ISIS, Islamism and the War on Icons

On 8 June 2016, ISIS released two or three videos, rather versions of a video,[1] of its latest abominable act, the blowing up in Mosul, Iraq of the remains of the Assyrian temple of Nabu at Nimrud and of its bulldozing of the Nergal Gate at Nineveh. Here is a link to the first version. In the second version of the video a black-clad ISIS member, a certain Abu Naseer al-Ansari, is shown pointing with one hand to the huge explosions shattering the Nabu temple behind him. He does so while inveighing against those Muslims who hold these ruins of antiquity, which were built by the infidels, in high esteem and who feel so proud of these ruins as to consider them part of their history. As al-Ansari utters these denunciations, a picture of an Egyptian pyramid side by side the Sphinx is superimposed on the scene. The message is obvious: the pyramids and Sphinx would suffer the same fate and be reduced to rubble at the first opportunity.

But ISIS is not alone in its desire to destroy Egypt’s Pharaonic monuments, which are extraordinary feats of human engineering. The list of Islamist advocates of such destruction is quite lengthy. For example, British-based Islamist Anjem Choudary, now in jail for supporting ISIS, is reported to have said the following: “when Egypt comes under the auspices of the khalifa (caliphate), there will be no more pyramids, no more Sphinx, no more idolatry.” Similarly, Ibrahim al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti Islamist preacher, explained, “the fact that early Muslims who were among prophet Muhammad’s followers did not destroy the pharaohs’ monuments upon entering the Egyptian soil does not mean that we shouldn’t do it now.” Furthermore, ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xvdHYcvoekn an interview on an Egyptian TV channel in 2014, the Egyptian preacher Murgan Salem al-Gohary advocated the destruction of the pyramids and Sphinx, just as during his jihad spell in Afghanistan he supported the Taliban’s destruction of the two Buddhas of Bamiyan back in 2001.http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=21&verse=52

In its jihad against ancient statues and archaeological artefacts and sites, ISIS draws inspiration from the Qur’ān, the ahadeeth, and the Sunna, which call for the destruction of idols and temples of non-believers. Notably, Qur’ān 21:52 and Q 21:56-59 refers to Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham), who smashed the idols of his kin. If that were not enough an inspiration, Muhammed himself set the example when he entered Mecca as a conqueror. Some of our earliest sources on Islam record that he personally destroyed the statues adorning the Ka’ba, interestingly only sparing an icon of Jesus and Mary.[2] There are also sahih (correct) ahadeeth reinforcing the iconoclastic injunctions against idols and against raised graves. For example, Sahih Muslim, the second most trusted collection of Sunni ahadeeth, contains the following hadith:

Abu’l-Hayaaj al-Asadi said: ‘Ali ibn Abi Taalib [Muhammed’s cousin and the fourth rightly-guided Caliph) said to me: “Shall I not send you with the same instructions as the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) sent me? ‘Do not leave any image without defacing it or any built-up grave without leveling it.’

This hadith is cited on the Saudi sheikh, Al-Munajid’s Islamic question-and-answer web site; it begins the response to the question of why the companions of Muhammed did not destroy statues in the lands they conquered. ISIS, of course, has been engaged in levelling graves and demolishing tombs, as we shall see later on. And it is not alone in carrying out those iconoclastic practices. In March 2012, for example, Islamist Libyan vandals desecrated a British war cemetery near Benghazi and shot a video to brag about their feat.[3] A decade earlier in 2001, Taliban used dynamite to demolish the two Budhha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Their justification: implementing the Shari’a, the ihttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31813681njunctions of destroying un-Islamic symbols which are worshipped by unbelievers and polytheists.

