informative article; highly recommended reading
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LONDON -- They have destroyed the iconic Buddhas of Bamiyan, smashed
down the fabled "end of the world" gate in the ancient city of Timbuktu
and even called for the destruction of Egypt's ancient pyramids and the
Sphinx.
Extreme Islamist movements across the world have developed a reputation
for the destruction of historic artifacts, monuments and buildings.
This week, officials confirmed that up to 2,000 manuscripts at Mali's
Ahmed Baba Institute had been destroyed or looted during a 10-month
occupation of Timbuktu by Islamist fighters. Some experts have compared
the texts to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
To many in the West, such actions are simply wanton vandalism. However,
experts say the thinking behind it is actually part of a wider tradition
of rooting out idol-worship and superstition found in Christianity and
Judaism as well as Islam.
Usama Hasan -- an Islamist for about 20 years, who now works to counter
extremism at the U.K.'s Quilliam Foundation
<http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/> -- said most Muslims had "a kind of
tolerant attitude" and a "live-and-let-live" approach toward such things.
"Mainstream Muslim thinking tends to tolerate these historic artifacts,"
he said. "Even if they don't agree with the superstitions, they don't
want to provoke the community and don't see it as a big deal."
But Hasan said he understood the mindset of those condemned as cultural
vandals "very well" as he "used to subscribe to it."
He said that during his Islamist days he would say things like: "Yes,
let's destroy the pyramids when we take over Egypt."
"It's very sad. You lose all that cultural heritage, music, history,
art, ancient books. If they (Islamists) don't agree with what's in them
... they seem to think it's OK to burn these books," he said. "If you're
not Muslim or don't subscribe to the same narrow interpretation the
militants do, they will oppose everything you do and do so violently if
they need to."
Hasan said there were a number of stories explaining how the Sphinx lost
its nose, but one account suggests that a religious figure in the 14th
century, Saim El-Dahr, tried to get rid of it.
"There was a common belief that the Sphinx had some power over the level
of the River Nile ... he wanted to smash the locals' superstitious
belief in the power of the Sphinx and tried to destroy it," he said.
Similar reasoning was likely behind some actions of Islamists in Mali.
Breaking down the gate in Timbuktu was probably designed to show any
local people who still believed in the fable that it was not actually
true, Hasan said.
But while the Taliban justified the 2001 demolition of the Buddhas of
Bamiyan by saying they were idols, Hasan said there was more to it.
"The Taliban's destruction of the statues was a political gesture. The
United Nations had sent money to restore these statues at the same time
there were sanctions [against Afghanistan]," he said. "The Taliban said
children were dying because of this ... and the U.N. was more concerned
about statues than people."
Noah Charney, professor of art history at the American University of
Rome, said that the destruction of idols dated back to biblical times,
when warring factions would destroy monuments of rivals that were
thought to have religious power.
The Ten Commandments include a proscription against making "any graven
image" of anything in heaven or on Earth, but Charney said this had been
"quickly forgotten" or interpreted to mean only images of "false idols"
by many Christians.
The reason many Ancient Greek and Roman statues of gods are missing
their heads and arms is not faulty construction, Charney said. Instead,
it is often the legacy of the 6th-century Pope Gregory the Great.
"He found the classical statuary to be very beautiful, but there was a
danger people would revert back to their pagan ways" and start
worshiping them, Charney said. By removing the head and arms, which
often held items identifying the deity, the statue "lost all its power
because you don't know which god it is."
In seventh century Byzantium, clashes between Christians over the
alleged worship of icons gave rise to the term "iconoclasm," meaning the
destruction of religious images.
The Reformation in the 16^th century also saw many statues in churches
literally defaced by Protestants in Europe.
The city of Timbuktu has borne the brunt of recent Islamist iconoclasts,
with rebel forces in Mali setting fire to its historic library
<http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16734043-french-led-forces-in-mali-seal-off-timbuktu-rebels-torch-ancient-library?lite>
as they retreated in the face of French and Malian government troops
this month.
After the militants took the city last year, they destroyed mausoleums
<http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/30/12496039-witnesses-islamists-destroy-ancient-sites-in-timbuktu?lite>
and a gate that local superstition said would only open at the end of
the world
<http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/03/12537407-al-qaida-linked-fighters-destroy-end-of-the-world-gate-in-timbuktu?lite>.
In November, an ultraconservative religious figure in Egypt, Murgan
Salem al-Gohary, told local television that the Sphinx and pyramids at
Giza should be leveled
<http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/12/249092.html>, an idea
that sparked headlines but is shared by only a tiny minority of Egyptians.
"All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove
such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha
statues," he said.
While he celebrated the destruction of the two 6th-century statues --
one 180 feet, the other 125 feet high -- in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley
in March 2001, world cultural body UNESCO described it as a "tragic" act
<http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/208=> that "shook the world."
The wrecking ball has also been swung to significant effect in the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
According to an estimate in 2005 by Sami Angawi, an expert on Islamic
architecture, at least 300 historic buildings were demolished
<http://www.islamicpluralism.org/467/dr-sami-angawi-on-wahhabi-desecration-of-makkah>
over the previous 50 years.
The reason, espoused by the Wahhabi movement within Islam, was that
people might start idolatrously worshipping structures associated with
Muhammad, rather than God.
David Thomas, professor of Christianity and Islam at the U.K.'s
Birmingham University, said iconoclasm was "a strain in all religions
unfortunately," but added that was "present at the moment in Islam more
than anywhere else."
In contrast, he said that there were "teachings in the Quran that are
actually very open and tolerant. There are teachings that accept other
ways than the way given to Muhammad."
And Thomas said some Islamists were in danger of committing the very sin
they despise.
"The Taliban have an attitude that almost shades into idolatry itself.
They are saying they know what the truth is, that they have a monopoly
on the truth and that they can therefore almost take the place of God in
judging who is right and who is wrong."
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/02/16788304-why-extreme-islamists-are-intent-on-destroying-cultural-artifacts?lite
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