Tuesday 10 July 2012

Could Islam finally destroy the Pyramids?

"Has the sun finally set for Egypt's Great Pyramids" asks Raymond Ibrahim
Yikes! [See also "Egyptian Islamist out to prove 'there is no fun in Islam'"]
From the always reliable Raymond Ibrahim:
According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi'i, those "symbols of paganism," which Egypt's Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs" and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt's new president, Muhammad Morsi, to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what Amr bin al-As could not."
This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity. While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself—deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran—was destroyed under bin al-As's reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar's command.
Read on.
This would be in keeping with Sharia law: that anything pre-Islamic is the period of ignorance (Jahilyyah).  And anything deemed "pagan" is particularly deplored. Thus the destruction of the Bamyian Buddhas and recently the destruction of tombs in Mali.  All in keeping with the tenets of Sharia law....