Jill Carroll Was Coached by Captors

Posted on Aug 16, 2006

From the CSM

Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll in a recent interview.

In part 3 of the 11-part series, kidnapped Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll receives instruction from her captors on how to look miserable on camera.

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Christian Science Monitor:

Monday morning - two days after the kidnapping - my captors began trying to convert me to Islam.

He was eager to show me the similarities between Islam and Christianity, so he was telling me how many stories from the Bible are actually in the Koran. I was anxious to make him like me and feel I was sympathetic to him, so much so that I began using more of my Arabic.

He and the others marveled at how much of their language I seemed to have picked up in just one day.

I tried to listen to Abu Ali’s lesson attentively as he translated complicated Koranic Arabic into more basic Arabic he thought I could understand. He was very pleased that I showed interest in learning. He kept saying there was no pressure, no pressure in Islam, that they were forbidden from forcing people to convert. True acceptance must come from a free will.

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