ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State (ISIS) has arrested hundreds of shopkeepers in Mosul for failure to pay a religious tax to the fanatical group that has occupied the city in northern Iraq for more than a year, a Kurdish official said Wednesday.
Businesses in the vast territories that ISIS controls in Iraq and Syria must pay their “zakat,” or Islamic alms that practicing Muslims usually give to the poor, to the militant group, known as “Daesh” in Arabic.
“Daesh arrested 355 shop owners in Mosul after they refused to pay zakat to the group,” said Saad Mamuzin, spokesman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Mosul, who lives in the Kurdistan Region since ISIS seized the city in June last year.
He added that ISIS had previously warned it would punish violators.
“Anyone who violates the ISIS decree is imprisoned by the group,” Mamuzin said, explaining that detainees have been taken to unknown locations and their fate is unknown.
ISIS subscribes to a fanatical version of Wahhabi Islam that remains strongest in Saudi Arabia.
The group, which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria, has imposed strict religious laws in its territories, including bans on things like men shaving beards and on music.
More recently, in Mosul it has forbidden the traditional group prayers for Eid, the feast this week that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan for Muslims everywhere.
It has lately instructed that no one should visit the graves of dead ones for Eid, as some Muslims do to offer prayers to deceased relatives or friends.
“ISIS has warned that anyone who visits graveyards or approaches them will be arrested and face punishment,” said Esmat Rajab, another KDP official.
