That will come as news to the Taliban.
What happened to the people who carved this statue? Why doesn’t Pakistan have a large Buddhist community, and why is its Hindu community rapidly diminishing in size? Find out in my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, the first history of jihad published in the Western world to include the bloody jihad against India. Click here to preorder The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS now.
“Taliban defeated by the quiet strength of Pakistan’s Buddha,” AFP, July 12, 2018:
MINGORA, Pakistan: The Buddha of Swat, carved on a cliff in the seventh century, was dynamited by the Pakistani Taliban in 2007. Now it has been restored, a powerful symbol of tolerance in the traumatised Pakistani valley.
The holy figure, depicted in a lotus position at the base of a granite cliff in northern Pakistan, was severely damaged by Islamist insurgents in an echo of the Afghan Taliban’s complete destruction of its more imposing counterparts at Bamiyan in 2001.
For some, it was a wanton act of vandalism that struck at the heart of the area’s unique history and identity.
It felt “like they killed my father”, says Parvesh Shaheen, a 79-year-old expert on Buddhism in Swat. “They attack… my culture, my history.”
The Buddha sits in Jahanabad, the epicentre of Swat’s Buddhist heritage, a beautiful valley in the foothills of the Himalayas.
There the Italian government has been helping to preserve hundreds of archaeological sites, working with local authorities who hope to turn it into a place of pilgrimage once more and pull in sorely needed tourist dollars.
A decade ago, the militants climbed the six-metre (20-foot) effigy to lay the explosives, but only part of them were triggered, demolishing the top of the Buddha’s face. Another, smaller fresco nearby was torn to pieces.
For Shaheen, the statue is “a symbol of peace, symbol of love, symbol of brotherhood”.
“We don’t hate anybody, any religion — what is this nonsense to hate somebody?” he says.
But other Swatis, less familiar with history and in 2007 not yet traumatised by the full brutality of the Taliban, applauded the attack and took up the argument that sculpture was “anti-Islamic”….
Krishna says
50,000 Hindu and Buddhist temples were destroyed by Muslim invaders and this phenomenon of destruction of ancient sites is been throughout Islamic history in all parts of the world becuase the statutes of pre Islamic period represents jahiliya (period of ignorance)
Cicero says
Not only that but for these Muslims whose ancestors were Buddhists, Hindus, Christians to be confronted with their lost heritage is too painful a reminder to bear.
They are reminded that they have been cheated of their glorious heritage and nlightened spiritual traditions.by the intolerant yoke of Islam.
Their smallness and incompleteness is triggered . So they expunge such reminders from their vision and memory.
Arnold Jackson says
According to their professed religious beliefs, they are still in a period of ignorance. They continue to practice pagan rituals when they go on Hadj. Circling a pagan temple seven times, running from one hill to another, etc.
Hari Singh says
Despite there being Mosques on the birthplace of the incarnations of God, Krishna and Rama and on the holiest place in Varanasi. All over North India the ancient Temples are just gone, priceless art work lost forever.
In the West nearly all the churches were taken over, most notably the Hagia Sophia and the church of St.John in Damascus.
gravenimage says
All grimly true, Hari Singh. And Muslims will do this to the rest of the world if they can,
Hari Singh says
The Kaaba is an idol, Muslims bow to it, circumambulate it, kiss the black stone mounted on the Kaaba and cover it with costly fabrics with golden threads.
J D S says
Just think about the historic images and sites that terrorist groups such as the Taliban and ISIS have destroyed…Showing how they fear even minorities..Some sites such as this may be restored but others were completely destroyed to never be rebuilt again, ancient churches for example..Such cowardly acts by these groups should make the free world want to ban together to destroy these groups but historical sites are just wood and stone. Blood and flesh are a different thing…Some of wood and stone could possibly be replaced but blood and flesh never can…I just heard on Fox News of an attack in Afghanistan, murdering as many as 20 …one incident out of so many other atrocities perpetrated by a peoples who have no respect for human life, others and even their own. I think this attack came after a recent battle where at least 200 ISIS and Taliban fighters were killed.
Why would anyone want to be among the most hated religion and peoples in the world….But FEAR holds them in place.
Michael Copeland says
“They attack… my culture, my history.”
You got it.
gravenimage says
AFP: “Taliban defeated by the quiet strength of Pakistan’s Buddha”
…………………….
Well, its nice that it has been restored (I wonder who paid to have that done? Likely not the local Mohammedans).
But–as noted–this does not bring back any of the descendants of the people who created it–who were all driven out, forcibly converted to Islam, or murdered outright. Nor does it bring back any civilized Buddhist values to this region which is now a watchword for Islamic savagery.
Will we see the same thing sometime in the future with, say, Mount Rushmore? I would not be surprised if we do nothing to stop the trajectory of Islamic surpremacism.
alex smythe says
Of course it could and probably would happen, if Islam were to become the dominant religion in the United States. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Loncoln represent things such as liberty, freedom, equality before the law and progressive, practical values and ideals, exactly the opposite of the values held by the Taliban and similar Islamist groups. Not all Muslims are backward like the Taliban, but enough of them are to threaten to do this kind of thing.
gravenimage says
True, Joe and Alex.
granddaddy says
This is what Islam does when it takes over a country: it tries to destroy every reminder of a conquered nation’s past so that the people forget their former future. North Africa is a good example: before Islam invaded in the 700s, it was mostly Christian and Jewish. Now it’s all Muslim, and most of the people there don’t know what they used to be. Look at Egypt: it used to be a leader in the Classic Roman Mediterranean economy. Now it’s just another 3rd-World shithole. That’s what Islam does: it steals the wealth of nations and leaves the people shackled forever in ignorance and hate.
