“[The Islamists] came telling us, ‘You have 14 days to end this job’ and I asked them what was the problem,” said Abu Zeinab, 32, who was packing up his stall for good yesterday in the suburb of al Dora, a hardline Sunni neighbourhood.
“I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the prophet’s time, so we shouldn’t have them either.
“I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed’s time either, but I wanted to keep my life.”
[...] Another group of traders to have felt the Islamists’ unexpected wrath is Baghdad’s ice merchants, who sell large chunks of ice for storing food and chilling drinks. In a city facing constant power cuts and summer temperatures of up to 50C (122F), the service they provide is little short of essential.
Yet in recent weeks, they too have fallen foul of the claim that their product was not a feature of life during Mohammed’s time.
Akram al Zidawi, 19, an ice seller from al Dora, thought the threats were too ludicrous to be true – until it was too late. “Two weeks ago he came back home saying that he had been threatened by the terrorists,” said his brother Gassan, 32.
“My mother begged him to quit the job, but he laughed, he thought it was impossible they would kill him. But they came back two days later and shot him dead, along with three other ice sellers nearby.”
Meanwhile, barbers have been inundated with young men anxious to shave off their goatee beards. Last month, Mustapha Jawad, 17, was allegedly killed for wearing one, which Islamists deemed a Jewish facial hairstyle.
“After Mustapha’s death I received 20 to 30 young men every day, all wanting me to shave off their goatee,” said a barber, Sinan al Rubai. “Maybe one day the mujahedeen will insist on shaving all the head – then I will be rich.”
And the biggest proliferator of radical Sunni Islam is? Three guesses.