Just imagine the fun of being a Muslim in Raqqa. It’s a good deal more peppery than life in Chapel Hill, according to what the Independent says.
Residents of a city besieged by Isis have described living under strict bans on alcohol and cigarettes, with anyone caught smoking publicly flogged, handed huge fines and even reportedly executed.
I dislike smoking myself, but I don’t think people should be executed for it.
Raqqa, in Syria, is one of the group’s biggest strongholds.
A leading figure with Isis’s police force was recently found in Deir-al-Zor beheaded and with a cigarette in his mouth, with the sentence “O Sheikh this is munkar (hateful and evil thing)” written on his body.
Harsh.
Isis swiftly shut down shops selling cigarettes and water pipes after Raqqa fell and banned street vendors from selling smoking materials. One man described militants bending his fingers with pliers after
being[he was] caught smoking in the street to Al Monitor.The group also released a series of statements from the so-called Isis ‘Preaching Office’ describing the health problems that made smoking “a slow suicide“.
Ah! Well no wonder they execute people for doing it then. Speeds up the suicide.
smoking “a slow suicide“
They learn that “we had to bomb the village in order to save it” logic from Robert MacNamara? Their concern is really amazing.
I bet I they’re anti-vaxxers, too.
From wiki:
“Islam, as with other Abrahamic religions, views suicide as one of the greatest sins and utterly detrimental to one’s spiritual journey. A verse in the Quran instructs;
“And do not kill yourselves, surely God is most Merciful to you.”
— Qur’an, Sura 4 (An-Nisa), ayat 29″
…
The prohibition of suicide has also been recorded in statements of hadith, (sayings of Muhammad). For example:
Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, “He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell Fire (forever) and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself shall keep on stabbing himself in the Hell-Fire.”
—Sahih al-Bukhari, 2:23:446
So it’s a religious proscription against intentional suicide, which is silly enough as it is, but is then twisted further to include any behavior that has a life-shortening effect.
Like becoming a militant I guess.