“Other reports suggest IS has been paid to free the hostages.” Kidnapping infidels and releasing them for ransom or enslaving them, as well as killing them if that option is deemed most advantageous for the Muslims, is fully sanctioned in Islamic law: “As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, ‘When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks’ (Qur’an sura 47, verse 4)” — Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192.
I trust that these Syrian Christians will be duly shunned and ostracized by their Christian communities now. After all, in getting themselves kidnapped by the Islamic State and thus making Islam look bad, they have harmed the “dialogue.”
“ISIS frees 37 kidnapped Syrian Christians: NGO,” AFP, November 7, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):
BEIRUT: The Islamic State group on Saturday released 37 Syrian Christians, most of them women, who were among more than 200 people kidnapped more than eight months ago, an NGO said.
The Assyrian Observatory for Human Rights said the group of freed Assyrian Christians included 27 women and 10 men, most of them elderly.
They arrived on Saturday morning in the town of Tal Tamr in the Khabur region of Hasakeh province in northeastern Syria, the group said.
The releases were confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, which said most of those freed were from other towns elsewhere in the Khabur region.
The former hostages were among a group of 220 Assyrians captured by IS when they overran parts of the Khabur region in February.
Since then, a trickle of the prisoners have been released, with between 140 and 150 believed to still be held by IS.
The Assyrian Observatory said the releases were the result of negotiations carried out by the church, but other reports suggest IS has been paid to free the hostages….

Angemon says
Those reports aren’t mutually exclusive.
Jeremiah says
Providing ISIS funds for more kidnappings is misguided. We need to penalize ISIS rather than reward them. That may come as a price to us as well but a better outcome.
mortimer says
Everybody wants their loved ones back.
Budvarakbar says
Better to be a slave – right?
Walter Sieruk says
As for kidnapping as well as holding people for ransom. Such ruthless and wicked actions the God of the Bible ,very much, detests. So much so that He had declared the death penalty for those who engage in such heinously evil actions. For in the Bible it is written “He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or is found in his hand, shall be put to death..” Exodus 21:16. [N.J.J.V.]
mortimer says
Another departure of Mohammedanism from the Judeo-Christian morality based on the Golden Rule.
There is no Golden Rule in Islam, and, therefore, no requirement to observe it.
Islamic ethics are inconsistent and opportunistic.
Joseph says
Mortimer, gold is the rule in Islam, so is sex, slavery, torture and a host of other vile practices.
I am not disagreeing with you, I am just putting a new spin on it, a pun so to speak.
mortimer says
Western bishops who fail to defend the flock of the church might consider that KIDNAPPING AND RANSOM are normative Islam described and authorized in Sharia law. Caliph al Baghdadi is a Sharia law expert.
How can Western church leaders fail to demand an accounting of Muslim leaders who are doing nothing or denying or lying about the hostages?
Doug says
I contend that they are all afraid. Everyone is afraid to confront islam. They are afraid of being called racist. They are afraid for their lives.
Jeremiah says
Muslims should be afraid of their lives. Their lives on earth and their lives in hell.
mortimer says
COEXIST??
That cartoon above says it all about Islam. It is unanswerable. It should be on every lamp post in front of every mosque.
Glenn says
isis was probably paid, but not before they raped the women dozens of times a day. I wouldn’t be surprised that the reason isis let them go, was that most or all of the women are pregnant.
Doug says
Time to give them a Nobel Peace Prize. To do otherwise is racist!!!
Margaret Lauren says
This was a common practice during the Crusades, but only with regard to the wealthy nobles fighting the Muslims. If the ransom did not arrive by the deadline of course the hostage was duly decapitated. The West must come to grips with the mindset-using infidels to their own detriment is just another crafty way to make a point for Islam and make a profit as well, which sets on their head the other, sanitized prohibitions of Islam for making a profit.