What Its Like to Live in the Capital of the

Caliphate
Religious sermons, air strikes, and itchy
mandatory beards -- just another normal
day in Raqqa.

BY MARWAN HISHAM-JANUARY 14, 2016

RAQQA, Syria Id been away from home for a considerable time, so on my way back
I had to reset my brain to a different setting: Raqqa Setting. I began growing out my
beard, to a length that looked dense and suspiciously long in Turkey but is relatively
short and daring here. I am still getting used to how it itches and scratch it often.

Luckily, the Islamic State does not yet require that residents shave off their
moustaches. I adjust mine with annoyance, but at least I dont look like the current
Raqqan trend: a Salafi brother with a bald upper lip and a strap of beard scraggle
giving the illusion of a wide jaw.
My friends and I bitterly mock how we look with these beards growing on our faces,
but that does nothing to shorten them. Theyll grow, and keep growing, just like
Salafism is doing in Raqqa nowadays.
Raqqa Setting consists of a number of codes you have to constantly keep in mind in
order to survive under Islamic State control. If you have no prior education in sharia,
or Islamic law, you better start learning. Or else, youll likely end up obliged to take
lessons from the Salafi teachers newly installed at local mosques lessons that require
you to not only suffer the indignity of being taught their interpretation of your own
religion like a child, but also to miss hours of work.
Shave the mustache. Let the beards grow, Abu Fatima, the lecturer, said at one of the
classes, the microphone held so close to his mouth it was almost shoved inside of it. He
was quoting what he said was a well-narrated saying by Mohammed. Its an order
by the Prophet.
These lecture series begin with an explanation of the Muslim statement of faith: There
is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. They end with an
explanation of specific details regarding the Islamic States interpretation of Islam,
such as the special rules pertaining to women during their menstrual periods. By the
time they graduate, students are indoctrinated into the entirety of the Islamic States
ideology.
Some of those attending these classes are little more than children. They are boys
toiling on their family farms or slaving for a pittance in dirty, abusive workshops. To
them, joining the Islamic State and becoming a lion cub of the caliphate can seem
like an alluring prospect. Some adult attendees are there for the $400 voucher the
Islamic State will pay upon completion.
Others are forced to attend as punishment. Attendees were limited at first to lightly
punished disobeyers, such as smokers and those who do not close their shops on

time before prayers.

But they soon expanded to include everyone, as the Islamic State used any excuse to
preach their ideology to Raqqa residents. You could be a poor person who asked
for zakat, the money taken from the rich as alms, without first registering with the
Islamic State, or a government employee who studied in the Assad regimes schools
and therefore have a non-Islamic education, or a graduate of a secular law school
all are forced to submit to indoctrination.
The sharia lessons are only the latest penalty developed by the Islamic State. Before
the summer, the Islamic State would punish lawbreakers by forcing them to dig the
trenches that partly encircle the city.
Its dangerous work: A number of those workers were reportedly killed in air raids.
The severity of the Islamic States punishments seem to depend completely on the
whims of the members inflicting them. In one particular lesson, Abu Fatima seemed
particularly angry.
By God the Glorious, not a single smoker will pass my exam and get a voucher that
earns him the money of mujahideen, he screamed. Nor a cuckold who lets his wife go
out unveiled!
***
Hamdan is a Syrian Army defector in his 20s who now lives in Raqqa. His long,
unkempt beard is deceptive he despises the Islamic State. An old friend named
Khalil, a graduate from the University of Aleppo, had been wanting to introduce us to
each other. He invited us to his house, where we sat in the dark together, smoking.
Are you happy here? Khalil asked his old friend viciously, knowing the answer hed
get.
No! Hamdan answered.
Then why dont you leave?

I wont leave. This is my home. This is my neighborhood! Hamdan said. They are
the ones who have to leave!
As I listened to them arguing, I was astounded at how divided Syrians have become.
Its almost impossible to find two Syrians today who even agree on the basic terms that
define their identities.
Syria, for some, is an entity constructed by colonial powers, and its borders should be
erased from the map. Islam has branched out into endless conflicting ideologies,
while Arabism, long a slogan of the Assad regime, makes Kurds, Syriac Christians,
and others feel marginalized.
Khalil returned from Lebanon about two years ago when he couldnt find work there
anymore. (Syrians have come to comprise 20 percent of Lebanons population and are
largely banned from taking jobs.) He is now employed as an accountant by the Islamic
State in its drinking water department, a job that pays him $100 per month. He falls
into a gray area between civilian and Islamic State member; he calls himself a
supporter of the group.
Although he smokes and chats occasionally on WhatsApp with friends who are fighters
in rebel groups, Khalil is happy with his life under the Islamic State. He sees it as a
functioning state that, despite being unable to stop aerial bombardment of its territory,
provides order to his community and others like it. He recently got married his life,
despite all odds, seems to be moving forward.
The core of the quarrel with Hamdan was over the Islamic State mistreating civilians.
Syrian Kurds who had lived in Raqqa their entire lives had been forced out of the city,
and Hamdan was lamenting the fate of his Kurdish acquaintances. Khalil was
stumbling in his defense of the group; at some points justifying its actions as necessary
for security and at others keeping silent.

