The Islamic State and the Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago in the 21st Century

Book excerpt: This work analyses: (1) the discursive terrain of the Muslim community/Ummah of Trinidad and Tobago from the Jihad of the Jamaat al Muslimeen on July 27th, 1990 to 2015 with emphasis on the evolution of militant Islam in this period. (2) It deconstructs the discourse of the Islamic State constructed to motivate Muslims of the world, especially of the West to migrate/to undertake Hijrah to the Islamic State with emphasis on the discursive concepts of the Islamic Apocalypse, the Malahim, Hijrah and Jihad is War. (3) It deconstructs the specific discourse of the Islamic State constituted for the Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago which reveals the importance of the Trinidad and Tobago contingent to the propaganda machinery of the Islamic State. (4) It deconstructs the discourse of the survivors which reveals the complex motivational structure that drove Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago to journey to the Islamic State. What is revealed is a power relation between the Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago who are a minority group of the population of Trinidad and Tobago, the kufr State of Trinidad and Tobago and the discourse of the Islamic State. The reality that the Trinidad and Tobago contingent to Islamic State was the largest per capita amongst Muslims that undertook Hijrah to the Islamic State speaks volumes to the susceptibility of the Muslim community to the call of the Islamic State. This work deconstructs the underlying reality that ensured the virulence of the discourse of the Islamic State in its impact on Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago.