As a history nut or shall I say a lifelong student of
history, I treasure what history has left us to see, to touch, to read and to
ponder.
I consider historic relics as sacred no matter from what age
or location they came from; a piece of physical history is priceless.
I know wars and revolution endanger pieces of history such
as recently in Egypt and more recently in Iraq where the invading Muslim
insurgents are hell bent on destroying everything that they feel is not part of
their religion or their belief system. Remember the age-old Buddhist statues
blown up in Afghanistan by the Taliban or al-Qaeda…why?
Now I am reading that the insurgents in Iraq blew up The
Nabi Younes Mosque which housed Jonah’s tomb; yes the Jonah that spent some
time in the belly of a whale.
I don’t care if you believe the Biblical story or not but
the fact that Jonah is mentioned in the Bible as well as the Quran and people “believe”
he is buried there and revere the place is enough to respect its place and
function in history.
Hell anything that is part of the archaeology of our planet
should be sacrosanct and treated with the utmost care because history is, I
feel, so important to our human existence and experience.
The religious fanaticism that prompts these fanatics to
destroy the relics of our history to me is just plain barbarism and the height
of absurdist ignorance. I don’t care how you interpret the pronouncements of
your religion; if your beliefs in any way hurt or damage people, places or
things, you are then dubbed a common criminal and should be punished as such.
I think that Muslims around the world and especially in the
United States need to stand up and voice opposition to what these fanatics are
doing or risk the condemnation of their entire faith which I am afraid is
happening anyway and mainly because good Muslims are silent and that silence
appears as if they condone the fanatic’s behavior.
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