Bearing the Cross: A Letter to ISIS
by Mark Durie (March 2015)
A Coptic girl with a wrist tattoo
The Islamic State sent me a letter last month. This letter was in the form of a short film produced by the Islamic State’s Al-Hayat Media centre.
As I write this it is Ash Wednesday. This is the start of forty days of Lent, a period of fasting and contemplation for Christians all over the world. For many centuries it has been a custom of Christians to receive a mark of the cross in ash upon the forehead as a sign of repentance.
As I received this mark of the cross today I was thinking of the 21 Egyptian Christian martyrs. Copts permanently bear the sign of the cross, tattooed on their wrists, as a sign that they will refuse to renounce their beliefs.
I intend to read out these men’s names at our morning church services this Sunday, here in Melbourne, Australia. And I also choose to honour them today by writing to acknowledge the truth about why they were killed, and in particular the explanation given by their killers.
I also wish to record, as a Christian and a pastor, my intense protest at the White House official statement of February 15 2015 concerning this event. This makes no mention of the reason the twenty one were killed: their Christian faith. This culpable denial dishonours them, as it dishonours me and Christians everywhere.
Christopher Hitchens got it right over a decade ago when he suggested of Al Qa’ida recruits that “they believe their own propaganda,” and “absolutely subscribe to the tenets of their version … of their religion, Islam.”
Some years ago I had the privilege of reading the Gospel at a Coptic service held in St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, here in Melbourne. The service was held to commemorate the 22 martyrs of the attack on Al-Qiddisin Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve. It was led by Bishop Suriel, Melbourne’s Coptic bishop.
One of the Coptic victims with his killer
The Egyptian government reacted angrily to the executions, bombing Islamic State positions inside Libya. Egypt was incensed about this massacre – and rightly so – but it has a very long and enduring track record of not prosecuting Muslims who have massacred Christians within its own borders. General Al-Sisi is a leader who has been complicit in this peculiar form of Muslim cowardice. This moral inconsistency is causing great division and confusion among Copts at the present time.
My comment after the Al-Qiddisi massacre in January 2011 remains as valid now as it was then:
I deplore the lack of freedom of religion in Egypt, the authorities’ apparent unwillingness to protect the indigenous Christian minority and its places of worship, and the lamentable track record of the Egyptian justice system in securing criminal convictions against those who have targeted Christians for attack. I call upon Egypt’s leaders to respond to these abuses honestly and with integrity, without making excuses or indulging in denial.
There is a double standard in the house of Islam. Examples are legion. The Jordanian royal house has been prominent in speaking up against attacks against Christians in Iraq and Syria, yet at the time when the Common Word letter was being released to the Christian world in 2008 under Jordanian royal sponsorship, its own Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought had posted on its website fatwas by its Chief Scholar – the former Mufti of Jordan – which declared death for Christians for the crime of leaving Islam, and even identified one person by name (see here).
held up the notorious Pact of Umar as evidence of Jordan’s history of religious tolerance:
Jerusalem, which is, regrettably, subject to the worst forms of Judaisation today, stands witness to fourteen centuries of deep, solid and fraternal relations between Muslims and Christians, enhanced by the Pact of Omar [ibn al-Khattab], and promoted by my grandfather, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, may God bless his soul.
accurately described the intent and effect of the conditions of the Pact of Umar as guaranteeing the continued degradation of Christians under Islamic rule:
This is why the Leader of the faithful ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace.
here, to view Ibn Kathir’s original text.
The problem is that as long as Muslims allow derogatory words like mushrik ‘associator, polytheist’ and kafir ‘infidel’ to be applied to Christians, while also preaching Qur’anic verses which denigrate non-Muslims, the hostility and hatred can only continue.
As long as the highest legal authorities of the Islamic mainstream continue to assert the right of Muslims to kill those who leave Islam, bursts of extreme religious hatred such as we have just seen in Libya can only continue.
The fundamental problem is not peculiar variants of extreme religious worldview, it is a deeply engrained religious worldview that is not acknowledged by many who hold it. Those who, like King Abdullah, allow it room to breathe by claiming that it is something other than what it really is are as much a part of the problem as the violent jihadis who are proud to own the worldview.
In the house of Islam, hatred has deep roots stretching back through time. In 1836 Edward Lane reported in The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians that it was standard practice in many Cairo schools to require Muslim school boys to invoke daily curses on the heads of Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims. In essence these curses called for the looting, killing and enslavement of non-Muslims. It is only against the backdrop of inter-generational hatred that a television series on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion could have become mainstream viewing in Egyptian society, and continuing kidnapping, rape and killings of Copts are perpetrated without justice for the victims.
There is an ill-wind of hatred blowing in the house of Islam and it has been blowing for a very long time indeed. When this wind is whipped up into a tornado, the world is appalled, but it is the constant steady breeze of hatred that is the root of the problem.
