HE is the voice of his god. Among his subjects, his power is absolute.

His record is filled with horror.

Little wonder the US-led coalition and his Middle Eastern opponents have invested considerable time and effort into tracking down and killing Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Drones prowl the skies. Strike jets loiter, at the ready.

So far, all reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

While Al-Baghdadi’s role in the rise of Islamic State is well documented, understanding his mind and motives has proven to be a much greater challenge.

He’s a moving target.

A man of mysteries.

Not least among these unknowns is his health: Was he really gravely wounded in one of the many air attacks sent after him in the past 12 months?

Or has he just learned to keep quiet, in order to keep concealed?

Whatever the case, experts believe he continues to wield influence over the black wave of jihadists crashing against the shattered remains of Syria’s and Iraq’s armies.

His intensely apocalyptic sermons continue to draw new followers into what he says is the final battle. Armageddon. Dabiq.

It’s the successful allure of this violent vision that has some in the West mocking him as the living incarnation of William Yeats’ prophetically-toned poem on the antichrist, The Second Coming.

So who is Al-Baghdadi, and what gives him the power to incite a tide of hatred throughout not just the Middle East, but also the world?

International think-tanks have been attempting to piece together a picture of the mind of a man of many names: Caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Ibrahim al-Badri.

THE BOY: IBRAHIM AL — BADRI

Ibrahim al-Badri was born in the historic city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, in 1971.

It is a portentous place.

It is home to the gold-domed al-Askari Shrine. Many significant members of the Shiite Islamic sect are buried there in what is one of that faction’s most holy sites.

His father had the reputation of being a pious man, deeply involved in the activities of his local mosque. In particular, he taught oratory — the power of forceful, convincing argument.

Those who knew Al Baghdadi in his youth recall a shy, near-sighted boy.

But he was also unflappable.

He was intense. Assertive. Glowering. Grim.

The Brooking Institute’s William McCants states Al Baghdadi earned a nickname among his associates in his teen years. It was “The Believer”.

He immersed himself in religious studies. And he was quick to point out any failure to adhere to strict interpretations of Islamic law.

In some ways it was a family tradition: Some speculate his father was a Salafi, a member of a particularly puritanical stream of Islamic thought.

It was fertile ground for the radicalisation which followed.

But there was more than just religious fervour.

Members of Al Baghdadi’s family also held ranking positions within Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.

This was a nominally secular organisation. It certainly didn’t want to cede power to any religious structure.

The Baathist expertise lay in the pragmatic methods of keeping their elite group in control of Iraq’s large and fractious population. Its ambitions, however, were for an Arab union — a single Middle Eastern state.

Put these Salafi and Baathist doctrines together, and you get a Caliphate.

THE YOUTH: IBRAHIM AL — BADRI

Al Baghdadi burst on to the world stage in 2014 through a well-orchestrated social media campaign.

He had no qualms about asserting his desire to behead all his enemies. He declared he was determined to restore the purity of his faith through burning unbelievers alive, if necessary.

In the 12 months since laying claim to his empire, he’s certainly proven to be a man of his word.

The mass murder of those who organise to oppose him are proudly broadcast.

Public executions are commonplace.

Any who dare to speak out against Islamic State’s harsh hand are declared unbelievers. Punishment is swift, and brutal.

But close observers of Middle East affairs knew the name Al Baghdadi before all this, despite his obscure origins.

The studious boy’s grades at high school were not great.

As a result, he’d been denied access to the University of Baghdad’s law faculty.

So he took a course in Koran studies there instead.

In 1996 he graduated to the new Saddam University for Islamic Studies.

In the 1990s, Saddam had undergone something of a revelation. His previous opposition to the influence of religion evaporated. Instead, he saw the fear generated by strict application of Islamic law as a means of strengthening his own crumbling power base.

Thus the creation of the university.

It was an environment in which Baghdadi excelled.

It also served to further strengthen his dogma.

In the mid-to-late 1990s he joined a movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood. He was soon drawn into a splinter group of jihadist Salafis who yearned for the opportunity to overthrow those whom they believed had betrayed their faith — and impose Islamic law.

By 2000, his passionate intensity and the widening gyre of his jihadist associates spurred Baghdadi to take up the sword of his faith.

THE MAN: IBRAHIM AL — BADRI

Analysts think Al Bagdhadi has had two wives and six children.

They’re not really certain.

He kept a low profile during the early years of the 21st century.

On the surface, he was — like his father before him — a humble but strict teacher of recitation at a local mosque. He was also known as a competent, if temperamental, soccer player.

Behind the scenes, however, he was quietly working up a network of contacts to further his ambition for a resurgent Islam.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 — spurred by the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon — gave him to opportunity to turn these dreams into reality.

He was one of the founding members of the Army of the People of the Sunna and Communal Solidarity. Their aim was to fight US and other occupational forces.

But in 2004 he was arrested.

It was bad luck.

He happened to be at the home of a man on a US military ‘most wanted’ list.

So he was also detained. It was guilty by association.

The Americans had no real idea who he was or what he had been doing.

During his 10 months in detention, Al Baghdadi made contacts among the jihadist Sunni prisoners there.

He led them in prayer. He conducted religious classes. He played them at soccer.

He stirred the passions and won the hearts and minds of many influential militants. Among them were key Baath party members of the military and intelligence services.

These now provide the competent core of Al Baghdadi’s Caliphate leadership group.

THE MESSENGER: IBRAHIM AL — BADRI

Despite US assertions, it appears al-Qaeda only entered Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

It had recruited a militia led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Like Baghdadi, Zarqawi was driven by the desire to restore the Caliphate.

