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Islamic State destroys famous lion god statue in Palmyra

May 28, 2015 6:32 pm By Robert Spencer

Palmyra rock catStill pursuing al-Lat after all these years. “The statue was dedicated to the pre-Islamic Arabian goddess Al-Lat, who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca along with Manat and al-Uzza.”

The Qur’an says: “So have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza? And Manat, the third, the other one? Is the male for you and for Him the female? That, then, is an unjust division.” (53:19-22) This passage is ridiculing the idea that these three goddesses are the daughters of Allah, for that would mean that the deity only had daughters while human being have sons, who were assumed to be superior to daughters — that would have been “an unjust division.” The three goddesses of Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh of Mecca, were overthrown by Islam, but it is not insignificant that the Islamic State did the most damage to the lion of al-Lat.

Incidentally, that passage in the Qur’an’s 53rd sura is the only trace left of the celebrated “Satanic Verses.” Long before the novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie, this term referred to an incident recorded in Islamic tradition, in which Muhammad tried to achieve reconciliation with the Quraysh by a “revelation” in which he declared, “So have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza? And Manat, the third, the other one? They are the exalted cranes (gharaniq), worthy of veneration.” The Quraysh, hearing this, prostrated to Allah with the Muslims, who accepted the three goddesses as Allah’s daughters. But Muhammad soon realized that he had thus compromised the absolute monotheism that he had preached up to that point, and so he reneged, and claimed that Satan, not Allah, had inspired those verses, which were then duly replaced by the “revelation” recorded in Qur’an 53:19-22. The concept of abrogation, which ultimately led to the idea that the Qur’an’s violent passages take precedence over its peaceful ones, justified this change in still another “revelation”: “We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth  better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?” (Qur’an 2:106)

“ISIS ‘destroys’ famous lion god statue in captured Syrian city of Palmyra… just days after promising locals they would not obliterate ancient monuments,” by John Hall, MailOnline, May 28, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Militants fighting for the Islamic State have reportedly destroyed a famous statue of a lion in the captured city of Palmyra – despite promising locals they would not obliterate the ancient city.

Following their capture of Palmyra last Thursday, ISIS militants are understood to have won the support of much of the local population by promising not to destroy the city’s famous monuments.

But it appears that promise was too much for the jihadis to keep, with eyewitnesses claiming they destruction of millenia-old Statues and buildings is already very much under way, with the most significant loss so far being the celebrated Lion of Al-Lat, which dates back to the first century AD.

The lion statue was destroyed by ISIS militants on Saturday, according to the International Business Time, who quoted eyewitnesses on the ground in Palmyra.

‘I heard a loud noise, so I went up to the roof to see what is going on,’ one local man said.

‘I saw Daash crushing the ‘god lion’ statue with construction machines. There were many other crushed statues but I could not recognise the rest of them because they were totally ruined,’ he added, using an Arabic acronym for the terror group.

The act of destroying the statue came just days after ISIS gathered Palmyra’s citizens together and publicly promised not to bulldoze the city’s ancient buildings, as they previously did in Nimrod.

‘As for the historical monuments, we will not touch it with our bulldozers as some tend to believe,’ ISIS commander Abu Leith was quoted as saying on a local radio broadcast.

However the promise did come with a get-out clause, as the depraved fighters insisted they would ‘pulverise’ any statues they discovered in the city that the believed citizens secretly prayed to.

The lion statue in Palmyra dates from the first century AD and stood outside the city’s famous Temple of Bel.

The statue was dedicated to the pre-Islamic Arabian goddess Al-Lat, who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca along with Manat and al-Uzza.

The Temple of Bel itself was built in 32 AD – six hundred years before the arrival of Islam in Syria – and was dedicated to the Semitic god Bel – who was worshiped by Palmyra citizens along with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Yarhibol.

Since ISIS seized control of Palmyra, the temple and its surrounding area have been appropriated by ISIS militants, who are said to be using it as a military base.

Locals who preserved the site for the last 1,900 years are now said to be banned from entering the area unless the are willing to sign up to become ISIS jihadis….

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Filed Under: Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Islamic supremacism Tagged With: Lion of Al-Lat, Palmyra


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Comments

  1. No Fear says

    May 28, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    Destroying statues? Nothing to do with Islam. Give them all a job and everything will be fine.

  2. MDE says

    May 28, 2015 at 6:48 pm

    Blame the jews?

  3. Angemon says

    May 28, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    Following their capture of Palmyra last Thursday, ISIS militants are understood to have won the support of much of the local population by promising not to destroy the city’s famous monuments.

    But it appears that promise was too much for the jihadis to keep…

    Gee, who could have imagined that the people who took the city by force would not keep their word?

    ‘As for the historical monuments, we will not touch it with our bulldozers as some tend to believe,’ ISIS commander Abu Leith was quoted as saying on a local radio broadcast.

    If they, for example, used dynamite to blast the statues then they would be keeping their promise – they weren’t using their bulldozers. Heck, they could bulldoze the statues with equipment found on the scene and technically still keep their promise, as long as the bulldozers weren’t their property at the time.