So saying it destroys history isn’t quite true. Islam doesn’t destroy the past, it destroys the future.
gravenimage says
+1
utis says
It’s telling that Buddhism “dies out” in places conquered by islam. I can’t remember anymore, but fairly early Christian texts were discovered in someplace East of India, I think. Like Buddhism, Christianity “died out” in those remote places. And now, like Buddhism, it’s “dying out” in its own birth place.
Arnold Jackson says
Are you thinking of the Christian site near Sian, China that was found to be from 638 A.D.?
“The Nestorian Monument, a stone tablet in the city of Sian which was discovered in the 1600s was the only testimony to Christianity in China.”
Source: https://www.atour.com/religion/docs/20011114a.html
utis says
I didn’t know they got as far as China, but I’m very vaguely recalling something from a linguistics course, that referred to New Testament passages in an Indo-European dialect. The source was West of China, somewhere between China and India.
brane pilot says
And people wonder why the Buddhists of Myanmar expel the rapidly breeding Muslims of Rohingya.
They do this so their Buddhist civilization and traditions will survive.
Because there is no other way.
Even Buddhism does not condone suicide.
haller says
I have only one conspiracy theory about 9/11 and it is this. When the head of the Taliban in the Bamiyan valley area, Mullah Omar, declared that the twin standing Buddhas of the Bamiyan valley were going to be destroyed, I believe he was acting upon orders issued to him by Osama bin Laden himself. By February of 2001 the plans to attack The World Trade Centre and The Pentagon were well advanced. and I believe OBL wanted to play a mind game with the West and the US in particular by destroying these twin symbols of jehiliya(Twin Buddhas) after all he was implicated behind the 1993 attacks on the WTC. The theory was that the 1993 attack was meant to cause one tower to collapse against the other tower. OBL had sufficient engineering knowledge to understand the radical nature of the WTC’s construction and it’s weakness. Can I prove this? No. I do understand the Islamic mind and how it loves to play dominating mind games as a cat plays with a mouse. I hear that there is an intention to build a Mega Mosque in Tours France.
Sharyati says
The latest example of Islamic tolerance from West Bengal India, were they are now in a Majority. Muslims are allowed to blare their prayers from loudspeakers, but a few Hindu school boys greeting each other, not even muslims, with “Jai Shri Ram” resulted in a near fatal thrashing by a teacher. All because of the policy of Islamic appeasement by the chief minister. Hindus wake up before its too late. “Jai Shree Ram”
https://hinduexistence.org/2018/07/15/muslim-head-teacher-in-west-bengal-thrashed-hindu-student-severely-for-saying-jai-sri-ram/#comment-261243
gravenimage says
Horrifying but not surprising. These poor kids.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Dirty Hindu barbarian Sharyati, so you are invoking the satan In Ram Idol for you to go on rampage slaughtering muslims in west Bengal?. I’m currently in India. I will go there and kick the Satan in Ram Idol, get him running away from the whole of India and track you down and bring you to justice for genocide killings of Muslims.
Sharyati says
Shitty Islamic IIM, who goes on Rampage in Bengal for Ram idol? Nobody murders for a Ram idol, like you terrorists shout “Allahu Akbar”. You filthy effer, you are threatening me you filthy terrorist?? Take a shot and see and you will regret the day yourmother gave birth to you!!!. Genocide of Muslims? Where does it happen. Unlike slavery, nikkah halala where a divorced wife remarries the husbands brother and shamelessly. Why not the father in law? Such a shameless disgusting cult!!!
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Joe, I am not saying Taliban, alqaeda, Isis and other affiliated terrorist groups holding perverted view on Islam are right. They are all idiots used by evil United States to destabilise muslim nations. Destroying Budha idols is just ploy to win sympathy of Muslims.
gravenimage says
Even with his absurd Taqiyya about the Taliban being American, Ibrahim itace muhammed acknowledges that destroying great art and artifacts wins the sympathy of barbaric Muslim thugs. *Ugh*.
Sharyati says
You stinking Islamic pig, if you have a functional pair of eyes in your head, take a proper history book on the history of Jihad in India, like that of William Durrant or search for the original accounts of the historians who accompanied various Jihadis on internet archives. You will be able to see 50000 Hindu and Buddhist temples destroyed. This is nothing new and is the Sunnah of your disgusting prophet. Right at the entrance of the Indus valley ruins, there is a Quranic verse put on a board that talks about how Allah destroys the monuments of the Kaffirs and leaves it as a sign for the future generations of Kafirs to show what happened to their disbelieving ancestors. So saying that this is a perversion by the Taliban or Al-queda is just a load of Taqiyya
gravenimage says
Good post, Sharyati.
In fact, Ibrahim itace muhammed himself has said that Muslims have the right to destroy “barbaric idols”, so his claims here are absurd.
Sharyati says
Thanks Gravenimage
Max says
Why is its Hindu community rapidly diminishing in size?
This is easily explained. The Muslim population is growing uncontrolled, as they have as many children as possible, regardless of them being able to feed them or not. That is the reason why they are emigrating in huge numbers to the West. Accessing welfare is their main goal (Thanks Merkel). They will impose Sharia law once they exceed the non-Muslim population in Western countries.
If the current trends continue, in about 25 years from now, everybody will be forced to convert to their religion or killed, as directed by the Quran.
Mahendra Singh says
At last conscience is beginning to blossom in Muslim hearts.
Mohammad’s Islam had tried to completely destroy humanly virtues.
It will take a long time to reverse the damage inflicted on human goodness
by the cult of Islam.
Recently, the path to restoration of human values in Islam is being spearheaded
by Muslim women. They are increasingly vocal about customs like triple Talaq,
Halala and polygamy. Just today there was a fist fight between a Mullah and
a laywoman on these issues. Since the Maulana resorted to violence shows their
insecurity.