The answer given by Al-Munajid’s Islamic quesion-and-answer website is informative here. We learn that the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun (786 – 833 A.D.), famed for his learning and for his protection of thinkers who did not toe the official religious line, wanted to destroy the pyramids, those relics of the past, but could not. In this connection, it is interesting to note that in one version of a video released by ISIS, an ISIS commentator explains that monumental structures like the pyramids were not destroyed earlier when the Muslim armies conquered Egypt in the early seventh century because of their sheer size, which made it impossible to smash them to pieces. The implication is that smashing them now is possible and desirable, since bombs, dynamite, and other explosive devices can be used to demolish any edifice, no matter how huge. In other words, there can be no excuse now not do perform the religious duty of smashing idols. Case in point, the Taliban’s blowing off and smashing of the famous two Buddha statues of Bamiyan, a feat that took them some twenty-five days back in 2001 to complete, considering that the statues were 170 feet high and 115 feet high respectively.

Other Islamists, like al-Kandari, claim that such monuments in Egypt and elsewhere were not visible at the time for the Muslim conquerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/isis-jonah-tomb_n_5620520.htmlors to see because they were buried in the sand. Similar arguments suggest that it was only in recent centuries that the Western “infidels” excavated these monuments. The tension between the story of Caliph al-Ma’mun’s wanting to demolish the monuments and the monuments being buried in the sand is readily apparent.

It is important to note that Muslim religious sites which were considered places of shirk (idolatry) by ISIS were not spared ISIS’ axes, bulldozers, and dynamite. ISIS, a fanatical Sunni Islamist group, blew up several Shi’i mosques and even a number of Sunni shrines in Mosul, Iraq, notably Nabi Younis or Prophet Jonah’s shrine, as well as Nabi Sheet (Sheth) and Nabi Daniel’s shrines. Demolishing shrines, shattering statues, and levelling graves are consistent with ISIS’ embrace of the extremist Salafi ideology of Wahhabism with its strict, puritanical jurisprudence and its call to go back to the early and “unadulterated” Islam of Muhammad, the Companions, and at-tabi’un (the followers of the companions). Indeed, Salafis are so averse to shrines that they have many times tried to attack the ones present in Mecca, the holiest city of Islam.

Many Muslims, however, do not share the Salafi obsession with the destruction of archaeological sites, ancient statues, and Muslim shrines. Even with the blowing up of the two Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, delegations of clergy, including Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, the chief mufti of the Muslim Brotherhood, went to Afghanistan, no doubt motivated by the world’s outcry, in a fruitless attempt to dissuade the Taliban from carrying on their barbaric act of destroying the two statues. In Libya, some elderly people intervened to stop the Islamist thugs who were on a rampage desecrating the graves at the British war cemetery. At the end of the video showing the demolition of the Nabi Younis (Prophet Jonas) shrine in Mosul, Iraq, a local is heard lamenting, “Oh, God. Nabi Younis is gone!”

The destruction of shrines in Iraq and Syria served to send a message to other Muslims not to revere such shrines. Many local Muslim residents of Mosul, it is believed, lamented the destruction of these shrines, which long have contributed to giving Mosul its distinctive character. Muslim moderate voices, however, have become few and far between in the face of the rising tide of Salafi and other extremist trends in Islam.

Ever since ISIS swept like a whirlwind over large areas of Syria and Iraq, it has waged a vicious and relentless jihad against the landmarks of the ancient civilizations that pre-date Islam. Literally, no stone has been left unturned in this jihad, which ISIS has been waging to eradicate what it describes as idols and idolatry. Archeological sites and ancient artifacts that have weathered the sands of time and successive invasions for hundreds of years have been smashed to smithereens by ISIS over the past few years. In Syria, to the shock of those who do care, archaeological sites in Palmyra and several Christian religious sites in Aleppo were destroyed by ISIS.

