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Islamic State turned Mosul church into base for Islamic religious police

Mar 12, 2017 10:41 am By Christine Douglass-Williams

The sign above the door of Um al-Mauna (Our Mother of Perpetual Help) in Iraq’s second city reads “Chaldean Catholic church”, but its terror occupants had other ideas.

“No entry, by order of the ISIS Hesba Division (the religious police)”, they wrote on the outside wall.

The Chaldean Catholic Church traces its origins to the Assyrian Church of the East, which traces its origins to the first century, when it was deemed to have been founded by the Apostle Thomas.

Um al-Mauna is one church among many in the Middle East that the jihadis have decimated; nonetheless, even some in the Church itself are indifferent to the sufferings of Christians. Among them is  Patriarch Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based head of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

In  September 2015, Sako argued against Western countries giving priority to Christian refugees, because he feared a “mass exodus of Christians.” His concern about the dwindling Christian community had nothing to do with their well-being, but the well-being of jihadists: he took active measures to ensure that Christians continued to live in terror in dangerous areas so that they could, in his words, “help their Muslim fellow citizens to free themselves from jihadist ideology.” Sako apparently expected Christians and their families (including infants) to be brutalized, raped and slaughtered: he even “refused to authorize requests to local Christians to help them find flights and visas and welcome centers in foreign countries.”

Although emphasizing that Christians should “help” jihadists, he ironically stated that the “defeat of the jihadist ideology that has spread throughout the Islamic world requires the involvement of Muslim authorities and Arab governments.”

The Christian Churches are filled with so-called leaders who are perhaps benefiting politically and economically from jihadist-promoting regimes; for whatever reason, all too many of them have abandoned innocent Christians to their fate.

When the West Mosul church described in the article below was turned into an Islamic state religious police base, this was its new image:

Above the door of the ochre-coloured church, ISIS members have damaged a stone cross.

Not a single crucifix, or statue of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary has survived in the building’s nave, from which all mark of Christianity has been methodically removed.

It’s a shame that Sako will likely never be interviewed in the same room with serious advocates for persecuted Christians. In contrast to Sako, Christian leader Reverend Andrew White (aka the Vicar of Baghdad), who reaches out to both Christians and Muslims, said:

“I have looked through the Quran trying to find forgiveness… there isn’t any. If you find it, tell me. This makes it very difficult to talk to ISIS because they can show you quite clearly that it is what Allah wants. They can justify their position when Allah says you should combat and fight the infidel and they say, ‘Well, these are infidels.’ So the question is, how can you prove that these are not infidels? And you can’t.”

“ISIS Turned Church In Iraq’s Mosul Into Religious Police Base”, NDTV, March 10, 2017:

MOSUL: The elegant columns of a west Mosul church stand plastered with ISIS propaganda after the terrorists’ infamous religious police took over the Christian place of worship. The sign above the door of Um al-Mauna (Our Mother of Perpetual Help) in Iraq’s second city reads “Chaldean Catholic church”, but its terror occupants had other ideas.

“No entry, by order of the ISIS Hesba Division (the religious police)”, they wrote on the outside wall. Five terrorists lie dead outside, their bodies twisted and one with the top of his skull blown off, after Iraqi forces retook the neighbourhood from ISIS this week.

The church “was an important office for the authorities tasked with making sure (Mosul) residents had a beard, wore short robes and followed their extremist convictions,” says Lieutenant Colonel Abdulamir al-Mohammedawi of the elite Rapid Response Division.

Iraqi forces are pushing an offensive to retake the whole of Mosul, the terror group’s last major urban bastion in the country, after retaking its eastern side in January.

ISIS fighters took control of the city in 2014, imposing their harsh interpretation of Islamic law on its inhabitants.

Above the door of the ochre-coloured church, ISIS members have damaged a stone cross. Not far away, they seem to have tried to rip another from a metal door off its hinges.

Not a single crucifix, or statue of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary has survived in the building’s nave, from which all mark of Christianity has been methodically removed.

Only the grey marble altar remains. In the church’s empty alcoves lies the base of a statue that was probably also destroyed, decorated with red and yellow flowers.

The posters on the church’s marble columns give an indication of what life was like under ISIS.

Chilling illustrations

One shows religious invocations to repeat in the mornings and evenings, while another explains the benefits of praying in a mosque.

A “town document” lists the 14 rules of life in Mosul under terror rule: “The trade and consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes is banned.”

Women should wear modest attire and only appear in public “when necessary”, it says.

A pamphlet on the rubble-covered ground explains the different forms of corporal punishment prescribed for theft, alcohol consumption, adultery and homosexuality.

It comes complete with chilling illustrations.

Terrorists have scribbled their noms de guerre on the church’s walls, and a large chandelier has been dumped in the yard.

In the church’s small side rooms, artificial flower garlands are draped near posters explaining how to use a Kalashnikov rifle.

Chaldeans make up the majority of Iraq’s Christians. But a community that numbered more than a million before the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein has since dwindled to less than 350,000 in the face of recurring violence.

