Back to the origins of the Islamic State : ideal, nostalgia and armed violence

The Islamic State claims the legacy of the caliphate, whose origins are intertwined with those of Islam and ended in 1924, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Jihadism thrives on this ideal of lost unity, which remains a powerful mobilizing tool worldwide. Jihadists have built a political alternative to Western democracy based on this nostalgia of a perfect order. This political-religious utopia relies on a deliberate subversion of the caliphate’s history and the Islamic history that must be unraveled.