Sociologist, Iranologist and political scientist on the contemporary Muslim world, Amélie Myriam Chelly is the acclaimed author of an excellent Dictionnaire des islamismes (Éditions du Cerf, 2021). She has just published, with the same publisher, a “documentary novel” entitled “Le Coran de sang”. Interview.

– Why this book? 

– This book is the fruit of a thread I drew from my research for my previous book, the “Dictionary of Islamisms”. I was writing an entry on the word Rayat al Islam (Islamic Standard), and I wanted to explain the paradoxical way in which Muslims behave towards flags in certain circumstances, which is difficult for a Westerner to grasp. Indeed, how can we understand that, for fear of blasphemy, Muslims who had recaptured their village from the terrorists of ISIS remained perplexed by the banners of the Islamic State, rather than burning them in a fit of joy and hatred? In the course of my research on this subject, I came across an article reporting the existence of an order placed in the 1990s by Saddam Hussein for a Koran written in the blood of the Iraqi President himself. My explanation for the reaction to the flags was obvious! And, at the same time, a consuming passion for this crazy story was growing inside me: the Koran that came from the veins of the former Iraqi President in fact presents the Muslim faithful with an insoluble logical difficulty quite comparable to that posed by the banders of the Islamic State which, because they contain the profession of faith, cannot be burnt, trampled on or torn up by those who were under the yoke of the terrorists, once their town has been reconquered.

The scale of the paradox was so great, the magnitude of the sacrilege so great, the ambition of the tyrant so glittering – forgive the choice of term – that I could not resist the temptation to devote this book to it, which presents the story of this bloody Koran in the form of a “documentary novel”, choosing the most plausible hypotheses to punctuate each stage of this mad project.

– Isn’t it dangerous to publish a book with such a title these days? Have you received any threats?

– As a researcher specialising in Iran and ideological Islam, I’m no stranger to making threats, and I received many more – more or less serious – when the Syrian conflict was raging and France was worried about radicalisation. At the time, I was very active on the issue, both academically and in the media, and I sometimes received violent messages, particularly on social networks, where the manoeuvre was both looser and easier. As far as “Le Coran de sang” is concerned, I was a little surprised by the nature of the reluctance: bookshops are often enthusiastic about the prospect of organising book signings, only to change their minds under the pressure of messages from people, often attached to a communitarian left with little tolerance, who fear either that the event will be dangerous or that “Le Coran de sang” will give a bad image of Arabs. So far, the threats are not really direct. It’s more a case of self-censorship, a sort of built-in duty of reserve in the Muslim world. Obviously, the concerns and/or dissuasive messages only come from people who have not opened the book. Had they done so, they would have seen the absence of any critical consideration of the religious sphere as a whole. What’s more, my friends who are imams or Islamic advisers have shown no discomfort whatsoever in reading the book, and one of them even took it with him on his trip to Iraq!

– Your book reveals a rather complex Saddam Hussein. Do you think the West should have tried harder to get along with him? 

– Quite often, those who believe that it would have been better to come to an agreement with Eastern dictators explain their conviction by the fact that secular tyrants are generally followed by chaos and Islamism. Indeed, from Iran in 1979 to the Arab Spring in the 2010s, history shows that the fall of authoritarian secular rulers – whose presidential terms of office are a source of mild amusement – is the result of popular uprisings whose driving forces are inspired by socialist discourse with little concern for religion. Power is then taken over by politico-religious movements, which are highly structured and have a long-lasting presence because their primary strategy is to make up for the State’s shortcomings in terms of public service. As far as Saddam Hussein in particular was concerned, the prospect of the West trying to reach an understanding would inevitably have meant the West turning a blind eye to Baghdad’s mistreatment of the Kurds and Shiites, which would eventually lead to a civil explosion, aided in no small part by Iran. Let’s not forget that this was the main reason for the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988): with Shiism having taken power in neighbouring Persia, Saddam feared that its Shiite population (60%) would rise up to overthrow him. Saddam Hussein rationally foresaw the prospect of chaos, all against a backdrop of irrational hatred for the Shiites. Before his death by rope, the former head of Baghdad had called for greater distrust of “Persian magicians” (“madjous” is an Arabic insult) than of Jews.

–With hindsight, how do you analyse the American intervention in Iraq? What were the Americans’ major mistakes?

