Originally posted by CzechCzar
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Nazarene: A “Mark of Shame” Becomes a “Mark of Hope”
IT IS BOTH A SIGN OF FAITH AND A POLITICAL STATEMENT
Earlier this summer Mosul, Iraq – a city American soldiers liberated at great cost in blood and treasure – fell to the radical jihadists of ISIS, terrorists so extreme that even al Qaeda disaffiliated itself from their barbarism. And when Mosul fell, the jihadists did what jihadists do: implemented Shariah law and began ruthlessly persecuting Christians.
Their message to Mosul’s Christians was the ancient message of Islam to unbelievers: convert, pay a fine, or die.
To identify Christian homes and businesses, the jihadists marked them with a unique symbol of persecution. National Review’s Christine Sisto has the details:
The Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, had marked homes and businesses owned by Christians with a red, painted ن (pronounced “noon”), the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet and the equivalent to the Roman letter N. The ن stands for Nasara or Nazarenes, a pejorative Arabic word for Christians.
The markings looked like this:
The markings looked like this:
But what the jihadists intended for evil, the Body of Christ has reclaimed for good. Again, here’s Christine Sisto:The ن is now being shared on social media as a symbol of solidarity with the Iraqi Christians forced to flee their homes. The Catholic blog Rorate Caeli wrote, the Islamists “mean it as a mark of shame, we must then wear it as a mark of hope. . . . You may kill our brethren and expel them but we Christians will never go away.”
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