Caliphate by Rukmini Callimachi

Review by Emily Moran

The short:

Caliphate, a podcast produced by the New York Times and awarded the Peabody Award for radio shows and podcasts in 2018, covers different narrative stories about the Islamic State’s occupation in Syria and Iraq. The podcast has one season of 12 episodes that detail stories from people who lived within ISIS territory and who were even within the ranks of ISIS.

The long: 

The main character in the story was a member of ISIS who had returned from fighting to Canada. The podcast followed a trail of evidence which led them to believe that the man was an ISIS executioner in Syria. The story develops as the man continues to share more and more about his time in ISIS. The man who is eventually named as Mr. Chaudhry of Canada describes taking part in killing and torturing ISIS prisoners. Rukmini also speaks with women who were enslaved by ISIS and interviews them about their time in Iraq and Syria. The women were taken from their families and brought to ISIS camps and made to be wives to male members in the community.

To listen or not to listen:

The podcast has been surrounded by a lot of controversy due to the fact that Mr. Chaudhry was not a member of ISIS. The New York Times was unaware of his lies at the time of recording and publishing the podcast. I would not recommend the podcast even without the controversy because along with the story being a lie, the members speaking about ISIS were more concerned about describing an exciting and fantastic story than correctly characterizing Middle Eastern culture and the religion of Islam. Overall, the podcast glamorizes Mr. Chaudhry’s story and his description of ISIS throughout the podcast and fails to properly research his background or claim of being a member of ISIS.