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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Islamic State used sledgehammers & rifles to destroy priceless artifacts

Apr 5, 2015 9:21 pm By Robert Spencer

HatraBesides 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. Obviously this cuts against the idea of tourism of ancient sites and non-Muslim religious installations such as St. Catherine’s monastery. 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.” 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.

“Video: Islamic State group shot, hammered away Iraq’s Hatra,” by Vivian Salama, Associated Press, April 4, 2015:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State extremists at Iraq’s ancient city of Hatra destroyed the archaeological site by smashing sledgehammers into its walls and shooting Kalashnikov assault rifles at priceless statues, a new militant video purportedly from the group shows.

Militants attacked Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, last month, officials and local residents said, though the extent of the damage remains unclear as it is in territory still controlled by the Islamic State group.

The video, released overnight Friday, shows a militant on a ladder using a sledgehammer to bang repeatedly on the back of one of the carved faces until it crashes to the ground and breaks into pieces. The video also shows a militant firing a Kalashnikov rifle at another, while men chop away the bases of some of the larger wall sculptures.

The video corresponded with Associated Press reporting on the attack and was posted to a militant website frequently used by the group.

One of the militants, who speaks Arabic with a distinct Gulf accent on the video, declares they destroyed the site because it is “worshipped instead of God.” The Islamic State group, which holds a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate, has been destroying ancient relics they say promote idolatry that violates their fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law. Authorities also believe they’ve sold others on the black market to fund their atrocities.

Local government officials told the AP last month the militant group had looted and destroyed several ancient sites, including the 3,000 year-old Nimrud, another UNESCO World Heritage site. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the Nimrud attack “a war crime.”

Another video released in February showed militants smashing artifacts in the Mosul Museum and in January, the group burned hundreds of books from the Mosul library and Mosul University, including many rare manuscripts. The majority of the artifacts destroyed in the Mosul Museum attack were from Hatra.

Hatra, located 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, was a large fortified city during the Parthian Empire and capital of the first Arab kingdom. The site is said to have withstood invasions by the Romans in A.D. 116 and A.D. 198 thanks to its high, thick walls reinforced by towers. The ancient trading center spanned 6 kilometers (4 miles) in circumference and was supported by more than 160 towers. At its heart are a series of temples with a grand temple at the center — a structure supported by columns that once rose to 100 feet….

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Islamic supremacism Tagged With: Hatra


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Comments

  1. Jay Airahs says

    Apr 5, 2015 at 9:54 pm

    Black Stone — that Muhammad kissed hoping that it would absorb his sins.

    How did that work out?

    • particolor says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 6:42 am

      They Poisoned the GF for His Troubles !!

    • Marco Elliott says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 11:19 am

      God never made a stone – black or any other colour – big enough to absorb the sins of that liar.

      • boakai ngombu says

        Apr 6, 2015 at 4:35 pm

        And: Muhammad (lately contrived; full of lusts) rejected the One – Son of Man/Son of God – who paid the price for his blood guilt and Who would free him from his slavery to corruption and rebellion.

  2. somehistory says

    Apr 5, 2015 at 10:27 pm

    Recently, there was a program on about Babylon’s Hanging Gardens. It was very interesting and as the hostess and her camera crew went around the area of Mosul and a couple of other places, I wondered just now long the evidence of the gardens would last. The fighting and terrorism had already made travel for her impossible to some degree and she had to ask a couple of locals to go in with cameras and film what she wished to inspect. If is has its way, soon there will be nothing left to see and document. They are trying to wipe out history.

  3. Richie says

    Apr 5, 2015 at 10:32 pm

    I noticed every time a western tourist carves their name into a Roman ruin it becomes international news- yet when Muslims completely destroy 2000 year old structures and statues in the Middle East , it barely makes the news. I wonder what will happen when Muslims start destroying states and icons in Rome and other parts of Europe? Will the leftist media still give the Muslims protection?

    • Charli Main says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 5:36 am

      Western tourists that carve their names on to ancient monuments are vile, ignorant hooligans that have no respect for the past.
      On the other hand, when Muslims destroy ancient monuments, they are only practicing their religion and its racist, bigoted and Islamophobic to deny devout Muslims the right to practice their religion. Its important not to confuse devout Muslims with ignorant Western hooligans.

