[LATIMES] Beheadings have become commonplace in the territories held by the militant Islamic State, but the severed head reportedly found last month in the eastern Syrian city of Al-Mayadeen was nevertheless unusual.It had a cigarette placed between its lips.
Smoker's cough was obviously no longer an issue.
"This is not permissible, Sheikh,â€" someone had scrawled in Arabic on the decapitated corpse lying nearby, according to an account from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group. The body and head belonged to an Islamic State official, a deputy police chief.
From consuming alcohol to cursing, vices of all types are frowned upon by Islamic State.
But it is the militants' injunction on smoking, in a region rife with chain-smokers and water-pipe aficionados, that may be the hardest habit to kick. (About half of Syrian men and one in 10 women smoke, according to the World Health Organization.)
Shortly after the group's takeover of large swaths of Deir Elzur province in eastern Syria, Islamic State began to close tobacco shops and shutter the ubiquitous water-pipe cafes.
Although smoking is allowed under Islam, some ultraconservative variations of Sharia law condemn the practice as a slow form of suicide, and therefore haram -- forbidden.'