Residents of Qaraqosh, currently the largest Christian city in the Nineveh Plains, also worry that a similar transition could happen. William, an internally displaced person (IDP) who is attempting to rebuild his life in Qaraqosh, said, “Church transformation to mosques is something they try to do by starting to plant a mosque into a Christian area and then increasing the number of the mosques. This is the strategy.”
He added, “I remember they built a mosque in Qaraqosh when there were only three Muslim families living in Qaraqosh. That was more than 20 years ago.”
The mosque remains in Qaraqosh, untouched by ISIS even as the militants ravaged the city’s churches during their two-year occupation. Christians are still not allowed to be part of the city’s upper-level governing apparatus. Many of the city’s residents have not returned home following their displacement by ISIS.
Empty churches are also a common presence in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. Historically, the security and stability challenges that plague the rest of the country are often on full display in Baghdad. The exodus of most Christians from Baghdad predates ISIS, but the consequences remain on tragic exhibition.
In May of 2017, after nearly seven years of low attendance, eight Baghdad churches closed. “We are suffering now a lot to rebuild [the] local Christian community,” an Anglican priest told ICC at the time.
Given the history, many Christians would not be surprised if these and other churches slowly transform into mosques. Leon, a Christian from Baghdad, sees no problem with closing churches that are empty of believers, but worries about their possible transformation into mosques.
“I don’t have problem on losing the church [as much as] I have on turning it into a mosque,” he said. “It means there is one more torture place added to the city, either through the theology they broadcast or through hiding illegal weapons inside mosques. I lived in a Sunni area and, after 2003, I was a witness many times [to] the army attacking mosques and taking weapons.”
Today, there remain many examples of mosques laden with weapons, further contributing to the deterioration of Iraq’s security situation.
The more the situation deteriorates, the more Christians feel the pain of what they lost in Iraq. Salma, who was displaced by ISIS from Mosul, said, “My grandfather was a Pasha, he got that position after years of serving the province. Christians always have great influence on [the] community where they live. We built this country; we own this country.”
With ISIS’s occupation of the Nineveh Plains a recent memory, their shadow is still present throughout society. Thousands of Christians are still displaced and the potential transformation of empty churches to mosques remains a sorrowful reality for many Christians.
Mariam, an elderly woman held captive by ISIS in Qaraqosh during their two-year occupation, recalls how the destruction of churches was coupled with the advancement of Islamic extremism.
“We’ve been in this country for thousands of years, we are the roots,” she said. “When I was under ISIS captivity, they tried to push us to lose hope by telling us they took over all Iraq, by telling us they killed all of our people.”
She hopes that someday, there will be justice for all of the pain experienced at the hands of extremists. She has a strong message for those who have taken the churches. “Let them do what they want, take churches as much as they can. Still the history will record that against them and God will punish them one day!”
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*The church was known by each of these three names
** Issa is the Arabic name for Jesus
For interviews with Claire Evans, Regional Manager, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org