Islamists destroy 15th-century Timbuktu mosque

[Ahmad]

O come on man, be honest. If the Islam (Quran) is talking about 'days of ignorance' to describe the pre-Islamic period, what do you expect his followers to do exactly?

Nothing, the followers need to do nothing about the pre islamic era. Leave it as it is and focus on your own issues.

 

[Surenas]

Nothing, the followers need to do nothing about the pre islamic era. Leave it as it is and focus on your own issues.

Don't you think that the concept of 'days of ignorance' is stimulating muslims, or at least the more extremist muslims, to destroy many pre-Islamic sites in muslim countries?

 

[Safriz]

I am amazed at the obsession of international propaganda brigade with Muslims...
If they don't want certain buildings in their country it shouldn't be anybody ease's problem...

 

[RuheTag]

Don't you think that the concept of 'days of ignorance' is stimulating muslims, or at least the more extremist muslims, to destroy many pre-Islamic sites in muslim countries?

No its nothing to do with any concept of 'days of ignorance' .. Those Muslims who destroy other religions shrines are not very educated,, they are basically extremists brainwashed with an extremist idealogy... There are many places on earth where Muslims live peacefully with other religions and do not destroy their shrines.

It holds to any extremist- be religious or non-religious. Just make a statistics of any religious shrines destroyed in past 70 years of any religion or sect, and see who did this. Its all kinds of extremists, bei religious, communists, Nazis, etc.

Again it is not to justify Muslim extremists actions or divert attention from that, but these generalizations dont make any sense when looking broadly.

 

[Wright]

I am amazed at the obsession of international propaganda brigade with Muslims...
If they don't want certain buildings in their country it shouldn't be anybody ease's problem...

I suppose this is propaganda as well. Destroying Christian and Jewish graves.

 

[Safriz]

I suppose this is propaganda as well. Destroying Christian and Jewish graves.

well happens around the world...
centuries old graves are raised to ground to make way for other uses of the land...

 

[Ahmad]

Don't you think that the concept of 'days of ignorance' is stimulating muslims, or at least the more extremist muslims, to destroy many pre-Islamic sites in muslim countries?

I dont think the term 'days of ignorance' will make people go on rampage and destroy everything. Politicizing religion is the only thing which will cause the destruction, this is the case with all religions, not only islam.

 

[ephone]

With islamists like those, no wonder good people are gone and only idiots are left.

Disclaimer: Title is posted as apeared on the news article.


Islamists destroy 15th-century Timbuktu mosque

Islamist rebels smashed the entrance of a 15th-century Timbuktu mosque on Monday, while their Al-Qaeda allies in northern Mali cut off the key city of Gao by planting landmines all around it.

:56AM BST 03 Jul 2012
In Timbuktu, rebels from the Al-Qaeda-allied Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) group continued their destruction of the city's cultural treasures, defying a chorus of international condemnation.

Some residents sobbed as the Islamists broke down the "sacred door" of one of Timbuktu's three ancient mosques, Sidi Yahya - closed for centuries due to local beliefs that to open it would bring misfortune

An Islamist militant celebrates and shouts "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) after destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu (AFP/Getty Images)

In Gao meanwhile, two sources said Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies had planted mines around the city, with one Tuareg rebel spokesman accusing the militants of taking the city hostage.

Mossa Ag Attaher, spokesman for the Tuareg rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which until recently shared control of Gao with the Islamists, said the rebels had mined the area.

AQIM, he said, was "using the population as hostages, as a human shield to protect itself from an MNLA counter-attack."

The North African Al-Qaeda franchise and its offshoot Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) forced their former MNLA allies out of the city in deadly clashes last week.

"Many people are trying to escape, to take the bus to go to Bamako, but the Islamists are stopping them," said Attaher, the MNLA's Paris-based spokesman.

A west African source also confirmed that landmines had been planted around Gao "to prevent a possible attack by troops" from the west African regional bloc ECOWAS as well as a possible counter-offensive from Tuareg fighters.

In Timbuktu, militants from Ansar Dine who occupied Mali's vast north three months ago destroyed seven tombs of ancient Muslim saints they consider idolatrous over the weekend.

A spokesman said they were acting in the name of God and would "destroy every mausoleum in the city. All of them, without exception".

Exclusive video footage obtained by AFP shows turbaned men chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) while smashing a mausoleum with pick-axes in a cloud of dust, the mud-brick tomb showing gaping holes in the side with rubble piling up alongside it.

They continued their work Monday at the 15th century Sidi Yahya mosque.

A former tour guide in the once-popular tourist destination said: "They came with pickaxes, they cried 'Allah' and broke the door. It is very serious. Some of the people watching began crying."

A relative of a local imam (religious leader), said he had spoken to members of Ansar Dine and "they wanted to show that it is not the end of the world" when the door is opened.

According to the website of the UN cultural agency UNESCO, Sidi Yahya is one of Timbuktu's three great mosques and was built around 1400, dating back to the city's golden age as a desert crossroads and centre for learning.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned the destruction of "part of the rich Islamic heritage of Mali" by the group, describing them as "bigoted extremist elements,"

Russia also condemned the "barbarian" destruction.

"Such acts can only arouse indignation," said a foreign ministry statement.

