So the language wars have begun with everyone arguing over how we should refer to groups like ISIS--can you use the word Islamic? Are they terrorists? Extremists?
Of course none of this chatter is going to make the situation in the Middle East any better. I don't think they really care what we call them.
It also doesn't seem to have dawned on anyone that maybe we can't find the right name for these groups because we know so little about them. If we were less ignorant and blinded, we'd know exactly what they were.
Anyway... here's my vote for what to call them: cult.
Middle East scholar has been calling these groups cults from the beginning. They might be dangerous and brutal cults with dreams of expanding across the globe, but they are cults nonetheless.
This is from the description of his book Engaging the Muslim World, but I'm sure he won't mind because I'm giving him a plug--
Cole argues:* Al-Qaeda is not a mass movement like fascism or communism but rather a small political cult like the American far right circles that produced Timothy McVeigh.
And here is his take on the right term for ISIS. We don't link Christian cults to Christianity so why should we do the same with ISIS?
We all know that Kentucky snake handlers are a Christian cult and that snake handling isn’t typical of the Christian tradition. Why pretend that we can’t judge when modern Muslim movements depart so far from the modern mainstream as to be a cult?
Here are my reasons for calling it a cult--
You don't go to war against a cult. You use psychological methods plus appropriate law enforcement actions to attack it.
You can't ever eliminate the lure of cults. This is not a winnable battle in the sense that people are always going to be susceptible to appeals from these types of groups.