22128 - Wahhabism, the enemy of heritage
N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi
The destruction of temples and of archeological sites is often associated with acts of blind barbarity, however it is not so. There is no blindness in this destruction. On the contrary, it is dogmatic and it is found even in the origins of wahhabism. Indeed, the latter considers historic and archeological heritage and even religious an idolatry. Also it officially proscribes visiting them and urges the destruction of such traces of Humanity. So from its early times, wahhabism has demolished sites in Saudi Arabia in 1806. In 1925, these fanatics destroyed the tombs of the family of the prophet Mohamed. Subsequently, from the time that the leader of wahhabism declared that it is necessary to eliminate such traces of Humanity, in Saudi Arabia, the results became clear. More than 500 mausoleums and other places of the original Islam were demolished because they were lead away from wahhabism to polytheism since they had become historical sites. So in Saudi Arabia, it is estimated that 95% of buildings older than one thousand years were razed during that last two decades. Yet, that wasn’t anything but the beginning, because these barbaric actions were taking place Afghanistan since the wahhabists convinced the Talibans to destroy the Bouddhas of Bamiyan, in Mali, the historic heritage of Timbuktu underwent heavy destructions, in Libya organized in militia wahhabists destroyed Soufi monuments. Also through this historic zoom out, it is possible to see that the recent destructions are not a singularity, but a continuation of a systematic barbarity which tries to wound Humanity.