page_title: Al-Barakah (ISIL administrative district)
section_title: Politics and governance
hierarchical_section_title: Al-Barakah (ISIL administrative district) / Organization / Politics and governance
caption_attribution_description: English: ISIL sign in al-Shaddadah which proclaims that "Those who are not under the rule of Allah will be deemed an infidel"; this edict was used as justification for several executions in al-Shaddadah.
context_page_description: Al-Barakah is a Syrian administrative district of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Salafi jihadist militant group and unrecognised proto-state. Originally set up as al-Barakah Province to govern ISIL territories in al-Hasakah Governorate, the province shifted south after 2016 due to the territorial losses to the YPG/YPJ. Having been demoted from province to district in 2018, al-Barakah administered a small strip of land along the Euphrates in Deir ez-Zor Governorate until the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani.
context_section_description: In governing al-Barakah, ISIL attempted to coopt local Arab tribes and clans. In doing so, it exploited lingering anti-Kurdish sentiment among al-Hasakah Governorate's Arab population. ISIL had originally "downplay[ed] accusations of anti-Kurdish racism" and presented itself as pan-Sunni organization which regarded ethnicity as unimportant. Consequently, a significant number of Kurds actually joined ISIL in al-Hasakah Governorate. Over time, however, ISIL's relations with the Kurdish population of Syria in general worsened due to the successes of the mostly Kurdish YPG/YPJ. As many Arabs feared Kurdish expansionism, ISIL thus started to present itself as defender of the Arab population and employed anti-Kurdish rhetoric. This tactic had some success, even convincing former Arab critics of ISIL that the jihadists' rule over al-Hasakah Governorate was preferable to the YPG/YPJ. Militant anti-Kurdish members of the Arab Tayy and Jibur tribes sided with ISIL in order to defend al-Barakah Province from the YPG-led Eastern al-Hasakah offensive of 2015.
  ISIL's governance of al-Barakah occasionally suffered from some internal turmoil: At some point in or after 2016, some local ISIL judges went on strike to protest the impunity with which ISIL security officials ("amnis") were allowed to act in al-Barakah. By this point, civilians had also voiced opposition to the security agents' behavior. Regardless, higher-ranking ISIL officials ignored the issue. 
  In early 2014, ISIL was preparing to set up a "dhimmi pact" to deal with Christians living in al-Barakah Province, and ordered them to pay the jizya (a special tax for non-Muslims). At the time, the Jihadists were not yet officially forcing them to convert to Islam. Nevertheless, ISIL militants under al-Barakah's jurisdiction were known to abduct, ransom, persecute, and execute local Christians, sometimes disparagingly referred to as "crusaders" by ISIL followers. This ran contrary to the group's own portrayal of its policies, as al-Barakah's authorities claimed that they  acted mercifully toward Christians while also proselytizing them. Most notably, al-Barakah's media center released a report in March 2015 according to which several Christians from Tell Tamer had voluntarily converted and "received the caliphate's blessing". A local journalist argued, however, that the converts had probably been threatened with torture or death. Accordingly, ISIL's version of the story was propaganda "to attract the sympathy of Muslims worldwide".
caption: ISIL sign in al-Shaddadah which proclaims that "Whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the disbelievers"; this edict was used as justification for several executions in al-Shaddadah.[29]
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