And the United States added its voice to the chorus of outrage.

"The United States strongly condemns the destruction of the UNESCO world heritage sites in Timbuktu by Islamic militants," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"We call on all parties to protect Mali's heritage."

Mali's Foreign Minister Sadio Lamine Sow told AFP the government would not leave the north in the hands of the rebels.

"We will do everything to recover our territory," he said, speaking from Algiers at the end of a two-day visit to Algeria.

Timbuktu is considered to be one of the centres from which Islam spread through Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Ansar Dine began its campaign of destruction after UNESCO put Timbuktu on its list of endangered world heritage sites last week.

The destruction in Timbuktu is reminiscent of the Taliban blowing up the giant Buddhas of the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan - an ancient Buddhist shrine on the Silk Road - in 2001 after branding them un-Islamic.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Sunday told AFP that those responsible could face prosecution as their actions constituted a war crime.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the destruction of tombs.

A March 22 coup in Mali eased the way for Tuareg separatist rebels to seize an area in the north larger than France that they consider their homeland.

However, the previously unknown Ansar Dine group seized the upper hand while fighting on their flanks. Openly allied with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, they have since pushed the Tuareg rebels from all positions of power.

The international community fears the vast desert area will become a new haven for terrorist activity and the Islamists have threatened any country that joins a possible military intervention force in Mali.

West African leaders will hold a special summit this weekend to discuss the crisis in Mali, meeting in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, mediators announced.

The leaders will meet on Saturday with senior Malian political figures and other key figures to discuss moving toward a national unity government, Burkinabe Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole said.

 

[notsuperstitious]

Blaming this on saudi wahabi is a joke. Honestly destroying Hindu / Buddhist temples was carried out in India over many many centuries. Far before Wahhab was even born. Those idol breakers are considered great heroes in places like pakistan and places and weapons are named after them even today.

There is a fundamental problem, of supremacy and dominance. Wahhab is only the current popular manifestation.

All religions have some faults, lets not try to find lame excuses.

 

[zip]

Change is natural ..but if forced then it will have its resistance ..today you destroy others sacred place ,tomorrow some one else will destroy yours and cycle goes on ..

 

[Ahmad]

Did we remember the Quran burning by that american pastor? why should that action be any different to the one Mahmoud Ghaznavi committed?

 

[notsuperstitious]

Did we remember the Quran burning by that american pastor? why should that action be any different to the one Mahmoud Ghaznavi committed?

It is exactly the same


except the scale, religious sanction, institutionalisation and heroes status of Ghaznavi, even by people he looted, slaughtered and raped.

Otherwise the hatred, supremacy, doninance, belief that only he or she is right and has the god given duty to teach others and the general idiocy are common.

 

[Ahmad]

There is no excuse for what he did.

 

[zip]

@ahmad
we have experienced the true nature of both abrahamic religion ..trust me they were not as intolerant as islamic invaders ..they still recieve welcome in our part of world

 

[DANGER-ZONE]

Before You people label me Extremist, Terrorist Salfi or Wahabi, Sunni Shia , I was just wondering how many of you MUSLIMS have read Book: SAHIH MUSLIM - Chap: KITAB UL JANAIZ.
you can read it from net or if you have at your home but i would like to Quote a few Ahadeth of Muhammad SAW here and also one from ALI RA.

Chapter 199: COMMANDMENT IN REGARD TO THE LEVELLING OF THE GRAVE

Book 004, Number 2114:
Thumama b. Shafayy reported: When we were with Fadala b. 'Ubaid in the country of the Romans at a place (known as) Rudis, a friend of ours died. Fadala b. 'Ubaid ordered to prepare a grave for him and then it was levelled; and then he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) commanding (us) to level the grave.
Book 004, Number 2115:
Abu'l-Hayyaj al-Asadi told that 'Ali (b. Abu Talib) said to him: Should I not send you on the same mission as Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) sent me? Do not leave an image without obliterating it, or a high grave without levelling It. This hadith has been reported by Habib with the same chain of transmitters and he said: (Do not leave) a picture without obliterating it.

Chapter 200: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO PLASTER THE GRAVE OR CONSTRUCTING ANYTHING OVER IT

Book 004, Number 2116:
Jabir said: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) forbade that the graves should be plastered or they be used as sitting places (for the people), or a building should be built over them.
Book 004, Number 2117:
A hadith like this has been transmitted on the authority of Jabir b. 'Abdullah.
Book 004, Number 2118:
Jabir said that he was forbidden to build pucca graves.

Chapter 201: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO SIT OVER THE GRAVE AND OBSERVE PRAYER FACING TOWARDS IT

Book 004, Number 2119:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: It is better that one of you should sit on live coats which would burn his clothing and come in contact with his skin than that he should sit on a grave.
Book 004, Number 2120:
A hadith like this has been narrated by Suhail with the same chain of transmitters.
Book 004, Number 2121:
Abu Marthad al-Ghanawi reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do not sit on the graves and do not pray facing towards them.
Book 004, Number 2122:
Abu Marthad al-Ghanawi reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do not pray facing towards the graves, and do not sit on them.

So would like to see which Muslim prefer to argue against it.
Not for Non Muslims, Thanks.