Pseudolegal Interpretations and Religious Violence: A Case Study of ISIS and Boko Haram's Extremist Justifications

Religious extremism presents a major challenge to contemporary legal, political, and religious institutions, particularly when violent groups invoke religious law to legitimize violence and political authority. Although previous studies have examined radicalization, terrorism, and religious extremism, limited research has comparatively explored how extremist organizations construct legal legitimacy through pseudolegal interpretations of Islamic law. This study aims to analyze how ISIS and Boko Haram employ pseudolegal reasoning to justify violence, establish alternative governance systems, and claim religious authority. Using a comparative doctrinal-normative legal approach, the study examines extremist legal narratives through the lenses of Legal Pluralism Theory and Radicalization Theory. The analysis is based on organizational publications, ideological statements, and relevant scholarly literature on Islamic law and extremism. The findings reveal that both ISIS and Boko Haram selectively reinterpret Islamic legal concepts, particularly takfir, to legitimize excommunication, violence, and coercive governance. Takfir functions as a central pseudolegal mechanism through which political opposition is transformed into a religious offense, enabling violence against perceived opponents. The study further demonstrates that these interpretations substantially diverge from mainstream Islamic jurisprudence by disregarding contextual interpretation, scholarly consensus, proportionality, public welfare (maslahah), and the protection of human dignity. The novelty of this study lies in introducing pseudolegal interpretation as a comparative framework linking legal pluralism, radicalization, and extremist governance. However, the study is limited to documentary and textual sources and does not incorporate field-based empirical evidence.