According to Berry, ISIS has adopted a similar mindset. While the Quran commands that Muslims accept the legitimacy of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and other Muslims, ISIS considers anyone outside of the Sunni sect of Islam a non-Muslim, including Shiite Muslims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing now is a civil war to determine whether there will be a secular government still headed by Muslims, or a more traditional government where the religious leaders would have a pivotal role,\u201d Berry said. \u201cEach side is trying to get support for their cause, so the more attention Baghdadi can get, the more he can recruit people.\u201d<\/p>\n Due to the violence that has arisen in Syria, many refugees have been attempting to escape their homeland in order to find a safe place. There are even cases of entire communities in which the populations have disappeared. A Christian community that Berry visited in 2005 during his time teaching in Beirut has since been abandoned.<\/p>\n According to Berry, ISIS may also be attempting to specifically attract the attention of Americans. While most images from ISIS have portrayed words written in Arabic, there has been some footage of protests around the world depicting signs in English, a language that most of those international representatives would not speak.<\/p>\n ISIS has succeeded in capturing attention around the world. In\u00e9s Poncet, Gardner-Webb\u2019s French Teaching Assistant for the 2015-2016 academic year, was taken aback when she heard the news of the attacks on her home country.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very surreal,\u201d recalled Poncet. \u201cI was checking my Facebook, and my friend was posting things about it, and I didn\u2019t know what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n While Poncet is from Lyon, which is south of Paris, she has many friends that live in Paris. When she checked in with them, she learned that several of her friends were nearby when the attacks took place, and even had plans to attend the venues that night.<\/p>\n \u201cThe places they targeted are the places that most of the young people go when they go out at night,\u201d Poncet said.<\/p>\n Gathering accurate information about the occurrences was especially challenging for Poncet because the major French news website, Le Monde, <\/em>was briefly inaccessible. As she checked multiple international news sources, she noticed that the information varied among them, as the news was still developing.<\/p>\n \u201cI almost felt useless,\u201d shared Poncet. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I could have done if I had been there, but it is still difficult to be so far away.\u201d<\/p>\n In the midst of the surprise from the attacks, Poncet says that she and other international students from France are grateful for the support that they have felt from the United States, especially from the Gardner-Webb community.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Dr. Berry believes that it is difficult to predict what will happen next in the affair with ISIS, as the situation does not seem to be close to an end.<\/p>\n \u201cOther than praying for them at this point, it is very sad to see the damage that has been done, as well as what likely will be done,\u201d he shared. \u201cI don\u2019t know that there is a human solution that will take care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"A](\"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/IMG_20151119_161508678-2.jpg\")
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