ISIS Tries to Erase Christianity from Middle East by Burning Hundreds of Christian Textbooks

Leah Marieann Klett : Mar 15, 2016
Gospel Herald

...the books had been collected from the many Christian schools and churches throughout the once thriving city.

A disturbing new video has emerged showing Islamic State militants burning Christian textbooks in an attempt to erase all traces of religions other than Islam from the ancient city of Mosul, Iraq—a region thousands of Christians once called home. (Photo Credit: ARA News)

According to a report from the Kurdish media outlet ARA News, the terror group published a video through the affiliated Amaq news agency last week. The video, titled "Diwan of education destroys Christian instruction books in Mosul," shows IS militants tossing hundreds of Christian textbooks, many of them emblazoned with crosses, into a large bonfire.
 
A local activist, Abdullah al-Mulla, told ARA News the books had been collected from the many Christian schools and churches throughout the once thriving city.
 
"ISIS jihadis burned hundreds of Christian textbooks in central Mosul," al-Mulla said. "The militants have also collected a lot of Christian textbooks from the Dawassa district near Martyr's' Park and publicly burned then," he added.
 
As reported by The Gospel Herald, Mosul has been occupied by ISIS since June 2014 and is considered to be the main stronghold for the terror group in the region. Once ISIS took over the city, it issued an edict to drive out the remaining Christian citizens and offered an ultimatum: convert to Islam or die.
 
The city, the capital of the northern Nineveh Province, was estimated to have a population of approximately 1.8 million at the time ISIS' offensive, but at least 150,000 were forced to flee their homes to avoid falling under the group's rule.
 
The recent destruction in Mosul is the latest in a string of attacks on Christianity's heritage, which the jihadist group is steadily erasing from the Middle East.
 
In February 2015, IS fighters ransacked a central Mosul library and burned over 100,000 different books and manuscripts, a move the director general of the U.N.'s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Irina Bokova referred to as "one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history."
 
In July, the group blew up Mother of Aid Church, which had stood in...
 
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