http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibr....

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).

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 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?

The Taliban did the same to artifacts in Afghanistan as I recall. It was an another event that was used to make it easier to rationalize the invasion.

That must be what Iran is building the nukes for.

It's Wahabism. We can thank our buddies down in Saudi Arabia for spreading it.

Jduwaldt... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_....

Won't happen for one simple reason: Tourism.

Tourism will go down the toilet in Egypt with the MB in charge. Ever hear of anyone going for a lovely vacation in Iran? I'm sure there is much to see there but it wouldn't be worth all the nerve wracking trouble dealing with those nuts.

Imagine the travel ad. Ladies, don't forget to take a burka with you and keep your head down at all times. Oh and make sure you travel with your husband or you may never return. Yeah, the fun never stops in the Muslim Caliphate states.

Jeffery, that was my first thought too. But, they destroyed many of their own antiquities when Islam first gained a foothold in Egypt. And again last year.

Land: Vandalism by individuals is a bit different than systematic destruction by the state. And I'm pretty sure tearing down something as massive as the Pyramids would require government coordination and resources.

I don't disagree, Jeff. Just an interesting look into the mindset in place there.

****.

The Library of Alexandria was long gone before the Arab conquest - nobody had mentioned it for centuries, and little of the information about it is reliable anyway -

http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/f....

Salafists outside Saudi Arabia are a noisy minority, albeit a dangerous one.

But the religion of peace wouldn't do something like this.

It must be Bush's fault.

Have to see where this goes. I would not say impossible.

The library was built and burnt, rebuilt, restocked and burned again. That happened twice that I'm sure about, and it may have been 3-4 times.

It was like a sponge that sucked up single copy manuscripts to ready them for destruction.

The greatest series of tragedies ever to strike written human knowledge, by far.

Jeffrey, sometimes vandals are outliers who don't represent the feelings of many, sometimes they're just the more active wedge of the culture or a big piece of it. It's very hard to tease it out. One of the tools and tells is watching how the state and other insitutions react. If an anti-abortiona activist goes nuts and kills a physician who pirvides thoase services, the Catholic church is VEHEMENTLY against it and the state prosecutes the murderer as a murderer. Contrast that with the current situation

Napoleon's troops shot off the nose of the Sphinx but it wasn't for religeous reasons.

Target practice, I think.

Edit: Wrong.

Apparently that is a myth.

Quote:

The Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrîzî, writing in the 15th century AD, attributes the loss of the nose to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In AD 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose, and was hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrîzî describes the Sphinx as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended.

There is also a story that the nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers, that still lives on today. Other variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. However, sketches of the Sphinx by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1737 and published in 1755, illustrate the Sphinx already without a nose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphin....

I guess they'll use artillery on it.

They might finally uncover some of the hidden vaults that are inaccessible.

It'll serve them right electing maniacs. When they have no tourism industry left they can mope and whine about "Amerika!!!!"

I'd suggest a 5,000,000 megaton nuclear device in the Queen's chamber just to make sure.

I was talking about this a decade ago, no kidding.

Somebody needs to figure out how to infect goats with a deadly venereal disease.
This would be the end of Islam.

Since the GLBT community thinks AIDS was created by the CIA to kill them off, maybe it could be put to good use in the Middle East...particularly Saudi Arabia...where there "is no homosexuality" *ahem*...but somehow it isn't considered "homosexual activity" to have their young males ass*****d by their elders.

Wow what a ridiculous article. So you have a Saudi Sheikh and a Bahraini Sheikh, both from countries existing on US support, calling for the destruction of the pyramids in Egypt, and somehow we have to conclude that Egyptians are calling for the destruction of the pyramids because they are linked by by their religion, Islam, and so they must all be the same.

Then we have unsubstantiated claims that Muslims were responsible for the destruction of other monuments of Egypt, such as the library of Alexandria, even though according to wiki there are at least three other theories attributing its destruction to other forces, all with much stronger evidence, or the Sphinx's nose, which somehow has been attributed to Muslims without offering any support (or the even more ridiculous suggesting, that one man did it).

Let's make something clear: The Egyptians are in love with their Pharaonic history, as anyone who met an Egyptian can attest too. They would never allow this part of their history to be destroyed. Besides, the pyramids are Egypt's main tourist attraction, and tourism is its biggest trade, so they can't even afford it even if they wanted to.

I really believe the purpose of this article is to try to demonize Egyptians and Muslims in general and portray them as back warded and extremely small minded. Their societies are not as advanced as the West, but they are not so stupid. Israel and its Western allies are just upset that someone they don't like is ruling Egypt, so they portray Egyptians as being so stupid to justify supporting dictators, because "if these dictators don't rule, then you'll have people who come to power who will immediately destroy the Pyramids and re-institute slavery, so it is a good thing to support these dictators".