Sister Hayat, an Iraqi nun, lived a quiet life of devotion in a Dominican monastery near Mosul. She worked in an orphanage and taught anthropology at a local university. Then IS overran the city and the nuns packed their bags, prayed, kissed the floor one last time and fled to Erbil, where they care for elderly nuns. Later an IS commander called the nun to taunt her: ‘I’m sitting in your chair now and am running things here.’ Then he demanded to know where they kept their weapons; he couldn’t conceive that such an important building in the community would be without an armoury. She directed him to the library. He called her back, noticeably upset. ‘There are no weapons here, just books’, he shouted. She explained that the Bible is the sword of the Spirit and is able to change a person from the inside. ‘The Bible is the only weapon we use; I encourage you to start reading it.’