The Faces Of ISIS Facebook: Australian Boy and English Rapper Pose With Severed Heads on Islamic State Social Media
jonathanturley
We recently discussed the homicidal hunk from ISIS who is all the rage with Muslim women looking for a husband to watch martyred. The extremist Sunni movement has been reaching out to Westerners to join their self-declared caliphate and thousands have reportedly responded. Now even more disturbing pictures have been posted with a father from Australia having his seven-year-old son holding up a severed head in celebration and a former British rapper (right) doing the same. Beheadings are viewed by ISIS as a traditional Islamic form of execution and a type of macabre celebration of their view of Islam. Severed heads feature prominently on ISIS (or Islamic State) social media postings.
The image of the young boy is particularly shocking for most people even after being deadened by weeks of atrocities and murders by ISIS forces. Sharrouf (left and right) claims that this is his son who has joined him in the wonderful caliphate created by the Islamic State. Sharrouf is wanted on terrorism charges in Australia and escaped to the Middle East on his brother’s passport. He posted the picture with the caption: “That’s my boy.”
He of course also posed with the severed head — a signature moment for any Islamic State fanatic and apparently a father-son bonding moment. He followed the grisly pics with a prayer that Allah “grant us martyrdom.”
As a father of four who yesterday prevented my nine-year-old daughter from watching Batman as too violent, I cannot imagine the twisted religious view that prompts a father to teach a child to mock and devalue a human life in this fashion. But then again beheading are not viewed in our house as the ultimate expression of religious values.
A friend of Sharrouf defended the picture and told the Telegraph that “This is what every sensible Muslim wants, to bring their children up in a caliphate . . . I don’t see what the big concern is getting children to hold up severed heads.” In the meantime, pro-Islamic State flyers and supporters have appeared in England. These are people who see these images and rejoiced in them as the culmination of their true faith.
Much like the once secularized law student turned homicidal religious fanatic, British rapper Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 23, shows how quickly an individual can become radicalized in these Islamic extremist circles. Before he was modeling with severed heads of non-believers and traitors, he was trying to establish himself in the record industry. Then roughly a year all, he walked out of his family’s wealthy home in Maida Vale, west London, to join ISIS and “leav[e] everything for the sake of Allah.” His new persona posted pictures laughing with severed heads and the caption “Chillin’ with my homie or what’s left of him.” He went from a rapper on the “grime” music scene to extremist after encountering Anjem Choudary — a hateful and extremist Muslim speaker. Now Bary displays heads with captions like “It’s beautiful when you see Allah’s laws implemented.”
These pictures truly capture the insurmountable gulf between these Islamic fanatics and the rest of humanity, including most Muslims. They revel in the blood and killings of non-believers and seem liberated from basic human values by their religion. Their clerics seem to tap into not just pre-existing rage but a desire for murder and torture. The sense of euphoria in these images speaks to an almost narcotic effect of unrestrained violent rage. What is interesting is that this is not some weekend frolic of homicidal joy but a constant state of serving Allah by severing heads.
