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."Read the rest here.
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.
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And people think the Tea Partiers are loons.
ReplyDeleteSee Robert Spencer on this:
ReplyDeletehttp://pjmedia.com/blog/muslims-vs-archaeology/
In case the worst happens, I'm glad I already saw them.
ReplyDeleteI wonder: Egypt has been under *several* Islamic regimes. How come none of them have tried what today's extremists are trying?
Yay democracy...
ReplyDeleteIngemar, 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.
ReplyDeleteHowever, perhaps the answer is as simple as the invention of explosives.
I'm open to being corrected.