Isis: The Origins of Violence Page #4

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If you'd looked out here 1,200 years

ago,

you would have been looking at the

beating heart of Christendom.

Because at a time when the

Christians of Europe were

embattled and impoverished,

the Christians of the lands

out there were enjoying

a golden age.

Those days have long gone.

Um, in this huge monastery,

there are now only two monks.

And if those two monks ventured down

there beyond that ridge,

you see there are two black patches

over there,

like kind of patches of mould.

Those are villages, and if the monks

went into those villages,

they would be killed on the spot.

Um...

Just beyond the horizon lies the

city of Mosul where,

for the first time in 1,500 years,

Mass is no longer heard.

And the reason for that is that over

there...

...those lands that were once the

Christian heartlands

are now the Islamic State.

Out there are the shock troops of

Isis.

The holy place.

I should also show you the secret

altar in the monastery.

Maybe if you want, you can see it

now.

I would like that. Yes.

Thank you.

Father Yusuf is one of the very few

monks left in this monastery.

For 1,400 years, Christians here

have been preparing for the worst.

But there's no way to prepare

against Isis.

And we have another, more secretly

from here.

Oh, yes! Yes, this one.

You can see, it's so small,

it does not take more than four

people.

The priest and the monks here,

they used to use this altar when

they were attacked.

It's isolated.

And so they can... No

one can hear them.

And no one will know that they are

here.

Yes.

It must make you feel s...

...very close to the founder of the

church.

Yes. To be here, and facing what you

face. Yes.

Mar Mattai has a long history, but

has it got a future?

I don't see any future for the

Christians here.

So, why are you here?

It's my duty, firstly.

My faith.

What I'm learned from my religion,

from the word of the Bible,

Jesus Christ, that's made me

not frightened

from any things.

Because they can do nothing more

than to kill me.

1,400 years ago,

monks like Father Yusuf provided Muhammad

himself with a model of holiness.

Islam, though, would give

monasticism a novel spin.

"Our monasticism", the prophet is

reported as saying,

"is jihad in the cause of God.

"Our monasticism is the crying of

"Allahu Akbar" on hilltops."

This is Sinjar, 80 miles west of the

monastery.

Isis came here in August 2014.

By the time they left five months

later, 5,000 men had been massacred.

Women and children carried off.

Spongepants Bob.

It's the quality of a nightmare.

You're walking through an absolutely

shattered city, and you see...

...a cartoon character.

And then on the other side, you've got

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