Iman Mustafa al-Bugha was a professor of fiqh at the University of Dammam in Saudi Arabia who left to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, aka Daesh) in 2014. She traveled there after her three teenage children, who went to ISIL territory in Syria before her. Public statements released by ISIL referred to al-Bugha as "a scholarly torch [that] supports the Islamic Caliphate." Her writings about her decision to join ISIL and her life under their rule were of interest to academic researchers. Her oldest daughter, Ahlam al-Nasr, is known as "poetess of the Islamic State."
Al-Bugha is the daughter of Syrian imam and religious scholar , who had four wives and numerous children in a conservative Muslim family. He was the author of numerous works, particularly in the field of Shafi'i jurisprudence. Al-Bugha would later say that her father "refused to buy us a television so that it would not be an idol that we cling to" and the children read books to entertain themselves instead. She read biographies of Muhammad and his companions, and also books on languages, history, poetry, and philosophy, but particularly preferred religious studies.
She studied Quranic studies and memorization. Many of al-Bugha's siblings got PhD degrees and so did she; her degree is in Sharia from Damascus University, with a specialization in Usul al-Fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence. She also got a postgraduate diploma in education from Damascus University.
Al-Bugha married a pharmacist from the Haddad family in Damascus, a man who had memorized the Quran. They would have three children. Al-Bugha encouraged her oldest daughter, Ahlam al-Nasr, to learn poetry from an early age and said al-Nasr was "born with a dictionary in her mouth."
In 2001, the family moved to Saudi Arabia and al-Bugha began work at the University of Damman. She taught at the College of Applied Studies and Community Service and published several books, one of which was about the state of women in Islam. She was also the chief of the cultural section at the International Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and the Sunnah, where was active in dawah and gave lectures. In Saudi Arabia, al-Bugha became known for her religious fundamentalism and involvement in Salafi circles. She is known to have preached about jihad to gatherings of Muslim women in Damman, Khobar and Dhahran. Following 9/11, al-Bugha said later, she secretly admired Osama Bin Laden, whom she called "my king" in her writing so no one would know the identity of who she was writing about.
Al-Bugha's daughter Ahlam al-Nasr, who was reportedly 15 years old at that time though some reports claim she was older, traveled to ISIL's caliphate with her 14-year-old sister and 13-year-old brother, Mustafa, in 2014. "Ahlam al-Nasr" is a nom de guerre; her birth name may be Shaima al-Haddad. Al-Nasr's sister married an ISIL fighter and her brother became one. She herself married Mohamed Mahmoud, known as Abu Usama al-Gharib, an Austrian Vienna-born jihadist, at the courthouse in ISIL's Syrian capital of Raqqa soon after her arrival. Ahlam al-Nasr would become known as "the Poetess of the Islamic State."
Later in 2014, al-Bugha resigned her posts in Damman and followed her children to ISIL. She was believed to have been in her forties at the time.
After her arrival in Raqqa, al-Bugha wrote a six-page pamphlet titled "I am an ISIS believer, a âÂÂDaeshiâ before ISIS was created", saying,<blockquote>Since I began reading about the plight of Muslimsâ¦and I had read the biography of the Prophet (PBUH), the companions, and Islamic conquests, I read them dozens of times, and I read history in all its revolutions, and I studied the jurisprudence of jihad at the hands of senior scholars. Since I did all that, I have been a Daeshite in thought and method; I was a Daeshite before Daesh existed, and I have known since then that the only solution for Muslims is jihad.</blockquote>In the pamphlet, al-Bugha wrote she could find nothing in ISIL's actions that conflicted with Islam, and spoke about "real" jihad, meaning Muslims killing aggressors against Muslims. The pamphlet was published by an Islamic State media outlet.
On her Twitter account, al-Bugha said, "When I came to the land of the Caliphate I did not need to change any of my thoughts or what I studied from the Shari'a sciences because what the Islamic State is upon accords with what I learnt from the books of Shari'a." She had settled in Mosul, Iraq by October 2014. That same month, one of al-Bugha's sisters tweeted that her "behavior does not represent the family as a whole, or the opinion of her father, Dr. Mustafa al-Bugha, whom she neither consulted nor informed about her decision."
Following her move to Mosul, Al-Bugha posted on Facebook about her decision to join ISIL:<blockquote>I left my beloved university, my luxury car, my spacious house, and my substantial salary to escape the oppressive laws of tyrants who stifle truth, perpetuating the nationâÂÂs humiliation and driving skilled and experienced individuals toward further defeat, corruption, and even death and annihilation.</blockquote>She quoted surah al anfal, verse 60 of the Quran: âÂÂAnd prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemyâ to support her assertion that terrorism was a Muslim's duty.
Al-Bugha spoke highly of life in the caliphate, calling it a "utopia". She said the streets were Mosul were much cleaner than the streets of Damman, attributing this to ISIL's implementation of a strict version of sharia law. She strongly supported ISIL's version of the sharia, which included making the niqab mandatory for women and the carrying out of hudud penalties, and said ISIL's policies had resulted in people living a "pristine" life under their rule.
She described public education in ISIL-occupied territories, which she said lasted nine years, and "artificial and taboo subjects" were not taught. Students under ISIL, al-Bugha said, could start university at fifteen and graduate by age eighteen, after which time they could "start what is good for [their] life and religion". Al-Bugha criticized public education in Syria and the Arab world, saying it did not provide graduates with good employment prospects. Al-Bugha praised the caliphate's emphasis on marriage, writing,<blockquote>In the Caliphate, marriage takes place within hours, the problems of marriage have ended, spinsterhood ceased. One woman was married when she was 46 years old. Another was approached by her son who told her: Mother, I have married you to someone, if you do not like it, tell me to annul it. She accepted, and I attended her wedding party, a party for two celebrations, one for her and one for her son who got married three days before that. They were lovely, the two brides, the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law.</blockquote>She justified ISIL's theft, destruction and sale of antiquities, calling caring for ruins and artifacts a "joke" used by dictators for years to satisfy unbelievers. She also supported ISIL's execution by burning of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in January 2015 after he crashed his plane on ISIL territory; al-Bugha said his burning was justified because he was part of the coalition against ISIL.
Al-Bugha reportedly helped contribute to the studies of ISIL's Fatwa Issuing and Research Department.
In June 2016, al-Bugha announced on Facebook the death of her son Mustafa, an ISIL fighter whom she called by his nom de guerre "Abu al-Hassan al-Dimashqi." She wrote that he was heavily wounded by tank fire and taken to her in a dying state:<blockquote>I looked at the face of Abu al-Hassan as he was silent, approaching a little, but I smelt the odor of a strange perfume, and I thought a perfume had poured out in his pocket. I stretched my hands and dragged out what was in pocket, for behold, in it were papers stained by his blood. So when I raised them, the odor of musk emanated from them, so I presented them to those around me, and they found in them the odor of musk, and lo, the odor was emanating from his abundant blood and spreading across the place...we rejoiced, looking at him. He remained calm until he died.</blockquote>Mustafa would have been about 15 years old at the time of his killing. An ISIL publication later said al-Bugha "has endured his loss and continued her path in jihad." Her oldest daughter Ahlam al-Nasr was known to be alive as of November 2020. Nothing is known of the fate of Iman al-Bugha.