As this letter was addressed to the Christians of the world, here I give my personal reply to the Islamic State, written as a Christian:
I am not intimidated by your hatred. Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us not to fear those who may kill the body. The people of honour on that beach in Tripoli were those 21 courageous Copts, who dared to confess the name of Christ, even with a knife to their necks. They knew well what choice they were making. You thought to humiliate them, but the Word of God tells me they are the vindicated ones, the men of glory. I believe they knew that full well.
For you I have no hate, only pity. You wield the sword to kill ideas and worship you do not understand, but you do this in vain. The truth cannot be killed by your knives.
General Sisi of Egypt was right: because of you, people all over the world are doubting Islam.
This is the true truth, and it is precisely because of this truth that a new wind is blowing in the house of Islam: a fresh breeze of questioning, a wind of gentleness and openness. This is the life-giving breath of hope that there must be a different way to walk with God. You are men of the past: the future belongs to those you killed on the beach.
Part Two: What follows is an explanation of the film of the martyrdoms produced by Al-Hayat Media of the Islamic State. Words in blue are from the film, either in the form of titles or sub-titles, or as narration. Text in red is used for the words of Muhammad or the Qur’an.
The Coast of Wil?yat Tar?bulus [in the region of Tripoli] by the Mediterranean Sea
The people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church.
The opening scenes show the 21 men being led along the coast towards the camera, each one held by a hooded captor.
All praise is due to Allah, the strong and mighty, and may blessings and peace be upon[1] the one sent by the sword[2] as a mercy for all the world[3].
[1] It is a standard Islamic text opening to bless Muhammad.
Oh people, recently you have seen us on the hills of as-Sham [Syria] and on Dabiq’s plain,[4] chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross delusion for a long time, filled with spite against Islam and Muslims[5].
[4] Dabiq is a town in northern Syria. In Islamic eschatology it is believed to be a place of battle between Christians and Muslims. For this reason Dabiq was chosen as the title for the Islamic State’s propaganda magazine.
[5] The idea that Christians have enmity against Muslims is from the Koran:
And today, we are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message. ‘Oh Crusaders, safety for you will only be wishes,[6] especially when you are fighting us all together.[7] Therefore, we will fight you all together,[7] until the war lays down its burdens[8] and Jesus, peace be upon him, will descend, breaking the cross, killing the swine and abolishing jizya.[9]’
These few lines are packed with references to Islam’s canonical texts.
actually means “fight to kill.”
And the sea you have hidden Shaikh Usama Bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood.
The same motivation influenced the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot: because his bombs had caused people to die in burning buildings, so it was considered permissible to burn him. See here.
The worldview of qisas is not limited to the Islamic State. Jordan and Egypt cited the same principle when executing prisoners and launching bombing raids in response to IS atrocities.
Another theological driver at play here is the principle of collective punishment: if one Christian wrongs a Muslim, then all Christians should be punished, even if these particular Egyptian Christians had absolutely nothing to do with Bin Ladin or his death: because of the manner in which the United States buried Bin Ladin at sea, Egyptian Christians’ blood is to be mingled in the ocean. Likewise, because of the humiliating way in which the United States treated uncooperative Muslim captives in Guantanamo, Egyptian Christians are to be beheaded wearing orange jumpsuits.
They supplicate what they worship and die upon their paganism.
This filthy blood is just some of what awaits you, in revenge for Camella and her sisters.
Camilla Shehata is a Coptic woman, the wife of a Christian priest, who went missing. Her husband reported her missing to the police fearing that she had been kidnapped by Muslim men, who regularly kidnap, rape and forcibly convert Christian women in Egypt, all too often with the collusion of the authorities. Kidnappers are known especially to target the wives of priests. Later Camilla appeared on national television to state that she had just gone to be with relatives after a domestic dispute and she had not converted to Islam. However the Muslim public in Egypt was not to be placated. It was incited by Muslim leaders with the idea that she had converted to Islam, and the Coptic church, having kidnapped her, was torturing her to force her back into Christianity. This libel against Egyptian Christians was also made in connection with other Coptic women.
This is a case of projection. Muslims have captured hundreds of Coptic girls and women in recent years (see here and here) compelling them through threats and violence to accept Islam and give false testimony that the have entered Islam willingly. There is normally no recourse for the families of the captive females. The families are simply told that the women have converted to Islam and are now married, and their new husbands can speak for them, in accordance with Islamic law. (See my book The Third Choice, p.163ff for a theological explanation of why non-Muslim women are especially vulnerable to rape and capture in Islamic conditions.)
The massacre of congregants in the Baghdad Catholic cathedral on October 31, 2010 was also claimed by the Al Qaida perpetrators to be retribution for Camilla.
We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission, the promise of our prophet, peace be upon him.
This boast signifies the final destruction of the fifth of the four original centres of the church. The others, already overrun by Islam, are Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
The film ends with a close-up of the blood-red water of the ocean: the signature in blood.
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The Third Choice, Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom is reviewed under the title Dhimmitude Dominates and excerpted in the New English Review. An interview with Dr. Durie can be found in The West Speaks published by the New English Review Press. He also is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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