The extremist group ISIS intends to take over the Iberian Peninsula by 2020, also the Middle East and North Africa, according to a BBC journalist.
The book, "Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State", includes maps and plans of the terrorist group for 2020.
For the author, the journalist Andrew Hosken, it is "unlikely" that ISIS can carry out the plan, but experts in the field point out that when the group began to assert itself, it was also considered unlikely that it could establish the new caliphate.
The map, published to strike fear into nations, was said to have been distributed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), showing the group’s intentions to expand the caliphate to countries such as Spain and Portugal with their Moorish history.
Experts have concluded that the map does not represent the traditional mindset of a caliphate, which is what ISIS has declared itself.
“The idea of the map is kind of screwed up,” Hossein Kamaly, an expert on Middle Eastern history and Islamic studies at Barnard College in New York.
America’s ABC News' headline read, “See the Terrifying ISIS Map Showing its 5-Year Expansion Plan.”
ABC traced the map back not to the Sunni militant group, but to A3P, an American political party that promotes white supremacy. Other media that published the map include the UK's Daily Mail.
There is no evidence that ISIS played a part in making and distributing the map. In fact, experts say, if ISIS had made the map, it shows the group’s “idea of the Muslim past is flawed,” Kamaly said, adding that the map disproportionately portrays that geography.
“It’s like the Islamic version of the Spanish Reconquista,” he said. “The names on the map weren’t even that way in medieval times, the entire Iberian Peninsula is called Andalusia.”
In the past month, ISIS has moved swiftly to take over key cities in Iraq to establish an Islamic caliphate. It now occupies a territory that stretches from Aleppo province in Syria to Diyala, Iraq. The group has called on Muslims to support its quest to form a caliphate.
Although ISIS has acquired weapons from its conquests in Iraq, analysts have said it is not likely to take over land outside of the region.
Austin Long, a professor at Columbia University, said the group is not even sure if it can take on Baghdad, let alone invade another country.
Spain is on the front line of the battle against ISIS with security forces having to disrupt groups plotting deadly attacks in Europe and recruiting people to join extremists in Syria and Iraq.
As a result, the UK's Foreign Office raised the terror threat level in Spain to "high" in June, just before the beach massacre in Tunisia.
A FCO spokesman said, "There is a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners.
"The situation in Iraq and Syria means there is considered to be a heightened threat of terrorist attack globally against UK interests and British nationals, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict."
Security analysts from Spain, however, are warning the Portuguese government against complacency. They argue that radical Muslims are becoming increasingly strident in their vows to reconquer Al-Andalus, of which Portugal is a key component, for Islam.
Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors from 711 to 1492, when both the Moors and the Jews were expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
Most of the territory of modern-day Portugal was occupied by the Moors for more than 500 years, from 711 until 1249.
During that time, the territory was known by its Arabic name, Gharb Al-Andalus (The West of Al-Andalus) or Al-Gharb (The West).
Jihadists believe that all of the territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula still belong to the realm of Islam.
They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to return there and re-establish Muslim rule. This belief is based on a verse in the Koran that reads: "And kill them wherever you find them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you..." (Koran 2:191)
A jihadist group called Sharia4Spain, which says it wants to replace the democratic order in Spain with Islamic Sharia law, has called for the "destruction of the constitutional systems of Spain and Portugal and the reestablishment of Sharia law and the system of the Caliphate in all of the Iberian Peninsula."
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History note from Mr Peter Booker
Dear Ed,
"Most of the territory of modern-day Portugal was occupied at some point by the Moors for more than 500 years, from 711 until 1249."
If you were to add the words in bold, then your statement would be correct. But for the last 150 years until 1249, Islamic rulers had some control over present-day Algarve and southern Alentejo only in the territory which we now call Portugal.
It is the 500 years which is so misleading. In the north of Portugal, Christian centres were being founded in the eleventh century, and the Archbishop of Braga resumed his Cathedral archdiocese in 1070.
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