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Islamic State to Christians: Convert to Islam, pay jizya or be killed

Nov 23, 2014 6:27 am By Robert Spencer

Mideast Iraq“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29)

Bishop Bob would say something about this, but the “Muslim-Christian dialogue” meeting is tonight, and Imam Mahmoud is such a nice guy — did you hear the one he tells about the priest, the rabbi and the imam who walk into a bar? — and the hummus is so good over at Masjid Khalid ibn al-Walid…And anyway, Imam Mahmoud has assured the bishop that he condemns the persecution of Christians. What’s that? Did Bishop Bob ask him what programs Masjid Khalid ibn al-Walid had to teach Muslims to reject the understanding of Islam that led to the persecution? Oh, come now. You wouldn’t have expected him to be rude when everyone was being so nice, now, would you? A man doesn’t get to be a Cardinal by asking that kind of question. And that hummus — it’s out of this world!

“Isis in Iraq: The trauma of the last six months has overwhelmed the remaining Christians in the country,” by Patrick Cockburn, the Independent, November 23, 2014 (thanks to Thomas Pellow):

Two years ago Jalal Yako, a Syriac Catholic priest, returned to his home town of Qaraqosh to persuade members of his community to stay in Iraq and not to emigrate because of the violence directed against them.

“I was in Italy for 18 years, and when I came back here my mission was to get Christians to stay here,” he says. “The Pope in Lebanon two years ago had established a mission to get Christians in the East to stay here.”

Father Yako laboured among the Syriac Catholics, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, who had seen the number of Christians in Iraq decline from over one million at the time of the American invasion in 2003 to about 250,000 today. He sought to convince people in Qaraqosh, an overwhelmingly Syriac Catholic town, that they had a future in Iraq and should not emigrate to the US, Australia or anywhere else that would accept them. His task was not easy, because Iraqi Christians have been frequent victims of murder, kidnapping and robbery.

But in the past six months Father Yako has changed his mind, and he now believes that, after 2,000 years of history, Christians must leave Iraq. Speaking at the entrance of a half-built mall in the Kurdish capital Irbil where 1,650 people from Qaraqosh have taken refuge, he said that “everything has changed since the coming of Daesh (the Arabic acronym for Islamic State). We should flee. There is nothing for us here.” When Islamic State (Isis) fighters captured Qaraqosh on 7 August, all the town’s 50,000 or so Syriac Catholics had to run for their lives and lost all their possessions.

Many now huddle in dark little prefabricated rooms provided by the UN High Commission for Refugees amid the raw concrete of the mall, crammed together without heat or electricity. They sound as if what happened to them is a nightmare from which they might awaken at any moment and speak about how, only three-and-a-half months ago, they owned houses, farms and shops, had well-paying jobs, and drove their own cars and tractors. They hope against hope to go back, but they have heard reports that everything in Qaraqosh has been destroyed or stolen by Isis. Christians who fled Mosul pray at a church in Qaraqosh Christians who fled Mosul pray at a church in Qaraqosh

Some have suffered worse losses. On the third floor of the shopping mall in Irbil down a dark corridor sits Aida Hanna Noeh, 43, and her blind husband Khader Azou Abada, who was too ill to be taken out of Qaraqosh by Aida, with their three children, in the final hours before it was captured by Isis fighters. The family stayed in their house for many days, and then Isis told them to assemble with others who had failed to escape to be taken by mini-buses to Irbil. As they entered the buses, the jihadis stripped them of any remaining money, jewellery or documents. Aida was holding her three-and-a-half month old baby daughter, Christina, when the little girl was seized by a burly IS fighter who took her away. When Aida ran after him he told the mother to get back on the bus or he would kill her. She has not seen her daughter since.

It is not the savage violence of Isis only that has led Father Yako to believe that Christians have no future in Iraq. He points also to the failure of both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to defend them against the jihadis. Christians in Iraq have traditionally been heavily concentrated in Baghdad, Mosul and the Nineveh Plain surrounding Mosul. But on 10 June some 1,300 Isis fighters defeated at least 20,000 Iraqi army soldiers and federal police and captured Mosul. The army generals fled in a helicopter. In mid-July Christians in the city were given a choice by Isis of either converting to Islam, paying a special tax, leaving or being executed. Almost all Christians fled the city.

Kurdish peshmerga moved into Qaraqosh and other towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain. They swore to defend their inhabitants, many of whom stayed because they were reassured by these pledges. Father Yako recalls that “before Qaraqosh was taken by Daesh there were many slogans by the KRG saying they would fight as hard for Qaraqosh as they would for Irbil. But when the town was attacked, there was nobody to support us.” He says that Christian society in Iraq is still shocked by the way in which the Iraqi and Kurdish governments failed to defend them.

