ISIS guide for mothers tells them to raise children for jihad

Militant Islamist fighters take part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province, June 30, 2014.Reuters

Two instructional guides reportedly put together by the Islamic State for mothers raising children have surfaced on the Internet.

The Middle East Media Research Institute described one guide as an instruction for women on raising children in preparation for waging jihad or holy war. The second guide laid out rules in treating women who have been captured as sex slaves.

The Daily Mail reported that the first guide encourages women to ban certain sports and keep their children from playing games, and from watching TV. Instead, children should be encouraged to take up martial arts and activities that will help them improve their fitness, like skiing, as well as training to improve their aim, like darts, archery, and shooting toy guns. The guide also includes camping, driving and survival training as approved activities for children.

While it encouraged playing with toy guns, the guide reminded adults to keep the real guns away from the children's reach.

A Middle Eastern child poses with an actual rifle. Photo: MEMRI/Daily Mail

The guide also exhorted women to tell bedtime stories of jihad to their children, starting at the infant stage and continuing throughout their childhood. The handbook warned mothers not to wait until it was "too late" to teach children about being a jihadi, theorising that the first years of a child's life are crucial and have a lasting effect.

The MEMRI also spoke to The World Post about the contents of the second guide. According to the Institute, the guide teaches men to proceed to have sex immediately with virgin slaves. In addition, sex with pre-pubescent girls is permitted if they are deemed "fit for intercourse". The guide also outlined rules in dealing with non-virgin slaves, instructing men to first "purify" the uterus of these women.

The guide also spoke at length about buying and selling slaves, and described them as "merely property".