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CHRISTIANS 'CRUCIFIED AGAIN' FOR REFUSING ISLAM
Assyrian International News Agency AINA
May 6 2014
By Raymond Ibrahim
Frontpage Magazine
Posted 2014-05-06 17:16 GMT
To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail article reports
that the "jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL]," which
is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, "publicly crucified two
Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack
on members of their group."
While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric
acts--along with posting photos of the crucified--it nonetheless
minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly
saying things like "even al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL,"
and so implying that the act of crucifixion is some wild aberration
that even the poster-child of jihadi terror, al-Qaeda, wants nothing
to do with it; and 2) ignoring the much "sexier" story that Christians
in Syria are also being crucified simply for refusing to embrace Islam
(as opposed to the rather mundane but politically more correct story
of Islamic jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta
killings).
Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma'loula, Syria, an
ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic,
the language of Christ.
According to recent Arabic news media, "a Syrian nun testified to the
Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma'loula were crucified
for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya" (tribute subjugated
Christians are required to pay to their Islamic conquerors in order
to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).
Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front
(so much for Daily Mail's portrayal of al-Qaeda "distancing" itself
from the apparently "extra-extremist" ISIL for crucifying its victims).
Sister Raghad, the former head of the Patriarchate School in Damascus
who currently resides in France, told Vatican Radio how she personally
witnessed jihadi rebels terrorize Ma'loula, including by pressuring
Christians to proclaim the shehada--Islam's credo that there is no
god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger--which, when uttered
before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with
the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later "renege"
by returning to Christianity.
According to the nun, those Christians who refused to embrace
Islam were
killed in atrocious and violent ways that cannot be described. If
you want examples, they crucified two youths in Ma'loula for refusing
to proclaim Islam's credo, saying to them: "Perhaps you want to die
like your teacher [Christ] whom you believe in? You have two choices:
either proclaim the shehada or else be crucified. One of them was
crucified before his father, whom they also killed."
In fact, according to earlier media reports from October 2013,
soon after Ma'loula fell to the jihadis, one "shaky voiced" elderly
Christian man had reported that he heard the invading jihadis shouting,
"Convert to Islam, or you will be crucified like Jesus."
It is, of course, a documented fact that some Christians in Ma'loula
were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam, such as Minas,
an Armenian man, while other families succumbed to pressure and
converted to Islam at the tip of the sword.
But it is not clear whether the two crucified Christians mentioned
by the nun are among the three men in Ma'loula who, according to
Asia News, "refused to repudiate their religion" and thus "were
summarily executed in public"--so many and varied were the barbaric
acts, including beheadings, rape, and infanticide during the rebel
occupation, not to mention the other massacres in other Christian
regions the mainstream media failed to report on.
These three were declared martyrs by the Syrian Greek-Catholic Church,
or as Patriarch Gregorios III explained to Pope Francis in a meeting:
"Holy Father, they are true martyrs. Ordered to give up their faith,
they proudly refused. Three others however gave in and were forced
to declare themselves Muslim, but later returned to the faith of
their ancestors."
For his part, and according to a May 3rd Arabic report, Pope Francis
recently said, "I wept when I saw reports saying that Christians were
being crucified in some non-Christian countries."
The fact is, crucifixion is a prescribed form of punishment in the
Koran (5:33) and occurs throughout the Islamic world with much greater
frequency than suggested by the Daily Mail. For example:
Iraq, June 2008: A Canadian parliamentary committee heard about
how "militant Muslims" were crucifying Christian children in order
to terrorize Christians into fleeing Iraq: "Since the war began in
2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and
killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify
and torment their parents."
Ivory Coast, May 2011: Two Christian peasant brothers were "brutally
crucified" on "the example of Christ" by Muslim forces accusing them
of being supportive of the ousted Christian president. One died,
while the other survived: "The pair were badly beaten and tortured
before being crudely nailed to cross-shaped planks by their hands
and feet with steel spikes."
Egypt, August 2012: Multiple media agencies reported that during one
uprisal against Islamist president Muhammad Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood
operatives crucified some protesters on trees. Earlier, a Salafi MP
in Egypt called for the penal codification of crucifixion.
Yemen, August 2012, a video of a man crucified on the accusation of
spying for the U.S. appeared on video. A sign placed above his head
quotes Koran 5:33: "The recompense of those who wage war against Allah
and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall
be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from
opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace
in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter."
Of course, if one delves into Islamic history, one learns that
crucifixions were extremely common. For example, Witnesses For Christ:
Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860 lists
crucifixion as one of the many forms thousands of Christians were
executed by the Muslim Turks.
And in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described
how in the early twentieth century in the city of Malatia, she saw 16
girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: "Each girl had been
nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,"
wrote the Armenian survivor. "Only their hair blown by the wind
covered their bodies."
Prescribed in the Koran itself, crucifixions are as old as Islam and,
with the global revival of the latter, are returning with increased
frequency. And, although it is more politically correct to report on
jihadis crucifying other jihadis--other terrorists or "spies"--the fact
is, many more innocent Christians are being crucified again, including
simply for refusing to embrace Islam and thus renounce Christ.
http://www.aina.org/news/20140506121604.htm
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Assyrian International News Agency AINA
May 6 2014
By Raymond Ibrahim
Frontpage Magazine
Posted 2014-05-06 17:16 GMT
To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail article reports
that the "jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL]," which
is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, "publicly crucified two
Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack
on members of their group."
