"religious tolerance "....something the Muslims care little about...destroying historical items of a Non Muslim nature such as statues, churches, graves, etc...something Muslims do often....

....Islam plans to erase all your history and heritage...

...Ban Muslim Immigration....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at January 14, 2008 9:21 AM

"The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic heritage."

The Iranians I know are very proud of their Persian heritage and they hate the Arabs with a passion. they specifically point out that they are Persian and NOT Arabic, whom they consider quite low.

Just one more example of Muslims not getting it. Perhaps this will be the catalyst for the Iranian people to rise up, shake off their fetters and overthrow these neanderthals, once and for all.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at January 14, 2008 9:54 AM

Any cultural landmark in Iran that represents any support for the Jews in history is a target for destruction.

There are many Muslims in Iran today who want to erase its Persian Zoroastrianism history and trace Islam over any Iranian cultural landmark that preceded the birth of Islam.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khomenei of Iran are anti-Jewish.

Iran has a record of sustained support of terror against Israel and Jews around the world and could be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power in the future.

Posted by: Johnathan at January 14, 2008 10:11 AM

what's surprising about thisMuslims have been destroying and rewriting history for years just look at the claims they make that the Jews never had a presence on the Temple Mount

Posted by: grizlybear at January 14, 2008 11:36 AM

Not only a friend of the Jews, but a friend of Zarathustra, and the ruler under whom Persia embraced Zoroastrianism, as the article alludes to

Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 14, 2008 12:27 PM

No doubt that the faculty members and deans from Columbia will make certain that this vandalism does not occur, and scholarly interests prevail.

Posted by: MP at January 14, 2008 1:58 PM

Just like Stalin in his heyday. They'll probably subcontract this project to the Taliban-they have experience in such work.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at January 14, 2008 3:17 PM

This is merely Islam as Islam has always been: at best indifferent to, at worst actively hostile to, all that is pre-Islamic (one vast Jahiliyya, or Time of Ignorance), or non-Islamic, in the history or traditions or civilization of lands now dominated by Islam, and ruled by Muslims. And this indifference, or this hostility, is shown in the deliberate destruction of monuments and religious sites.
Over 1350 years, despite the so-called status as "Protected peoples," the Christians and Jews endured, in the Middle East and North Africa, the destruction of churches (where was Tertullian from? And where St. Augustine?) and synagogues. In India, tens of thousands of Hindu temples and temple complexes were the main victims of Islamic destruction, though Jain temples, and Buddhist temples and stupas, were also destroyed. Indeed, the very first "n
In the East Indies, once Hindu and Buddhist, how many of those structures have survived?
In Afghanistan, the Greco-Bactrian civlization was reduced to rubble. Statutes of Buddhas, and stupas, and libraries of ancietn Buddhist texts, were destroyed everywhere in Central Asia.
But that was then, you say. That was at a time when this was standard behavior by primtive peoples.
Really? Did the Hindus destroy Boddhist texts? Did the Buddhists destroy the monuments of others? Did the Jews ever destroy the monuments of others?
And what about now? What do we see now? In Afghanistan, the Bamiyan Buddhas -- so large and seemingly so impervious to attack -- were finally destroyed, not because of a new "extremist" doctrine, but because Saudi and Pakistani technical help was available to the Taliban so that those statues might be blown up. In Kuala Lumpur, venerable Hindu temples are brought down by government decree. In Israel, the "Palestinians' reduced to rubble Jacob's Tomb (see the picture here), and have attacked other sites. They have destroyed as much as they can, or thrown out, into vast rubbish heaps, tons of material found to include ancient Jewish artifacts from the time of the Temple, have filled with their own rubble the place known as Solomon's Stables, and in their attempt to efface any Jewish connection, have been working like old moles, burrowing into the Temple Mount and undoing, in their hysterical and a-historical hate, have endangered the very foundations of the Dome of the Rock, the Mosque of Omar -- apparently prepared to blame "the Jews" should anything happen.
Sita Ram Goel filled up two full volumes merely listing, laconically, the Hindu temples and temple complexes, destroyed by Muslim conquerors and invaders. One could do the same for Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Zoroastrian sites.
And one could even do the same, in a sense, to Muslim historical sites that have been destroyed by adherents of the "pure" Islam of the Wahhabis. The Saudi architect Algosaibi has deplored the way that the Al-Saud, buying off the Wahhabi clerics (in order to keep stealing much of the national wealth), have -- presumably in their role as "Guardians of the Two Noble Places" [Mecca and Medina], reduced to rubble what was said to be the house of Muhammad in Medina, have in Mecca torn down almost every old building, and just a few years ago managed to finish the job by destroying an old Ottoman fort, the supposed house of Muhammad himself in Medina, have torn down much of old Mecca, and a few years even destroyed an old Ottoman fort -- putting up an arab-muslim version of high-rises, making Mecca more akin to Dubai, as Dubai, of course, is itself merely, in its thrust and architectural thrust charm, merely a more expensive Las-Vegas.

Posted by: Hugh at January 14, 2008 3:49 PM

I have always had an interest in Ancient History and find this destruction to be tragic.

I heard that Saddam considered himself the new Nebuchadnezar. That wouldn't bother me if it meant preserving ancient Babylonian archaeological sites but he admired the ancient king for conquering and enslaving Israel.

Ancient Persia was a great civilization; it would be a great loss to world heritage if the ruins of Persia were submerged.

Posted by: CTYankee at January 14, 2008 4:24 PM

If islam wants to vandalise it's own environment and national treasures, let it do so. Persepolis, Petra, the Valley of the Kings, the Pyramids, all are theirs to smash up. Just so long as they stop defiling the west.

Besides, it throws into stark relief their complete inability to create anything by their own efforts. The descendants of the great stonemasons and architects of Giza, couldn't erect a garden fence, but they can, and will, smash anything in sight.

Posted by: Monty at January 15, 2008 10:59 AM

It's just too much like "1984" for me.

Can you imagine what an Islamic government with Sharia law would do to the public buildings in the US?

The ruins in Pasargad and Persopolis are part of the world's heritage, just like the statues of the Buddha in Afganistan or the library in Alexandria. (still seething over that one)

There is a special hell for people who burn books or talk at the theater.

Posted by: tanstaafl at January 15, 2008 10:59 AM

If they don't blow the stuff up, but just submerge it, it will wait quietly under the waters...perhaps to rise out of them, one day, when the Empire of Islam has been reduced to dust and ashes.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at January 15, 2008 11:36 PM