Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt

[ECH1969]

-A fatwa issued by Egypt’s top religious authority, which forbids the display of statues has art-lovers fearing it, could be used by Islamic extremists as an excuse to destroy Egypt’s historical heritage.

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country’s top Islamic jurist, issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet).

Many fear the edict could prod Islamic fundamentalists to attack Egypt’s thousands of ancient and pharaonic statues on show at tourist sites across the country.

“We don’t rule out that someone will enter the Karnak temple in Luxor or any other pharaonic temple and blow it up on the basis of the fatwa,” Gamal al-Ghitani, editor of the literary Akhbar al-Adab magazine, told AFP.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/todaysfeatures/2006/April/todaysfeatures_April5.xml§ion=todaysfeatures

[villager]

1. just fucking Christ! (so to speak) Every institutionalized "religion"

...on the planet is completely out of control.

[Rex]

2. Religous laws; has a crazy sound to it IMO.

Fucking batshit crazy!

[dusmcj]

3. someone send this douchebag 5000 inflatable love dolls for his front stoop

I'll chip in.

[AnneD]

4. That may not sit well with your average Egyptian

they take pride in their history and know how much money these priceless artifact bring to their country. What a shame. Kinda like draping a statue of Justice. I say, if it offends you, pluck your eye out......

[dipsydoodle]

5. Karnak and the other temples etc

preceed the Prophet by a considerable period of time and so hopefully will be excused. Damage which was done the ancient Egyptians themselves, as rulers changed, was bad enough.

Aside from that, given how much those sites must produce in tourists revenues, I'm sure the Egyptian government will keep control of the situstion.

[ECH1969]

6. The statues in Afghanistan were much earlier then Islam

But, they were still destoryed.

[etherealtruth]

8. That was my first thought. eom

[bunkerbuster1]

25. That's when the Taliban were finally on my radar

When those statues were destroyed. I have to admit I hadn't really thought about how awful those fanatics were (in that specific place) until then.

[dipsydoodle]

10. I agree entirely

but they didn't have much in the way of tourist industry in Afghanistan. I'd like to see them try the same stunt on Stone Henge - apart from practicalities they'd be lynched.

[ECH1969]

12. Yup

[silverweb]

7. Fundies are ALL nuts.

The destruction of others' property should not result from this, because the fatwa "declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes."

Of course, insane zealots will just ignore that part and destroy whatever they want. That makes them criminals and I hope civil authorities deal with them accordingly.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. They could not care if the entire world comes crashing to an end.

That is the very scary, and sad truth.

[silverweb]

11. Agreed.

I think they actively work towards the world crashing to an end... and they seem to think this is the Creator's desire.

*sigh*

[VegasWolf]

13. The Good Book saya no statues!!! nt

[AnnieBW]

14. Isis, Ra, and the others are NOT Amused

The Egyptian Gods were there LONG before that imported upstart Allah, and they'll be there long after he's gone.

[Chovexani]

17. Damn straight. (n/t)

[aquart]

18. Allah was originally a female deity named Allat.

Even gods have sex change operations.

[Pavulon]

15. If the fundies were to attack karnak structures(etc)

The government would kill them. Egypt is not a free state. They would be jailed and killed and no one would be told.

[Odin2005]

16. WTF? The Islamists must really want to dicredit themselves there.

Egyptians love thier heritige, and, I would assume, love the tourist dollars they bring.

[Kailassa]

19. I think these sort of bastards are all in cahoots with Buschco.

At their monthly piss-up:

"What can we do next to inflame our idiot followers even more against each other?"

"Well, they'll not believe 9/11 stories any more, so big-terrorist-incident is out."
"And no-one will make inflammatory cartoons to stir up protests any more."
"We tried beware-the-big-bad-burkha, but there are not enough stubborn muslims in our countries to present a real target."
"And as fast as we kill reporters, new ones spring up and blab about how it's us Americans blowing stuff up, and it's not all murderous arabs."

"Well, we can try a fatwa against statues in a country that really loves its ancient art-work, that should get some attention."

