Published on Jihad Watch
While Islamic hate for idols is a well documented phenomenon—permeating both the whole of Islamic doctrine and history—the “Arab Spring” has given greater rise to this hate, as it has to all uniquely Islamic phenomena.
Soon after Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi became president of Egypt, calls to demolish the Great Pyramids—long seen as the ultimate in idol effrontery to Islamic sensibilities—began. When I reported this, and documented the long paper-trail of Muslims, beginning with their prophet, destroying the antiquities of their pagan ancestors, the apologists, including at Huffington Post and New York Times cried “hoax,” to lull the world back to sleep.
Yet the cries to destroy Egypt’s Pharonic—that is, pagan—past continue. According to a Watan report, Sheikh Yusif al-Badri, a popular preacher, recently declared that “Allah created people to worship him, but demons misled them to worship other creatures in his place.”
Accordingly, Sheikh al-Badri is calling for “the demolition of monuments [e.g., pyramids] and all idols and statues in Egypt,” characterizing it as “a religious duty, lest they [monuments and idols] create sedition, and cause people to return to worshiping idols instead of Allah.” Likewise, he pointed to the fact that “the noble prophet [Muhammad] ordered the destruction of idols and statues [when he conquered Mecca] lest they be glorified for worship instead of Allah.”
The report continues by quoting various other Islamic figures, including from the Muslim Brotherhood, who all agree that any idol that has the potential to awe Muslims “instead of Allah” must be destroyed, though some argue that the antiquities of Egypt do not inspire Muslims to worship them and help the nation’s economy, and thus should be spared.
Even so, the Watan report concludes by saying that, according to Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities “some of the statues have already been destroyed by those belonging to the political Islamist parties.”
This reminds me of the 5000 Armenian historical objects destroyed by Azerbaijan until the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh tooks up arms and kicked the Azerbaijan off their land. Armenians fought and defeated the Azeri army while Armenia was starving, out of
fuel, freezing, and blockaded by Turkey.
On the situation of the Coptic people of Egypt, why don’t the Copts form a Coptic Liberation Front? I understand the immense pressure and threats they live under but if they don’t organize for self defense then Egyptian Muslims will continue to wear them down. I just do not understand why they are so passive, and do not fight for their liberation. The Coptic people should look to the liberation struggles of other people, like the Jews and Armenians, that used self defense and extreme violence when necessary.
Because they don’t live in a mountain region but in a small and narrow area around the nile surrounded by desert. Also they are outnumbered 10 to 1, if not more than that…
There are rule that prevent them from forming any type of cohesive group. If church meetings are out of the question, what makes you think that any other type of group will be met with less ire? There aren’t many of them left.