The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (30 page)

            
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The Saudis.
The Saudis spent billions to propagate their virulent, violent form of Islam around the world. They covered the earth with Islamic proselytizing material that
declared that the only legitimate government on earth was an Islamic caliphate. Now a caliphate is on their doorstep, declaring that the House of Saud itself is as illegitimate as every other government on earth. They are reaping what they have so assiduously sown.

            
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The Christians.
The Islamic State has decimated ancient Christian communities across Iraq and Syria. When it captured northern Iraq, the Islamic State drove thirty thousand Christians from the Nineveh plain where they had lived since not long after the time of Christ.
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In August 2014, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Amel Shimoun Nona, predicted that the same thing would eventually happen to Christians in the West: “Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead.” The archbishop explained that the West was making a grave error by assuming that Islam was a religion of peace that taught the equal dignity of all human beings:

                        
Please, try to understand us. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will
become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.
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In early 2015 the Christians of Iraq began to fight back, forming a Christian militia of four thousand men.
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And while Western governments contented themselves with cosmetic gestures, some individuals in the West took notice as well. A U.S. Army veteran named Sean Rowe founded an organization called Veterans Against ISIS, hoping to attract veterans to join active combat against the Islamic State.

Others joined existing groups. Marine Corps vet Louis Park joined an Iraqi Christian militia, explaining: “I know that if [ISIS] is allowed to stay here, we will see violence in the United States as well. So I’m protecting my homeland too. I’m not being paid at all. I’m being fed and I’m being clothed and everything, but any gear that I need, I’m paying out of pocket. This is all money that I saved for this effort myself, because I believe in the cause a lot, so I’m willing to finance everything.”
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Brett Royales, an Army veteran who also joined the Iraqi Christians fighting against the Islamic State, invoked his Army training: “I’ve been given a skill set. I’ve honored it over the years. I can’t sit home and watch what’s going on here—the atrocities, crucifixions, rapes, sex slaves, people being driven out from their towns. It’s unacceptable to me, so I’m here to do what I can to get people back in their homes and protect their way of life.”
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Chapter Five

INSIDE THE ISLAMIC STATE

P
erhaps because of its destruction of ancient artifacts (not to mention its reign of terror), the Islamic State has not exactly become a thriving tourist hub. Even as Muslims from all over the world are traveling to join it, many who have found themselves within its domains through no choice of their own have fled, even if it meant leaving behind everything they owned and the only life they knew.

A look at daily life in the Islamic State makes it abundantly clear why so many people have chosen to flee rather than to stay and try to adapt to the new overlords—even in areas where Bashar Assad and Saddam Hussein had been notorious for their tyranny.

Planning a Vacation to the Islamic State? Be Sure to Abide by the Rules

Millions of people still live in the Islamic State, of course, as they do not have the wherewithal to flee even if they want to. Others are unwilling to leave their homeland no matter what regime comes into power—after all, regimes come and regimes go, and the next change may be for the better. Whatever may keep people there, the Islamic State has been very specific about how they must behave. After all, they consider themselves to be in the process of building the ideal Islamic polity, and that depends on an absolute adherence to Islamic law. Breaking the law in the Islamic State can get you lashed or even beheaded, so if you’re planning a relaxing vacation in the caliphate, be sure you abide by the local laws:

            
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Women must cover their entire body except face and hands. (According to some reports, they must cover their faces as well.)
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Women may not wear makeup or sit in a chair.
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Women may not leave the house without a male accompanying them.
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Men may not cut their hair, put gel in it, or wear it in a “modern style.” Barber shops have been shut down (as have beauty salons for women).
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You may not refer to the ruling group as
“Daesh.”
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Only women may sell clothing to women.
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Men may not wear low-hanging jeans (
they’ve got a point there—ed
.).
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Taxi drivers who overcharge are guilty of theft; they could have a hand amputated, or worse.
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Thieves will have their hands amputated (as per Qur’an 5:38). Blackmailers will face killing or crucifixion (as per Qur’an 5:33).
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Drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes are forbidden.
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No political parties or armed groups are allowed other than the Islamic State.
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Those who leave Islam are to be killed.
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Sharia is the sole law of the land.
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Graves and shrines are forbidden, and are to be destroyed.
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Those wearing soccer jerseys will receive eighty lashes.
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There are other rules as well. In December 2014 ISIS was reported to have used “the ‘biter,’” “a bear trap-like device” with spikes, on the breast of a woman who was guilty of “breastfeeding in public” in Raqqa.
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In April 2015 near Tikrit, Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, in April 2015, the Islamic State beheaded a man for “witchcraft.”
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(ISIS authorities did not explain what exactly that meant.) The next month a UN official announced that a young woman in the Islamic State had been burned alive for “refusing to take part in [an] ‘extreme sex act.’”
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A deserter from the Islamic State has recounted that Islamic State prisons in Raqqa are filled with people who were not sufficiently reverent during prayers or who have uttered the name of Allah in a way that Islamic State authorities deemed blasphemous. Their Islamic State captors torture them with sticks and cattle prods, and occasionally even burn prisoners to death.
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Special Rules for Christians

Most of the Christians in the Islamic State’s domains fled or were killed; “all who are left there now are a few handicapped or sickly Christians,” remarked a nun from Mosul in June 2014, and the situation has only deteriorated since then.
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Nonetheless, those who remain have to submit to the rule of Sharia. The Islamic State’s rules mandating the subjugation of Christians are straight out of traditional Islamic law.

In Sharia, Christians are allowed to live in an Islamic state as “dhimmis” (protected people) only if they submit to a regime of severe restrictions designed to mark their subordinate place in society and defuse any challenge that Christianity might pose to Islam. If Christians disobey these rules, they are no longer “protected,” and the relationship between them and the Islamic authorities reverts to a state of violent hostility.

Thus in the Islamic State Christians are forbidden to:

            
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Make any public display of their religion (all Christian worship has to take place behind closed doors);
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Ring church bells;
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Display the cross in public, including in markets and other areas where Christians might come into contact with Muslims;
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