USA Today | By Kirsten Powers
(RNS) Iraq’s Christians are begging the world for help. Is anybody listening?
Since capturing the country’s second largest city of Mosul in early June, the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, has ordered Christians to convert to Islam, pay taxes levied on non-Muslims, or die. The extremist Sunni group is also persecuting and murdering Turkmen and Shabaks, both Muslim religious minorities.
Human rights lawyer Nina Shea described the horror in Mosul to me: “(The Islamic State) took the Christians’ houses, took the cars they were driving to leave. They took all their money. One old woman had her life savings of $40,000, and she said, ‘Can I please have 100 dollars?’, and they said no. They took wedding rings off fingers, chopping off fingers if they couldn’t get the ring off.”
“We now have 5,000 destitute, homeless people with no future,” Shea said. “This is a crime against humanity.”
For the first time in 2,000 years, Mosul is devoid of Christians. “This is ancient Nineveh we are talking about,” Shea explained. “They took down all the crosses. They blew up the tomb of the prophet Jonah. An orthodox Cathedral has been turned into a mosque. … They are uprooting every vestige of Christianity.” University of Mosul professor Mahmoud Al ‘Asali, a Muslim, bravely spoke out against the Islamic State’s purging of Christians and was executed.
Lebanon-based Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younnan, who heads the Syrian Catholic Church, called the crisis “religious cleansing” in an interview. “I want to tell American Christians to stand up, wake up and no longer be a silent majority. American-elected representatives need to stand up for their principles on which the U.S. has been founded: the defense of religious freedom … and respect for human rights.”
Additional Reading
Two Hundred Verses about Compassionate Living in the Quran
Categories: Asia, Iraq, Religious Harmony, Religious Values, Separation of Church and State
To my understanding of Islam and according to Coranic verses there is no place or a verse asking Muslims to kill,execute ,take Christians money by force or forcing them to be Muslims . The Holy Prophet of Islam did not do this and never waged war against Christians nor Muslims. He only fought those who waged war against him.see Quran chapter 60 Surah Mumtahinah verse 8-9
And I quote:
لا ينهاكم الله عن الذين لم يقاتلوكم فى الدين ولم يخرجوكم من دياركم ان تبروهم وتقسطوا اليهم ان الله يحب المقسطين . انما ينهاكم الله عن الذين قاتلوكم فى الدين واخرجوكم من دياركم وظاهروا على اخراجكم ان تولوهم ……..
Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.
Allah only forbids you from those who fight you because of religion and expel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion – [forbids] that you make allies of them. And whoever makes allies of them, then it is those who are the wrongdoers.
To my understanding of Islam those people who kill others or take their money or houses by the name of Islamic Religion it is not true. Those people are really agents of Satan they must be wiped from the society.They do not kill only Christians but also their brothers in Islam. This sort of people must be wiped by the whole world.They are doing just for their interests.
1 ISIS,according to Allah PAAK’S norms in Quraa-e-PAAK, are wrong to force christians to eccept Islam or die !!!!! Only,Islamic state can levy JAZIAAH(Sort of a tax in return to securiy proveded by Islamic State)
2 The question is, whether, has/have an Islamic been estalished in Iraq and also all ISIS and others calle themselves muslims are realy true MUSLIMS themselves.
3 ISIS must study Quraa-e-PAAK, properly and thoroughly to PERCEiV norms of ALMIGHY ALLAGH PAAK.
May Allah punish these prestenders and save Christians from these cruel people who are pretending to be Muslims.. This is non-sense .. I am so ashamed that some middle eastern Muslim kingdoms are supporting this so called Islamic state
‘prestenders’ ? (have to consult a dictionary)
Openly no Kingdom seems to be supporting this so called Islamic state. (If successful in fact these guys would smash the Kings as well). But, yes, behind the scenes they did support them thinking that they will work against the Iranian influence. Well, actually it is the Mossad (Israeli) agenda, where it is said that the so called ‘Caliph’ was trained …
I totally agree
BUT
what about Muslims being massacred in Gaza??
The world has double standards, i think that is the definition of hypocrisy
ISIS is a brainchild of four corners. All know what this quadrature is composed of?