Introductions to the Muslim500 are always a good read and so is the introduction to the 2016 edition that just came out. Author Abdallah Schleifer first addresses the refugee migration crisis to Europe. “The UN refugee agency UNHCR released extraordinary statistics in mid-August of 2015 estimating that 310,000 illegal migrants had reached EU shores in comparison to 219,000 for all of last year. According to that same report 2,500 had died enroute in the first seven months of 2015 in comparison to 3,500 for all of 2014.”

The second main topic Schleifer discusses is the growth of DA’ISH, largely by pledges of allegiance from Salafi-Jihadi groups operating around the world. Schleifer agrees with Al-Monitor’s description that DA’ISH  “oversees an economy with large-scale revenues owing primarily to oil sales from captured Iraqi fields. Making inroads with the local tribes, shielding the residents of the cities it controls from criminality and paying salaries to its foot-soldiers.” Most fascinating is the flow of volunteers to the DA’ISH controlled areas. “While most are Europeans and Americans from Arab or Indo-Pakistani immigrant origin, some are young converts to Islam. In either case their life-style prior to recruitment is often typically hedonist – drinking, girlfriends, drugs, and for some, forays in petty crime before being recruited by DA’ISH.  As for the converts, in almost all cases their knowledge about Islam came exclusively  from DA’ISH so in either case the potential recruits had little to no background with which to challenge the dramatic but perverted version of Islam that DA’ISH presented to them.”

Schleifer told AWR that he does not agree to the argument in the recent report of the Tony Blair Foundation “Inside the Jihadi Mind: Understanding Ideology and Propaganda” that the battle is ideological. Schleifer, instead, pointed to his annual review in the Muslim500, and argues that other factors should be considered first. For more information read the 2016 issue of the Muslim500.