English-speaking countries and news agencies have an aversion to long names. So when the jihadist militant group that called itself الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام, or “The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” entered the world political sphere, it was referred to with a simple acronym. Well, it was intended to be a simple acronym. News outlets, and common citizens by influence, began to call the group ISIS, short for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. However, some political figures, including the president of the United States, Barack Obama, use the acronym ISIL, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. So what is the underlying difference between the two acronyms: ISIS and ISIL? And why do some people say one, and some say the other?
When the group started to gain notoriety in the press and politics, confusion over just how to shorten its name in English arose from one tricky phrase: al-Sham. The term has no direct translation in English and refers to Greater Syria, the geographic area in the Middle East that the group desires for its vision of an Islamic state. The English word closest in meaning to “al-Sham” is the dated name for a slightly overlapping geographic area: the Levant, which spans the countries of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. Therefore, the acronym ISIL is the more-accurate name, as it recognizes these areas that the group affects and targets, while ISIS refers exclusively to Iraq and Syria. The tendency to call the group ISIS arose as they became active militants in the Syrian civil war in 2012. Though less accurate, the name ISIS has become entrenched in the international lexicon and is still used by many politicians and news companies.
Many world leaders have taken to using the name Daesh to refer to the group, rather than ISIS or ISIL. This name is also an acronym, but one that takes from the Arabic words in the group’s longer moniker. The phonetic sound of the acronym is intended to be unpleasant, and the rare use of an acronym in Arabic is meant to attribute disrespect to the group and to ignore the meaning behind its longer name. In the midst of the confusion and name calling, since 2014 the group has decided to call itself the shorter and to-the-point Islamic State, or IS.