(Hürriyet Newspaper, 2 June 2015)
"Death to Gillette and Wilkinson! And Bic, too!"
The terror organization ISIS has forbidden men in Mosul,
which it has controlled for about a year, from shaving their
beards. The ban began yesterday and for the past few weeks
ISIS militants have been passing out brochures asserting that
cutting one's beard is a sin, that barbers are committing a sin
and that those who shave will be punished. Passages from the
Koran have been referred to in this regard.
Nedim Ali (30), a taxi driver who spoke with the French news
agency AFP, said that he has a skin problem and has to shave.
He even brought a doctor's report to the ISIS religious police.
Unmoved, the police told Ali that if he cut even one hair on
his beard he would be confined to his house.
"Uh, just a trim. And I don't know the guy next to me."
The ISIS ban on beard shaving brings to mind the 'beard
patrol' that the Taliban implemented in Afghanistan in recent
years. The Taliban gave persons who shaved their beards
jail sentences of from 3 days to a week.
However, there are those that believe that this ban is an ISIS
tactic, rather than a religious pretext. Umm Muhammed, a
woman teacher, claimed that the reason ISIS is forcing men
to have beards and women to wear a full-body cloak is so
that everyone can become a 'human shield'.
In this way, if the Iraqi Army and Shiite militias mount an
operation against Mosul, it will be difficult to sort our the
ISIS militants from the civilian population. Since Mosul
has a very large civilian population, such an operation would
be extremely risky.
ISIS militants are being careful lately to minimize their
profile as a target. A former Iraqi Army member now
living in Mosul said that ISIS members are using vehicles
without logos these days and are not carrying the ISIS
flag with them.
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