Atlas / Organisations / Islamic State
Islamic State
ISIS / Daesh · 2013– · Iraq, Syria · Jihadist · Held state power · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Restoration of a universal caliphate through mass violence, with obligatory allegiance and death for dissent.
Economic model
Oil sales, taxation, extortion, looting and slave markets; no productive programme.
Organisation of powers
Absolute clerical-military command; no institutions independent of the leader.
Reading note
Occupies the far corner of five axes at once. Included to mark the outer edge of the measurable space, not because it resembles anything else nearby.
Check a claim about Islamic State. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +01
Coded +1: extraction and extortion with no productive programme.
- ScholarshipRevenue came from oil sales, taxation of captured populations, looting and ransom.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +10
At the ceiling: a totalising religious order enforced by public violence.
- Documented act or statuteSlavery was formally reinstituted and regulated by published guidance.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +10
At the ceiling: absolute clerical-military command with no institution outside it.
- Programme textA caliphate was declared in 2014 requiring the allegiance of all Muslims on pain of death.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +09
Coded +9: a caliphate claiming authority over all Muslims everywhere.
- Programme textThe 2014 declaration nullified the legitimacy of all other governments and organisations.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +10
At the ceiling: enslavement and extermination of designated groups.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2014 Sinjar massacre and enslavement of Yazidi women has been found to constitute genocide by the UN.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +10
At the ceiling: mass violence as constitutive rather than instrumental.
- Documented act or statutePublic executions and their filming were a central instrument of governance and recruitment.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromMuslim Brotherhood
The jihadist current derives from Qutb's writings, produced inside the Brotherhood and repudiated by it.
- was succeeded byAl-Shabaab
Separate organisations in the same current; Al-Shabaab pledged to al-Qaeda rather than to the caliphate.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- National Socialism1.7
- Sudanese Armed Factions4.7
- Italian Fascism4.8
- Khomeinism5.3
- Taliban5.5
- Al-Shabaab5.5
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.