Over at PJ Lifestyle today I explain why the Islamic State seeks to destroy all memory of pre-Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations:
The Islamic State has now destroyed numerous ancient Assyrian artifacts in the Mosul museum and bulldozed the 3,300-year-old city of Nimrud and the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra. It also recently blew up a tenth-century Chaldean Catholic Church north of Mosul.
The world has recoiled in horror at this new confirmation of the Muslim group’s gleeful contempt for civilization and embrace of barbarism, and the “This has nothing to do with Islam” industry has cranked into high gear to reassure the public yet again that nothing more than complacency is required in the face of this, but once again, the Islamic State is simply acting in accord with its stated principles.
Many have scoffed at the Islamic State’s claim that they’re simply removing temptations to idolatry. Who, after all, would be tempted to worship a 3,000-year-old Assyrian statue of a horse? But there is more to the Islamic State’s actions than just that. Besides removing supposed temptations to idolatry, Islamic jihadists want to ruin the artifacts of non-Muslim civilizations because doing so testifies to the truth of Islam, as the Qur’an suggests that ruins are a sign of Allah’s punishment of those who rejected his truth:
Many were the Ways of Life that have passed away before you: travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those who rejected Truth. (Qur’an 3:137)
This is one of the foundations of the Islamic idea that pre-Islamic civilizations, and non-Islamic civilizations, are all jahiliyya — the society of unbelievers, which is worthless. Consequently, any art, literature, or architecture that any non-Islamic culture produces has no value whatsoever: it is all simply a manifestation of that ignorance and barbarism.
V. S. Naipaul encountered this attitude in his travels through Muslim countries. For many Muslims, he observed in Among the Believers, “The time before Islam is a time of blackness: that is part of Muslim theology. History has to serve theology.” Obviously this cuts against the idea of tourism of ancient sites and non-Muslim religious installations. Naipaul recounted that some Pakistani Muslims, far from valuing the nation’s renowned archaeological site at Mohenjo Daro, saw its ruins as a teaching opportunity for Islam, recommending that Qur’an 3:137 be posted there as a teaching tool.
The same impulse now threatens the Sphinx and the Pyramids. Kuwaiti Muslim cleric Ibrahim Al Kandari declared:
“The fact that early Muslims who were among prophet Mohammed’s followers did not destroy the pharaohs’ monuments upon entering the Egyptian soil, does not mean that we shouldn’t do it now.”
And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s caliph Ibrahim, said destruction of the Sphinx and the Pyramids was a “religious duty.”
If these monuments are destroyed, it is highly likely that in a few centuries (or sooner), Muslims in Egypt will be blaming the Infidel for their destruction. This is what has happened with the Sphinx’s nose, which was destroyed not by Napoleon’s troops in target practice (as goes the common story), but by the Muslim precursors of the Islamic State. In a rare moment of candor, Russia Today noted last Monday:
“Attacks on the Sphinx date back centuries. Despite many legends surrounding the monument’s missing nose – with harm from Napoleon’s cannon being among the most popular myths – historians believe it was actually destroyed by Sufi Muslim Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr in the 14th century, after he learned that some peasants worshipped the Sphinx.”
Many of the incidents of Muslim destruction of artifacts are ascribed to Infidels, in keeping with the general tendency of Islamic supremacists to blame everyone but themselves for their own wrongdoing. In Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, Robert D. Kaplan repeats uncritically what he probably heard from local Muslims: that the icons in the local churches had their eyes scraped off because the superstitious local Christians had taken them to mix in health potions.
It is, however, virtually inconceivable that Orthodox believers, even the most ignorant and superstitious, would desecrate icons in this way. It is much more likely that the icons had no eyes because Islamic authorities consider that it is sufficient to destroy the representation of the face in order to ruin the image as a representation of the human form. And that’s why the nose of the Sphinx was gone long before Napoleon’s troops ever had target practice….
Read the rest here.
Jay Boo says
Even if they crush the Black Stone, yet again, Islam will still be a cruel joke.
Spot On says
Jay Boo, Islam will always be Obama’s friend as well, no matter how many they kill or historic artifacts they destroy. B.O. sees all this as good. (If he didn’t, most assuredly he would condemn all this.)
jihad3tracker says
ISIS are Allah’s sick hammer wielders, destroying civilization’s greatest early sculpture and architecture . . What does human aesthetic genius and effort mean to them ? Nothing obviously for their empty souls.
And, even more crucially, by doing that, they truly reveal the essence of Islam : A BESIEGED MUHAMMAD COULD NOT PREVAIL OVER JEWISH TRIBES — BY PERSUASION IN MEDINA.
Conveniently, thanks to abrogation, the “prophet” got his god to change from peaceful to violent : CLEARLY THE QUR’AN AFTER THE HIJRA CAME DIRECTLY FROM MUHAMMAD’S MIND.
Robert Siena says
The aging Left in America will not be threatened by Islamists unless and until terrorists threaten to / actually destroy art works by Salvador Dali, Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and The Mona Lisa. These painters, and others, are a religion to the Left. I know because my atheist beatnik parents were idolaters of these artists. That’s what they lived for. This art replaced beautiful Catholic art of the Medieval times and was scorned by Catholic scholars. It’s all about sex and freedom.
Robert Siena says
Forgot the link to a blog entry by a modern art idolater: http://www.livingthelist.com/2012/09/04/museum-of-modern-art-moma/ .
Dave J says
One of the bizarre attributes of Mohammedism is this combination of a single minded devotion and obedience to one particular strain of religiosity while maintaining a complete rejection and condemnation of anything outside of that world, whether it be art, music, science or whatever, they condemn all of it and wish to destroy it.
