War of bondmaids: Jihadist exploitation of women

The fundamental Islamist discourse is characterized by its enmity to all different sects, minorities and women. The fundamental discourse addressing women is full of intimidation and based on the grave's torment and God's wrath for wearing makeup, noncompliance of lawful dress and mingling at workplaces. The discourse preaches that God honored women to stay at home, raising children and serving their husbands.

Despite the extremist discourse, Islamists shifted duties of women due to tough reality. The Muslim Brotherhood established in 1932 a squad for "Muslim Sisters" for raising awareness inside the group and playing a social role.

The jihadist employment of women has developed over years, from the rear bases preparing arms, food and nursing, promoting the jihadist ideas, recruiting new members, to complete engagement in combat as fighters and suicide attacks. Moreover, a woman is also exploited physically as a reward for male fighters.

Certainly, a number of armies and militias worldwide draw on women in military operations. Kurdish troops, such as Peshmerga, recruit women. The people's protection units in North Syria also recruit women. However, the image of women is Kurdish troops is different from Daesh's Khansawat and Zainabiat in Yemen.

The study will try to reveal the motives that lead Islamist organizations recruit women and for special squads for them, and the role of these squads. Is it confined to Hisbah, or Shariah (Islamic law) police or female police? Does it have any military aspects?

The jihadist employment of women by Islamist organizations

The fundamental discourse – Sunni or Shiite – considers women as inferior to men. It totally rejects women's mingling at work side by side with men. In the past, it rejected the engagement of women in military combat. However, the jihadist employment of women has significantly developed. It shifted from absolute rejection of any participation in the military to the formation of female armed troops.

The example of al-Qaeda stands out as a major transformative process. Prior to 2003, Ayman al-Zawahri, the then deputy head of al-Qaeda, considered the participation of women in military operations a "haram" or unlawful.   Regional developments have driven the organization to allow the participation of women in military action.   

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was the first to use women in suicide attacks. Sajida Al-Rishawi, who was detained after an attempt to bomb targets in Jordan, was commissioned by Zarqawi.

Yusuf al-Ayeri, leader of a-Qaeda in Arabia, recruited women stating: "Women play a great role in supporting jihadist men". A number of Saudi women emerged as jihadists like Nada Al-Qahtani, Wafaa Al-Shahry, Arwa Al-Baghdady and Hayla Al-Qassir.  However, their duties were confined to funding, logistic and security services.

Unlike al-Qaeda with all of its fatwas (religious edicts based on Islamic law), Daesh has excessively employed women and formed female armed battalions.

A number of outcomes resulted from engaging of women in combat as follows:

-          Weakening role of fatwas that consider the participation of women in jihadist armed action "unlawful".

-          Women have acquired new roles in addition to their traditional role like raising children and serving husbands.

-          Jihadist armed action of women gained spiritual and religious dimension, as women seek either victory or Shihada (martyrdom).

There are two categories of female jihadists: forced and volunteers. A forced female jihadist was coerced by her family – or her husband – to join these groups. A volunteer jihadist believes in the group's ideology and seeks to promote it.

Drivers for female recruiting

The drivers include two categories of drivers: drivers related to the group itself, and motives related to women, including psychological and social drivers.

1.       Drivers related to the groups or movements

Extremist groups recruited women because of conditions on the ground as well as logistic factors.

-          Recruit: Jihadist groups recruit women because they possess special capabilities that could be used to recruit more members. Women can easily communicate with relatives and lady friends, and promote extremist ideas among her milieu.

-          Hisbah (Shariah police): It is one of the most essential pillars of the fundamental -- Sunni and Shiite – discourse. The Shariah police ensure the commitment of women to Islamic law in areas controlled by Islamist groups.

-          Political repression: Islamist groups use women for the political repression. Shiite organizations were the forerunners in this regard.

-          To ward off suspicions: Some jihadist duties such as reconnaissance and spying are difficult for men.

-          Lack of human resources: Jihadist groups recruit women and children to make up for lack of human resources as many men get killed in the battlefields.

-          Media exploitation of jihadist female fighters: Most of jihadist groups badly use the image of female jihadists to provoke the society psychologically and emotionally. The jihadist media portray their enemies as evil people who would even kill women at war.

2.       Drivers related to women

    In the beginning, we should differentiate between the motives of Sunni and Shiite women in joining armed militias. Khomeini, former Supreme Leader of Iran, directly ordered the recruit of women for the military. The same applied to Zainabiat in Yemen. The female recruit was a direct order by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

However, it was different for Sunni female jihadists.  There was no general fatwa, like the one issued by Khomeini to recruit Shiite women. The Sunni jihadist groups have been reluctant in recruiting women. However, women engaged in jihadist action due to a number of factors as follows:

-          Indulgence: The radical Islamist discourse has caused a social and psychological complex for women. It considers women as evil and cause for temptation. Therefore, a woman would need some guide to rescue her from sin. Consequently, joining a jihadist group would be some indulgence for her.   

-          Wrong liberation: Women suffer from dominant machismo in the Arab societies. Joining armed militias would give women a sort of liberation to get rid of social restrictions.

-          Psychological disorder: Psychological disorders may drive some girls to join the jihadist movements at an early age. Emotional problems may drive them to join jihadist groups for marriage. Some teenagers get duped that jihadist men are heroes. Daesh recruited a Dutch girl who wanted to marry Omar Yilmaz, a Dutchman of Turkish origin, in Syria.  

-          Poor learning: Jihadist movements take advantage of the poor religious culture of some women. They take advantage of hadith of Prophet Mohamed [PBUH] that women will form the majority of the people of Hell. Therefore, Muslim women need to atone for their sins.

Armed female militias

Khansawat

Al-Qaeda recruited women individually and has not formed any female militias. In 2014, Daesh formed Al-Khansaa Brigade. Some reports estimated the number of Daesh's female fighters in Raqqa at 400.

Zainabiat: The female tool of Houthi

The Houthis formed the Zainabiat militia in 2014 to secure regions under Houthis' control as Houthi male fighters headed to invade Sana'a.

Finally, we answer the questioned raised earlier in this study: Are the fundamental, jihadist movements trying to cope with modernity by adopting the liberation of women and the right to defend themselves through the female jihadist groups?   

According to the study, these movements and organizations still consider women inferior. Their attitude has not changed at all.

The formation of female jihadist battalions has been motivated by a number of reasons such as passing through checkpoints, recruiting new members, fund raising and other factors, which have nothing to do with empowering women to defend themselves or female liberation. Women are only used as slave fighters.