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For months, the world has been transfixed by the apparent brutality of the Islamic State's practices in war. The\xa0beheading of journalists, the burning of prisoners and the enslavement of\xa0religious minorities all seem\xa0like a return to a barbaric past. Certainly, these practices seem far removed from any notion of conduct constrained by law.

Islam, however, has a robust religious legal tradition, including on matters of war. So to better understand that tradition and its connection (or lack thereof) with the warfare of contemporary groups,\xa0including the Islamic State, we turned to Andrew March,\xa0Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. March is the author of\xa0Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus\xa0as well as numerous scholarly and popular articles on Islamic political and legal thought. In the last few weeks, he has also published pieces in\xa0Foreign Affairs\xa0and on Brookings' own\xa0Markaz blog\xa0taking a closer look at the Islamic State and the ways it interprets, adjusts and applies traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

In this podcast,\xa0March discusses\xa0the Islamic law of war, both in the classical tradition and in the discourse and practice of contemporary states and non-state actors. In doing so, he\xa0walks us through some of this vast, complex tradition, and he warns Western governments that their interests are best served by staying out of\xa0the internal interpretive debates of religious communities.

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