Posted on 03/25/2015 8:05:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The recent bulldozing by the Islamic State of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra, and Korsabad, three of the worlds greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this groups latest round of assaults across the large area under its control. Since January 2014, the flamboyantly barbaric Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has blown up Shiite mosques, bulldozed churches, pulverized shrines, and plundered museums.
Worse, the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims.
Some attacks target the works of other, rival religions, such as Orthodox churches in northern Cyprus (since 1974), the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan (in 2001), the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia (2002), a historic Hindu temple in Malaysia (2006), and the Assyrian antiquities (idols) in Mosul (2015). On a personal level, a Saudi national smashed historic statues at the Senso-Ji Buddhist temple in Tokyo in 2014.
Nor is this danger over: Islamic leaders have bruited plans to destroy Persepolis in Iran, St. Catherines Monastery in the Sinai, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
In some cases, conquerors turn non-Islamic holy places into Islamic ones, thereby asserting the supremacy of Islam. This can be done by converting them into Islamic sanctities, such as the Kaaba in Mecca, the Cathedral of St. John in Damascus, and the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, or building on top of them, as with Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India.
Muslims of one denomination sometimes destroy the legacy of other Islamic sects. Recent examples include the tomb of Sidi Mahmoudou, a medieval structure in Timbuktu (2012), Sufi tombs in Libya (2012), and the libraries of Mosul (2015). But best known is the Saudi destruction of antiquities in Mecca since the 1990s, applying strict Wahhabi principles of non-intercession; even Mohammeds tomb in Medina is in jeopardy.
Destruction also accompanies the fighting of war. The Syrian conflict since 2011 has been particularly devastating in this regard, with battles causing severe damage to such grand antiquities as the Citadel of Aleppo, the Umayyad Mosque, and Crac des Chevaliers. Alongside this, smuggling and other profit-making activities to pay for war costs lead to the wholesale theft and trafficking of rare antiquities. UNESCO reports, for example, that the ancient Syrian site of Apamea is completely destroyed.
Ancient artifacts might even be demolished because their space is needed for something deemed urgent. The Palestinian Authority threw out precious Temple Mount archeological remains as mere rubble in 2000 to build a mosque. In 2013, Hamas bulldozed part of the 3,000-year-old Anthedon Harbor in Gaza for military purposes and the Turkish authorities damaged the Byzantine-era walls of the Yedikule Gardens to build a decorative pool.
Finally, there are gratuitously self-inflicted cultural wounds. These include the pillaging of Iraqi museums, libraries, and archives (2003), the burning in 2011 of LInstitut dÉgypte and looting of the Egyptian Museum, the 2013 destruction of manuscripts in Timbuktu and the ransacking of the Mallawi Museum in Minya, Egypt, and the 2014 destruction at the Saeh Library in Tripoli, Lebanon, and at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo.
Why does Islam inspire its adherents to annihilate their own patrimony? Because humiliation establishes and reinforces ones superiority. Destruction of infidel remains confirms the superior power of Muslims and, by implication, the truth of Islam. In parallel, eliminating the vestiges of Muslim rivals establishes the superiority of Islamism over other, less assertive interpretations of Islam.
While the seizure and appropriation of other monuments began at the very inception of Islam (e.g., the Kaaba), the destruction that has reached orgiastic heights with ISIS is something new; note that nearly all the examples listed here date from the 21st century. Turned around, those recently destroyed antiquities survived so long because Muslims had left them alone. In this regard, things are far worse these days than ever before not a surprise, as Islam is in its worst shape ever. All other major religions have moved beyond such crudely violent impulses, whose motive is unacceptable and whose results are tragic.
Is there a Middle Eastern country that exults in its multi-religious heritage, celebrates ancient artifacts on coins and stamps, builds fabulous museums for its antiquities, treats archeology as a national pastime, and studies manuscripts instead of burning them? Well, yes, there is.
Its called Israel. The rest of the region could learn a thing or two about historical appreciation from the Jewish state.
Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum
They destroy them because they’re savages. Also it’s un-islamic.
They want to cut culture and humanity adrift from anything/everything that is NOT Muslim. PERIOD!
Retribution for the crusades?
Moslems destroying history / Jihad since the 7th Century.
Including destroying Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, Hindu temples in India a thousand years ago, etc.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/10344483/Art-Under-Attack-Tate-Britain-review.html
The exhibition starts with the familiar story of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, then moves on to sacrilegious annihilation of religious imagery by the government of Edward VI. So effective was the order to utterly extinct and destroy religious images, that the first gallery is relatively empty, apart from a sad miscellany of mutilated fragments of sculpture, shards of stained glass, and savagely defaced paintings each and every one a sickening reminder of how much of this countrys visual culture was lost during the Reformation. The deliberate destruction of any work of art is distressing, but since the reformers focused on sacred images, the sense of violation is even more acute. In front of a decapitated Madonna or the viciously scratched face of Christ, your instinct is to avert your eyes as youd do in front of a mutilated corpse.
As it happens a mutilated corpse (or the representation of one) is the most eloquent work of art in the entire show, a limestone figure of the Dead Christ carved by a Netherlandish sculptor working in this country in the first quarter of the 16th century. No reproduction can begin to suggest the overwhelming power of the realistically carved torso and head of Christs body in transitu (that is, during the period between His death on the Cross and the Resurrection when the flesh was subject to corruption like any other corpse). We look down not on a divine personage but on a human cadaver in the early stages of rigor mortis. After the reformers had hacked off the figures right arm, legs, and feet they stopped their foul work. Id like to believe that it is a tribute to the artists skill that they could not bring themselves to smash a face that with its half -closed eyes and open mouth is so expressive of vulnerability, suffering and resignation.
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NOT unlike the ongoing assault that American Liberals have been conducting against traditional America for DECADES... Only the American Liberals don’t use sledge hammers.... yet!!
All totalitarian fanatics revert to type like this, in the end. It’s just a matter of time.
Because, like liberals, they don’t want history and its inevitable patterns to exist.
Democrats do to. No American flag, no parades celebrating America. Electronic tablets in schools so history can be erased.
**St. Catherines Monastery in the Sinai,**
St Catherine’s has a mosque built into a wall supposedly to keep moslems from destroying it, and don’t they have a historical document signed by one of the founders of islam declaring the Monastery off limits to destruction?
“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both...Action is a unifier.” E. Hoffer
From the web page..
http://www.sinaimonastery.com/en/index.php?lid=1
“The monastery has been honoured by rulers throughout its history. These include the Empress Helena, the Emperor Justinian, MOHAMMED the Founder of Islam, Sultan Selim I, the Empress Catherine of Russia, and Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Dare ISIS touch it? I’m sure they will find a reason.
The Crusades were no more "aggressive" than the landing of Allied troops at Normandy.
The moozlums do this so that no one can co9mpare previously advanced civilizations with their loser civilization.
Satan desires God's throne and he knows God built the Earth so he want's the Earth just as it was "in the beginning" ... nothing
There’s several reasons:
1. Not made my Muslims.
2. Tangible refutation of their lies.
3. Envy.
4. They’re savages.
The embarrassing question is who created ISIS with funds, what US senator visited them, and why aren’t the treated to the Stukas over Dunkirk when they bulldoze treasures?
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