Today marks the first anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic States’s “caliphate.” To mark the occasion, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (aka Caliph Ibrahim) is due to deliver another Ramadan sermon as he did, famously, almost a year ago to the day from a venerated mosque in Mosul. The Daily Beast has obtained exclusively a copy of Baghdadi’s forthcoming address and presents excerpts below from an English translation.
[Usual introductory exhortations] … .
I am delivering this sermon via satellite from a hospital bed and not, as I had hoped, from the al-Zangi Mosque where I addressed you last Ramadan. Let us say that your Caliph’s Uber driver took a wrong turn in Baaj last March and, yadda yadda, now he suffers from a chronic back complaint, which even the best-trained Zionist orthopedists couldn’t cure.
Such are the hardships meant to test us in the dunyā [worldly life], and the Righteous must persevere, as shall I, alhamdulillah. But in noting my own fortitude, I am led, sadly, to comment on the laxity and cowardice on display by those lesser ornaments of al-dawla [the state].
O, You Incontinent Goats of Shaytan! How many times must I tell you that overuse of the social media alerts the infidels to your whereabouts? Have none of you read The Intercept? We have lost many valuable Humvees to such carelessness, and we’re beginning to run out of Iraqi army bases to replenish our stocks.
Verily, the Abbasids were beset by many woes, but none of these, so far as I recall, involved a moody teenager from Bruges who couldn’t get off Pinterest.
No doubt it will further disappoint some of you to learn that we have opted to decline FIFA’s offer to relocate the 2020 World Cup to Ramadi. True, this event would have written al-dawla’s glory in the stars, but not even that wine-guzzling car thief al-Duri would have stomached FIFA’s extortionate “administrative fees.” By Allah, they call us terrorists! (Also, truth be told, we just inked a three-year contract to supply the apostates of Qatar with a new involuntary workforce to complete the original World Cup venue. We will invest the money in Iranian oil futures, inshallah.)
O Mujahidin! The Islamic State is thriving and expanding like any good multinational with solid quarterlies. We now employ hundreds of thousands of functionaries, agents, and operatives, to say nothing of the millions of affiliates to which we have licensed our franchise rights. Only Walmart has grown at a comparable rate in so short a time, and I wouldn’t wish their corporate culture on the Badr Corps.
Consider all we have achieved since the Crusader-Zionist-Rafida conspiracy declared war on us a year ago. Where formerly we had only two provincial capitals in our possession, today we have three. We gave up Tikrit? Even Saddam couldn’t wait to get out of that shithole. As we used to say in Samarra: “Hell is north.”
Since dismantling the borders of Sykes-Picot, the Islamic State has also broken into several emerging markets in Asia and the Pacific, not to mention older ones in Europe, North America, and the Khyber Pass they said we’d never penetrate. Our literature is read and discussed in the loftiest skyscrapers of Jakarta, the lowliest dormitories of Copenhagen, and the priciest loft-conversions of Queens. Our flag flies in Dagestan, Australia, and, soon enough, in the state capital of South Carolina. Our car bombs are assembled from Akcakale to Tora Bora, with spare parts manufactured in Islamabad. The world, as Ibn Taymiyyah famously declared, is flat.
O Muslims everywhere, glad tidings to you on this, the first anniversary of the founding of our glorious state and khalifah!
By Allah’s grace, you have seen off-brand Cialis made locally in Palmyra by Uighur pharmacists. You have enjoyed a limitless and cost-free supply of Nutella and Hot Pockets. Meanwhile, there are cities in Dar al-Harb that charge as much as $20 for a side salad.
You have maintained a stable currency. Meanwhile, the birthplace of that false religion, democracy, is about to switch off its ATMs.
You all have ready access to the smallpox vaccine. Meanwhile, many blonde polytheists now believe, against all peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary, that this causes children to behave like the strange Jew from that old Tom Cruise movie.
Yet success can prove the too-fertile concubine of failure. We must remain vigilant and stalwart, for everywhere the kufar seeks to destroy and demoralize us through fire and steel and deception. In the past week alone, they have tried to present the flag of al-dawla as an instrument for pleasuring the backside, using the Crusader News Network to disseminate such slanders. Did I not tell you they would resort to lies?
Do not be fooled, O Muhajidin. These are the desperate tricks of deviant nations that now allow man to marry man and woman to marry woman and man to become woman, even if he has Jeffrey Tambor’s coloring. Only in the Islamic State are gender roles and sexuality as unambiguous as Allah intended, for only here are young girls forced against their will to marry male virgins in eye makeup.
O Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah [emigration] to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.
So don’t think we’re alone now. We’re running, O Muslims, just as fast as we can, holding on to one another’s hand, trying to get away, into the night.
Whomsoever Allah guides can never be led astray, unless he is guided into an incoming Tomahawk missile. But even then, Allah assures us, it’s not personal.
Accept each other and do not dispute. Come together and do not argue. Fear Allah in private and public, openly and secretly. And don’t forget to delete your browser history.
