Although I believe every reading we’ve had so far has been important, I think Dabiq has been one of the most important ones. At first, I had a lot of questions, such as: Who publishes this? Who takes the photos? Who does the layout? What does Dabiq mean? What is the significance of 1435? Who translated this? What is the Khalifah? Some of them were answered, while some of them were not. Unlike most other readings we’ve done for class, I didn’t read about or around the text like usual, I just dove into the actual text. I’ve also become somewhat immune to what we’ve been reading, and nothing has really affected my in a negative way… until reading this. Nothing so far has compared to 120 Days of Sodom, meaning nothing has illicited any kind of emotional response from me, except for Dabiq.

Dabiq seems to come from an area in Northern Syria, near the now well-known city of Aleppo. Additionally, the magazine seems to be published by AlHayat Media, which is ISIS’s media outlet. “The mission of AlHayat Media Center is to convey the message of the Islamic State in different languages with the aim of unifying the Muslims under one flag. AlHayat produces visual, audio, and written material, in numerous languages, focusing on tawhid, hijrah, by’ah, and jihad.” From this quote, I gathered that the same people who produce Dabiq also produce the now-famous beheading videos as well as ISIS’s TV channel. Additionally, I gathered that the version of the magazine we wrote was not necessarily a translation, but was actually written in English, for an English audience. Although I know ISIS is pretty active (or was) in its recruiting efforts, it’s disturbing to know that they’re really trying this hard.

One of the things that stuck me when I first started to read the magazine was how nicely put together it is. As someone who has some experience with photography, and is considering becoming a photojournalist, I was extremely aware of the high quality of the photos. It made me feel weird to know that an organization so often dismissed as being uncivilized was putting out such a high quality publication and that the staff of this magazine is probably just like any other staff of a journalistic publication. I found myself looking at the photos and almost feeling good about whoever took them, because of their quality – it’s not easy to get a good photo of an explosion.

I think one of the most interesting parts of the magazine to me was the section titled “In the Words of the Enemy.” For each issue, a specific member of the US government who was considered a “crusader” was chosen and featured. Along with their photo, a quote was also included, that the writers then unpacked and analyzed for propaganda purposes. These included the former Director for Iraq at the National Security Council Douglas Ollivant, former Director of Research for Combating Terrorism at West Point Brian Fishman, former Senator John McCain, and former President Barack Obama. Although all of these features were disturbing in their own way, the feature on Obama was the most hard-hitting for me. Of course, since the magazine is a propaganda machine, they had to feature the most anti-muslim photo of Obama they could find, which happened to be a photo of Obama wearing a yarmulke.

Another observation I made while reading the various issues (1 through 4), was that there was not a single woman in sight, and the only photograph of a girl was one where her face was not shown. To me, this was strong evidence of ISIS’s hatred of women, and their belief that women are interior or second-class citizens. The only time women were ever mentioned was when they were blaming the US for killing Muslim families including women, children, or the elderly, and for raping Muslim women. Aside from these small mentions, it did not seem like women were even a part of the society that the Islamic State was trying to create.