Painful images were circulated in the news in early February, showing Islamic State (IS) members burning close to 20,000 books in the area of Sadiyah in the province of Diyala. On Feb. 22, the terrorist group burned the public library in the city of Mosul.

The burning of libraries continued, reaching the cities of Anbar, Tikrit and others that fall under the group’s control. Local residents in the city of Mosul have said that their cities have become without books, after having been widely known for the abundance of their libraries. Rare manuscripts were among the burned documents, according to witnesses in the city.

Dia al-Jassani, a sociology professor at Baghdad University, said during a phone interview with Al-Monitor that the behavior of IS reflects an ideological and behavioral complex based on intimidation to control others. He noted that reinforcing ignorance is one of the elements of this ideological and behavioral complex, since the group ridicules other civilizations and cultures, and their symbols.

Through its antagonism of civilizations, IS seeks to revive ancient eras, and imitate as much as possible life during the period of early Islam in the 7th century, during which there were no arts and sciences, but only religious jurisprudence. The Islamic religion contains a lot of teachings that prohibit the modernization of religion, or the introduction of new elements to customary forms of worship, Any such addition is referred to as a "bid'ah," or heresy. The term carries a negative connotation in the religious sense, although it is derived from the Arabic word "ibda,” or creativity.