  4. profitsbeard says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 12:04 am

    A few decades ago all of this incessantly and increasingly demented Jihad news would have looked like a Philip K. Dick sci-fi nightmare.satire.

    “Imagine a future where nation-conquering gangs of religious maniacs communicate over visi-phones to plan burning a captured pilot alive for a recruitment and TV propaganda release. Or this week’s mass-beachside beheadings””

    People would have chuckled at the mad absurdity for such a bleak comic vision. “Dark Ages Du Jour”.

    And thanks to craven Quislings in the West, it has arrived. Soaked in gore.

  5. Saleem Smith says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 1:38 am

    If the Qur’an is the perfect word of God as Muslims claim it to be then why does the Qur’an permit slavery and sex-slavery?

    We ex-Muslims living with Islam’s formal and informal death penalty for apostasy know that Islamic theology is an evil fraud that ought to be abandoned.

    THE QURANIC SANCTION OF SLAVERY

    The institution of slavery in Islam was formalized in the following Quranic verse, in which Allah distinguishes free human beings or masters, who exercise justice and righteousness, from the dumb, useless and burdensome ones, the slaves:

    Quran 16:76 Allah sets forth (another) Parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good: is such a man equal with one who commands Justice, and is on a Straight Way?

    Allah warns the believers against taking the slaves as equal partner in status and in sharing their wealth, lest they have to fear them as anyone else:

    Quran 30:28…do ye have partners among those whom your right hands possess (i.e., slaves, captives) to share as equals in the wealth We have bestowed on you? Do ye fear them as ye fear each other?

    Allah recognizes some human beings, namely the masters, as more blessed by Himself than the less favored slaves as part of His divine plan. He warns Muslims against sharing His gifts to them equally with their slaves. Those who would take slaves as equal, warns Allah, would deny Him:

    Quran 16:71 Allah has bestowed His gifts of sustenance more freely on some of you than on others: those more favoured are not going to throw back their gifts to those whom their right hands possess, so as to be equal in that respect. Will they then deny the favours of Allah?

    Allah does not only sanction the institution of slavery, He also gave divine blessing to masters (Muslim men only can own slaves) to have sex with the female slaves:

    Quran 70:29–30 And those who guard their private parts, Except in the case of their wives or those whom their right hands possess—for these surely are not to be blamed

    Quran 23:5–6 And who guard their private parts, except before their mates or those whom their right hands possess, for they surely are not blameable

    Therefore, if there are women amongst the captives or slaves, Muslims are divinely sanctioned to have sex with them as they do with their wives. This verdict of Allah founded the institution of sex-slavery or slave-concubinage in Islam, which was widespread in the pre-colonial Muslim world and continued well into the mid-twentieth century. As far as legal marriage is concerned, there is a limitation of four wives for a man at one time [Quran 4:3], but no such limitation on the number of sex-slaves.

    Allah also gave a divine sanction to Muslims for acquiring female slaves for sexual engagement by waging wars against the infidels:

    Quran 33:50 O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war…

    Muslims can engage in sex with the captured slave women even if they are married, but not with the married free Muslim women:

    Quran 4:24 Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess…

    There are other verses in the Quran that talks approvingly of slaves and capturing them in wars. Thus, according to the divine commands of the Islamic God as enshrined in the holy Quran, Muslims are allowed to keep slaves. They can amass slaves by waging wars, have sex with the female slaves, and of course, use them as they wish. For Muslims, having sex with female slaves is as legal as having sex with their married wives. Slavery appears to be one of the most desired divine privileges in Islam, since Allah took the pain of reminding Muslims about this divine right time and again in so many verses.

    • RonaldB says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 9:40 am

      This is as good a place as any to point out that Koranic “parables” are the most inane, insipid, and obvious stories that can be imagined. Compare any “parable” in the Koran with any parable by Jesus in the New Testament.

      One of the lesser-known disadvantages to the coming, unopposed takeover by Muslims will be the sheer boredom of life, uninterrupted by any art, music, literature worth reading, or creative thought.

      • particolor says

        Apr 7, 2015 at 3:53 am

        But Pierced by the Shriek of an Innocent Woman being stoned for SFA !!