While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric
acts--along with posting photos of the crucified--it nonetheless
minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly
saying things like "even al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL,"
and so implying that the act of crucifixion is some wild aberration
that even the poster-child of jihadi terror, al-Qaeda, wants nothing
to do with it; and 2) ignoring the much "sexier" story that Christians
in Syria are also being crucified simply for refusing to embrace Islam
(as opposed to the rather mundane but politically more correct story
of Islamic jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta
killings).
Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma'loula, Syria, an
ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic,
the language of Christ.
According to recent Arabic news media, "a Syrian nun testified to the
Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma'loula were crucified
for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya" (tribute subjugated
Christians are required to pay to their Islamic conquerors in order
to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).
Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front
(so much for Daily Mail's portrayal of al-Qaeda "distancing" itself
from the apparently "extra-extremist" ISIL for crucifying its victims).
Sister Raghad, the former head of the Patriarchate School in Damascus
who currently resides in France, told Vatican Radio how she personally
witnessed jihadi rebels terrorize Ma'loula, including by pressuring
Christians to proclaim the shehada--Islam's credo that there is no
god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger--which, when uttered
before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with
the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later "renege"
by returning to Christianity.
According to the nun, those Christians who refused to embrace
Islam were
killed in atrocious and violent ways that cannot be described. If
you want examples, they crucified two youths in Ma'loula for refusing
to proclaim Islam's credo, saying to them: "Perhaps you want to die
like your teacher [Christ] whom you believe in? You have two choices:
either proclaim the shehada or else be crucified. One of them was
crucified before his father, whom they also killed."
In fact, according to earlier media reports from October 2013,
soon after Ma'loula fell to the jihadis, one "shaky voiced" elderly
Christian man had reported that he heard the invading jihadis shouting,
"Convert to Islam, or you will be crucified like Jesus."
It is, of course, a documented fact that some Christians in Ma'loula
were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam, such as Minas,
an Armenian man, while other families succumbed to pressure and
converted to Islam at the tip of the sword.
But it is not clear whether the two crucified Christians mentioned
by the nun are among the three men in Ma'loula who, according to
Asia News, "refused to repudiate their religion" and thus "were
summarily executed in public"--so many and varied were the barbaric
acts, including beheadings, rape, and infanticide during the rebel
occupation, not to mention the other massacres in other Christian
regions the mainstream media failed to report on.
These three were declared martyrs by the Syrian Greek-Catholic Church,
or as Patriarch Gregorios III explained to Pope Francis in a meeting:
"Holy Father, they are true martyrs. Ordered to give up their faith,
they proudly refused. Three others however gave in and were forced
to declare themselves Muslim, but later returned to the faith of
their ancestors."
For his part, and according to a May 3rd Arabic report, Pope Francis
recently said, "I wept when I saw reports saying that Christians were
being crucified in some non-Christian countries."
The fact is, crucifixion is a prescribed form of punishment in the
Koran (5:33) and occurs throughout the Islamic world with much greater
frequency than suggested by the Daily Mail. For example:
Iraq, June 2008: A Canadian parliamentary committee heard about
how "militant Muslims" were crucifying Christian children in order
to terrorize Christians into fleeing Iraq: "Since the war began in
2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and
killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify
and torment their parents."
Ivory Coast, May 2011: Two Christian peasant brothers were "brutally
crucified" on "the example of Christ" by Muslim forces accusing them
of being supportive of the ousted Christian president. One died,
while the other survived: "The pair were badly beaten and tortured
before being crudely nailed to cross-shaped planks by their hands
and feet with steel spikes."
Egypt, August 2012: Multiple media agencies reported that during one
uprisal against Islamist president Muhammad Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood
operatives crucified some protesters on trees. Earlier, a Salafi MP
in Egypt called for the penal codification of crucifixion.
Yemen, August 2012, a video of a man crucified on the accusation of
spying for the U.S. appeared on video. A sign placed above his head
quotes Koran 5:33: "The recompense of those who wage war against Allah
and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall
be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from
opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace
in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter."
Of course, if one delves into Islamic history, one learns that
crucifixions were extremely common. For example, Witnesses For Christ:
Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860 lists
crucifixion as one of the many forms thousands of Christians were
executed by the Muslim Turks.
And in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described
how in the early twentieth century in the city of Malatia, she saw 16
girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: "Each girl had been
nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,"
wrote the Armenian survivor. "Only their hair blown by the wind
covered their bodies."
Prescribed in the Koran itself, crucifixions are as old as Islam and,
with the global revival of the latter, are returning with increased
frequency. And, although it is more politically correct to report on
jihadis crucifying other jihadis--other terrorists or "spies"--the fact
is, many more innocent Christians are being crucified again, including
simply for refusing to embrace Islam and thus renounce Christ.
http://www.aina.org/news/20140506121604.htm
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress