Saturday, November 8, 2014

Daesh, not ISIS/ISIL/IS

Thanks to a persuasive former student, I am going to join others in referring to the group claiming to be the Caliphate as Daesh and not the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL. 

Why?  First, it keeps practice consistent--we don't call Hamas the Islamic Resistance because we use their acronym in Arabic  Daesh apparently is the acronym if we use the Arabic name. 

Second, it is insulting to them since daesh has other meanings:
Daesh sounds similar to the Arabic words Daes ("one who crushes something underfoot") and Dahes ("one who sows discord")
Third, I feel bad for all of the girls named ISIS and all of the Institutes with this acronym.

But mostly, we should use it because it pisses off those who belong to Daesh. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I refuse to use "Daesh" by itself. I will use IS, ISIS, ISIL, and perhaps add "Daesh" as in "ISIS/Daesh". Using "Daesh" by itself allows Muslims to pretend that ISIS is not true Islam. Nonsense! ISIS is Islam and Islam is ISIS. Politically-correct Orwellian Newspeak ... you know what you can do with it.