Beards and underage concubines: Document reveals obsessions of Daesh

Pamphlets with Daesh logos found in Iraq show how the militant group dealt with female captives and allowed its members to take "pre-pubescent girls" as concubines.

Iraqi Yazidi women taken hostage by Daesh face extreme violence and sexual assault by the members of the terrorist group.
TRT World and Agencies

Iraqi Yazidi women taken hostage by Daesh face extreme violence and sexual assault by the members of the terrorist group.

Residents and militants in the Daesh seized villages are forced to follow strict and comprehensive lifestyle guidelines, from beard length to taking women as sex slaves, and punished if they violate their guidebook, documents found in Iraq showed.

Pamphlets and other materials, printed with Daesh logos were found by Reuters in offices used by the group until few days ago.

Members of Iraqi forces said the documents originated from the terrorist group, although this could not be independently verified.

The documents were found in villages captured by Iraqi forces that cooperate with Kurdish Peshmerga in a major offensive to take back Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city that Daesh proclaimed its caliphate in 2014.

Slick, colourful posters, pamphlets and documents that are found highlight the militant group's intense focus on dictating what it called "proper Islamic behaviour" for the citizens of its caliphate.

Violations of its rules meant punishment such as public whipping or being hauled off to Mosul for execution, according to several villagers who recently escaped from Daesh areas.

Under Islamic State's rules, women were required to largely stay at home or wear head-to-toe black coverings if they ventured out. Men wore short three-quarter pants which were deemed Islamic along with beards of appropriate length.

One of the pamphlets begins by defining a beard as "hair that grows on your face and your cheeks."

There were few forms of entertainment under Daesh rule, which banned the internet and music along with cellphones.

A ban on satellite dishes deprived Iraqis of news of the outside world. In a huge slick poster, entitled "Why I Should Destroy My Dish", the jihadists provided 20 reasons, revolving mostly around the immorality of satellite television programmes.

Reason 8: "Because satellite channels show stories of love and naked women and inappropriate language."

Reason 10: "Because satellite channels normalise men being effeminate and sissies."

Under-aged sex slaves

A pink and red pamphlet includes 32 questions and answers on how to deal with female captives.

A senior Daesh cleric has the authority to distribute female captives among its fighters, it said.

"Non-Muslim women can be taken as concubines," according to the leaflet.

A video emerged on social media purportedly showing Daesh members talking about which female slaves to take, including underage woman

They joke about the prices they are paying for the girls, and say "it depends of how she looks like."

Militants can own two sisters as concubines but only have sex with one.

"Pre-pubescent girls can be taken as concubines. You cannot have penetrative sex but you can still enjoy them," the leaflet added.

One question in the pamphlet asks whether a group of militants can share a concubine. The answer: only a single owner can sleep with a concubine.

After blazing through northern Iraq, Daesh took hundreds of women from the Yazidi minority as sex slaves.

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