Ever since ISIS began their assault on the Middle Eastern world, they have caused havoc and turmoil wherever they went. Here on The Inquisitr , we reported numerous times on their movements, including their persecutions against Christians which includes the burning of an 1,800-year-old church and an ultimatum to Iraqi Christians to convert to Islam or face death. Let’s not forget our report on ISIS ordering the genital mutilation of Muslim women too. And for those who are still not informed on the ISIS threat, there is a video that explains the situation in less than five minutes.
Now ISIS terrorists have shown their disrespect for all three Abrahamic monotheistic religions by destroying the historical tomb of a prophet all three have in common: Jonah.
According to a report by MSN , the terrorists — known as the new jihadist rulers of Iraq’s northern city of Mosul — completely leveled the Nabi Yunus shrine on Thursday. The prophet Yunis is the Koran’s name of the Biblical prophet Jonah. Still, whether it be Jonah or Yunis, his tomb was completely destroyed as mentioned in a statement by an official at the Sunni endowment, which manages Sunni religious affairs in Iraq:
“Islamic State completely destroyed the shrine of Nabi Yunis (Jonah) after telling local families to stay away and closing the roads to a distance of 500 meters from the shrine.”
The endowment official, who remained anonymous, said it took the terrorists an hour to rig the shrine with explosives. A witness, who chose not to give their name, gave their view of what happened at the shrine too:
“They first stopped people from praying in it, they fixed explosive charges around and inside it and then blew it up in front of a large gathering of people.”
In another report by CNN , Jonah’s tomb may not actually have been inside the Nabi Yunus shrine. Biblical scholars are divided on whether the tomb in Mosul actually belonged to Jonah. Jewish tradition states he returned to his hometown of Gath-Hepher after his mission to Nineveh. Also, some modern scholars say that Jonah’s story is more myth than history, especially the part about being inside the belly of a whale for three days and three nights. Scholars, Joel S. Baden and Candida Moss, wrote a blog entry about how Jonah is actually more important in Christianity compared to Islam and Judaism. The entry states the following:
“In Christian tradition, the story of Jonah is an important one. Jonah’s descent into the depth of the belly of the great fish and subsequent triumphant prophetic mission to Nineveh is seen as a reference to and prototype of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Maybe that is why the ISIS terrorists destroyed the shrine in the first place because they refer to the destruction of Jonah’s tomb as an attack on Christians living in Iraq today.
[Images via Bing]