In Iraq, the city of Mosul, itself old and historic and at the center of the sites of Nineveh, Nimrod, and Hatra and several other ancient sites, was subjected to a vicious and relentless campaign of cultural annihilation. In February 2015, ISIS released a video of the Mosul Museum, showing ISIS thugs smashing priceless ancient statues and sculptures from Assyrian sites and from Hatra. Though it is hoped that some of these smashed artefacts could have been replicas of the originals, the same cannot be said of the final part of the video, which shows ISIS fanatics chiseling with electric drills at an Assyrian winged-bull at the Nergal Gate, one of several gates at Nineveh. Of course, there are credible reports that ISIS has resorted to plundering and trafficking ancient artifacts to fill its coffers. The hypocrisy of ISIS in this case is justified by the oft-quoted statement Muslim, “in extenuating circumstances, the forbidden becomes permissible (المظورات تبيح المعضورات)."

In his aptly titled “The Cultural Cleansing of Mosul,” Christopher Jones provides a descriptive catalogue of the archaeological, cultural, and religious sites and shrines in Mosul and nearby areas that have been destroyed or damaged by ISIS. ISIS reportedly demolished Yazidi holy sites as well as old churches and monasteries: for example the 1,400 years old monasteries of Mar Behnam and Mar Iliya (Elijah), and the 10,000 years old Mar Gergis, all near Mosul. Furthermore, ISIS bulldozed a number of graveyards in the Christian towns and villages of the Nineveh plain, and they broke and removed the crosses from the top of the churches and hoisted their ISIS black flag in their stead.[4] ISIS knows very well that the ancient sites and statues in Syria and Iraq are no longer places of worship and have not been so for two millennia. ISIS knows very well that the archaeological sites are not visited by worshippers (unless those who marvel in awe at the cultural and artistic achievements of antiquity are described as worshippers) but by scholars, archaeology and history specialists, students and tourists. ISIS knows very well that these temples, gates, statues, and artefacts serve no sacred function at present, not for the last two thousand years.

Be that as it may, ISIS bases its practices on the Koranic injunctions against idols and idol worshipping. It models itself after Mohammed, whose first act upon entering Mecca as a conqueror was to smash the statues in the Ka’bah. That the statues in the Ka’bah were worshipped by the Meccans during Muhammad’s time, whereas the Assyrian statues of some three thousand years ago are merely standing in the Mosul Museum or the Nineveh archaeological sites for people, including scholars and tourists, to view and marvel at makes no difference to ISIS.

But there is a more important message in the destructive acts. For the destruction of these shrines, notably the Nabi Younis’ tomb, is also an assault on the monotheistic religions that pre-date Islam. Indeed, some Biblical scholars have noted that the demolition of the Biblical shrines is an attack on the Bible. For example, Professor Sam Hardy from the American University of Rome, told The Washington Post that the blowing up of Jonah’s shrine shows that ISIS is willing to destroy “basically pretty much anything in the Bible.” He added, “it indicates they are going for total eradication not just of their enemies but even of the possibility of people living together under their rule.” Similarly, Joel S. Baden and Candida Moss, professors of biblical scripture at Yale Divinity School and the University of Notre Dame, respectively, wrote that the blowing up of the Nabi Younis shrine was “an attack on both those Christians living in Iraq today and on the rich, if little-known, Christian heritage of the region.”

Why is this obsession with eradicating any traces of pre-Islamic religions, cultures, and civilizations? Why does ISIS direct its ire at pre-Islamic and non-Islamic antiquities and heritage, whether sacred or profane? The smashing of Biblical shrines, ancient monasteries and churches, as well as archeological sites of pre-Islamic civilizations is a calculated strategy to “cleanse” Mosul of its religious and ethnic diversity and is directed primarily at the local Christian communities, communities that are among the oldest in the world.

