ISIS In New Video To Christians In Qaryatayn, Syria: Pay Jizya — Or You Will Be Executed And Your Wives Enslaved

From MEMRI:

On October 3, 2015, the information office of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Damascus Province posted a five-minute video titled “[Fight Those Who Do Not Believe In Allah] Until They Give The Jizya Willingly While They Are Humbled” (from Koran 9:29). The video, posted on Archive.org and disseminated via social media, including on Twitter under the Damascus Province hashtag, deals with ISIS’s imposition of a dhimma contract and the jizya poll tax on the Christian residents of the city of Qaryatayn, Syria, which it recently conquered. The video is accompanied by footage of ISIS removing crosses from churches and destroying them, as well as video of the signing of the contract.

The video opens by showing ISIS fighters entering Qaryatayn and marching through its streets. A narrator stresses that after it was “liberated” by ISIS fighters from the “the tyrant’s soldiers [i.e. the army of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad],” shari’a law had returned to the city and its Muslim residents are smiling again. The narrator says that some of the city’s Christians had chosen to convert to Islam, while others preferred signing the dhimma contract, paying the jizya tax, and living in peace and security in the Islamic Caliphate state. Images are shown of ISIS fighters throwing a cross off the roof of a church and of a church hall destroyed by ISIS.

An ISIS member then explains the group’s treatment of the city’s Christians following its takeover. He says that some Christians were taken captive, while others fled to “Diyar Al-Kuffr [the abodes of disbelief] and places controlled by Bashar the Nusairi [Alawite].”

The ISIS member says that the Christians who had been taken captive and remained in the city had four options: One, the men could be killed and the women and children could be enslaved. Two, they could be exchanged for prisoners, money, or booty. Three, they could be pardoned, provided they leave the caliphate. Four, they could sign the dhimma contract and pay the jizya. In the end, he says, “the caliph of Muslims [Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi] displayed kindness and generosity [to the Christians] and agreed to receive their jizya tax and allow them to live under caliphate rule as part of the dhimma contract.” He adds that “the leader of the Muslims” had agreed to give the Christians who fled the city an opportunity to sign the dhimma contract and to return within a month to their homes and fields.

The speaker concludes: “This is a message to all Christians in the East and West, and to the defender of the Cross America: Convert to Islam and no harm will come to you. If you obey, you will have to pay the jizya poll tax.” The speaker mentioned comments by ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-‘Adnani, who previously said that the payment of the jizya is a thousand times smaller than the Christian investment in war against the Muslims, which is in any case destined to fail.