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.