Reign of Terror: Inside the Islamic State
by Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
The Islamic State’s caliphate turns one year old on June 29, and few inside its domains, aside from the true believers who have traveled all over the world to live in the Islamic promised land, are likely to be celebrating. Like all totalitarian states, it has swiftly established for its citizens an environment of oppression and fear, supported (in a new twist) not by a personality cult centered upon the specter of a ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-knowing leader, but by the guilt-manipulation of religious duty. Obey the Islamic State’s dictates, no matter how egregious, or else you’ll not just be tortured and brutally murdered, but you’ll burn in hell besides.
And so those deemed to be ideologically deviant are not labeled “counterrevolutionaries” or “imperialist running dogs” or “capitalist roaders,” but “heretics,” and are made to carry “repentance cards.”
A repentance card is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, however. Everyone in the Islamic State must show signs of his or her repentance and devoutness in Islam every day, or else. Breaking the law in the Islamic State can get you lashed
the law in the Islamic State can get you lashed or even beheaded – even for “infractions” such as these, many of which are classic Sharia provisions and thus are found in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere as well:
Women must cover their entire body except face and hands. (According to some reports, they must cover their faces as well.)
Women may not leave the house without a male
accompanying them.
Only women may sell clothing to women.
Women must not wear high heels, but only flat-soled shoes.
Not only drugs and alcohol, but cigarettes are forbidden.
Those who leave Islam are to be killed.
Graves and shrines are forbidden, and are to be destroyed.