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No surprise here. In Islamic theology, anything pre-Islamic or non-Islamic is jahiliyya -- non-Islamic ignorance. So much trash. From the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, with thanks to LA Hutton:
It has become one of the most bitterly divisive issues in the Caucasus – but up until now no one has been able to clear up the mystery surrounding the fate of the famous medieval Christian cemetery of Jugha in Azerbaijan.The cemetery was regarded by Armenians as the biggest and most precious repository of medieval headstones marked with crosses – the Armenians call them “khachkars” – of which more than 2,000 were still there in the late Eighties. Each elaborately carved tombstone was a masterpiece of carving.
Armenians have said that the cemetery has been razed, comparing its destruction to the demolition of two giant Buddha figures by the Taleban in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan has hit back by accusing Armenia of scaremongering, and of destroying Azerbaijani monuments on its own territory.
Now an IWPR contributor has become the first journalist to visit the site of the cemetery on Azerbaijan’s border with Iran - and has confirmed that the graveyard has completely vanished.
The European Parliament, UNESCO and Britain’s House of Lords have all taken an interest in the fate of the Jugha cemetery. A European Parliament delegation is currently visiting the South Caucasus. But so far none has been allowed to visit the site itself.
If international observers can confirm that the cemetery has been razed, it is sure to spark a new high-voltage row between the two countries, which have engaged in a bitter war of allegation and counter-allegation since fighting ended in the Nagorny Karabkah conflict in 1994.
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at April 20, 2006 4:52 AM
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Disgusting and so terribly sad. I hope this gets the attention it deserves.
Posted by: AngryMuppet![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 20, 2006 6:36 AM
Today a cemetary; tomorrow the Louvre, the treasures of the Vatican, the tombs and pyramids at Giza, and every other piece of non-Muslim art. These people are nothing more than vandals using religion a pretext for their destructive behavior. Disgusting.
Posted by: epg at April 20, 2006 8:22 AM
This is a common practice in Iran today. The Bahais are considered apostates and by law they cannot be buried in Muslim cemeteries so they have their own. The Iranian authorities routinely bulldoze the Bahai cemeteries, disinter the bodies that they dispose of in the local garbage dumps, and then they construct Islamic "cultural centres" on the newly emptied lots.
In a related note, when identified as apostates, Bahai married couples have their marriages annulled and the women are seized as booty to be distributed to Muslim men. The Bahai men are considered guilty of committing fornication because they have been living with an "unmarried" woman and are thus routinely condemned to death.
This all happens today. There are many public UN debate records that detail the plight of the Bahais and other religious minorities in Iran. The veracity of these reports have never been doubted. These pogroms have been allowed to continue for decades because the rest of the world has no courage to act to prevent them.
Well the virus of Islam has now escaped from the lab and the whole world will now come to understand the folly of our neglect. Woe to the present generation that has allowed the jinn of jihad to escape from the bottle to which our ancestors had it confined with their cannons for nearly a thousand years.
Posted by: Hulegu Khan at April 20, 2006 9:49 AM
There is more about the destruction of the graves here.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=179
The Armenian people have suffered so much.
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at April 20, 2006 10:51 AM
"No surprise here. In Islamic theology, anything pre-Islamic or non-Islamic is jahiliyya -- non-Islamic ignorance"
So how did it survive 1400 years of Islamic rule? Ever heard of the pyramids of Egypt or the many other pre-islamic monuments across the Islamic world? Islamophobes always bring up the Taliban's destruction of the Budhhas of Bamiyan - yet appear to forget that they existed for 1400 years under islamic rule!! - how many mosques survived Christian rule? look at Bosnia under the Serbs or Spain!!
Posted by: truth speaker at April 20, 2006 12:19 PM
Truthseeker - did it ever occur to you that the reason the Buddhas and the pyramids survived is because muslims just weren't *able* to destroy them because they are/were so massive. They tried to damage the sphinx and only managed to cut its nose off.
It is only now, with modern technology, that the means for their destruction is available.
Posted by: Silvester at April 20, 2006 12:54 PM
I'm sure the tombstones are lining a host of new muh-jihad-een latrines somewhere in the hills.
I hear they keep the temperatures in the privies stable and quite cozy during 'meditation sessions' about the filth of infidels.
Learned from the treatment of the kaffir since the time of the pedophile "prophet".
And it applies to all aspects of the "unclean" disbelievers.
