{"id":641,"date":"2012-07-15T19:29:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T19:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=641"},"modified":"2013-02-15T19:32:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T19:32:00","slug":"calls-to-destroy-egypts-great-pyramids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/calls-to-destroy-egypts-great-pyramids\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n

FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids \u2014 or, in the words of Saudi\u00a0Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi’i<\/a>, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to\u00a0cover with wax<\/a>. Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity,\u00a0Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud<\/a>, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what Amr bin al-As could not.”<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran \u2014 was destroyed under bin al-As’s reign and in\u00a0compliance with Caliph Omar’s command<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, while book-burning was a simple process in the 7th century, destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was not \u2014 even though\u00a0many early Muslim leaders certainly tried<\/a>, some\u00a0partially successful<\/a>; by the time gunfire was invented, Egypt’s Medieval Mamluk rulers even managed to “de-nose<\/a>” the Sphinx during target practice (though popular legend naturally attributes it to a Westerner, Napoleon).<\/p>\n

Now, however, as Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sheikhs” observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be destroyed. The only question left is whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president is “pious” enough \u2014 if he is willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the hands of Egypt’s first Islamic conqueror.<\/p>\n

Nor is such a course of action implausible. History is laden with examples of Muslims destroying their own pre-Islamic heritage \u2014 starting with Muhammad himself, who ransacked Arabia’s Ka’ba temple, transforming it into a mosque.<\/p>\n

Asking “What is it about Islam that so often turns its adherents against their own patrimony?” Daniel Pipes provides\u00a0several examples<\/a>, from Medieval Muslims in India destroying their forefathers’ temples, to contemporary Muslims destroying their ancestors’ heritage in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, and Tunisia. Currently, in what the International Criminal Court is describing as a possible “war crime,” Islamic fanatics are\u00a0destroying the ancient legacy of the city of Timbuktu<\/a>\u00a0in Mali \u2014 all to Islam’s triumphant war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”<\/p>\n

Much of this hate for their own pre-Islamic heritage is tied to the fact that, traditionally, Muslims do not identify with this or that nation, culture, or language, but only with the Islamic nation \u2014 the\u00a0Umma<\/em>. Accordingly, while many Egyptians \u2014 Muslims and non-Muslims alike \u2014 see themselves first and foremost\u00a0as Egyptians<\/a>, Islamists have no national identity, identifying only with Islam’s “culture,” based on the “sunna” of the prophet and Islam’s language, Arabic. This sentiment was clearly reflected when the former\u00a0leader of the Muslim Brotherhood<\/a>, Muhammad Akef, recently declared “the hell with Egypt,” indicating that the interests of his country are secondary to Islam’s.<\/p>\n

It is further telling that such calls are being made now \u2014 immediately after a Muslim Brotherhood member became Egypt’s president. In fact, the same reports discussing the call to demolish the last of the Seven Wonders of the World, also note that Egyptian Salafis are calling on Morsi to\u00a0banish all Shias and Baha’is from Egypt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, Morsi’s recent call to release the Blind Sheikh, a terrorist mastermind, from US imprisonment, may be the tip of the iceberg in coming audacity. From calls to legalize\u00a0Islamic sex-slave marriage<\/a>\u00a0to calls to institute “morality police” to calls to destroy Egypt’s mountain-like monuments, under Muslim Brotherhood tutelage, the bottle has been uncorked, and the genie unleashed in Egypt.<\/p>\n

Will all those international institutions, which make it a point to look the other way whenever human rights abuses are committed by Muslims, lest they appear “Islamophobic,” at least take note now that the Great Pyramids appear to be next on Islam’s hit list, or will the fact that Muslims are involved silence them once again \u2014 even as those most ancient symbols of human civilization are pummeled to the ground?<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92012 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids \u2014 or, in the words of Saudi\u00a0Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi’i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to\u00a0cover with wax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[118,227],"tags":[1035,1017,1043,30,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-al","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":606,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/msm-facilitates-destruction-of-the-pyramids\/","url_meta":{"origin":641,"position":0},"title":"MSM Facilitates Destruction of the Pyramids","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Frontpage Magazine Because the article \"Calls to Destroy Egypt's Great Pyramids Begin\" went viral on the Internet \u2014 read nearly 400,000 times on\u00a0FrontPage Magazinealone where it first appeared \u2014\u00a0as expected, the infamous \"hoax\" charge has been made to lull the West back to sleep. According to\u00a0Daily News\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1457,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conspiracy-theory-shuts-down-great-pyramid\/","url_meta":{"origin":641,"position":1},"title":"Conspiracy Theory Shuts Down Great Pyramid","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch According to the\u00a0Associated Press, \"Egypt's antiquities authority closed the largest of the Giza pyramids Friday following rumors that groups would try to hold spiritual ceremonies on the site at 11:11 A.M. on Nov. 11, 2011\u2026. The closure follows a string of unconfirmed reports in local\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6324,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/al-qaeda-flag-flies-high-above-christian-churches\/","url_meta":{"origin":641,"position":2},"title":"Al Qaeda Flag Flies High Above Christian Churches","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0Gatestone Institute \u00a0 Days ago, al-Qaeda\u2019s Egyptian leader, Ayman Zawahiri,\u00a0portrayed\u00a0\u00a0the overthrow of Muhammad Morsi and the Brotherhood as a \u201cCrusader\u201d campaign led by Coptic Pope Tawadros II who, according to Zawahiri and other terrorists, is trying to create a Coptic state in Egypt. 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