The years of friendship between the two men allowed them to preserve a small
measure of goodwill. But they parted with uneasiness.
***
The Islamic States capture of Raqqa in January 2014 sparked a demographic change
in the city unlike any it had seen before. Foreign fighters flocked to the city, bringing
their families with them.In the ugliest form of colonization, the groups members
moved about, looking for houses to lodge in. They started with Syrian regime officers
houses, homes formerly belonging to Syrian rebels, or government housing projects.
But with time, the Islamic State succeeded in recruiting a large number of locals. These
new recruits were in majority unmarried young guys, even teenagers, who had lived in
their parents houses but were encouraged to marry by the group immediately after
finishing their military training. As a result, the demand for more dwellings increased.
The groups loss of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad last June also caused another
influx of new arrivals, as members and supporters fled to Raqqa.
An acquaintance of mine, Fahad, recently secured his house in just this way. Hes the
youngest son in his family and has been with the Islamic State for a while now. Until
January, Fahad was a normal guy but now hes Abu Something.
After finishing training and fighting in Kobani and elsewhere, he got married. And of
course, that meant he needed a house of his own. So he talked to his emirs and won
permission to take over a Kurdish neighbors empty home. The owner had fled Raqqa
in the summer.
Kurds used to live side by side with their Arab neighbors in Raqqa. But now, as the
fighting between the Islamic State and the Kurdish militia known as the Peoples
Protection Units (YPG) intensifies, they have been forced out of their homes.

In the summer, the Islamic State commanded the Kurdish residents in Raqqa, through
the mosques speakers and printed leaflets, to leave the city either to Palmyra, the town
in the desert that the Islamic State had recently captured, or to the Kurdish territories
controlled by the YPG. The jihadi group said there were collaborators among them who
were passing information to the YPG, so they must leave immediately.
The group vowed to preserve the Kurds property, but that lasted for only three days.
Kurdish property in Raqqa was soon looted, with the Islamic State claiming the houses
and distributing them to its fighters. Arab renters who had previously been entrusted
with Kurdish apartments or homes had no options but to hand over the keys.
***
Even as the Islamic State forced Raqqas Kurdish residents out, it was trying to attract
others to the city. In an attempt to exploit the Syrian refugee crisis, which had
suddenly become an urgent issue in the international media, the Islamic State
produced several videos calling for Sunnis simply Muslims, in its vocabulary to
come live in its territories.
In the videos, the Islamic State showed clips of refugees who had drowned in the
Mediterranean or were locked up behind bars by the Hungarian police. The groups
footage of life in its caliphate, by contrast, showed crowded markets and thriving
gardens. A number of residents and fighters appeared in the video, urging Muslims
to return to their homes.
Weeks after this call, average Raqqa citizens were banned from leaving, unless they
presented an authorization paper from the offices of the Hisbah, or religious police.
But those who had already fled have lost, or are about to lose, their homes. The Islamic
State has fixed its attention on government employees apartments. Once it is known
that an employee has moved out, the jihadis will break into the apartment and claim
everything inside it. If the owner doesnt show up in person to reclaim his possessions
and who would? all belongings are transferred to the new occupant selected by

the Islamic State.

According to Abu Sumayiah, a member of the Hisbah I met several times, at least 400
Islamic State families were registered as urgently needing houses. This was last
August. Abu Sumayiah himself is now living in one of those confiscated apartments.
The fighters logic is simple: These are state-owned buildings. We are the state now.
***
Raqqa has not only acquired a worldwide reputation as the heart of terror and the
de facto capital of the caliphate, it has also reaped special severity at the hands of the
Islamic State. This is not Mosul here, where people smoke at cafes and sell hats with
the Iraqi flag embroidered on them.
The Islamic State has worked hard to isolate Raqqa from the rest of the world. A few
months ago, residents were deprived of Wi-Fi signals inside their homes, as the group
had the signal extenders placed on rooftops removed. On Nov. 18, satellite Internet
was banned, and Internet cafes were ordered to close.
If the cafe wishes to reopen, it needs to gather two recommendations from Islamic
State security forces, with their emirs signatures. Youll need a license from the
Islamic States intelligence office as well.
The Islamic State always describes any hardship or new restriction as resulting from
the sins of those afflicted, and the Friday sermon that followed this decision was no
exception. People disobey God, and as such God inflicts upon them suffering, a
fighter preached.
However, its not only the Islamic States god who is dissatisfied. Raqqas citizens not
only suffer from the groups orders, but also the international war effort against it. Air
raids have become practically a daily routine. On Nov. 3, the Russians joined the party.
And then the French. Airstrikes damaged the main bridge on the Euphrates used by
residents to enter the city and destroyed the other minor ones. It took an hours drive

to get to the opposite bank. The West speaks of the necessity of cutting off Islamic
State supply routes, but these are not Islamic State bridges they are bridges used
by everyone in Raqqa.
And yet, somehow life still goes on. Muhammad, who is 31 years old and displaced
from Aleppo, and his fiancee are preparing for their wedding, as if in private defiance
of the incredible challenges the world has thrown at them. A cousins little daughter
reads a 9th-grade French book, trying to understand a single word.
Yet, when the jet fighters interrupt, all eyes turn to the sky. Everything here is a target,
because the Islamic State is everywhere. But once the bombs are dropped, people go
back to what they were doing. Its no longer a moment of reflection about life and
death, nor a moment of curiosity about what happened: Its something that has no
ending.
This is Raqqa Setting.
On the Islamic States Al-Bayan radio, a presenter brags about how hardly any of his
friends have been harmed by the airstrikes. To the crusaders disappointment, he
said, the mujahideen hide in the basements and spread through the city among
civilians!
The presenter goes on to praise Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind behind
the Paris attacks. By God, the Islamic State is going to avenge these airstrikes. Well
attack them in their homelands, he said, in Belgium and Australia, in Canada,
Germany, and Rome.
SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images
Posted by Thavam