Christians who want to remain in the “caliphate,” the Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria, must agree to abide by terms of a “dhimma” contract – a practice going back to Mohamed’s rule that Ilamic land must be free of all other religions except those he saw as “of the book” and then those had to be subjugated to the truth. Under dhimma non-Muslims were regulated by Shariya, Islamic law, including wearing special clothes, banning of pubic practice of non Islamic religion, banning of intermarriage, banning of conversion from Islam, banning of churches that are too large, and “jizya,”.a special tax.
“We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,”
The Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, set a Saturday deadline for Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to “leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate”.
“After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword,” it said.
Reuters reports: Mosul, once home to diverse faiths, had a Christian population of around 100,000 a decade ago, but waves of attacks on Christians since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein have seen those numbers collapse to abut 5000. The vast bulk of those have since fled, leaving perhaps only 200 in the city, he said.