Above, ISIS brutality.
I Thank and praise Yeshua and the Holy Spirit for giving these Syrian "baby Christians" peace of heart. Peace of heart is one of Yeshua's greatest gifts.
Four years have
passed since the Islamic State group's fighters were run out of Kobani, a
strategic city on the Syrian-Turkish border, but the militants' violent and
extreme interpretation of Islam has left some questioning their faith.
A new church is
attracting converts. It is the first new local Christian place of worship for
decades.
“If ISIS represents
Islam, I don’t want to be a Muslim anymore,” Farhad 23, who attends the
Church of the Brethren said. “Their God is not my God.”
Religious conversions
are rare and taboo in Syria, with those who abandon Islam often ostracized by
their families and communities.
“Even under the
Syrian regime before the revolution, it was strictly forbidden to change
religion from Islam to Christianity or the opposite,” said Omar, 38, who serves
as an administrator at the Protestant church. (He asked for his last name not
to be revealed for safety reasons. The church's priest declined to be
interviewed.)
“Changing your
religion under ISIS wasn’t even imaginable. ISIS would kill you immediately,”
he added.
While residents are
still dealing with the emotional scars left by the brutality of ISIS, Omar says many people in Kobani
have been open-minded about Christianity.
“Most of the brothers
here converted or come to church as a result of what ISIS did to them and to
their families,” he added. “No one is forced to convert. Our weapon is the
prayer, the spreading of spirit of love, brotherhood and tolerance.”
Islamic leaders
around the world have spoken against the extremists' ideology, accusing the
ISIS militants of hijacking their religion.
In 2014, more than
100 Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
saying the militant group has “misinterpreted Islam into a religion of
harshness, brutality, torture and murder.”
Only 4.6 percent of
Syrians are believed to be Christian, according to a report by the Aid to the Church in Need.
The Catholic charity estimates that 700,000 Christians have fled the country
since the civil war erupted in 2011, an exodus that has halved their proportion
of the population.
Jasim, who works as a
mechanic, converted to Christianity late last year.
He says he was jailed
by ISIS for six months in early 2016 after the militants discovered he didn't
know the basics of Islam. He says he was tortured in ISIS captivity and forced
to read the Quran.
“After I witnessed
their brutality with my own eyes, I started to be skeptical about my belief,”
Jasim said, anger rising in his voice.
After hearing about
the Church of the Brethren — which opened in September and is part of a
denomination with its origins in 18th-century Germany — Jasim decided to visit
and see for himself what it was all about.
“It didn’t take me
long to discover that Christianity was the religion I was searching for,” he
said.
But walking away from
Islam meant his relationship with his parents and other family members was
over.
Fighting back tears,
Jasim says he hopes that his loved ones will not only one day forgive him for
finding a new faith, but consider converting themselves.
Like Jasim, Firas
also turned away from Islam after witnessing ISIS atrocities. He converted to
Christianity around six months ago.
“ISIS members were
terrorizing people and then going to the mosque to pray to Allah,” said Firas,
47, who is a farmer and asked for his last name not to be published for
security reasons. “After their prayers, they would leave the mosque and
terrorize people again.”
Firas, his wife and
their three daughters lived under ISIS in the countryside near Deir ez-Zor in
eastern Syria for two years.
Life under ISIS meant
threatening and punishing anyone who was against the group's beliefs, he
recalled.
Firas said he
witnessed civilians being held inside cages on public streets on hot summer
days during Ramadan because they were caught eating or drinking; Muslims are
expected to fast from dawn until sunset during the holy month.
“I saw men and young
teenagers being whipped on the streets because they were caught smoking. I saw
dead bodies of young men being thrown from high buildings for being gay,” Firas
said. “This was their Islam.”
Firas says that he
has not turned against his old faith and that all of his relatives remain
conservative Muslims. But the brutality he witnessed in the caliphate was too
much to bear.
"If heaven is made for ISIS and their belief, I
would choose hell for myself instead of being again with them in the same
place, even if it’s paradise," he said.
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