Akhtar Soomro / Reuters “The question of how Islamic is ISIS … is actually a bit of trick question,” said Dalia Mogahed, the research director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. Even so, it’s one that has defined discussion of the group and its aims, with U.S. President Barack Obama having declared that the group “is not Islamic,” and The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood countering in a cover story: “The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic.