Interview with an Islamic State school teacher

Former Islamic State school teacher - identity concealed at her request

The Islamic State, or Daish, were the first among their predecessors in the Takfiri Jihadi militant Islam arena to pay special attention to indoctrinating children—compared to Al-Qaida, for example, which was more invested in adult and teenage males who were able to carry arms and fight.

In fact, no actor since Nazi Germany has devoted such extensive effort to shaping children through extremist, hate-driven propaganda centered on the narrative of a ‘superior identity under threat.’ To quote a report from the ISIS Files, which I had the privilege of contributing to:

Given ISIS’ goal of creating a centralized Islamic ‘state,’ it is no surprise that ISIS deliberately set up an education system that attempted to transmit its own customs and values to the younger generations of its ‘citizens’ and ‘fighters.’ Of course, ISIS is not the first negative actor to use education in this way. Under Nazi Germany, education was viewed as a mechanism for “shaping and forging… national identity, as well as self-perception and the perception of ‘other.’”

(page 16, Planting the Seeds of the Poisonous Tree: Establishing a System of Meaning through ISIS Education)

A child’s doodle on an Islamic State math book (second grade, age 7)

Islamic State math book (second grade, age 7)

Daish, who were more digitally savvy than their Al-Qaida predecessors, created video games, literacy phone applications, picture books, songs, animations, and an entire school curriculum consisting of literacy, math, geography, science, and history (their version of Islamic history), among other subjects they deemed ‘appropriate’ and ‘Islamic’—all aimed at indoctrinating children.

In this post, I share an interview I conducted in 2021 with a former teacher at one of Daish’s schools in Mosul for children under the age of 12.