WUNRN
http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-wives-syria-uk-blog-kobani/26708088.html
DIARY OF AN ISLAMIC STATE WIFE - BRITISH WOMAN IN SYRIA
TELLS OF HUSBAND’S DEATH IN KOBANI +
Women
wearing a niqab, a type of full veil, walk under a billboard erected by the
Islamic State (IS) group as part of a campaign in the IS-controlled Syrian city
of Raqqa on November 2.
November 24, 2014 - British Muslim woman who went to Syria to
marry an Islamic State militant has written about her experiences in a blog.
The woman -- who calls herself Umm Khattab al-Britaniyyaa -- says
she was married to a Swedish IS militant until his recent death in Kobani. In
her blog, she describes her everyday life in Syria, including her reactions
when she learned her husband had been killed.
Umm Khattab also relates how she traveled to Syria via Turkey and
the difficulties she faced when trying to cross the border to join IS.
The diary offers insights into how and why Western women are going
to join IS in Syria and Iraq; the extremist Sunni group’s attitudes toward
women's roles; and how women are taught to react when their husbands or male
acquaintances are killed in the fighting.
Umm Khattab's description of her husband's death is almost
matter-of-fact. She writes that on October 28, another woman, who is also with
IS, came to visit her and told her that her husband had been killed in IS's
offensive against Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian town of Kobani.
"[A] sister came to me and asked if my husband was Abu
Khattab Al Swedi ["The Swede"] I said yes and she said mabrook
["congratulations"] his [sic] shaheed ["a martyr"], I
didn't know how to react cause I didn't believe it so I laughed," Umm
Khattab recalled in a blog post on November 22.
Umm Khatab says she felt "very happy for my husband"
even though she would not see him again until "Akhirah" (an Islamic
term referring to the afterlife) because he had "finally made it" as
a martyr after a year in Syria.
Like other Salafi-jihadi groups, IS's ideology glorifies the
concept of "martyrdom" -- being killed in battle or committing
suicide in an attack against "infidels" -- as the ultimate reward for
waging jihad. "Martyrs" are lauded as as extraordinary heroes who made
the ultimate sacrifice to help establish an Islamic state. Social-media
accounts supportive of or run by IS militants often publish photographs of
militants who have been killed in battle, frequently claiming that the dead men
are smiling in death.
Umm Khatab also describes the death of another IS militant, her
husband's best friend, named as Abu Uthman Afghani ("The Afghan").
Some days after Abu Uthman was shot in Kobani and paralyzed from the waist
down, he succumbed to his injuries. "On 7th November Abu Uthman Afghani
also achieved what he was seeking for," Umm Khatab writes.
In an earlier diary entry, Umm Khatab describes how she traveled
to join IS in Syria, leaving behind her parents and younger siblings. In
Turkey, the British woman met up with two friends and their small children.
While trying to reach Syria, however, the three women were detained by the
Turkish authorities, who suspected they were with IS. The Turkish authorities
did not believe the women when they said they were aid workers seeking to go to
Syria and remanded them in custody, seeking to deport them.
However, in an interesting twist, Umm Khatab says that IS
intervened to help get the three women released.
"Dawlah [Islamic State] found out about our predicament and
sent us a lawyer who worked some magic and after a looooong tiring week in
prison they let us go," she wrote.
Once released, Umm Khattab says that she and her friends went to
cross the Turkish border into Syria. However, their difficulties were not yet
over: The three women found themselves at a border crossing controlled not by I
but by militants from the "FSA [Free Syrian Army] and Jabhat [Jabhat
al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate]."
When the militants at the border crossing started to speak in
Arabic ( they said that Umar Shishani, IS's military commander in Syria, was a
"murtad," an apostate) Umm Khattab began to feel uneasy. "I then
knew we were in a real sticky situation," she writes.
The militants in charge of the border crossing forced the three
women to go back into Turkey, where they were driven to a second border
crossing, this time controlled by IS.
Reading 'Pride & Prejudice' With IS Wives
Umm Khattab is not the only Western woman to write a diary about
her experiences traveling to Syria to join IS.
Another woman, who calls herself Bird of Jannah ["Bird of
Paradise"] and says she is a doctor who came to Syria to join IS in
February, writes an English-language blog called Diary of a Muhajirah
["Female Foreign Jihadi"]. In it, she describes her daily life in
Raqqa, the IS's de facto capital in Syria, and offers advice to wannabe IS
wives about what to bring to Syria (she suggests bringing a book, such as Jane
Austen's classic love story, "Pride And Prejudice").
"Download some good books or bring one or two good book.
Please, no *hardcore* topics. I personally downloaded few iBooks like Pride and
Prejudice and some english novels beside books written by Ibn Qayyim [an Arab
Sunni Islamic scholar] - and it helped a lot," she advises in her blog.
Bird of Jannah describes how IS provides housing, and basic
necessities (stove, cooking utensils and monthly groceries) for women who come
to Syria and join its ranks.
When women first arrive in Syria and join IS, the group places
them in an all-women's house called a "makkar," Bird of Jannah says.
Women are then rehoused elsewhere in Syria.
Women who join IS with skills such as teaching and nursing are
allowed to work, Bird of Jannah says.
Bird of Jannah describes the difficulties she faced in adapting to
life as an IS wife, including dealing with her family's anger and concern.
"I received tons of messages from my sister and family.
Anger, disappointed, confused -- their messages is all about asking 'Why' I
have to leave them in such horrible way. Another half of their messages is all
about requesting me to come back and they promised they will do anything even
travel to Turkey, only to bring me back home," she admits in her blog.
However, Bird of Jannah says her parents have accepted that she
will never return.
-- Joanna Paraszczuk