Captive of the caliphate

摘要

THIS is a disturbing book. Many readers will find parts of it hard to stomach. But anyone who wants to understand the so-called Islamic State (is) should read it. The jihadists who until recently controlled much of Iraq and Syria hit on a recruiting technique that was as crude as it was ingenious. They urged their fighters to capture and keep sex slaves-and convinced them to feel virtuous about it. Nadia Murad was one of those slaves. Jihadists came to her village in Iraq and slaughtered all the adult men and the women they deemed too old to rape. The victims included Ms Murad's brothers and probably her mother-she is still not sure. Ms Murad, then 21 years old, was taken to a slave market in Mosul. ("When the first man entered the room, all the girls started screaming.") She was sold to a judge, a thin, soft-spoken man whose job was to have people executed for trifling offences. He raped her every day, and beat her when he was displeased with the way she cleaned the house, or when he had had a hard day at work, or when she kept her eyes closed while he was rapine her.