Isis: The Origins of Violence Page #2

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In the Koran, jihad meant the effort

required to be a good Muslim.

But defeat here gave it a much

sharper meaning.

Sacred violence.

Stories began to be told of

Muhammad,

that he believed those who died

fighting for Islam

would receive the

greatest rewards in heaven.

The sword scrapes away sin.

As a result, those who died here

were cast as martyrs.

In here we've got the tomb of...

...supposedly, an Arab soldier

in the first Arab campaign

that was sent

against Constantinople.

And he is supposed to have died

here, so he ranks as a martyr.

He died for his faith.

And the... ...sight of his...

...tomb was discovered, supposedly,

after the Muslims had conquered

Constantinople in 1453.

So many centuries afterwards.

And... ...you might think...

...this was quite a convenient, not

to say improbable, discovery.

Nevertheless, this tomb in here

commemorates one of Islam's

earliest jihadis.

With the Ottoman conquest of

Constantinople,

the city became the capital

of a great Islamic civilisation.

Its sultans ruled as caliphs,

successors of Muhammad himself,

and claimed the allegiance of

Muslims across the world.

But then, a century ago, came the

fall.

The Royal Navy in the Bosphorus

marked the end of the

First World War.

Allied troops occupied Istanbul.

A new Turkish strongman arrived,

Ataturk,

a moderniser with little time for

Islam.

In 1924 his assault on Islamic

tradition reached a seismic climax.

This is the Dolmabahce Palace. It

was built in the mid-19th century.

Now, the reason that it is a museum

these days is because the dynasty

for which it was built, the Ottoman

caliphs, no longer exists.

And the reason for that is that

on 3rd March, 1924,

the caliphate itself was abolished.

So, a line of caliphs that stretched

all the way back

to the lifetime of

those who'd known Muhammad himself

was terminated.

And that evening,

the prefect of police came to the

palace and told the Caliph,

Abdulmejid II, that

it was all over,

that he had to leave,

and that he had to pack his bags and

go that very night.

The last caliph left Istanbul at

5.30 in the morning.

His journey into exile took him

across the Galata Bridge.

He headed north through the aqueduct

of Valens...

...along the ancient walls

and out through the Edirne Gate...

...where, almost 500 years before,

the sultan who had conquered

Constantinople

first entered the city.

The Caliph and his family were

dumped here...

...a provincial railway station,

30 miles outside Istanbul,

by authorities who wanted as few

people as possible to know

what was happening.

He waited at the station house for

13 hours.

The train, when it arrived, was the

Orient Express...

...ironically enough, then, as now,

one of the most flamboyant symbols

of Western wealth and reach.

An extra carriage had been added for

his luggage and his wives.

He left with a Swiss visa

and 2,000 British pounds.

He never came back.

In the West, no-one remembers this

moment.

But Osama bin Laden did.

When he destroyed

the World Trade Center

it was the end of the caliphate

that was uppermost in his mind.

"Our nation," he declared,

"has been tasting this humiliation

and contempt"

"for more than 80 years."

The caliphate is the kind of ideal

that never completely disappears.

For years it was locked-up in

history's left luggage.

But then, someone picked up the key.

In 2014, Isis declared a new

caliphate.

Their leader, al-Baghdadi, became

the new caliph.

This is the Monastery of Mar Mattai,

St Matthew.

Founded in the fourth century, it's

the oldest monastery in Iraq.

Once there were thousands of monks

here.

Now, only a handful.

And when I came here a few months

ago,

it was not hard to find the reason

why.

If you'd looked out here 1,200 years

ago,

you would have been looking at the

beating heart of Christendom.

Because at a time when the

Christians of Europe were

embattled and impoverished,

the Christians of the lands

out there were enjoying

a golden age.

Those days have long gone.

Um, in this huge monastery,

there are now only two monks.

And if those two monks ventured down

there beyond that ridge,

you see there are two black patches

over there,

like kind of patches of mould.

Those are villages, and if the monks

went into those villages,

they would be killed on the spot.

Um...

Just beyond the horizon lies the

city of Mosul where,

for the first time in 1,500 years,

Mass is no longer heard.

And the reason for that is that over

there...

...those lands that were once the

Christian heartlands

are now the Islamic State.

Out there are the shock troops of

Isis.

The holy place.

I should also show you the secret

altar in the monastery.

Maybe if you want, you can see it

now.

I would like that. Yes.

Thank you.

Father Yusuf is one of the very few

monks left in this monastery.

For 1,400 years, Christians here

have been preparing for the worst.

But there's no way to prepare

against Isis.

And we have another, more secretly

from here.

Oh, yes! Yes, this one.

You can see, it's so small,

it does not take more than four

people.

The priest and the monks here,

they used to use this altar when

they were attacked.

It's isolated.

And so they can... No

one can hear them.

And no one will know that they are

here.

Yes.

It must make you feel s...

...very close to the founder of the

church.

Yes. To be here, and facing what you

face. Yes.

Mar Mattai has a long history, but

has it got a future?

I don't see any future for the

Christians here.

So, why are you here?

It's my duty, firstly.

My faith.

What I'm learned from my religion,

from the word of the Bible,

Jesus Christ, that's made me

not frightened

from any things.

Because they can do nothing more

than to kill me.

1,400 years ago,

monks like Father Yusuf provided Muhammad

himself with a model of holiness.

Islam, though, would give

monasticism a novel spin.

"Our monasticism", the prophet is

reported as saying,

"is jihad in the cause of God.

"Our monasticism is the crying of

"Allahu Akbar" on hilltops."

This is Sinjar, 80 miles west of the

monastery.

Isis came here in August 2014.

By the time they left five months

later, 5,000 men had been massacred.

Women and children carried off.

Spongepants Bob.

It's the quality of a nightmare.

You're walking through an absolutely

shattered city, and you see...

...a cartoon character.

And then on the other side, you've got

what looks like a kind of Roman city.

Except that this destruction was

made, it wasn't made by legions,

it was made by suicide bombers.

When they came into Sinjar, they

left...

...heads everywhere on spikes,

hanging in public places,

like the cruellest of Mesopotamian

kings.

And like a Roman legion,

they took away the women and the

girls into slavery.

So, what I think is...

...they are...

They're like ghosts, risen up from

the past of vanished empires.

And they're kind of like ghouls

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