MYTILENE, Greece (AP) — Among the tens of thousands fleeing war and despair in the Middle East, one group feels a special relief in reaching Europe: those who have escaped areas ruled by Islamic State extremists and the harsh scrutiny of their religious police. For many who lived in the ruined landscape of the Islamic State's self-declared "caliphate" across parts of Syria and Iraq, constant fear is what finally drove them to Western Europe. [...] if one of his customers so much as lifted the veil from her face to look at a pair of shoes, members from the Hisba — or its women's branch, al-Khansaa — would beat her with a bamboo pole, Ahmed said in an interview with The Associated Press. More than 175,000 Syrians and nearly 10,000 Iraqis have made the dangerous sea journey to Greece this year, part of a massive influx fueled in part by Syria's civil war, now in its fifth year. In that time, they grew used to a more liberal society — a far cry from Islamic State rule, where women must cover themselves from head-to-toe in public and cannot leave their homes without being accompanied by a male relative; where smoking is banned and men must rush to mosques at the call to prayer. [...] he went back often to check on his house, staying for weeks at a time, even as IS fighters drove out the rebels last year and took sole control of that half of the city, while the rest remained in government hands. Ahmed, the shoe store owner who hopes to join relatives in Belgium, arrived in Lesbos with a nephew in the first week of September, about a week after he left Raqqa. The Hisba became active, drove out Mosul's Christians and began demolishing shrines revered by Sunni Muslims but seen by IS as encouraging idolatry.
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