Skepticism regarding the existence of ISIS 

Hi there.  Perhaps I'm behind the times though I do try to keep up with the "news" and with "global" events, but, I get the feeling that ISIS does not really exist.  Just as there is an excellent chance that Al-Qaeda does not really exist.  I was especially inspired to post this comment when I saw in the first paragraph of this article use the neologism "jihadist".  It doesn't take much brain power to know that there is no one in the world, besides maybe a few deeply stupid solo acts who keep up with thew western media, who refer to themselves as "jihadists".  That is a habit of english speaking people to combine two words from different languages -in this case, arabic and english.  Similarly, there is no centralized organization known as the Taliban, no organization or action known as "Islamist" no organization known as al-Qaeda.  Notice also, that even the purported mission of "ISIS" is not Islamic in its nature.  I know what folks want to ask: then how is it that words like jihadist, islamist, taliban, al-qaeda, and ISIS exist?  Its called orientailsim.  The Palestinian scholar Edward Said wrote extensively on the history of english speaking people, and other imperialists, who purposely attack and misrepresent Muslim peoples.  It started with the Crusades.  I don't mean to be a no it all, but ought we just believe what we are told?  Is there a way to find empirical evidence that they do exist?  If they do exist -what are we talking about?  A few people who never studied Shariah in the first place.   10 August, 2014