"Yeah, I'll drink to that. It should keep the citizens angry and draw this luvverly war out a bit longer."

[Bridget Burke]

20. Egyptians spoke out before the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas....

Muslims around the world have condemned the Taliban for destroying the statues.

Egypt's chief Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel, has been quoted as saying that ancient statues are "just a recording of history and don't have any negative impact on Muslims' beliefs."

"Islam taught us we have to protect antiquities and taught us also we have to study these antiquities because they are a mirror of how we lived before," Mamdouh el-Damaty, director of Egypt's national museum, said in Cairo. "The antiquities of Afghanistan also should be protected."

www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2001_3289547

A group of 400 Afghani clerics made the decision--which was not applauded by all their countrymen.

An Egyptian an Texas A&M wrote an editorial for the Houston Chronicle. He pointed out Egypt's pride in its ancient culture and pleaded with the Taliban NOT to destroy the Buddhas. I doubt the Taliban read the Chronicle--but Houstonians may have realized that they do NOT speak for Islam.

Let's hope that saner heads prevail in Egypt.

[Coventina]

21. I'm upset but unsurprised at this. It's only a matter of time before

radical Islamic fundies destroy all of the world's precious heritage that they can possibly get their hands on.

If it's not "their" heritage, it's evil and must be destroyed for the good of the faith.

:puke:

[Nihil]

22. Hey, they're still trying to catch up with the Christians.

Read up on how much damage the Christian missionaries did
to world history when they destroyed the artifacts of the
Mexican & South American civilisations.

> If it's not "their" heritage, it's evil and must be destroyed
> for the good of the faith.

That is exactly the attitude adopted by every monotheistic
religious nut since time began.

[Coventina]

23. I'm an art historian. I do know how much Christians destroyed.

Fundamentalists of all religions are a hazard to the treasures of the world.

Including those that worship the free market.

The reason I was complaining particularly about Islamic fundies is because that was what the thread subject was about.

[Bridget Burke]

26. Fanny Calderon de la Barca put such destruction into perspective....

Born in Scotland, she married a Spanish diplomat & accompanied him to Mexico City; he was the first Spanish Ambassador after Independence. Her letters & diary became "Life in Mexico"--an important social history of that time & place--& a delightful read. She was observant, witty & sarcastic at times.

Visiting a ruined Aztec temple near the City, she was saddened that it had been destroyed. However, she remembered the ruined churches & abbeys of her home. Of course, they had been destroyed by Protestants; she had not yet converted to Catholicism.

Her book is available online: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/calderon/mexico/mexico.html

But I agree that the Egyptian problem is our current concern.

[Nihil]

27. Hardly ... there is a "slight" difference of scale to be considered

> But I agree that the Egyptian problem is our current concern.

Agreed.

[Bridget Burke]

32. OK. By "Christian" you apparently mean "Catholic."

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

But you can't just blame the monotheists. India's Hindus have begun destroying mosques & Sikh temples, unfortunately.

[tanyev]

35. How else do you prove whose god is more powerful?

I thought mankind would be beyond this by now.

:cry:

[Nihil]

36. At the time, the terms were synonymous

The New World episodes were of the "our god is better than your god"
type rather than the "our subcult is better than your subcult" idiocy
that followed the Reformation.

I'd forgotten that the Hindu/Sikh fights included temples.

I was going back to the Atenist desecration of the Amun-Re monuments
(of Egypt) when considering monotheists other than Christians, Jews
and Moslems. (Mind you, all four were linked but that is taking the
OP even more down a rathole ...)

:shrug:

[Xithras]

30. Not just in the Americas but throughout Europe as well.

To be fair, it's not just monotheistic religions...the Romans and the Greeks had no problem knocking each others temples over when they were warring.

Many great cathedrals and church sites across Europe were built on sites where pagan temples and worship had previously stood, sometimes using the stones of the original structure. Very little is known about pre-Christian Europe because for well over a thousand years traces of it were deliberately destroyed as pagan. They destroyed their own history long before they got started on everyone elses.