"If they disagree with the Koran, we don't want them. If they agree with the Koran, we don't need them. Burn them all!"
-intellectual advice by early Muslim conqueror on seeing an immense library in a vassal city.
Posted by: profitsbeard at April 20, 2006 1:36 PM
There may be an element of vindictive impotence. Like Israel, the ex-dhimmi Armenians, persecuted, surrounded and without any oil (whereas Azerbaijan floats on the stuff), have given the Azeris such a frightful thumping in the Nagorno-Karabakh war that the Azeris have not dared to try and take back what is, according to international agreement, their own territory, in twelve years. So, unable to deal with the living, they insult the dead. Islamic heroism at its finest.
Posted by: Paolo at April 20, 2006 2:11 PM
A story that was buried by the MSM was the murder of a young armenina officer on an exchange I believe in Hungary by his Azeri roomate. He was axed in his sleep. This was two years ago. The azeri was sentenced just last week. He claimed racism was his motiviation. If that is a justification shouldnt every armenian be able to go murder these dogs for what was done to them in azerbaijan(or howeverits spelled) Nagorno-Karabakh is and always will be armenian territory. It was stolen from them by Stalin.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at April 20, 2006 2:30 PM
And cut by cut the ignorant savages slice away any sign of our very existence as a culture on this Earth.
at April 20, 2006 2:43 PM
Islam, like other religions, was ruthlessly suppressed in the Soviet Union. For some this suppression apparently took, and the forcible break with Islam, which only a regime such as of the Soviet Union, could allow itself to enforce. But it did not take enough, or with enough people. And so here again is Islam at work. One or two graves might be vandals. If an entire ancient cemetery disappears -- the way the Jewish tombstones on the Mount of Olives were pulled up by British-led, British-trained and supposedly well-behaved Jordanians, and used to line the floors of their army latrines -- then something else is at work. Complete disrespect, even hatred, for those who are not Muslim, and for everything that might conceivably be sacred or important to those non-Muslims.
At Columbia and other American universities, one finds that the usual Gulbenkian and Kevorkian professorships are filled by such Muslims, and Muslim apologists, as Hamid Dabashi. The next time one is attempting to fulfill the wishes of the long-dead Armenian benefactor, this or that Middle Eastern Deparment ought to have the decency to appoint someone who, instead of being a Defender of Islam (and of Islam's Defender, the late Edward Said), is a scholar of the dhimmi, and of dhimmitude. That's how to approximate, in good cy-pres (see Scott on Trusts) fashion, the intent of the Armenian donor. It's the very least those universities can do.
Posted by: Hugh at April 20, 2006 3:06 PM
Perhaps the most depressing part of this story is where else have you heard about it? This site and CatholicReport.org are about the only places that cover stories such as these.
Posted by: Dave at April 20, 2006 3:20 PM
What happened to the Armenian cemetary in Azerbaijan will happen in Iraq if jihadists gain power there. The persecution of Iraqi Christians by jihadists is just the first step in the process of ethnic and religious cleansing.
Posted by: Christian at April 20, 2006 3:59 PM
Locust people, they move in and destroy everything.
Posted by: Carolyn2 at April 20, 2006 6:44 PM
There were a lot a crowd seens from Bakris on a BBC news item about Azerbaijan tonight and there were a lot of women in the crowds without a hijab in sight - I got the impression that Islamic fundamentalism was not the greatest problem in that country: rather the West's failiure to back the democratic opposition because ot would rather have a guaranteed source of oil. Diverting public resentment in the direction of a traditional foe is a common enough ploy by authoritarian regimes.
Posted by: wallyUK at April 20, 2006 8:09 PM
sorry, Baku
Posted by: wallyUK at April 20, 2006 8:09 PM
Of little consolation, but there are images of these artistic 'khachkars'online .
Posted by: miira at April 20, 2006 9:30 PM
"The largest khachkar cemetary in the world was located in Jugha (located today in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan). The numbers were vastly reduced from the approximately 20,000 that once stood during Soviet times to a mere few thousand, and after independence, Azerbaijan began to systematically destroy them. After an international outcry, the destruction was halted a few years, until 2005 when the entire cemetary was bulldozed completely clear."
BEFORE IMAGES
IMAGE OF SITE AFTER DESTRUCTION
Posted by: justamomof4 at April 22, 2006 9:30 PM
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