Why ISIS Appeals to Social Justice (Holy) Warriors

It is clear that there is an innate human yearning to be/do "good" in the service of an impossibility, i.e. a Heaven (or Eden, or Utopia) on Earth. On North American university campuses, this yearning is manifested as a desire for "social justice." However, if you happen to be Muslim (or have a hankering to become Muslim), these sorts of "social justice" yearnings can end up being channeled into, well, the jihad (my bolds):

A recent analysis written for the online Indian news outlet FirstPost attempts to provide some possible answers to a burning question around the world: Why are Muslims are losing their faith to extremist groups and joining Islamic State?  

Women who join ISIS are usually converts and neo-Muslims. The author states that they “are not fascinated towards the traditional spiritual Islam or progressive Islamic thinking. But rather, they are driven by a network of half-educated, misguided and extremist youths—most of them being males.

“Scores of bright students of science, medicine and engineering have reportedly terminated their education aiming for an Islamic state or shariah-controlled zone where everything is ‘pure’, ‘perfect’ and idealistic.”

The fact that many of ISIS’ new members are not only not raised with any sort of extremist religious views, but are also -- like many secular youths today -- college educated, makes the trend even more disturbing.  These youths appear on the outside to not be all that different from their peers who do not join such groups.

But, there is something going on inside of these young people that makes them susceptible to such groups – possibly, this desire for an idealized world divorced from crass materialistic concerns of the West...

The "something" that's "going on" is, quite simply, the siren call of the jihad imperative, a sound that can be especially appealing if you're young, Muslim and keen to "perfect" the world.