Muslims and Archaeology
July 12, 2012 3 Comments
What is it about Islam that leads so many Muslims to see their cultural patrimony as something to be despised and even destroyed?
Harking back to the Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, Muslims in northern Mali last week moved against their own country’s heritage. The Islamic supremacist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Religion) raised international concern when they began destroying some of the ancient shrines of Muslim saints in Timbuktu, “the city of 333 saints.” According to Ishaan Tharoor in Time magazine, “UNESCO, the UN’s cultural agency, says as many as half of the city’s shrines ‘have been destroyed in a display of fanaticism.’”
Why would a Muslim group destroy the tombs of Muslim holy men? “The destruction is a divine order,” an Ansar Dine spokesman explained; another added that they planned to destroy all the city’s ancient tombs, “without exception.”
UNESCO and the international media have portrayed Ansar Dine’s stance on this as unthinking fanaticism, contradicting Islam’s tenets: UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova declared that “the attack on Timbuktu’s cultural heritage is an attack against this history and the values it carries — values of tolerance, exchange and living together, which lie at the heart of Islam.”
Unfortunately for Bokova, however, Ansar Dine has ample support from within Islamic tradition for considering these shrines to be idolatrous, even though they commemorate Muslim heroes. According to a hadith attributed to Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife and notorious child bride, as Muhammad lay dying, “he drew his sheet upon his face and when he felt uneasy, he uncovered his face and said in that very state: Let there be curse upon the Jews and the Christians that they have taken the graves of their apostles as places of worship. He in fact warned (his men) against what they (the Jews and the Christians) did” (Sahih Muslim 1082).
Another tradition has the dying Muhammad saying, “Allah cursed the Jews and the Christians, for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets,” and Aisha adding: “And if that had not been the case, then the Prophet’s grave would have been made prominent before the people. So (the Prophet) was afraid, or the people were afraid that his grave might be taken as a place for worship” (Sahih Bukhari 2.23.472).
Muslims who consider the shrines of saints to be idolatrous reason from those traditions that if the grave of Muhammad himself was not to be taken as a place of worship, neither should the graves of lesser Muslims become shrines for prayer and pilgrimage…
Do read on here.
Along the same line, a complaint has been laid over the building material and scaffolding that has been placed on the “rock” of the Dome of the Rock by the Wakf (HT).
Activist group Temple Mount Faithful filed an emergency petition with the High Court of Justice on Monday to stop construction work at the Temple Mount, which they claim is damaging holy Jewish artifacts.
According to chairman Gershon Salomon, Wakf Muslim religious trust officials who are conducting renovations at the Temple Mount have built scaffolding over the Foundation Stone, which was part of the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
Jewish tradition holds that the Ark of the Covenant rested on this stone in the First and Second Temple Periods.
Salomon said that the workers carrying out renovations on the Dome of the Rock are using the stone as a workbench, resting buckets of building materials on it and causing damage to one of Judaism’s holiest relics.
“For years, they’ve been building and therefore destroying Jewish history [on the Temple Mount], and they did terrible things over the years,” said Salomon. “There is a feeling that the sovereignty of Israel and our laws are not honored there, there’s no stopping them… But this is the worst thing that they’ve done.”
The Wakf did not return multiple calls requesting comment…
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Think of the Puritans and their dislike of images.
Huh. I know it’s not just me when I notice how (especially in the U.S.) similar Protestant, evangelical denominations are to Muslims. (Or even Jews)
Here are some examples:
1. Dislike of images
2. Bibliolatry (I get very irate when the Koran is compared to the Bible)
3. Lack of sacerdotal priesthood
4. Lack of sacrament
5. Lack of centralized authority
6. Lack of any divine foundation
7. Absurd, subjective interpretation of holy text.
8. Historical revisionism
9. Emotionalism
10. Incoherent theology
What bothers me about this particular case of the Dome of the Rock is that even Muslims don’t treat it with as much respect as they would the Kaaba, which is basically a spiritual whorehouse before monotheism came along. They would point their posterior towards “Islam’s third holiest site” as they bow towards Mecca, and play soccer and use the Temple Mount as a sort of picnic area rather than as a place where God actually once was present.
I remember this photo of Muslims throwing stones INTO the Dome of the Rock just to spite the Jews’ assertion that the Holy of Holies was nearby, if not exactly on the spot of the Rock.
Islam is a threat, but they cannot be confronted so long as damnable modernism and political forces defend Islam even unto the downfall of traditionally Christian civilizations.
I shudder to think, for example, that the battles fought by the Spanish Crusaders, of Charles Martel, of the Knights of Malta, were all for nothing when our contemporary European Oikophobes think that letting in these heathens into their countries is an act of “compassion” and “tolerance” while these Muslims already have an idea of what to do with Christendom’s churches and cathedrals; destroy them, or convert them into mosques. I know that’s what they did in Constantinople (In fact there’s a Turkish law, among other anti-Christian laws, stating that only mosques can have domes- the Patriarchate in the Fanar thus does not look like an Orthodox cathedral.), in Spain, before the glorious Reconquista, and that’s what they’ll do with Canterbury, with Exeter, with St. Peter’s Basilica, with Notre Dame, and with all other holy sites, so long as there is the will of Islam to spread either by word or by sword.
@ Ioannes
Now, now. This is not how a Catholic should go on about either Protestants or Non-Christians.
I refer you to the dogmatic constitution “Lumen Gentium”. This is the most authoritative possible teaching of the Church, promugated by the Holy Father in General Council. You will find the full text on the Vatican web site here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html.
On Christians not in communion:-
“The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.”
On Jews and Muslims and other non-Christians:-
“Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.”
And before speaking of the Reconquista” as “glorious”, I suggest you read a little history. It was anything but. Muslim Andalusia was an early example of a tolerant society until the barbarians deciided on a land grab and a very bloody one. Remember: it is thanks to the Universities of Andalucia where Muslims, Christans and Jews taught in harmony that much of the learning of the ancient world was preserved and transmitted to Europe. Not for nothing did the Ottoman Sultan send ships to rescue Jews and take them to Istanbul. He well knew the Empire would benefit from their learning,
So perhaps it is high time you stopped believing the medieval propaganda and come to realise that both the Crusades and the Reqconquista are historical events about the military might of rulers and the exercise of power by princes which caused much bloodshed and which impeded rather than advanced civilisation, progress, learning and religious understanding. Much happend of which Christians should be deeply ashamed.
Finally, I live in a part of London where there are very many muslims. In terms of observance they set an example for us. In any given week in England there are likey to be more Muslims at their mosques than members of the CofE, or Catholics for that matter, at their churches. So before you start speaking of them as “heathens” you had better turn your attention to the majority of the population which, although nominally Christian, are as thoroughy heathen in the way they live their lives as anybody has ever been.