To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail article reports that the “jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL],” which is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, “publicly crucified two Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack on members of their group.”
While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric acts—along with posting photos of the crucified—it nonetheless minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly saying things like “even al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL,” and so implying that the act of crucifixion is some wild aberration that even the poster-child of jihadi terror, al-Qaeda, wants nothing to do with it; and 2) ignoring the much “sexier” story that Christians in Syria are also being crucified simply for refusing to embrace Islam (as opposed to the rather mundane but politically more correct story of jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta killings).
Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma‘loula, Syria, an ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic, the language of Christ.
According to recent Arabic news media, “a Syrian nun testified to the Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma‘loula were crucified for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya” (tribute subjugated Christians are required to pay to their Islamic conquerors in order to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).
Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front (so much for Daily Mail’s portrayal of al-Qaeda “distancing” itself from the apparently “extra-extremist” ISIL for crucifying its victims).
Sister Raghad, the former head of the Patriarchate School in Damascus who currently resides in France, told Vatican Radio how she personally witnessed jihadi rebels terrorize Ma‘loula, including by pressuring Christians to proclaim the shehada—Islam’s credo that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger—which, when uttered before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later “renege” by returning to Christianity.
According to the nun, those Christians who refused to embrace Islam were
killed in atrocious and violent ways that cannot be described. If you want examples, they crucified two youths in Ma‘loula for refusing to proclaim Islam’s credo, saying to them: “Perhaps you want to die like your teacher [Christ] whom you believe in? You have two choices: either proclaim the shehada or else be crucified.” One of them was crucified before his father, whom they also killed.
In fact, according to earlier media reports from October 2013, soon after Ma‘loula fell to the jihadis, one “shaky voiced” elderly Christian man had reported that he heard the invading jihadis shouting, “Convert to Islam, or you will be crucified like Jesus.”
It is, of course, a documented fact that some Christians in Ma‘loula were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam, such as Minas, an Armenian man, while other families succumbed to pressure and converted to Islam.
But it is not clear whether the two crucified Christians mentioned by the nun are among the three men in Ma‘loula who, according to Asia News, “refused to repudiate their religion” and thus “were summarily executed in public”—so many and varied were the barbaric acts, including beheadings, rape, and infanticide during the rebel occupation, not to mention the other massacres in other Christian regions the mainstream media failed to report on.
These three were declared martyrs by the Syrian Greek-Catholic Church, or as Patriarch Gregorios III explained to Pope Francis in a meeting: “Holy Father, they are true martyrs. Ordered to give up their faith, they proudly refused. Three others however gave in and were forced to declare themselves Muslim, but later returned to the faith of their ancestors.”
For his part, and according to a May 3rd Arabic report, Pope Francis recently said, “I wept when I saw reports saying that Christians were being crucified in some non-Christian countries.”
The fact is, crucifixion is a prescribed form of punishment in the Koran (5:33) and occurs throughout the Islamic world with much greater frequency than suggested by the Daily Mail. For example:
- Iraq, June 2008: A Canadian parliamentary committee heard about how “militant Muslims” were crucifying Christian children in order to terrorize Christians into fleeing Iraq: “Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.”
- Ivory Coast, May 2011: Two Christian peasant brothers were “brutally crucified” on “the example of Christ” by Muslim forces accusing them of being supportive of the ousted Christian president. One died, while the other survived: “The pair were badly beaten and tortured before being crudely nailed to cross-shaped planks by their hands and feet with steel spikes.”
- Egypt, August 2012: Multiple media agencies reported that during one uprisal against Islamist president Muhammad Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood operatives crucified some protesters on trees. Earlier, a Salafi MP in Egypt called for the penal codification of crucifixion.
- Yemen, August 2012: A video of a man crucified on the accusation of spying for the U.S. appeared. A sign placed above his head quotes Koran 5:33: “The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter.”
Of course, if one delves into Islamic history, one learns that crucifixions were extremely common. For example, Witnesses For Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860 lists crucifixion as one of the many forms thousands of Christians were executed by the Muslim Turks.
And in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described how in the early twentieth century in the city of Malatia, she saw 16 girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,” wrote the Armenian survivor. “Only their hair blown by the wind covered their bodies.”
Prescribed in the Koran itself, crucifixions are as old as Islam and, with the global revival of the latter, are returning with increased frequency. And, although it is more politically correct to report on jihadis crucifying other jihadis—other terrorists or “spies”—the fact is, many more innocent Christians are being crucified again, including simply for refusing to embrace Islam and thus renounce Christ.
Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians
Londo says
I have to wonder, where exactly will we draw the line? Hundreds of girls kidnaped to be sold as slaves, no reaction. twin towers, some reaction. What do they have to do before the western world says, enough. Whatever it is, my guess is that there will be huge loss of life before it is “enough”.
rev g says
Their heads are buried in the sand. Actually a friend of the wife was speaking about the horrors of this situation, and when my wife mentioned islam and it condoning such behavior, she was chided with “This is about human rights, not religion”.
Islam is abhorrent to human rights, the left just can’t get their heads around it. The pains they will go to in order to not insult islam, yet islam has zero difficulty doing much more than insulting them.
mortimer says
At last, Pope Francis took his head out of the sand.
John C. Barile says
Open heart, opened eyes.
Burt says
Oh if only he would be as wise as former popes and order a new crusade 😀
Jay Boo says
The Left must be really frustrated when Islamists refuse to let them impose their pre-conceived liberal fictional script of what Islam is all about when all dressed up in a PC costume just so.
Islamists already know every Muslim’s true role.
Muslim’s who read the Qur’an honestly must confront this reality.
Leftist enablers are doing no one any good, including Muslims.
jewdog says
Despite all this, the Presbyterian Church focuses its ire on Israel.
duh_swami says
Crucifixion is not always physical. Mahoundian’s attempt to crucify Spencer by means of public condemnation, is an example of crucifixion by character assassination. Of course this is no where near as satisfying as a physical crucifixion. ‘I wish I could pull a 5:33 on you’, is no where as good as actually doing it. I bet that frustrates little monsters like Nathan Lean, Aslan and Hooper, and their helpers in the media who work hard putting out hit pieces on people they don’t like. But, like the jihadists crucifying Christians, they seem to enjoy their work. I don’t know if anyone notices, but this is really depraved stuff, and people who indulge in these depravities are evil, sometimes beyond redemption. Which is right where Islam itself is, evil beyond redemption…
John C. Barile says
Right you are again, my non-theistic closet-christian friend!
fido says
Well, islamomaniacs have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that allah is satan and the followers of allah, whether they realize it or not, are soldiers in satan’s army.
May God (the REAL God) help them turn from their beliefs and find redemption in the Lord.
Semeru says
If one looks beyond the Daily Mail, we will find that Mr Ibrahim is distorting the truth again
The series of photographs show different men bound to crosses in what appears to be a public square area, though it could not be independently confirmed that the subjects were dead or, if they were, by what means the executions had been carried out. The pictures do not show any apparent signs of the men nailed to a cross, nor are there any obvious, visible signs of fatal wounds.
ISIS has ruled over Raqqa for the last year, killing its remaining rebel population and demolishing national relics, according to multiple reports. “They want to stay in control. Everything they do is to scare people,” Alrquaoui said. “That’s why they kill people publicly.”
Jihadists operating in Syria have previously been accused of shooting people in the head, then affixing them to crosses. In this latest case, the ISIS charged the seven men with espionage and attempted assassination of the group’s leaders, according to Alrquaoui.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/29/al-qaeda-linked-jihadists-accused-hanging-victims-on-crosses/
More
The crucifixion displays began in March, when ISIS accused a shepherd of murder and theft, then shot him in the head and tied his lifeless body to a wooden cross. Video on social media showed the body leaning up against a small building painted to bear the group’s flag and name.
“These violent acts are part of a fundamentalist revival campaign, but these forms of ancient punishment were rarely if ever seen in the Muslim world in recent centuries,” Barzegar says. “It has become a standard feature of fringe Islamist groups to revive these outdated practices in an effort to bring back what they believe is authentic.”
There’s been no evidence of actual crucifixion, a painful form of execution in which victims were bound or nailed through the hands and feet to a heavy wooden cross and left to suffer until death.
All three men in Raqqa were shot in the head prior to being affixed to crosses. The displays of their bodies appear to be largely symbolic acts by ISIS followers against members of their own Sunni Muslim sect for perceived acts of treason.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/01/world/meast/syria-bodies-crucifixions/
CogitoErgoSum says
I know I will be accused of posting more “claptrap” but if Christ Is but a myth, who came up with these words……..and why? “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
Look away and do not see what you do not wish to see. It really doesn’t matter anyway……..does it? The world will go on, won’t it…..even without love?
Boaz says
Those apostles didn’t die for a lie….
“Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” – Hebrews 11:35-40
dlbrand says
Just one more clear enactment of the Islam of Muhammad, the Islam of the book he brought.
What fools “we” are to welcome the practice of it here in our nation; what fools we are to support it anywhere.