Examination of the Causes of Joining of Foreign Fighters to ISIS Groups

ISIS represent portrait of the supra-national youths crowd from different parts of the world including Europe and the U.S.A. This constructed and destructive community, to a great extent, is an outcome of the speedy and universal mobilization of foreign fighters from around the world. World Jihadists’ entrance to the Islamic world and their extremist and defiant inclination is not a new phenomenon, but their quantity and its sequential and steady trend in one hand, and very great number of foreign Jihadists in the other hand, represents an unprecedented or rare pattern; so that it can be regarded at least as a one of the most basic and important factors – if not the most important one- for persistence and the power of ISIS groups. This paper is aimed at understanding of the causes of dislocation of Jihadists from Western modern societies and joining to ISIS and their activities in the battlefields. Inspired by theoretical framework of Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma and Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism, the article supposes that the main reason for joining to ISIS groups is the disillusionment, identity crisis and stigma of these fighters arising from the Islamophobia phenomenon in West in order to giving meaning to self, free of regrettable identity situation and maintain and represent their values.