Mia Bloom encourages us to take a more nuanced approach to understanding the demographics and ideology of foreign fighters emigrating to join ISIS. Franck Salameh challenges the claim that ISIS is anomalous in the political and social history of the modern Middle East, which has been dominated by secular nation-states and only in recent decades witnessed perennial appeals to so-called 'fundamentalist' groups that espouse radical ideologies grounded in religious claims.

"Farkhunda Malikzada was a fine carpet weaver and a great cook. She always wore black, and recited the Koran early every morning." So begins an article reporting on the murder of this 27-year-old woman by a mob in Kabul on March 19, 2015...

Jessica Stern addresses the Islamic State organization’s appeal to its recruits, arguing that we must evaluate that appeal in terms of the material incentives ISIS provides to its supporters as well as its ideology. Michael Pregill describes the political exegesis of the biblical and qur’anic image of Noah’s Ark in Dabiq, the Islamic State’s propaganda magazine.