As the Islamic State (IS) struggles to maintain control of its strongholds in North Africa and the Levant, ongoing battles in Sirte, Aleppo and western Iraq will heavily influence IS’s trajectory moving forward. More than two years after self-styled IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi famously announced a caliphate straddling swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory equivalent in size to the United Kingdom, the death of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani (IS’s second-in-command and chief propagandist) last month raises another important question about IS’ future: Who will replace Adnani to become Baghdadi’s new potential successor?

One of the IS figures whom Baghdadi may select is Turki al-Binali (aka Abu Sufyan Al-Silmi), a fiery cleric from Muharraq, Bahrain. Born in 1984, Binali hails from a wealthy and important Sunni family with close ties to the Al Khalifa rulers. Binali grew up privileged, having studied at the College of Islamic and Arabic Studies in Dubai (until Binali’s extremist ideology led UAE authorities to deport him) before continuing his Islamic education back in Bahrain as well as in Lebanon.

Binali voluntarily departed Bahrain in 2013 and went to Libya to recruit for IS. Later he moved to the caliphate’s center in the Levant and became IS’s grand mufti. Recently, Binali was present in Libya after the US military began conducting strikes on IS targets in Sirte on Aug. 1, before returning to Syria in the aftermath of Adnani’s death on Aug. 30.

The Bahraini cleric is a disciple of Salman al-Awda (a Saudi cleric of the Sahwa movement) and a prodigy of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s spiritual mentor). Binali is also an associate of Hajjaj al-Ajmi (a Kuwaiti Salafist who has raised funds for extremist groups in Syria) and Abdulaziz al-Tarifi (a Saudi cleric arrested in Saudi Arabia several months ago, reportedly for criticizing the kingdom’s religious reforms). He was possibly head of IS’s Research and Fatwa Department, responsible for issuing a pamphlet that provided a religious justification for raping Yazidi women enslaved in the Islamic State: “One should remember that enslaving the families of the [nonbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of Sharia, that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narrations of the Prophet [Muhammad].”