What Islamic State brides want

An image of an IS marriage certificate has been circulated on Twitter with an unorthodox condition: the bride reserved the right to be a suicide bomber.

Narrated

2 min read

Dalal Jebril-Rogers

15 May, 2015

The Islamic State does not cease to surprise. A marriage certificate has been circulated on Twitter showing an IS bride demanding the right to be a suicide bomber if the leader of IS gives her permission.

The person who posted contract is chief international correspondent for al-Rai Media, Elijah Magnier, who also actively tweets about IS.

Twitter Post

In a response to the above tweet, Magnier confirms that "those living under #ISIS, willing to carry suicide attacks, write down their names and wait for the approval".

Twitter Post

In Islam, both men and women are allowed to write down conditions in what is referred to as "marriage contract". The contract is then signed at a "Katb ktab", ceremony which is attended by family and marriage officials.

For IS brides, those conditions apparently extend to killing themselves and others in a violent act.

Charles Winter, a researcher at the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, told the Independent: "The certificate does say that the wife's terms are that of if the 'caliph' consents then she is allowed to go on a 'martyrdom' operation and her husband can't forbid her from doing so.

"It's an obscure expression of feminist jihadism in some sense but what it isn't is evidence that IS is ordering brigades of women to carry out bomb attacks."