Indeed, in the case of Mosul and the Nineveh plain, ISIS’ acts of religious and cultural violence against Yazidi shrines and Christian churches and monasteries as well as against archaeological sites are aimed at eradicating memory, that which ties Christians to their heritage and land since their presence there predates the Muslim invasion. Ever since the swarming of the Muslim armies over Iraq and Syria, the local Christians have survived, though continuing to dwindle in numbers generation after generation, by turning the other cheek and by accepting their status as subjugated dhimmis. They survived religious and ethnic cleansing campaigns that punctuated their history—the genocide of Christian communities during WW1 one hundred years ago is still fresh in their memory as they have been recently reminded by ISIS’ assault on them and on their religious symbols, churches, and monasteries. It is sad that the local Christians (mostly Chaldean Catholics, Nestorians,[5] Syriac Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox) of Iraq and Syria, who are proud of their Eastern Christian heritage as well as of their pre-Christian ancient civilizations which once radiated their splendor in Iraq and Syria and beyond, are leaving their ancestral homes to the diaspora.

What is happening to the Christians and Yazidis in the region is a consequence of the concerted and calculated effort to eradicate the memory and to sever the connection of non-Muslim ethnic groups, mainly Christians, the majority of whom are Aramaic–speaking, to their history and cultural heritage. A similar scenario is taking place in Syria. Zainab Bahrani, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at Columbia University, herself of Muslim background, noted:

this is a form of genocide and a form of cultural cleansing… —this is not just a destruction of cultural heritage, this is an attempt to erase the representation of groups of people. Thousands of years of history—whether Islamic, pre-Islamic, early Christian, or Yazidi—is being wiped out as ISIS attempts to rewrite it in its own vision. This is a genocide.

Future generations of Iraqi and Syrian Christians will almost certainly have no remembrance of things past. Indeed, one million (that is, two thirds) of Iraqi Christians have already left the country since 2003, with most remaining Christians relocating to the Kurdish area or waiting in line in Jordan and Lebanon to join the diaspora in the West. A similar number of Christians have left Syria. To all intents and purposes, Christianity in Iraq, and increasingly in Syria as well, is on the verge of extinction. It is within this context that we have to understand ISIS’ ultimatum to the Christians of Mosul in July 2014 to either pay the jizya (toll tax) and live as subjugated people, convert to Islam, leave Mosul within twenty-four hours, or be killed. ISIS branded the homes and businesses of Mosul Christians with the Arabic letter ن (Noon) to indicate Nasara (Nazerene), a pejorative Qur’ānic appellation used by Muslims to refer to Christians. For the first time since the coming of Christianity to Mosul more than seventeen hundred years ago, Mosul is empty of Christians, in the language of ISIS—“cleansed.”

The expulsion of the Christians of Mosul, the oldest inhabitants of the city, was followed by ISIS’ attack on the Christian villages and towns in the Nineveh plain, an attack which led to these Christians fleeing to the relative safety of the Kurdish areas. Syria’s Christians in Islamist-controlled areas are facing a similar fate like that of their Iraqi co-religionists. The destruction of Christian churches and monasteries in Syria and of the ancient sites in Palmyra is further evidence of ISIS’ Jihad against the rich cultural heritage of the region. The Copts of Egypt, who under the best circumstances would take need many years and Herculean efforts to get a mere approval from the Egyptian authorities to repair an old church, and no less than a miracle to get approval to build a new one, are now threatened with attacks on their civilizational heritage. Will the world wake up one day to the sight of the blowing up of the Sphinx to pieces or the destruction by explosives of the pyramids? Unfortunately, world powers like the United States must do much more to help stop Islamist groups in the Middle East, otherwise the refrain of “never again” rings hollow.

[1] ISIS was in the habit of releasing two or three videos of the same event, with different ISIS members proselytizing. [2] Prior to the rise of Islam, our sources say that the Ka’aba was adored with numerous idols. [3] “The video, shot by the militiamen themselves, shows more than thirty armed men kicking down the gravestones of British servicemen while comrades use sledgehammers to break the cenotaph. ‘Break the cross of the dogs!’ one man can be heard shouting as another soldier perches on a ladder to smash the cenotaph cross with a mallet.” [4] Interestingly, with respect to the graveyards, there are Sahih ahadeeth where Muhammad says “God damn Jews and Christians, as they have taken the graves of their prophets as places of worship.” [5] That is, members of the Assyrian Church of the East.