In June 2014, ISIS seized control of Mosul and ordered the city’s Christian community to convert to Islam, pay a special tax, leave or face execution.

Weeks later, the terror group swept through Qaraqosh and the rest of the Nineveh Plain east of Mosul, where an estimated 120,000 Christians lived, prompting them all to flee….

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Filed Under: Catholic Church, Featured, Iraq, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: Chaldean Catholic church, ISIS Hesba Division, Um al-Mauna


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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Mar 12, 2017 at 10:45 am

    Oh! Look and see how TOLERANT Islam is towards other religions!

    (sarc/off)

  2. mortimer says

    Mar 12, 2017 at 10:50 am

    Hisbah is virtually a vigilante squad that punishes people arbitrarily for not following Sharia law. Any punishement up to amputation, crucifixion or beheading can be applied by the hisbah. It can be a formal or informal hisbah. It just needs a sympathetic Islamic jurists to give them a fatwa before or after the fact. The fatwa will reduce or eliminate the jail sentence.

    The concept of hisbah in Islam originates from a set of Qur’anic verses and Hadith. It is an obligation placed on every Muslim to call for what is good or right and to prevent or denounce what is bad or wrong. The Qur’an states: “Let there arise from you a group calling to all that is good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. It is these who are successful.” (The Qur’an 3:104). The Hadith states: “Whosoever among you sees an act of wrong should change it with his hands. If he is not able to do so, then he should change it with his tongue. If he is not able to do so, then with his heart, and this is the weakest of faith.”

  3. Angemon says

    Mar 12, 2017 at 3:47 pm

    In September 2015, Sako argued against Western countries giving priority to Christian refugees, because he feared a “mass exodus of Christians.” His concern about the dwindling Christian community had nothing to do with their well-being, but the well-being of jihadists: he took active measures to ensure that Christians continued to live in terror in dangerous areas so that they could, in his words, “help their Muslim fellow citizens to free themselves from jihadist ideology.” Sako apparently expected Christians and their families (including infants) to be brutalized, raped and slaughtered: he even “refused to authorize requests to local Christians to help them find flights and visas and welcome centers in foreign countries.”

    With “friends” like that, who needs enemies?…

  4. Frank Anderson says

    Mar 12, 2017 at 7:41 pm

    I cannot help considering the statement of Jorge Santayana, “Those who cannot remember. . .” What kind of success was achieved with negotiations to Communists who have over the years murdered hundreds of millions, or Nazis who murdered tens of millions in their own time and how many more through their Muslim successors? Why is a different result to be expected from negotiations with people who murder daily, and have run up a total of more than 300 million in 1400 years?

    I also ponder Albert Einstein’s description of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. The only conclusion I have been able to make so far is that either those who think negotiation of Muslims out of murder etc. are delusional, as in Viktor Frankl’s “delusion of reprieve” or collaborators who wish to prolong their lives while sacrificing ours, like the collaborator who ran a ghetto for the Nazi’s, Chaim Romkowski (spelling correction appreciated).

    Negotiation always requires mutual respect and trust between the parties that the deal made will be the deal kept. Muslims have no regard or respect for “infidels” and “apostates” who may want to practice Islam differently than they do. Where is there room to negotiate when the only outcome is surrender and death? Why waste the time, money, energy and opportunity talking when the talk is obviously in service only of evil purposes? Hope has a place: But 1400 years should show that hope has no place here. Only strength, resolve and understanding the nature of a sworn and implacable enemy will keep us directed to our survival. Miss-direction is one of Islam’s teachings about warfare.

  5. Walter Sieruk says

    Mar 13, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    The main reason why the jihad-minded Muslims who compose ISIS turned church building in the headquarters for their Islamic religious police is that is a symbolic way for them to show the superiority of Islam to Christianity . Likewise throughout history Muslims conquering different lands have turned church buildings into mosques and way to show to the world that Islam is a superior religion to Christianity .
    Such symbolism is important to many Muslims . The reason for this, they will deny that this is the reason, is since Islam can’t by upheld by logic or reason the use of symbolism support Islam. . So since Islam have no actual , valid arguments to hold it up many Muslims resort to the methods of violence as well as symbolism as the foundation for their religion.

  6. Transmaster says

    Mar 13, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    And Bashar al-Assad who is an Alawīyyah Muslim did what to the Chaldean Christians in Syria during all of the years
    Assad’s and the Ba’ath Party was in control. There was a political balance in Syria that the Sultan of Stupid (Obama) in cahoots with The House of Saud completely destroyed. Both the Sunni’s and the Shi’a consider the Alawīyyah sect as apostates. But in the politics of the Middle East the fact the House of Saud is and enemy of Bashar Assad, and one of the chief Sunni’s financier, Fighting for Assad gives Iran an indirect way of fighting them. The Islamic 5th columnist Obama in his utter disregard for the reality of the real politics of the Islamic world and urge to screw over Israel ignited the whole thing. What President Sparklefarts has done has restarted the centuries old war of genocide between the Sunni, and Shi’a Muslims and everyone else, both Muslim ( Alawīyyah, Sufist’s, etc) Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and above all the Jews have all been caught in the crossfire.

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