Mediaboss Marketing

By Bram Janssen and Sameer N. Yacoub The Associated Press

Raad Abdul-Ahed shows a centuries-old biblical tome hand-written in old Syriac language. (Bram Janssen, The Associated Press)

MAR MATTI MONASTERY, Iraq As Islamic State terrorists advanced toward this monastery perched on a mountain in northern Iraq, the monks rushed to protect a cherished piece of their heritage: their library of centuries-old Christian manuscripts.

Dozens of the handwritten tomes were spirited to safety in nearby Kurdish-ruled areas. There they remain, hidden in a nondescript apartment in the Kurdish city of Dohuk, where Christians who have fled the terrorists' onslaught are living and watching over them.

The Associated Press was allowed rare access to the library, a collection of copies of Bibles and biblical commentaries, mostly written in Syriac a form of the ancient Semitic Aramaic language and mostly dating back 400 to 500 years. The oldest is a copy of Saint Paul's letters, about 1,100 years old. The bound tomes, some with tattered pages written in black and red ink, lie on shelves.

Their rescue is a bright spot in the devastating onslaught by the Sunni terrorists against Iraq's people particularly religious and ethnic minorities and Iraq's heritage, as they took over much of northern and western Iraq the past year.

When they captured Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and other parts of the north last summer, most Christians and other minorities fled the city and nearby towns for the Kurdish autonomous zone farther north.

The terrorists seized churches and monasteries in and around Mosul, removing symbols of Christianity and blowing some up. They also have attacked Sunni Muslim shrines they consider idolatrous.

In recent months, they have accelerated their campaign to destroy more ancient sites, including the 3,000-year-old ruins of Nimrud. They shattered artifacts in Mosul's museum and burned hundreds of books at Mosul's library and university, including rare manuscripts.

The Syriac Orthodox Christians of Mar Matti, a monastery that dates to the 4th century, moved to rescue their library of about 80 manuscripts in August, at the height of the Islamic State group's blitz, when its fighters were bearing down from Mosul to the north, toward the monastery, 20 miles from the city. Their advance was halted by Kurdish pershmerga fighters, who now hold the road leading to the monastery.

See more here:
Monks save historic Christian library from terrorists in Iraq