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Why Do Islamists Love Bulldozing History So Much?
National Review ^ | 03/25/2015 | Daniel Pipes

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 world’s greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this group’s 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. Catherine’s 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 Mohammed’s 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 L’Institut d’Égypte 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 one’s 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.

It’s 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


TOPICS: History; Islam; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: destruction; history; iran; islam; israel; lebanon; waronterror
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1 posted on 03/25/2015 8:05:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

They destroy them because they’re savages. Also it’s un-islamic.


2 posted on 03/25/2015 8:07:55 AM PDT by SkyDancer (I Was Told Nobody Is Perfect But Yet, Here I Am ...)
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To: SeekAndFind

They want to cut culture and humanity adrift from anything/everything that is NOT Muslim. PERIOD!


3 posted on 03/25/2015 8:07:55 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SeekAndFind

Retribution for the crusades?


4 posted on 03/25/2015 8:10:52 AM PDT by Paul46360 (..)
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To: SeekAndFind
It's the same totalitarian mindset that inspired Pol Pot to declare the year of his resolution as "Year Zero"
5 posted on 03/25/2015 8:11:08 AM PDT by Maceman
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To: SeekAndFind

Moslems destroying history / Jihad since the 7th Century.

Including destroying Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, Hindu temples in India a thousand years ago, etc.


6 posted on 03/25/2015 8:17:08 AM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: SeekAndFind
Pipes is awesome. But there's a simple answer to his question. They are a puritan fundamentalists sect, who believe that everything that is not in their holy scripture is not only less pure, it is positively evil. therefore in their eyes, all art and all non scriptural literature is an idol that should be destroyed. The West went through this same phase during the reformation.

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 country’s 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 you’d 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 Christ’s 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 figure’s right arm, legs, and feet they stopped their foul work. I’d like to believe that it is a tribute to the artist’s 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.

7 posted on 03/25/2015 8:17:58 AM PDT by edwinland
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`


8 posted on 03/25/2015 8:20:21 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Point of well, OK!)
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To: george76

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.


9 posted on 03/25/2015 8:24:36 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SeekAndFind

Because, like liberals, they don’t want history and its inevitable patterns to exist.


10 posted on 03/25/2015 8:29:08 AM PDT by lurk
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To: SeekAndFind

Democrats do to. No American flag, no parades celebrating America. Electronic tablets in schools so history can be erased.


11 posted on 03/25/2015 8:30:24 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: SeekAndFind

**St. Catherine’s 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?


12 posted on 03/25/2015 8:30:46 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: SkyDancer

“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


13 posted on 03/25/2015 8:34:30 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


14 posted on 03/25/2015 8:36:18 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Paul46360
No, the Seljuk Turks were destroying Christian hily places and antiquities before the Crusades. That catastrophe is one of the reason the Crusades were called for: to defend the Christian communities of the Middle East: their churches and shrines, their properties, and their people.

The Crusades were no more "aggressive" than the landing of Allied troops at Normandy.

15 posted on 03/25/2015 8:38:25 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

The moozlums do this so that no one can co9mpare previously advanced civilizations with their loser civilization.


16 posted on 03/25/2015 8:43:09 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: SeekAndFind
Simple ...

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

17 posted on 03/25/2015 8:43:36 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: SeekAndFind

There’s several reasons:

1. Not made my Muslims.

2. Tangible refutation of their lies.

3. Envy.

4. They’re savages.


18 posted on 03/25/2015 8:43:45 AM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: SeekAndFind

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?


19 posted on 03/25/2015 8:48:04 AM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: SeekAndFind
History is an affront to Islam.
It is not in the Koran or the Hadiths.
It is the story of civilization to which status Islam cannot aspire.
Hoistory is glaring evidence that most other cultures are wealthier and more successful than Islamic society can ever be.
It thus is intolerable temptation in the faces of Moslems.
20 posted on 03/25/2015 8:57:16 AM PDT by arthurus (it's true!)
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