Johanna Towaya, formerly a large farmer and community leader in Qaraqosh, makes a similar point. He says that up to midnight on 6 August the peshmerga commanders were assuring the Syriac Catholic bishop in charge of the town that they would defend it, but hours later they fled. Previously, they had refused to let the Christians arm themselves on the grounds that it was unnecessary. Ibrahim Shaaba, another resident of the town, said that he saw the Isis force that entered Qaraqosh early in the morning of 7 August and it was modest in size, consisting of only 10 vehicles filled with fighters.

At first, IS behaved with some moderation towards the 150 Christian families who, for one reason or another, could not escape. But this restraint did not last; looting and destruction became pervasive. Mr Towaya says that the Isis authorities in Mosul started “giving documents to anybody getting married in Mosul to enable them to go to Qaraqosh to take furniture [from abandoned Christian homes].”

As so many had fled, there are few who can give an account of how IS behaved in their newly captured Christian town. But one woman, Fida Boutros Matti, got to know all too well what Isis was like when she and her husband had to pretend to convert to Islam in order to save their lives and those of their children, before finally escaping. Speaking to The Independent on Sunday in a house in Irbil, where they are now living, she explained how she and her husband Adel and their young daughter Nevin and two younger sons, Ninos and Iwan, twice tried to flee but were stopped by Isis fighters.

“They took our money, documents and mobile phones and sent us home,” she says. “After 13 days they knocked on our door and the men were separated from the women. Thirty women were taken with their children to one house and told they must convert to Islam, pay a tax or be killed. We told them that since they had taken all our money, we could not pay them.” Four days later, some fighters burst into the house saying they would kill the women and the children if they did not convert….

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Filed Under: dhimmitude, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. albert says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 7:48 am

    It appears from this report that the Kurds betrayed the Christians, once again it seems that no muslim’s word can be trusted, even one who is supposed to be an ally, we the west should allow all mid east Christians to emigrate, these people are our brothers, and we should also stop all muslim immigration.

    • Phil says

      Nov 23, 2014 at 9:07 am

      I would love to trust the Kurds. They got a raw deal after WW1 and on my better days I would love to see an independent Kurdistan established – free of Arab and Turkish interference!

      But…..there are days when I remember why the nationalist aspirations of the Kurds were disregarded after WW1, most specifically the Kurdish Hamidiye Brigades that so ably assisted the Turks in the Armenian genocide. Assisted in the slaughter of over a million civilians, aiding the Turks in the killing, not under duress, but as very willing participants – despite the fact the Young Turk government launched a regime of political repression against non-Turkish minorities from 1908 onwards, which very definitely included the Kurds, well before the peak of the genocide. Jihad fi sabil allah trumps rational political considerations every time, it would seem. Yes, the Kurdish authorities have acknowledged their collective historic guilt, but I wonder how much the average Kurd actually, truly, regrets the genocide? I am trying to trust the Kurds avowedly secular claims….but, in the quiet hours, late at night, a little voice reminds me that absolution requires some sign of atonement.

      • darren says

        Nov 24, 2014 at 12:15 pm

        I never knew that about the Kurds, and this article is disheartening. Despite my utter distaste for islam I had high hopes for the Kurds to show their humanity. They have made some difference, but I see my suspicions on why they help non muslims is most likely factual. It’s good PR for the Kurds and the Kurds need the west as a friend if they have any real hope of establishing their own nation. Still any help the Christians and other minorities can get in the region is better than nothing.

        I still think have another player in the region less batsh*t crazy than the other ones is a plus. Turkey can no longer be trusted, Erdogan is a mini Hitler with imperialistic ambitions, and he purged the secular military, kind of like how Obama did ironically. I still support them over the Iraqi central government which is useless. When 20,000 fighters who are heavily armed run away from 1,200 or so, that tells you all you need to know. As we know the Kurds have an ulterior motive for fighting in the region since they want to establish their own nation state, but at least even if the protection is minimal it’s better than nothing. Still this article leaves me dissipointed. We can still use them as a proxy force in the region to some extent though.

  2. Salah says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 8:53 am

    ” You are ALL savages and animals…”

    I fully understand your frustration, but remember:

    “Thirty women were taken with their children to one house and told they must convert to Islam, pay a tax or be killed.”

    Some of them is going to convert to Islam so that they may survive. They will become Muslims themselves. That’s how most Muslims came to be Muslims. They’re not True Muslims, they are Nominal Muslims, they are Muslims out of fear and/or ignorance. Islam is a huge prison, some of them are the jail keepers but most of them are the real victims…just like these thirty women and their children.
    You wrote:
    “Who is there to defend the Christians? NOBODY!”
    You’re right, but that’s only because we, the “free” peoples of the West, have elected the wrong leaders, he have elected them because we have turned away from our once great Judeo-Christian values.
    Unless we repent, we will face this same fate.