    However the promise did come with a get-out clause, as the depraved fighters insisted they would ‘pulverise’ any statues they discovered in the city that the believed citizens secretly prayed to.

    Keyword being “believed”…

  4. William Lucas Harvey Jr. says

    May 28, 2015 at 7:16 pm

    Islam’s 7th Century Mentality Muslim “Retards” are Destroying ANYTHING that represents the World BEFORE Islam’s 21st Century “Allahu Akbar”, and “Death to the Infidel”, the “Rule of Blood”, and NOW the Ancient “Lion God Statue”, because it Detracts from Islam’s “God of Hate” Allah.

    • particolor says

      May 30, 2015 at 2:07 am

      Think its time the Black Box got a “Seeing Too “

  5. somehistory says

    May 28, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    Lies and more lies on top of lies. Murder on top of murder. Mayhem on top of mayhem. Don’t trust them to tell the truth and if they make a promise, expect the opposite. Expect the worst from them and you won’t be left disillusioned. They worship the father of lies, satan. They follow the “thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10)” imitating his every footstep as he leads them to the burning pit of destruction.

  6. thelmalou says

    May 28, 2015 at 7:29 pm

    Utterly infuriating. No respect for history, or even worse none for life. Sickos.

  7. Magooey says

    May 28, 2015 at 8:00 pm

    Build a duplicate in a public space in Palmyra, NY.

  8. Paul says

    May 28, 2015 at 8:01 pm

    The Prophet Mohammed was a pedophile who raped his 9 year old wife.

  9. mortimer says

    May 28, 2015 at 9:37 pm

    The strong delusion of Islam has to be debunked completely as a dangerous, life-destroying ideology.

  10. mortimer says

    May 28, 2015 at 9:50 pm

    Islamic bait and switch…the sacred Sunna of the pedophile prophet.

    Pedophiles and highwaymen are always truthful, aren’t they?

    ISIS is as Islamic as taqiyya.

  11. Matthieu Baudin says

    May 28, 2015 at 10:29 pm

    Classic Year Zero behaviour, destroy all traces of the past and attempt to hold a moral monopoly on the future. ISIS is gearing up to be Islam’s Pol Pot.

  12. carlos malleum says

    May 29, 2015 at 4:20 am

    so Islam is such an insecure faith, it’s most dedicated acolytes feel threatened by a god no one has worshiped for 1400 years….

    There goes another priceless milestone of the history of humanity because it doesn’t conform to the dark age despotism that a minority of the world’s population adhere to blindly.

    People, what do the following have in common: JS Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Isodore of Miletus, Mozart, Wagner, Pasternak, Shakespeare, Dickens, Goethe, Freud, Voltaire, Paine, Michelangelo, Stradivarius, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Matisse, Gaugin, Twain…..and I could go on all day??

    you guessed it – NONE of them are muslimics

  13. Nimrod says

    May 29, 2015 at 1:27 pm

    Muslims can’t stand the Satanic Verses incident, because it proves that the whole Quran is invalid. Mohammad said:

    “And if you are in doubt as to that which We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a chapter like it and call on your witnesses besides Allah if you are truthful. ” – Qur’an 2:23

    Yet “satan” seems to have managed to create verses that were able to fool not only others but even Mohammad himself.

    If Mohammad himself can be fooled then the entire Quran is in doubt even based on his own criteria.

    • Angemon says

      May 29, 2015 at 3:33 pm

      Nimrod posted:

      “Muslims can’t stand the Satanic Verses incident, because it proves that the whole Quran is invalid.”

      You are correct. I’ve seen first-hand muslim apologists trying to turn the situation on its head and saying “no, no, the satanic verses incident is an invention of the purveyors of islamophobia and never happened, but if it did then it’s evidence that the quran comes from allah and muhammad was a prophet because allah sent an angel to correct him and therefore it’s evidence that none can corrupt the words of allah”. Which, of course, it’s circular logic – who saw the alleged angel? The same person that received the “revelations” in the quran.

      What we have is this: muhammad said he received revelations from a pagan moon god asking others to worship him alone. Muhammad gathered come companions. Muhammad then wanted his tribe to convert to islam and conveniently received revelations telling him that his tribe could keep praying to their three goddesses because they were partners with allah. Muhammad’s companions, who apparently knew his “revelations” better than him, told him “dude, what gives? First you told us to abandon our gods and worship allah alone, now you’re saying that some of the gods we abandoned are partners with allah? Isn’t that, like, the opposite of what you told us?”. So he had to choose between alienating his companions or the newcomers.

  14. profitsbeard says

    May 29, 2015 at 10:02 pm

    Al-Lat will not be mocked.

    She will disembowel the jihadis however long it takes to catch and eviscerate them.

    All praise the Lion goddess Al-Lat.

    Noble and implacable.

  15. Mark says

    May 30, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    The Satanic verses were the ones left in! If Muhammad had allowed these verses then Islam could have been another tolerant religion like Confucianism and Hinduism accepting many paths to the truth. Of course that wouldn’t suit a warmonger who wanted to create an us and them situation with hatred to drive on his warriors

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