants from Islam's holy book, the Koran, and from accounts of Muhammad's actions and sayings, known as the Hadith.

An ISIS member parades through the streets of Raqqa in Syria waving an Islamic State flag and brandishing a gun. Experts have now said that ISIS misinterprets the Koran in order to wage jihad

It then misinterprets many of these, while ignoring everything in the texts that contradicts those hand-picked selections.

Writings by the group's clerics and its English-language online magazine, Dabiq, are full of citations from Koranic verses, the Hadith and centuries of interpreters, mostly from hardliners.

But Joas Wagemakers, an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University in the Netherlands, says these are taken far out of context by ISIS.

He explained that Muslim scholars throughout history have used texts in a 'decontextualised way' to suit their purposes and says that ISIS represent the extreme.

He added: 'It would be a mistake to conclude the Islamic State group's extremism is the true Islam that emerges from the Koran and Hadith.