Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin
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 the Sahabi 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.
However,
while book-burning was an easy activity in the 7th century,
destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was
not—even if Egypt’s Medieval Mamluk rulers “de-nosed” the
latter during target practice (though popular legend still attributes
it to a Westerner, Napoleon).
Sheikhs”
observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be
destroyed. The only question left is whether the Muslim
Brotherhood president of Egypt is “pious” enough—if he is
willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the
hands of Egypt’s first Islamic conqueror.
Nor
is such a course of action implausible. History is laden with
examples of Muslims destroying their own pre-Islamic
heritage—starting with Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, who
destroyed Arabia’s Ka‘ba temple, transforming it into a mosque.
Asking
“What is it about Islam that so often turns its adherents against
their own patrimony?” Daniel Pipes provides several
examples, from Medieval Muslims in India destroying their
forefathers’ temples, to contemporary Muslims destroying their
non-Islamic 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 destroying the ancient
heritage of the city of Timbuktu in Mali—all to Islam’s
triumphant war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”
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, heritage, or language, but only with the Islamic
nation—the Umma.
Accordingly,
while many Egyptians—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—see themselves
as Egyptians, 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 Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Muhammad Akef, declared “the hell with Egypt,” indicating that
the interests of his country are secondary to Islam’s.
It
is further telling that such calls are being made now—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 Word, also note that Egyptian Salafis are
calling on Morsi to banish all Shias and Baha’is from Egypt.
In
other words, Morsi’s call to release the Blind Sheikh, a terrorist
mastermind, may be the tip of the iceberg in coming audacity.
From calls to legalize Islamic sex-slave marriage to 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.
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—even as
those most ancient symbols of human civilization are pummeled to the
ground?
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