This polarized and myopic viewpoint leads to a furious nihilism when it comes to the lives, beliefs and artifacts of anything that is “other”. Basically it is the attitude of the spoiled and emotionally underdeveloped child living in a more adult world.
Linde Barrera says
Dave J and jihad3tracker, I think you both sized it up perfectly. In addition to your perceptive comments, i want to add this: while i am not a psychologist or any social scientist, i truly believe that these “spoiled children” are sexually dysfunctional individuals who are unable to love in the emotional dimension. Further, their appetite for cruelty and sadism seems to be what “turns them on” and keeps driving them to continue killing. Finally, what normal woman really could be in love with any guy who severs heads from bodies and claims it as his “religious duty”?
Dave J says
Yes, there is a large serving of sexual dysfunction in the Islamic worldview. From Mo’s pedophilia to the total control of women’s lives, to the genital mutilations and the promise of a reward of 72 virgins, there is something perverse going on with Muslim males. It is widely accepted that a preoccupation with big swords and long guns may reflect some felt inadequacy among such enthusiasts.
Needless to say, real men don’t rape or enslave women.
jay says
I watched Monuments Men last week which while a rather boring movie, was rather poignant and relevant to what’s gong on today. Also was the glaring difference of how George Clooney of all people wants to save our heritage and civilization because our monuments and art leave proof of who we are during WWII, as to the “european is evil and fluid” mentality our leaders and culture have today.
RonaldB says
I’ll add my two cents.
Islam hates expression of individuality. There is no place for the individual consciousness or personality in Islam.
The men are mandated to wear beards, which cuts off a large portion of the face. The women are forced to wear veils, of which I need say no more. There is no such thing as negotiation between the sexes, or marriage based on personal preferences. Muslims are not allowed to date, speak to someone of the opposite sex, or even look at them. Marriages are based on money, power, and family position. The preferences of the female, or even of the male, have nothing to do with it.
All arts are forbidden in Islam. Depictions of the human face denote an artistic view of the personality, a deep resource for creativity. Forbidden in Islam. Music is an endless source of creativity and individual personality and expression. Forbidden in Islam. Dancing and acting: powerful expression of emotions and thoughts by individuals: forbidden in Islam.
Science, philosophy, theology are all expressions of the human mind, inevitably involving deep human yearnings and curiosity: forbidden in Islam except for a narrow, uncritical recounting of previous Islamic thoughts and writings, all of which had to come directly from the Koran. In other words, forbidden in Islam. Science, especially, must go where the data takes you. The sun does not set in a mud pond, camel urine has no medicinal properties, the universe is finite and curved, and man and apes have common ancestors. Some Christians may disagree, but they argue the matter out. If it is not in the Koran, forbidden in Islam.
Where Islam goes, culture, human thought, science, art, history, architecture…all goes into a grey goo. The history of Byzantium is a rich tapestry, endlessly interesting to those who study it. What is worth studying from any country that has been Islamic? Is there any science, philosophy, theology, literature, art, music, worthy of the name? No.
Islam is a one-way trip in more ways than one. Once Islam takes over a country, all its history and accomplishments are eventually destroyed and obliterated. The current push to import Muslims into Western countries is literally a doomsday experiment. There is no way out. All alternative thought and knowledge will be destroyed.
George Romero says
Thanks Robert , Jahiliya is what it is called.As a child i always found it hard to believe
that the French , Napoleon could even consider desroying the Sphinx nose.
It all makes sense and the media can all rot in hell for lying to us for so long.
wildjew says
My guess is, as he did with other things Moses wrote, Muhammad and his followers borrowed the following from Moses:
Deu 7:5 “But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.
“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth….
The problem is, from Moses’ standpoint, Islam itself is idolatry. That is why Muslims fear the Jews will re-build the Temple where the Dome of the Rock now sits because the mosque is idolatry.
Linde Barrera says
Thank you to all of you for your well researched comments. I remember one exception about Islamic art, however, and I think it is evident at the Alhambra in Spain, where there were mosaics of geometric design, created in the centuries when Spain had a large Muslim population. Additionally, and I said this in another post related to a different article, if Muslims acknowledge that humans did not create themsekves, and humans have free will and different intelligences such as the logical/mathematical intelligence; the visual/spatial intelligence to design buildings, garments, sculpture, etc; the physical intelligence to excell at sports, movement, exercise AND dancing; and the musical intelligence to write, interpret, play music with instruments and sing; then why is Islam so restrictive to these enlightened disciplines? This fact coupled with their love of beheadings and other sexual aberrations, AND, let me add, Islam does not recognize Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, who died a cruel and sadistic death, as anything but a good man and prophet, should be enough for any person of average intelligence to say “NO” to Islam. It is just heart breaking.
BC says
I don’t want to excuse IS whose actions are completely abominable.However this is also true of Christianity which supplanted the old religions and in some cases (Christmas) incorporated them. Even in after the age of Enlightenment Christian Missionaries went around the world destroying ancient cultures and burning their artifacts on the grounds that they were devil worship, the most infamous being the Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America. So Christians cannot claim to be ‘holier than thou’ in this respect
ronald says
they would destroy every bible and every place that printed one if they could..destroy the true word of God..view UTUBE a critique of islam by Jay Smith ..get the facts on this cult
Tejpal says
If these ISIS morons are so much obsessed against idolatry, their first attempt to destroy should their Al Masjid Al Haram in Mecca and the next target should be their Madina mosque and mausoleum of their beloved prophet. These constitute the biggest idol monuments. Destry them and feel good.