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Online Bible |
1 Samuel 31:9
And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish [it in] the house of their idols, and among the people.
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Posted by: Shawn on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 01:57 PM
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AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- The Assyrians are the indigenous people of what is today the modern state of Iraq. In Old Testament times, the homeland of the Assyrian was centred around the Nineveh plains in Upper Mesopotamia (Northern Iraq). When the prophet Jonah preached in Nineveh (present day Mosul), the people repented and turned to God. Whilst the great Assyrian military empire ended with the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, the Assyrian people did not, and have lived continuously in their homeland. News of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus travelled quickly to Assyria and multitudes became followers of Christ. The Assyrian Church of the East was founded in 33 AD, and the nation that was once a major military empire became a great missionary empire.
Arab invaders captured Mesopotamia in 630 AD and subjugated the Assyrians under Muslim domination. Kurds swept into Assyria from Turkey in 1261 AD driving Assyrians from their homes and massacring many. The Mongol invasion in 1300 AD almost eliminated the traumatised Assyrian population, but as always a remnant survived.
The Assyrians fought for the Allies in World War One and were promised autonomy in their homeland upon victory. In an act of appalling betrayal, that promise was never fulfilled. Instead, the Assyrians were abandoned to the mercy of the Ottoman Turks when the British mandate was lifted in 1932. As a result, two-thirds of the Assyrian population was massacred in 1933.
Whilst Saddam Hussein made Iraq a secular state, the Assyrian remnant suffered severely under his discriminatory ethnic policy of Arabisation. Unfortunately liberation from Saddam appears to be leading back to subjugation and persecution under Islam.
On Monday morning 7 June, four masked men drove into the Christian Assyrian Quarters (Hay Al-Athuryeen) of the Dora district of Baghdad and opened fire on Assyrians going to work. Four were killed and several others wounded. At 5pm, also in Dora, three Assyrian women were killed in another drive-by shooting as they returned home from working at the Coalition Provisional Authority. On 22 March, an elderly Assyrian couple were murdered in the Assyrian district - the wife was beaten to death and the husband had his throat cut. These are just some of the latest in a continual string of attacks on Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Assyrian leaders testify that the attacks are definitely religiously motivated. They greatly fear that the history of abandonment and massacre of this indigenous Christian minority may be about to repeat itself.
Assyrian Christians and churches have also received letters in Arabic threatening that if they don't follow Islamic practice and also support 'the resistance' they will face the consequences: 'torture, and burning or exploding the house with the family in it'. Mandaeans, who follow the teachings of John the Baptist, have been receiving the same threats and suffering the same violence. Unchecked Islamic aggression is forcing Christians and Mandaeans to flee. Perhaps significantly, the one Assyrian in the ministry of the new government holds his post in the Ministry of Emigration.
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