Middle Eastern Christianity in Syria and Iraq: At The Epicentre of The Rise of The Islamic State
Middle Eastern Christianity in Syria and Iraq: At The Epicentre of The Rise of The Islamic State

Author(s): Stavros Drakoularakos
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Islam studies, Politics and religion, Politics and Identity
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Middle Eastern Christianity; Syria; Iraq; Islamic State; Middle Eastern; Christianity;
Summary/Abstract: The slogan “property of the Islamic State” was found graffitied on walls of houses, buildings and farms wherever and whenever Daesh forces successfully captured a city or village in Iraq and Syria. The exodus of Christians from those regions during the decade of the 2010s, and especially throughout the times of the rise and fall of the Islamic State, is estimated to amount to approximately at least one million people. The factors behind the mass exodus are chiefly located in the atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters, in addition to the wider ramifications of the various and ongoing infighting in the Syrian and Iraqi states, ever since the 2010 Arab uprisings and the 2003 Gulf war, respectively. Both Syria and Iraq host a large part of Middle Eastern Christianity followers and have been subject to numerous studies with regard to the co-optation policies between Church and state during the previous decades. However, the impact of the state-building and identity homogenisation processes of the Islamic State on the Christian communities themselves have been mainly confined within the larger examination of international and regional geopolitical antagonisms, the Sunni-Shia sectarian tensions, Kurdish state-building and irredentism, or the impact and aftermath of the Arab uprisings. Instead, this chapter opts for a focused lens on the Christian communities’ life shifts and limited options, both during the rise and initial establishment of the Islamic State, as well as following its eventual collapse.

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