Do I have sympathy for Isis supporters? Of course I do: they are humanity’s saddest failures

i think its bigger than just the afterlife - i think for many the appeal of the caliphate is a place of relevance in this life

in the time of the historic caliphate, muslims really were world leaders in all manner of cultural pursuits

this is when they made their contributions to mathmatics and architechture and art and prose and philosophy or at least religious philosophy - they participated with the global community and were very much respected at the height of their power

in the develped nations today, the muslim, especially the traditional muslim, is often a bit of an outsider and an oddity, and in the less developed nations they are looked at as downright backwards and there is a strong sense that the wealthier powers manipulate and exploit and disenfranchise the tribal muslim for their own ends

the reasons are various but the reality is that of all the major religions, islam is probably the one with the highest amount of disdain directed towards it from modern peoples - even among people who are themselves religious, or at least religiously tolerant, there is a lot of nose lifting and finger pointing in their general direction

and they are demonized to a great extent even despite the fact that at least in some instances their grievances are quite justifiable

so the idea of a place which is distinctly muslim and which is able to command respect on the global stage has a very strong appeal i think

and if daesh can convince muslims who feel isolated and ridiculed that this new caliphate represents islams return to multi-cultural significance
then there will be no end to their recruitment - muslims of all backgrounds will flock to them in droves

also i think they are especially targeting females because, at least among other reasons, the more women they have the more fighters they will have in the next decades

if you pursue the information it is a recurring theme that daesh wants females to "marry" jihadis

they dont really care about the vows i think, so much as the consumation

i suspect that daesh jihadis after a certain rank have standing orders to produce children - sons especially i would imagine - but surely at least one child before running off and getting themselves killedfor allah

I'm not convinced. My comment about wanting a better afterlife is more about what is motivating those fighting for the ISIL cause, then the individuals who claim to be buying into the ISIL caliphate. There methods are well publicized, even by themselves... and they are brutal, as evidenced by the tragedy in the OP.

There are plenty of places in the Middle East suited to different natures of Islam, so I'd have to assume anyone wanting to join this mob specifically are doing it for the same reasons they are in operation, and their self confessed purpose is to spread their particular flavour of Islam by any means (incl. by the 'sword') to the entire world, so given their apparent nature..... its a bit sadistic militant dictatorship AFAIK. Such that if your not fighting for it, or serving the fighters, then your not part of it.

Claiming ignorance to their method would seem unrealistic to me, though it's of course technically possible a person could be shielded and misinformed, if someone was making them live under the proverbial rock. I can understand people being told the West is lying to them and believing it, but the ISIL's own media materials makes it clear how they operate and what they believe.

So to some extent we have;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLgfG0Oxdss
... but in ISIL's case I think they have a specific nature and intention;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHe7rfUwi8c