Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Calls to Destroy Egypt's Great Pyramids Begin

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids--or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi'i, those "symbols of paganism," which Egypt's Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs" and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt's new president, Muhammad Morsi, to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not."

This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity. While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself--deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran--was destroyed under bin al-As's reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar's command.
Read the rest here.

5 comments:

The Archer of the Forest said...

And people think the Tea Partiers are loons.

Alice C. Linsley said...

See Robert Spencer on this:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/muslims-vs-archaeology/

Ingemar said...

In case the worst happens, I'm glad I already saw them.

I wonder: Egypt has been under *several* Islamic regimes. How come none of them have tried what today's extremists are trying?

Jon Marc said...

Yay democracy...

mjl said...

Ingemar, I'm not the expert on this but I understand that the Muslim Brotherhood is quite the modernist group. They even take the time to use some Neo-marxism now and again.

However, perhaps the answer is as simple as the invention of explosives.

I'm open to being corrected.