It’s Not ‘ISIS,’ It’s the ‘Allah Finger’

Media mischaracterizes New York City bomber’s gesture.

Shackled terrorist defiantly flashes ISIS salute after he’s busted for tossing explosive device near Gracie Mansion https://t.co/idBaeJt3tG pic.twitter.com/CD9Bdlj2Mh

— New York Post (@nypost) March 9, 2026

When Emir Balat, accused of taking part in throwing IEDs at a rally against the Islamization of New York City near the mayoral residence, was being led out by an FBI agent, he raised his right finger upwards in what media accounts incorrectly described as an “ISIS salute.”

The New York Post called it “a universal salute for ISIS.” But there is no such thing as an ISIS salute. It’s the traditional Islamic salute used during prayers to their deity and, much like “Allahu Akbar” is used by Islamists proclaiming that they represent Allah and are combating infidels.

ISIS beheaders held up one finger after beheading their non-Muslim victims, but so do most Muslims. The ISIS flag, a terrifying black and white chimera to most westerners, simply declares that Allah is the only deity and Mohammed is his messenger: the founding premise of Islam.

The persistent myth of an ‘ISIS salute’ continues to crop up when media outlets try to distinguish between Islam and some imaginary ‘extreme’ version of it represented by Islamic terrorists. The BBC and a UK police force previously apologized for calling the ‘Allah finger’ an ISIS salute.

What the ‘ISIS salute’ lie really reveals is the length to which authorities and the media will go to cover up the Islamic theology behind Islamic terrorism. What the Gracie Mansion bombing suspect likely meant to convey was that the murderous attack had been carried out in Allah’s name, that he was operating under Islamic law, and had no regard for our justice system.

Islam is not an inward-facing faith. Its followers do not shout “Allahu Akbar” or hold up one finger as part of some ‘inner struggle’ of faith, as apologists have mischaracterized Jihad, but as symbols of their external struggle and a justification for violence against all non-Muslims.

The significance of the ‘Allah finger’ is not an inward acceptance of Allah’s supremacy, but a contention that the ‘fingerer’ is a monotheist while those outside the circle are ‘polytheists’ or pagans who, under Islamic law, may be freely killed, raped and enslaved by the followers of Islam. Much as ‘Allahu Akbar’ is a proclamation of Allah’s supremacy over non-Muslims and thus a triumphal declaration that Islam will defeat them, their religions and their ‘gods’, so too the ‘Allah finger’ easily becomes a justification for violence in the name of Islamic supremacism.

Islam is perpetually frozen in the moment of its founding Jihad. Its traditional followers see themselves as a small minority tasked with the primal Mohammedan mission of forcing their friends and neighbors to accept Islam, either through persuasion (Dawah) or force (Jihad.) Different Islamic movements, groups and individuals may vary in the tactics they use, how much they rely on one or the other, and how they pursue even violence, but the endgame is the same.

The ‘Allah finger’ helps us understand that mindset which bridges ISIS and the mosque next door. What may seem like a declaration of faith is actually a symbol of conquest. The constant need for expansion makes faith into an external expression and its preferred outlet is violence.

When Muslims praise Islamic terrorists, they are often mistranslated as “martyrs”. But “martyr” is a Greek term meaning “witness”. The martyr in Christianity testified to his faith in life or death. The martyrs of Christianity eventually became those who testified for their faith by giving up their lives. The equivalent term in Judaism is “Kedoshim” or “sanctified ones”. Much as Islam appears to share a common meaning with ‘peace’, the Arabic term “shaheed” appears to also mean ‘witness’, but the Islamic ‘Shaheed’ is most often used to refer to Muslims who murder in the name of Islam. The witnessing of Islam is not passive: it is a violent Jihad against all others.

What the Koran wants most from Muslim is not inner faith, but outer violence, best expressed through the subjugation of non-Muslims under Sharia law. Personal conduct matters less because all is forgiven and paradise is granted to Jihadis. That is why the worst possible men aspire to it. The man (or woman) who truly believes in Islam holds up his finger, shouts “Allahu Akbar” and throws an IED in order to make Islam “supreme over all unbelievers”.

ISIS in America does not exist as an organized force, but as a series of Telegram channels, Discord chats and other crowdsourced means of communication reaching young Muslims who have been inspired by the teachings of their religion to wage relentless war against infidels.

What has set ISIS apart all along is not that it invented some new ‘extremist theology’ as experts, politicians and the media have been desperately trying to convince us, but that it takes Islamic law seriously and unapologetically. People argue that Islam needs a reformation. ISIS is it. Every Islamic ‘reformation’, like Wahhabism, has brought Islam closer to what it once was. The mission of these reformations is to scourge out any western influences, eliminate any of the liberalizing tendencies of the late Ottoman period, and recommit to the caliphate mission.

ISIS is just unapologetic Islam. The ISIS salute is the traditional ‘Allah finger’ used in Islamic prayers. The attacks carried out by Muslim men who pledge allegiance to it is just Jihad.

The media outlets that describe the ‘Allah finger’ as an “ISIS salute” are eventually forced to retract, often under pressure from Muslim Brotherhood groups like CAIR, and admit it’s a traditional Islamic sign. They will add that it has nothing to do with terrorism. That part isn’t true.

What is more true is that there is no meaningful distinction between Islam and Islamic terrorism. The red line between some mainstream form of Islam and terrorism never existed and doesn’t exist. Most Muslims reject ISIS not because of attacks like the one outside Gracie Mansion, but because the Islamic terrorist group, originally operating as an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, claims exclusive religious authority and declared that all who do not accept it are fair game for terror.

That and that alone is what Muslims object to about ISIS.

If there were some fundamental theological differences between ISIS and Islam, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliated leader now in charge of Syria, wouldn’t be accepted and celebrated by most Sunni Muslims. And the Muslim Brotherhood, which dominates most mosques in America, wouldn’t have spawned Al Qaeda and then ISIS, while pressuring Congress to accept and drop all sanctions on Syria’s Al Qaeda regime.

Most ‘splits’ within Islam, including the primal Sunni and Shiite split, were not really formed around actual theological differences, but as power struggles between different Muslim factions. In Islam, religion is power and power is religion. That’s why the ultimate expression of Islam is Jihad.

The ‘Allah finger’ and “Allahu Akbar” are not mystical expressions of faith in an esoteric creator, but the chain of command in a military hierarchy that begins with Allah, goes through Mohammed and then down to any Islamic faction willing to wage war on the infidels.

The ‘ISIS salute’ may not be exclusive to that Islamic terror group, but it really is a military salute. The Gracie Mansion bomber was likely indicating his role in a military hierarchy at war with the United States of America and the entire non-Muslim world.

“The minarets are the bayonets, the domes are the helmets, the mosques are our barracks, the believers are the soldiers,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamic dictator, once recited. With equal simplicity, the brutal mass murderer also stated that, “Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing.” That thing may sometimes pretend to be other things, but in the end Islam is the same thing that Mohammed created over 1,000 years ago.

Islam is Jihad. And when we import Islam, we import an ancient war machine dedicated to conquering us through lies, through persuasion and finally through bombs and terror.