Читать книгу The Tragedy of Islam - Imam Mohammad Tawhidi - Страница 19

Six months later, when ISIS took control of Mosul in June 2014, I was temporarily based in Baghdad and literally less than 1 hour away from ISIS territory. The Iraqi government along with the rest of the Iraqi nation didn’t know how strong ISIS was, or if Mosul was the only area it intended to capture. The country was shaken and many ministers fled the country. Many citizens of the USA, UK, and other western countries fled Iraq through Baghdad Airport because they believed that if ISIS captured Baghdad they would all be held as political hostages.

I was also afraid. This event horrified me, but I decided not to flee the country. I immediately returned to the Holy City of Karbala, a sacred Shia Muslim stronghold that would be very difficult for ISIS to conquer. Now I was around 2 hours away from ISIS, and it is from here that my stance against Islamic extremism and fundamentalism became public. I made sure that the TV channel, including its social media platforms, primarily focused on preaching peace and tackling Islamic extremism. I began reporting from within Iraq regarding the security situation and the spread of the Islamic State. It didn’t look like it was going to end quickly, and ISIS began to spread rapidly throughout both Iraq and Syria.

I remained in Iraq, both studying and tackling the ideology of Islamic extremism through TV networks. Later in 2014, I was walking with my mother in the crowded holy city when there was an explosion nearby. I will never forget how the earth moved beneath my feet, and how I lost my mother for a few minutes among the stampede of thousands of frightened people running for their lives; because in many cases, if a bomb is detonated in one area, a second explosion will follow, which increased the pushing and shoving among civilians.

In January 2015, my Uncle Faris who was a colonel in the Iraqi Army went missing, and we later received a call from Baghdad informing us that ISIS had captured and burnt him alive. Despite all the government warnings not to travel on the roads leading to Baghdad at the time, I insisted that we received Faris’ body and made sure that he had an honorable burial. My uncle and I received his remains and held a funeral that my entire family attended to mourn his tragic death.

In December 2015, I felt that it was time for me to end my eight-year journey within the Islamic seminaries of Iran and Iraq by returning to Australia, which also meant that my work at Imam Hussein TV would be over. Although I knew that I would be preaching “Down Under,” I knew that it wasn’t going to be anything like the preaching of a typical Islamic cleric, and I had a strategic plan to make my message of peace and anti-extremism more effective.

After experiencing these events, losing a dear uncle and surviving ISIS terrorism, I was living in pain. This pushed me to enter the second stage of my de-radicalization phase, and I was about to not only liberate my mind from the fundamentalist ideologies taught to me, but to turn around and tackle them.

It all began the second I realised and felt deep down in my soul that I had been cheated and that my mind had been in the possession of barbarians who taught me corrupt and extreme ideologies, disguising it as knowledge that would benefit me in life and the hereafter.