The Islamic State’s Retro Map

American Conservative, the ^ | 13 January 2016 | Philip Jenkins

[Lorianne]

National borders are being superseded by the ancient battleground of al-Jazira. ___ Policymakers and media people—as well as anyone interested in the Middle East, Islam, terrorism, and related issues—need to be talking about al-Jazira. I am not talking here about the Qatar-based media operation that we usually call al-Jazeera. Rather, I am referring to those regions of Eastern Syria and Northern Iraq that have been in the news so much recently because they are the main stamping grounds of ISIL, and the core of the Islamic State, the Daesh.

This is not just a question of applying a handy geographical label. If we don’t understand the Jazira, and its deep historical implications, we are missing so much of the present story.

Looking at a map of the Islamic State, Westerners find it hard to describe, except in terms of “fragments of old Syria and Iraq.” Actually, though, these regions belong to a specific and old-established unit with its own well defined, if turbulent history, that is very well known in Middle Eastern history. Ever since the early days of Islam, commentators have used the term al-Jazira (“the island”) for these parts, together with the southeastern corner of present Turkey. The term derives from the “island” between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Originally, it referred to Northern Mesopotamia, that area which combined with the “black land” further down the rivers to invent the state of Iraq. By extension, though, it also included those other borderland countries that eventually found their way into Syria and Turkey.

To say this area has a substantial history is a gross understatement.

[Lorianne]

[Jimmy Valentine]

This is further evidence that the artificial boundaries established by the Sykes-Picot treaty are unraveling. The old religious and tribal divisions are reappearing.

[PLMerite]

Which one of those things translates as “Desert of Glass” ?

[Excellence]

So would IS stop at this?

[PoloSec]

Ideally all of it!