The Saddest Story In Mosul: Love In The Time Of The Caliphate

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http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/saddest-mosul-caliphate.html

The Saddest Story In Mosul: Love In The Time Of The Caliphate
By contributors | Sep. 19, 2014
By Nawzat Shamdeen | Berlin | via Niqash.org

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A young Mosul man tells NIQASH how his social life, and the lives of others his age, has been cruelly interrupted by the fact that Sunni Muslim extremists now control their city. The young man says he was set to marry his sweetheart upon graduation – however now that all women must be fully veiled and universities are closed, he can neither meet her, nor finish his studies.

Baha is a young man in Mosul, whose full name cannot be disclosed here. He is one among many young people in the city, now under the control of Sunni Muslim extremists, whose social lives have been severely curtailed by the group known as Islamic State, or IS.

Of course, Mosul has always been a conservative city with its culture deeply rooted in tribal tradition. So young people in Mosul were never able to socialise freely anyway, or easily fall in love with anyone they wished to. However things are even more restricted under the IS group, or Daash, as it is known locally – Daash is the acronym for the group in Arabic.

~snip~

It was always fairly unusual to see a young man and young woman together here. Mosul’s society was a fairly closed one. And there were not really many places that young couples could go to meet. Mosul’s tribal traditions and years of insecurity after 2003 didn’t help either. But the need to love and be loved caused many local youth to improvise; they would invent ways to see one another and communicate, even if it was just for a few minutes in a market place, on a Facebook page or via a text message on a phone.