Abstract: This article explores what is known regarding the Islamic State’s leaders since the killing of the group’s second caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (conventionally dubbed “al-Mawla” for shorthand) in February 2022. In contrast with the group’s first caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the organization has publicized little information on his successors, who have released no audio messages of their own. Despite the fact that the group’s caliphs are now very much ‘men of the shadows,’ there is little evidence pointing to the prospect of the group’s fragmentation in Iraq, Syria, or elsewhere around the world, with the group’s affiliates seemingly willing to accept successor caliphs about whom little or nothing is publicly known.
On August 3, 2023, the Islamic State’s al-Furqan Media publicized a teaser announcement of a forthcoming speech by one “Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansari,” described as being the spokesman for the Islamic State. Considering that the previous spokesman was one “Abu Omar al-Muhajir” and the group had said nothing until then about his fate, it was predictable that the speech was going to announce that something had befallen its spokesman, and possibly its caliph as well. Sure enough, Abu Hudhayfa announced that the previous spokesman had been taken captive, and that the group’s caliph Abu al-Husayn al-Husayni al-Qurashi had been killed. He also announced that a new caliph—Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi—had been appointed in Abu al-Husayn’s place, continuing a line of faceless caliphs. Despite the fact that these caliphs are shrouded in a veil of obscurity, the group insists that its fighters and Muslims around the world declare allegiance to them.
What might now be called the ‘dark age’ of caliphs contrasts markedly with the public face of the group’s first caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. When the Islamic State first rose to global prominence in June 2014 with its seizure of territory spanning the borders of Iraq and Syria and the declaration of the caliphate under then leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, there was understandably much interest in the person leading the organization. Indeed, the Islamic State was keen to highlight a public face for its caliph, who had released audio messages prior to being named caliph and continued to do so during his tenure as caliph up to the time of his death in 2019. He also made two visual appearances: Once in a video released in July 2014 showing al-Baghdadi in the al-Nouri mosque in Mosul, and then an appearance in a video released in April 2019 following the end of the group’s territorial control in Iraq and Syria, showing him consulting with figures who were presumably part of the group’s top leadership.
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