FILE - Police approach the cab of a truck driven by Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel, a Tunisian who plowed through a crowded promenade, killing at least 84 people in Nice, France, in this July 14, 2016, file photo. Bouhlel’s family and neighbors say he was indifferent to religion, but French authorities have linked the attack to Islamic State. (NADER EL SHAFEI via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT
FILE - Police approach the cab of a truck driven by Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel, a Tunisian who plowed through a crowded promenade, killing at least 84 people in Nice, France, in this July 14, 2016, file photo. Bouhlel’s family and neighbors say he was indifferent to religion, but French authorities have linked the attack to Islamic State. (NADER EL SHAFEI via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT Credit: NADER EL SHAFEI

Paris — The jihadi employment form asked the recruits, on a scale of 1 to 3, to rate their knowledge of Islam. And the Islamic State applicants, herded into a hangar somewhere at the Syria-Turkey border, turned out to be overwhelmingly ignorant.

The extremist group could hardly have hoped for better.

At the height of Islamic State’s drive for foot soldiers in 2013 and 2014, typical recruits included the group of Frenchmen who went bar-hopping with their recruiter back home, the recent European convert who now hesitantly describes himself as gay, and two Britons who ordered The Koran for Dummies and Islam for Dummies from Amazon to prepare for jihad abroad. Their intake process complete, they were grouped in safe houses as a stream of Islamic State imams came in to indoctrinate them, according to court testimony and interviews by The Associated Press.

“I realized that I was in the wrong place when they began to ask me questions on these forms like ‘when you die, who should we call?’ ” said the 32-year-old European recruit, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said he thought he was joining a group to fight President Bashar Assad and help Syrians, not the Islamic State.

The European, whose boyish demeanor makes him appear far younger than his age, went to Syria in 2014. He said new recruits were shown ISIL propaganda videos on Islam, and the visiting imams repeatedly praised martyrdom. Far from home, unschooled in religion, having severed family ties and turned over electronic devices, most were in little position to judge.

An AP analysis of thousands of leaked Islamic State documents reveals most of its recruits from its earliest days came with only the most basic knowledge of Islam. A little more than 3,000 of these documents included the recruits’ knowledge of Shariah, the system that interprets into law verses from the Quran and “hadith” — the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.

According to the documents, which were acquired by the Syrian opposition site Zaman al-Wasl and shared with the AP, 70 percent of recruits were listed as having just “basic” knowledge of Shariah — the lowest possible choice. Around 24 percent were categorized as having an “intermediate” knowledge, with just 5 percent considered advanced students of Islam. Five recruits were listed as having memorized the Quran.

The findings address one of the most troubling questions about IS recruitment in the United States and Europe: Are disaffected people who understand Shariah more prone to radicalization? Or are those with little knowledge of Islam more susceptible to the group’s radical ideas that promote violence?

Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer with extensive experience with Mideast extremist organizations, said some people claim allegiance to ISIL out of religious belief, but that most who join, including those from the West, are people “reaching for a sense of belonging, a sense of notoriety, a sense of excitement.”

“Religion is an afterthought,” said Skinner, who is also director of special projects at security consultancy the Soufan Group.