During its conquests in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has had to come up with a method to allow all those non-Sunnis who ended up converting to Sunni Islam instead of being killed—the Christians, Yazidis, Shias, who for whatever reason remained under IS territory—to be identified as true and legitimate Muslims.
Accordingly, it has been issuing “non-infidel certificates.” Like a driver’s license, these certificates have the picture of the one named and explain to any Islamic State soldier that the named is now a Muslim and thus it is now “impermissible to lash, crucify, or rape him.” The certificate is good for three months. Its text follows:
To whom it may concern,
We hereby notify you that the one named Na’il Salu bin Basaam of the people of the al-Raqa emirate took and satisfactorily passed a course on Repentance.
Based on this, we hereby grant him this certificate confirming that he is not an infidel [kafir] and that it is impermissible to lash, crucify, or rape him, unless a legitimate reason arises for the soldiers of the caliphate or if it’s been established that he has returned to apostasy and wants his freedom.