He was brutal. His barbaric acts against his fellow Muslims soon shocked even Al Qaida’s leadership.

But not Baghdadi.

The Islamic scholar had been shuffled to Syria where he was out of reach of the Americans. He set about his task to establish a powerful propaganda force with fervour.

In 2006, Zarqawi publicly announced his desire to create a Caliphate. He was killed by US bombs a short time after.

But his successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, quickly attempted to turn Zarqawi’s dream into reality: He declared the founding of an Islamic State and appointed emir Abu Umar as its spiritual leader.

Few outside the newly-named Islamic State took the move seriously.

After all, it was a state without any territory.

But Baghdadi continued to work furiously towards that lofty goal.

His fresh force of advocates for the doctrine of the faith were widely active — be it on social media or in jihadist training camps.

His apocalyptic propaganda was clear: The harsh strictures of Islamic scripture would be implemented.

Adulterers were stoned. Thieves had their hands cut off. Alcohol drinkers were whipped.

Anyone who challenged this interpretation of Sharia Law would be declared an “apostate” and executed.

Amid it all he still managed the time to lead a double life. And to study. He returned to Baghdad in 2007 to claim his doctorate in Quranic Sciences.

This qualification earned him a place in Masra’s 11-member inner sanctum of the embryonic Caliphate, the Consultative Council. He also won the trust of Abu Umar, becoming one of just three men with the authority to hire and fire Islamic State commanders.

He became a central figure of the shadow Caliphate’s communications network, and the go-to guy to smooth over factional differences.

His name was on everybody’s lips.

THE EMIR: ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI

In 2010, things fell apart.

Al Baghdadi was at the heart of it.

A courier, carrying Baghdadi’s messages on behalf of Abu Umar to a leading insurgent in Baghdad, was captured.

News of the disaster was leaked to Baghdadi by a mole inside the Iraqi intelligence service.

His efforts in prison had paid off.

He knew the identity of the Baghdad commander, Manaf al-Rawi, would have been compromised. But he also knew he was in danger of revealing his own position.

Baghdadi chose to remain silent. To lay low.

Al-Rawi was seized. He was interrogated.

He told his captors where Abu Umar and Abu Ayyub al-Masri were hiding.

A US-led force quickly surrounded the mud-brick house near Tikrit which was an Islamic State hide-out.

Abu Umar and Musri chose to blow themselves up instead of face humiliation.

Later, when the dust had settled, the Islamic State’s command council met again in secret.

Who had the power to bind such a disparate collection of former Baathists, jihadists and tribal factions together?

On a margin of 9 votes for and two against, the quiet boy with dark eyes from Samarra was elected as the new emir of Islamic State.

This was when he changed his name from Ibrahim al-Badri to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

It was a move designed to link himself to the prophet Muhammad’s father-in-law, the man who became the first Caliph.

Why the name Baghdadi?

Baghdad was the idyllic capital of the early Caliphs. It held a mystical and prophetic quality somewhat similar to that of the tale of Camelot.

He had fervent followers. He had an international network. He had a strong message.

All emir Al Baghdadi needed now was territory to rule over.

The US-backed government of Iraq was tearing itself apart. And it no longer had the highly trained and well equipped US Army to prop it up.

Syria was rived with unrest. Splinter groups — supported and encouraged by the West — had sprung up all over the country to oppose the dictatorship of President Assad.

It was anarchy Al Baghdadi could exploit.

He used all the fervour, the passion and the loyalty he had inspired in the previous 10 years to pull the fractious jihadist factions together.

It was not an easy path. Islamic State’s tenuous ties with al-Qaeda finally fractured.

But Baghdadi’s followers had the boots on the ground.

In 2013 Islamic State began its march into the power vacuum that was the outer provinces of Syria and Iraq.

First it seized villages. Then towns. Finally, Islamic State marched into major cities like Mosul — Iraq’s second largest city.

It was a heady victory.

Amid the surge of triumph, In June, 2014, the newly victorious Islamic State’s dared to announce to the world that god’s kingdom on Earth had been restored.

And it had its own Caliph, who should be known henceforth as Ibrahim.

He was the descendant of Muhammad himself. He was pious. He was knowledgeable.

Or so the Islamic State propaganda arm proclaimed.

THE CALIPH: IBRAHIM

Calling oneself a Caliph does not come lightly. It’s a claim to be god’s most favoured earthly subject — the supreme leader of the entire Islamic faith.

A Caliph can only be partly compared to a Pope. They are both the chief defenders of their faiths.

But Caliphs are also emperors, with total control over every aspect of the daily lives of their subjects.

Historically, the priest-king Pharaohs of ancient Egypt may be the closest analogy.

Any claim to such supreme power will always be somewhat controversial among the many factions within the fractured Islamic tradition.

After all, it was a dispute over how Caliphs were selected which caused the great schism between Sunni and Shia followers of Islam in 632AD.

This may be why Al Baghdadi doesn’t use the moniker Caliph Ibrahim all that often.

Instead, he prefers to be called “Commander of the Believers”.

But this is, in itself, a title usually reserved for Caliphs.

The medieval Caliphs ruled empires spanning much of the Middle East and North Africa.

Such an extensive empire remains Al Baghdadi’s ambition: Islamic State propaganda even lays claim to much of Europe and Asia.

He’s not there yet.

Al Baghdadi’s fear-driven realm thus far remains confined to the deserts between Damascus in Syria and Baghdad in Iraq. But the empire of his influence extends much further — into Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and even Indonesia.

To win that influence, Al Baghdadi has long been demanding attention.

Maintaining that attention may explain Islamic State’s continuing thirst for outrageous acts.

Intimidation keeps the disgruntled quiet. At least for a time.