Their flamboyant executions are normally in line with sharia law principles.
Reports from Mosul indicate that the Islamic State (ISIS) has recently executed 25 Iraqis accused of spying by lowering them into a vat of nitric acid. The victims were left in the acid until it dissolved their internal organs, causing a lingering and horrible death. The 25 were allegedly accused by ISIS of being spies for the Iraqi government.
That ISIS would have a vat of nitric acid is believable given that it is used to make ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that is also a primary ingredient in the homemade explosives commonly used by Sunni insurgents in Iraq. As they captured Mosul’s industrial centers along with the rest of the city, it is not at all unlikely that they would have access to the chemical in large quantities. If they are able, they are doubtless still producing ammonium nitrate as a wartime priority.
However, the mode of execution is surprising. Typically ISIS’s famously horrifying executions are nevertheless carefully rooted in sharia law. For example, ISIS throws gays off of the roofs of buildings. This is not a random choice they made, but one rooted in a ruling by a cousin of Muhammad’s in the early days of sharia law.
Finally, Muhammad Aashiq Illahi Muhajir Madani, a modern-day Mufti (jurist), wrote Illuminating Discourses on the Noble Quran, 2nd ed. trans. and ed. Mufti A. H. Elias, (Karachi: Pakistan, Zam Zam, 2003). In his commentary on Sura 4:15-16, he is open to the interpretation that the two verses speak of homosexuality, so he provides two hadith that he considers reliable, which deal with punishing homosexuals (vol. 2, pp. 365-69).
This early ruling repeats the one that homosexuals must be burned:
With regard to the method in which these people [homosexuals] are to executed, Abu Bakr after consulting with Ali and other Sahaaba [companions of Muhammad], ruled that they be burnt.
Mufti Madani’s next citation says that convicted homosexuals should undergo this terrible punishment (cf. Maududi vol. 2, p. 52, note 68):
. . . Ibn Abbas ruled that they be thrown headlong from the highest summit.
Likewise, a captured Jordanian pilot was burned alive and then crushed with a load of heavy stones. Many experts said that this creative mode of execution had no basis in Islamic law. ISIS responded to these charges in its propaganda magazine, Dabiq, explaining just why the execution was an expression of sharia.
In a piece illustrated with gruesome photos of the murdered pilot, the unidentified author writes:
In burning the crusader pilot alive and burying him under a pile of debris, the Islamic State carried out a just form of retaliation for his involvement in the crusader bombing campaign which continues to result in the killing of countless Muslims who, as a result of these airstrikes, are burned alive and buried under mountains of debris.
The article goes on to mention specific elements of Islamic law (qisās and maslahah) which they argue justified their actions. It also offers five historical instances in which fire was used as a punishment against enemies of Islam.
ISIS has published a list of punishments for crimes, everything from theft and homosexuality to “spying for the unbelievers.” The punishments seem almost unbelievably cruel to us, but all of them have a sharia law justification. When it put 13 teenagers to death for watching soccer on television, it cited their ‘breaking religious law’ as the reason for their murder. When it crucifies people accused of banditry, there is a reason in sharia law for the practice.
Thus, this reported method of execution by acid ought also to have a sharia law justification. None has yet been forthcoming, but if the report is true there must be some reason why ISIS thought it was an appropriate and fitting punishment for spies. Regardless of the opinion of Western experts on Islam, ISIS believes it is enacting sharia accurately. They have studied it carefully, and always have reasons for their atrocities that are rooted in sharia law principles.