Liberty Unyielding:
Syrian man beheaded for violating Sharia law … by lighting up a smoke
“This is not permissible, Sheikh.” That’s what someone had scrawled in Arabic on the decapitated corpse found last month in the eastern Syrian city of Al-Mayadeen, reports the Los Angeles Times. The reference was to a cigarette still firmly planted between the lips of the severed head — which also explains the reason for the gruesome murder: “Although smoking is allowed under Islam,” writes author Nabih Bulos, “some ultraconservative variations of Sharia law condemn the practice as a slow form of suicide, and therefore haram — forbidden.”
That nugget of information comes roughly halfway through an article that purports to be about the savagery of the Islamic State. The whimsical title is “Islamic State: Smoking will kill you, one way or another.” And, indeed, the man who was beheaded had a connection to the Islamic State — but as an officer in it, not a prisoner.
Yeah, peaceful.
