{"id":7352,"date":"2014-05-12T08:32:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T15:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7352"},"modified":"2014-05-12T09:26:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T16:26:56","slug":"christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Christians \u2018Crucified Again\u2019 for Refusing Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim\u00a0\/\/ \u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0reports that the \u201cjihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL],\u201d which is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, \u201cpublicly crucified two Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack on members of their group.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A still frame from the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls, which portrayed eye witnessed events from the Armenian Genocide, including crucified Christian girls (Photo by\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric acts\u2014along with posting photos of the crucified\u2014it nonetheless minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly saying things like \u201ceven al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL,\u201d 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 \u201csexier\u201d 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 jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta killings).<\/p>\n

Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma\u2018loula, Syria, an ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic, the language of Christ.<\/p>\n

According to recent\u00a0Arabic news media<\/a>, \u201ca Syrian nun testified to the Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma\u2018loula were crucified for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya\u201d (tribute subjugated Christians are\u00a0required to pay<\/a>\u00a0to their Islamic conquerors in order to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).<\/p>\n

Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front (so much for Daily Mail\u2019s portrayal of al-Qaeda \u201cdistancing\u201d itself from the apparently \u201cextra-extremist\u201d ISIL for crucifying its victims).<\/p>\n

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\u2018loula, including by pressuring Christians to proclaim the\u00a0shehada<\/em>\u2014Islam\u2019s credo that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger\u2014which, when uttered before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later \u201crenege\u201d by returning to Christianity.<\/p>\n

According to the nun, those Christians who refused to embrace Islam were<\/p>\n

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killed in atrocious and violent ways that cannot be described.\u00a0 If you want examples, they crucified two youths in Ma\u2018loula for refusing to proclaim Islam\u2019s credo, saying to them: \u201cPerhaps you want to die like your teacher [Christ] whom you believe in?\u00a0 You have two choices: either proclaim the\u00a0shehada<\/em>\u00a0or else be crucified.\u201d \u00a0One of them was crucified before his father, whom they also killed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In fact, according to earlier media reports from October 2013, soon after Ma\u2018loula fell to the jihadis, one \u201cshaky voiced\u201d elderly Christian man had reported that he heard the invading jihadis shouting, \u201cConvert to Islam, or you will be crucified like Jesus<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, of course, a documented fact that some Christians in Ma\u2018loula were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam,\u00a0such as Minas<\/a>, an Armenian man, while other families\u00a0succumbed to pressure<\/a>\u00a0and converted to Islam.<\/p>\n

But it is not clear whether the two crucified Christians mentioned by the nun are among the three men in Ma\u2018loula who, according to Asia News, \u201crefused to repudiate their religion\u201d and thus \u201cwere summarily executed in public<\/a>\u201d\u2014so many and varied were the barbaric acts, including beheadings, rape, and infanticide during the rebel occupation, not to mention\u00a0the other massacres in other Christian regions<\/a>\u00a0the mainstream media failed to report on.<\/p>\n

These three were declared martyrs by the Syrian Greek-Catholic Church, or as Patriarch Gregorios III explained to Pope Francis in a meeting: \u201cHoly 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, and according to a May 3rd\u00a0Arabic report<\/a>, Pope Francis recently said, \u201cI wept when I saw reports saying that Christians were being crucified in some non-Christian countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n