    • Jay Boo says

      Nov 23, 2014 at 3:40 pm

      No this is not so much about “free” peoples of the West electing wrong leaders and needing to repent.
      This is about Muslim fifth columnists infiltrating the media and Muslims who need to repent following in the example of Muhammad and the Qur’an.
      Surveys show that for all those forced conversions there are many more Muslims who actively aid and abet Sharia and support the actions of ISIS.

      ISIS is Islam.

    • darren says

      Nov 24, 2014 at 12:26 pm

      I have a problem with that theory. When they move to the west, they could easily throw away the shackles that bind them. Instead they do the opposite by and large, and start trying to impose their belief system on other people. How do you explain this?

  3. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 9:56 am

    Convert, pay protection money, or die. This is the 3-pronged basic tenet of the Holy Islam. Give the New Caliphs credit, they know their Islam, and even if it would appear to the untrained eye that they’re doing this for the money and sex, remember that they’ll let them convert, so this isn’t a self-serving exercise, it’s the correct manifestation of one of the world’s great religions, one of the 3 Abrahamic faiths. That’s why Hillary, our next president, keeps signing resolutions to outlaw critical speech of any religion, there is a lack of proper respect for religion nowadays, and if people would stop hating things would be a heckuva lot better. It doesn’t need to be like this.

  4. Arjay says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 10:03 am

    A group of terrorists are taking over large portions of land, enforcing sharia law, raping, beating, beheading and crucifying the conquered, making the survivors live as 4th class citizens and “pay” special fees (taxes) so they won’t be murdered, and of course in the 21st century THERE ARE SLAVE MARKETS IN OPERATION.

    Oh, and many of the minorities they persecute… well this persecution has become mass attempts at genocide.

    Yet, the American and other Western Media… still embraces the monstrous movement. Still makes excuses for it.

    After the fall of Soviet Communism… the Left in the media, politics and academia desperately needed someone or something to rally around. To make into hero… IF and only if that movement hated the West. They found their replacement for being pro-USSR in being pro-Islam.

    Islam is the greater threat. The Soviets never blew up a US sporting event or flew planes into buildings or had marxist KGB agents chop of the heads of grandmothers, honor kill girls who quit the American Communist Party… or put hatchets into the heads of NYC cops.

    The Islamic State will continue to gain more and more supporters in the Muslim world… BECAUSE OF THE CRUELTY AND HATRED.

    When will the American Government wise up and acknowledge that ISIS is indeed Islamic and a threat to the world?

  5. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 10:13 am

    FUCK YOU MUSLIMS! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! You need to get out of the west!

    No they do not need to get out. They like it here, and things are going swimmingly so far. What they need is to take over the West, and that’s what they’re doing. This will ruin things here and leave Infidels and Moslems alike poor and no longer free, but Islam is a highly reactive form of stupidity, so the Moslems don’t know that. If they did know, then Rep Keith Ellison and Rep Andre Carson, our first two Moslem federal legislators, would say stop stop, this is a big mistake and is taking us somewhere ugly. But Keith and Andre are not saying that, so things are gonna be ok.

  6. TNT says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    Islam, many Muslims are leaving it, some exmuslims claim that many Muslims are looking for a better way of life, are they scard ? Absolutly, when ever they try to speak up they are silenced. This is very wrong yes! Back to Islam let’s see, Islam is the enemy of…. Freedom, democracy , unbelievers, other cultures and religions. That’s pretty much everyone and everything outside of Islam! So should Islam be destroyed? Well that’s a question only God can answer, which reminds me – Islams biggest enemy is the Jewish Christian God. So if Almighty God is Islams biggest enemy then I’ll have to see what God has to say – ok in the bible we read woes to Cush( Sudan) Gog,( turkey) EGYPT, tyre ( Lebanon) Assyria (Syria) elam(Iran) elom( Saudi Arabia) Arabia, Babylon dedan ( Saudi Arabia) moab( Jordan) Ammon ( Jordan) gomer Magog ( the Stan’s ) Sidon ( Lebanon) philistine Gaza ( Palestine ) Babylon ( Iraq) Damascus ( Lebanon ) and all their allies, now according to the bible God fights all of these countries, and calls for some of them to be completely destroyed namely the ring leaders. so if I were a muslim I’d be scard to death and get out of Islam ASAP! If God deems them to be destroyed than that is what will happen. This is a war between two Gods the God Yahwah of the Bible and the Quran allah. The Quran Allah declares war on Yahwah it has never stopped, it will never stop, until Allah is destroyed. This will continue until we are either all dead or converted to Islam and the whole world is under Sharia! Reform Islam? Not going to work! Waste of time, why? Because if they don’t succeed this round, they will back off regroup and try again in a hundred years time, do anyone want that for future generations? I don’t. Suppressing it as history has proven is not going to fix the problem. It will raise it’s ugly head and invade again, and again ! So I’m with Yahwah on this one. You cannot reform Islam, you cannot negotiate with Islam, you cannot reason with Islam. Farce ! Those who try to reform it will be killed they become apostates, will they be safe here In The west? No and we all know the reason why, they know it better than we do. So why don’t they just leave the religion/ dictatorship and move on? Fear holds them back! It’s a big problem. How many years will people put up with this ideology? How many years of killing will people tolerate? As long as Islam exist we will always be under the knife. There will never be peace, or safety. That’s the reality of it. And now it’s out of the box and gaining strength, soon the 7th ( turkey) will raise it’s head once Syria regime is toppled with the help of non other Obama, Iran will get their nukes. And Saudi will be destroyed by them. And whom ever else gets in their way! Welcome to the future folks, of Sufi coalition Islam. Aka Ottoman Empire / State.

    • Darren says

      Nov 24, 2014 at 1:02 pm

      Even if fear is motivating some of them, if a man is coming at me with a knife I don’t care what his reasons are, all I’m focused on is the knife. When they come to the west they still do the same things, this theory that the majority of them are just fearful is false. Growing up under an ideology and culture founded by a sociopath mass murderer, being exposed to this every day, will have an effect on the human mind. It’s like a type of brainwashing. Also humans are creatures of habit, if they see their friends do it, and their neighbors, and their dad, it seems like normal ok behavior. By the time these children grow up many of them have something deeply wrong with them.

  7. Jay Boo says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    Ironically, Muslims insist that they have a right to live in the ancient lands of Israel including Jerusalem.

    Also Muslims make a false claim that the respect Jesus

    “Quran Belittles Jesus and Denigrates Christianity”
    Full article at: http://www.faithfreedom.org/?p=10455

  8. Jay Boo says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    “Do not be friends with Christians.”

    It is in their scripture and in their attitude.
    Every Christian should ask:
    Why do we continue to allow such people into our countries when they so openly profess their supremacist bigotry toward us Christians and non-Muslims all over the world?

  9. Renee says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 4:18 pm

    Well, I hope they will not F, because we do not need anymore. One of the problems is that they have declared the wombs of women as the way to win the war. Their numbers are growing (too) fast.

    In the end, we know they will not win, they may conquer some, but the victory has been declared by Jesus the real Prince of Peace . Meantime, pray for our brother and sisters and anyone out there forced to accept islam, and for the muslims that want it otherwise but are threatened as well.

    • darren says

      Nov 24, 2014 at 12:28 pm

      I’d rather trust numbers and cold hard steel than a promise in the future some figure on a white horse is going to save me. I know that will offend many, but I believe god created us and gave us free choice for a reason. We have to save ourselves, reinforcements aren’t coming.

  10. dumbledoresarmy says

    Nov 23, 2014 at 8:07 pm

    And not only Israel.

    All other infidel states would feel freer to act, as well. And the churches would, I think, feel more able to speak up without mincing words because of fear of the howling mobs carrying out jihad against helpless dhimmi populations.

    There is a very, very good practical reason for getting all the surviving remnants of indigenous non-Muslims out of the worst parts of the Desolation of Mohammed aka the Dar al Islam.

    It is called “ending the hostage game”.

    When the Muslims drove *all* – or virtually all- dhimmi Jews out of places lilke Egypt and Yemen and Iraq and Syria and Lebanon, they *freed up* Israel considerable, psychologically speaking. Those Jews no longer formed a handy “hostage” population. Israel could strike those countries without worrying about what might happen to the resident Jews there.

    If Russia and America, say, cooperated to do a massive Operation Exodus for ALL remaining Christians in Syria and Iraq – and maybe it’s time to think about what can be done for the Copts, too and the Maronites – and ALL surviving non-Muslims were got out of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Ummah would LOSE a huge bargaining chip.

    • Darren says

      Nov 24, 2014 at 1:07 pm

      I agree, then after they are evacuated the infidel world forms a ring of steel around them, cuts off all trade export all of our muslims and simply let them destroy each other. I also say we take their oil and other natural resources so they can’t fund jihad against us. We can continue making advances in science and medicine and exploring space, and they can go back to killing each other and banging their heads off the ground. This is what should be done. Will it? I doubt it. I know this method sounds extreme but please will the enlightened people out there tell me how we deal with this problem before more infidel nations are conquered? I might be a crude mill worker, but I know how one deals with rabid dogs and predators who call themselves human.

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