The secret world of Isis brides: 'U dnthav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a martyr'

What draws western women to Islamic State’s violent jihad? NabeelahJaffer spent months talking to British and American ‘sisters’, before and after they travelled to Syria. How were they convinced by promises of a ‘perfect’ society and life as a martyr’s widow?

Karen sat in a hotel room in Istanbul, grappling with a difficult decision. She had spent about $3,500 (£2,220) on the round trip to Turkey from her home in the US but, when she had bought the ticket, she had had no intention of flying home. The return bookings were for appearance’s sake. Her SMS mailbox was filled with promises for the future: messages from an Islamic State fighter who had promised to marry her. But as she sat in that Istanbul hotel room, something didn’t feel quite right.

Her prospective groom’s insistence on absolute secrecy had not seemed strange at first. Karen had met him through the swarm of Isis-friendly social media. They started by chatting on Twitter and Ask.fm, then moved to encrypted messaging apps such as Kik, Surespot and Telegram. Paranoia runs through most of the online interactions – no one’s identity is clear, and anyone could be bluffing. But the hint of danger was part of the glamour and Karen thought she was being careful. She was in her late teens and had recently graduated from high school, where she had been a lonely girl interested in Star Trek and computer programming.

She converted to Islam less than a year before her journey, after watching the news and deciding to learn more about the religion. She had been inspired by Isis’s apparent authenticity – they were as far removed from the west as it seemed possible to be. Her Christian parents worried whether she would be safe walking down the street wearing a hijab. She kept her real plans well hidden from them. Online, she disguised her identity by using a kunya – a traditional Arab title. Karen had created several of these, but mostly she went by Umm Khalid – “mother of Khalid”. The name derived from Khalid bin Walid, a military commander known as the “Sword of God” in the early days of Islam. Umm Khalid was also the name of a Palestinian village that was evacuated in 1948 and swallowed up by the Israeli city of Netanya. The name has its roots in violence inflicted and violence suffered.

As she planned her trip, she asked him to put her in touch with some of the women who had already joined Isis from the west. She wanted to know that she could trust him. He promised that he would, but made an excuse the next time she asked, and the time after that. This made her uneasy, but so did the prospect of delaying the trip.

All the other Isis supporters she had met online said that it would only become more difficult and dangerous to get to Syria as time passed. Things weren’t easy at home: her parents “had a fit” when she tried to wear a niqab. And so she boarded the plane to Istanbul, hoping for the best.

Later, Karen did not like to talk about all the promises Abu Muhammad had made to her: it was embarrassing to think about how naive she had been. He had told her to board the bus from Istanbul to Urfa and make the 18-hour journey alone, as many others before her had done. At the other end he, or one of his friends, would be waiting to hear from her. They would come at once, and would help her to cross into Isis territory immediately. But to her, the plan seemed risky and rushed. He had told her so little. Things came to a head on the final day, when the tone of his texts became more sexual. When she confronted him, he argued that there was nothing wrong with doing, as she later called it, “things”. They were, he pointed out, just 24 hours from being married.

This was not, to Karen’s mind, how pious and devoted jihadis were supposed to behave. Unlike some girls, who flirted with fighters online, she never obsessed about true love. Marriage was a practical consideration – a means to a life with Isis. But she would talk, from time to time, about wanting to be a good wife to a good husband – one who behaved like a perfect Muslim. Sexting was not part of the picture.

I later contacted Karen in private on encrypted apps, and eventually she opened up. She had flown home to the US after two days in Turkey (“with great photos of Istanbul”, she added, “lol.”). One final piece of information had clinched her decision to call off the Isis marriage. She had heard about a woman similar to herself being kidnapped in Urfa by the PKK, the Kurdish nationalist group, then arrested. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and the EU, but is also at the forefront of the fight against Isis on the ground. She began to wonder if Abu Muhammad was really who he claimed to be. “Talking to him, I realised that things weren’t right,” she said. She became convinced that Abu Muhammad was not from Isis but the PKK. It was by the grace of God, she told me, that she was still alive and free.

She had broken no laws, and no longer intended to do so. Others in Isis have since offered to help her to come over, but she trusted no one enough to take the risk. She issued some sharp advice. “Brothers lie to get a wife.”

Like the three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green, Karen was from a lower-middle-class background and had a decent education. Almost all the women I came across looked and sounded not unlike myself at 16. They were conservative Muslim girls, whether they were recent converts or the daughters of Muslims, who took their faith seriously. Although their interpretation of Islam rarely agreed with mine, the women I spoke to were driven in part by religious ideals. But few of these women were willing to engage thoughtfully with a variety of Islamic religious texts, traditions and interpretations. They hated disorder and ambiguity; the clear-cut doctrines issued by jihadist ideologues appealed to their political sensibilities. Opposing the west was their measure of religious authenticity.

GUARDIAN