    • Betty says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 7:03 pm

      so Saleem in allah eyes the only thing a muslim man really lives for is murder,rape. slavery, marring baby’s, sex,sex, and more sex, should have put sex first, because that is all they think of. sick,

  6. duh_swami says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 5:34 am

    While taking a break from murdering children and hypocrites, the bored jihadist needs something to do..Breaking and destroying artifacts is good exercise and proper use of spare time.
    But jahiliyya is all over the planet. It’s always going to be there no matter how hard Abu tries to erase it. There are thousands of jahiliyya sites in the Americas, and all over Asia as well..I have never been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt, but I did sit on top of the Pyramid of the Sun, outside Mexico city…
    I had the urge to destroy it but I controlled myself…It would have been an all day job and I didn’t bring a lunch…

  7. Jay Airahs says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 8:25 am

    One more indictment begging for a referendum from human civilization to finally pass a verdict on Muhammad’s abomination.

  8. james hazan says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 9:19 am

    Let them erase their past,let us make sure they do not have a future.

  9. Marco Elliott says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 11:14 am

    The irony of muhammadan vandalism is the utter chutzpah (if I may use a Yiddish word) with which these savages claim that it was they who preserved classical civilization which they then brought to “dark age” Europe. This “we preserved Greek mathematics, medicine and science” hoax is taken as true by the historically uneducated ignoranti who today pass as high school teachers. I have heard this anti-historical phantasy sprouted in front of teenage students. And, of course, it reaches its dizzy limit when one hears Agia Sophia, and other Byzantine churches, called masterpieces of Islamic architecture …and I have heard that delusion touted by muhammadan “scholars.”
    The truth is muhammadans have lived in koranic darkness for so long that they can’t see any civilization of any epoch as part of the patrimony of the human race.

    • profitsbeard says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 11:40 am

      They also get credit for “Arab numerals” -our 1-2-3’s- which were invented by the Hindus.

      Islam preserved any intellectual” tools” – written down by infidels- that it could use to subjugate the world..

      And burned the rest.

      As they now use smartphones and Twitter to metastasize their lunacy and chaos.

    • gravenimage says

      Apr 6, 2015 at 8:34 pm

      Yes—Muslims either falsely appropriate other’s accomplishments if such Taqiyya serves their aims; then once they are in full control they do nothing but destroy.

      And here’s a nice piece that debunks the absurdity of considering the great Hagia Sophia Islamic:

      “…This leads to the conclusion that the core physical components of an “Islamic Architecture” building, were actually created and invented by non Muslim architects, not while under Muslim rule, and before the rise of Islam anyway. The Hagia Sophia is seen by many historians, architects, and theorists as the symbol for “Islamic Architecture”, and many architects are use it as an example of a Mosque or building that represents the “greatness” of the Islamic Architecture.”

      http://misfitsarchitecture.com/2010/06/25/architectural-myths-1-islamic-architecture/

      It’s a good article in general, and shows just how little Islam has ever contributed to art and architecture.

  10. Betty says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 7:08 pm

    these people. savages is a better word. have never done any thing worth while.

  11. Linda Rivera says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 8:47 pm

    Destroyed the site because it is “worshipped instead of God.” Absolutely astonishing that Muslims believe such a thing. But then Muslims are very different from non-Muslims.

    Is one of the reasons they destroy is because they cannot create? Therefore with great anger and violence they destroy?

    Jews created many wonderful things and Muslims intensely hate Jews. Inventions that most people are very grateful for.

  12. gravenimage says

    Apr 6, 2015 at 8:56 pm

    Islamic State extremists at Iraq’s ancient city of Hatra destroyed the archaeological site by smashing sledgehammers into its walls and shooting Kalashnikov assault rifles at priceless statues, a new militant video purportedly from the group shows.
    ………………………

    Hatra was the best preserved example of a city of the Parthian Empire. It was completed around the first century AD, and featured fine examples of Roman and Persian architecture..

    Anyone who has seen the movie “The Exorcist” will remember it as the ancient city shown near the beginning of the film.

    Here are some images of Hatra:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=ancient%20city%20hatra%20images&hl=en&gbv=2&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

    It’s always important to know what we have lost to these damn barbarians.

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