– Leaving aside the episode of the anthrax vials brandished by Colin Powell at the UN in 2003, and the evidence-free reports used by the American intelligence services, let us concentrate on a strategic eccentricity of the coalition in Iraq: following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Western powers that had invaded the country encouraged the introduction of a confessional ballot, i.e. a confessional distribution of power giving the majority religious community greater visibility and greater participation in politics (all to avoid, with an obvious lack of lucidity about the situation, leaving a gateway to communism). Mechanically, the country’s Shiite majority won, which – again mechanically – gave power to the neighbouring Iranians, enemies of the United States, particularly since the event that became the founding myth of the Islamic Republic: the hostage-taking at the American Embassy in Teheran in 1979, which lasted 444 days and cost Jimmy Carter his re-election. As a result, the United States, in managing the fall of the Iraqi regime, had strengthened its enemy. The manoeuvre was a godsend for those who supported Tehran and its allies, and a huge mistake for those who defended American interests.

– Your book presents a number of figures who will tragically mark the contemporary history of Iraq. Can you go back over the personality of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, who was killed by US special forces on 27 October 2019? How did it emerge? 

– When Saddam Hussein’s regime fell, as a result of the sectarian vote, the Shiites found themselves in power in Iraq, as we have said. This community – the majority in the country – had been badly treated under the Saddam decades. Once in power, the Shiites in turn pursued a policy unfavourable to the Sunnis. Sunni terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda have obviously flourished as a result. They were joined by Baathist cadres and former members of the disbanded army. In the 2000s, the Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) branch rapidly shifted its focus away from the jihadist group’s traditional targets, namely the Jews and the “Crusaders” – Western interests, to translate their rhetoric – to concentrate its forces against the Shiites. AQI’s predilection for this local target irritated the leadership of the al-Qaeda organisation, which called the Iraqi branch to order, without success. In 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri (d. 31 July 2022), then Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man and number 2 in Al Qaeda, publicly declared the end of AQI. The dissident section formed a group whose agenda was initially strictly regional: the EII (Islamic State in Iraq) was born of a desire to re-establish a caliphate on the blood of the Shia community. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the kunya of Ibrahim al-Badri, who is known to have attended the Adhamiyah University founded under Saddam Hussein, is a product of the Saddam years and the hatred they instilled. It is said that members of al-Baghdadi’s family were employees of the security forces of the former Baathist President.

– Where does the Islamic State stand today? What are its strengths, its main geographical locations and its objectives?

– Today, the EI has ideologically integrated its deterritorialisation. The loss of its territorial base straddling Syria and Iraq (its Syrian capital was Raqqa and its Iraqi capital was Mosul) is presented, in the organisation’s discourse, as a divine test designed to encourage Muslims to redouble their efforts against the disbelievers in order to rebuild the Caliphate. Today, ISIS is present above all in the Sahel, in the Sinai, in pockets in the Levant, in the Philippines, in Mozambique, in Yemen (where the factions get on well with the local branch of al-Qaeda) and above all in Afghanistan, with Daech-e Khorassan, which recently made headlines with the attack in Moscow. The strength of ISIS in the West was largely based on its response to the injunction issued by Abu Mohammed al-Adnani in 2014, calling on the “soldiers of Allah” to carry out attacks wherever they happened to be, using whatever they could get their hands on (stone, poison, truck, knife, etc.). In this way, the attacks were made lawful and recognised a priori by the EI, without projection from an external area of the organisation. The violence was therefore occasional and less massive, until ISIS demonstrated its ability to plan spectacular attacks such as the one that bloodied the Moscow area, a way of demonstrating that its strike force is spectacular. It should also be noted that ISIS has never failed to carry out local attacks (in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq), particularly at family and therefore community ceremonies (Shia weddings and funerals), even though these attacks receive less media coverage in the West.

– Between al-Qaeda, ISIS and pro-Iranian militias, Iraq still seems to be in the grip of chaos. What are the conditions for a genuine return to peace?

– Recent events have once again demonstrated Tehran’s ability to employ its “satellite militias”. Although the ideology of the Islamic Republic no longer really appeals within its borders, it does manage to attract emulators from outside the country and enables the raising of troops, militias, which form the axis of the muqawama, the “axis of resistance”, to use the jargon of the Islamic Republic. They include Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Yemeni Ansar Allah, the Afghan Fatemiyoun, the Pakistani Zeynabiyoun, the Palestinian Hamas, and also the Hashd al Shaabi in Iraq. All these militias are devoted to the Iranian regime. The Iraqi militias reacted very quickly to Teheran’s desire to respond to the Israeli attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, announcing on 13 April that they would engage in operations against Tel Aviv. Iraq is under Iranian influence. Against a backdrop of popular discontent, endemic corruption and the proliferation of terrorist groups, chaos reigns supreme. As a result, young people are looking outwards, beyond Iraq’s borders, when they are not joining groups promoting fratricidal warfare. Tired of not being able to understand why oil wealth has failed to lift them out of unemployment and poverty, these young people are painfully resigned to the fact that their future lies elsewhere.