Sunday, March 22, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
The receipt, from December, was given to a Syrian Armenian Christian in the city of Raqqa.
ISIS is enforcing Islamic law by requiring Christians (and, theoretically, Jews) to pay a poll tax to their Muslim masters. If they refuse then they are branded as enemies and given a "choice" of exile or death.
Tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians have fled their homes when ISIS took over.
The Islamic law states that the second-class dhimmis must pay on a graded scale: wealthy ones pay the value of 13 grams of gold, average people half that amount and poor people a quarter of the amount. This Armenian, Sargis Araklian, was poor so he only paid the equivalent of $136.
While there is no love of ISIS in much of the Arab world, the articles seem to be written with a sense of pride, as if this was a historic occasion. The articles are proudly showing the first photographic proof in recent history of a Christian paying the jizya tax that most Muslims believe is their due for "protecting" them.
