Despite ISIS’s claims of ruling over a Islamic “caliphate” in line with Sharia law, a large number of the group’s fighters joined for reasons having little to do with religion, according to a defector from the group that The Daily Beast’s Michael Weiss interviewedin Istanbul, Turkey.

Instead, people are joining the organization because they are desperate for money and are struggling to find a way to survive in Syria, where four years of civil war have decimated the economy. MORE