[RelativelyJones]

24. We're gonna party like its 879!

[daleo]

28. This just refers to statues in homes

"...issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet)."

[Xithras]

29. There are some who want to destroy the pyramids.

Many in the west don't always get that Muslims aren't a monolithic bloc, but are a combination of a large number of cultures. Conflicts like this one often arise as a result of that...Arab educated or raised mufti's, for example, live in a culture where statues and pagan symbols are routinely destroyed because they place little value in them. Egyptian muslims (who, for the most part, aren't Arab) are generally proud of their ancestors and their ancestors creations. They have no compunction with attacking people who actually worship the statues, but most would recoil in horror at the thought of destroying them.

What this means is that you get conflicting answers from Egyptian "scholars" on how to treat ancient Egyptian artifacts. There are some (very few, thank God) who were educated in the Arabian schools and believe that they should all be destroyed and the pyramids levelled because they glorify paganism. There are many others who want the artifacts all locked up in museums where they can be watched to prevent worship. Most people, luckily, don't agree with either of those positions.

The problem with Egypt is that the state controls the religious institutions and appoints its leadership. Arab fundamentalists have been espousing a far more conservative and hardline view of Islam in recent decades and have been converting scores of Egyptian poor to their side, accusing the official state religious schools of being a tool of the secular government. In order to "prove" their independence from the secular leadership, government religious teachers...and the Grand Mufti...have been increasingly issuing hardline fatwa's like this one. It's become a race to the bottom...the fundamentalists, in order to convert people, have to show that they're more conservative than the state schools to control their followers. The state leadership, to try and keep people from abandoning it, responds by becoming more conservative to prove that these "rebels" aren't needed.

Luckily, neither side represents the majority of the population. If anybody actually tried to blow up the Sphinx or destroy all of the ancient statues, you'd see a general uprising in that country.

[Bridget Burke]

33. "Man fears Time...

Yet Time fears the Pyramids."

[happyslug]

31. Unlike Christian and Shiite Muslims, Sunni Leaders are Government agents.

In fact this is made clear in the Article:

Gomaa was appointed as grand mufti by President Hosni Mubarak. The mufti’s fatwas carry much weight and generally represent the official line.

Thus what is the Government of Egypt up to? Even the Opposition (who is Fundamentalist to the Core) dismisses this Fatwa:

The Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s main political opposition force, dismissed the fatwa.

“The people are more concerned with corruption. What they would like to see is a fatwa banning the presence of the same people at the helm of the country for 25 years and not against statues,” the movement’s spokesman Issam al-Aryan told AFP.

Thus this is from a GOVERNMENT appointed official. He would NOT do it unless the Government permitted him to issue his Fatwa (Permission may be given with the Government intended to ignore the Fatwa if ignoring the Fatwa will NOT harm the Government, as seen in the case of the Bathing Beauty Contest Fatwa, it was issued and the Government Ignored it for it had NO REAL EFFECT ON THE GOVERNMENT OR THE PEOPLE, most Egyptians do NOT participate in Beauty Contests anyway).

Something is up, I suspect some sort of inter-Governmental struggle (Egypt is a Classic Military Dictatorship i.e. Strong man on top, but his power base is the Loyalty of the Army). The Leadership may hold elections, but they will NEVER give up power peacefully (Look at Algeria when the Fundamentalist won an election the Military declared the Election Void and stayed in power, which lead to the present "Terrorism" in Algeria, i.e the people fighting for the right to elect they own leaders as opposed to the group that Controls the Army ruling the Country).

Like most dictatorships the ruling elites back stab all the time and what is permitted varies depending on who among the ruling Elite has what power today.

My take on this is the Government is worried about losing the next election to the Muslim Brotherhood and end up in the same situation as Algeria (i.e. a popular terrorist campaign after the Army void an election won by the Muslim Brotherhood). Thus the Government is trying to improve its standing among Muslims by showing it will enforce Muslim laws.

[baby_mouse]

34. Religion. The spine of morality.

Or...

Not?