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Huffington Post, MSM Facilitate Destruction of Egypt's Pyramids
  Be the first of your
friends to like this.
Because the article "Calls
to Destroy Egypt's Great Pyramids Begin" went viral on the
Internet—read nearly 400,000 times on FrontPage
Magazine alone where it first appeared—as expected,
the infamous "hoax" charge has been made to lull the West back to
sleep.
According to Daily News Egypt's "Another
hoax: cleric calls on President Morsy to destroy Giza Pyramids," the
calls from the Bahraini cleric I cited "urging President Mohamed Morsy
to destroy the Giza Pyramids were issued from a parody Twitter account
online, the Daily News Egypt has learned."
That's all—that's the "proof" that
this story is a "hoax": Daily News Egypt (DNE) "has learned"
that someone was "impersonating" the Bahraini cleric. Unlike my
article, DNE offers no evidence, no links, no proofs to back its story:
"Just believe us—you'll feel better," seems to be the message.
Some questions: If, as DNE suggests, this was
a hoax to scare people over the rising influence of Egypt's Islamists, why
did the hoax perpetrators choose a cleric from Bahrain, a small, foreign
nation—why not parody an Egyptian cleric, which obviously would've made for a
much more effective "hoax"?
More importantly, why does DNE not address
the other sources I had cited—including Egypt's very own Salafi party,
which is on
record calling for the elimination of Egypt's pyramids? Even Elaph, "one of the
most influential websites in the Arab world," documents
that both the Bahraini cleric and Egypt's Salafis are calling for the
Pyramids' destruction.
Needless to say, DNE's hoax charge was
quickly disseminated by others, who added their own "logic." For
example, after quoting DNE as evidence, one Kate Durham, writing in Egypt
Today, focuses on portraying me as having an "agenda" (which,
of course, I do: safeguarding the Pyramids).
Likewise, after quoting the DNE report, RT's
"Holy
hoax: Radical Islamists call on Egypt to destroy pyramids" offered a
revisionist history that truly resembles a "hoax," arguing that
"demolishing the pyramids was prohibited during the 7th century—so the
structures remained untouched."
Really? This almost suggests that the Arabian
marauders, who invaded Egypt in the 7th century, pillaging and
destroying, were "respectful" of the "cultural
significance" of the Pyramids—perhaps designating them as "tourist
attractions"? What about 8th century Caliph Ma'mun, who—as
this comprehensive English-language
fatwa dedicated to explaining the Islamic obligation of destroying pagan monuments,
including the Pyramids, puts it—"wanted to destroy the Pyramids in Egypt
and he gathered workers but he could not do it"?
What about 12th century Bin Yusif,
Saladin's son and ruler of Egypt? He attempted to destroy the Pyramids, and
had an army of laborers work day and night to dismantle Menkaure's Pyramid,
only to quit after eight months, realizing the futility of the task, though
his vandals did manage to leave a large vertical gash in the Pyramid's north
face (see here).
What about Egypt's Mamlukes who, with the advent of gun powder, used the
"pagan" Sphinx for target practice, effacing its nose?
After citing the DNE report, Huffington
Post's Llewelyn Morgan offers his assurances: "Let's be crystal-clear
about this right here. The answer to the question in my title ["Are the
Pyramids Next?"] is a mile-high, neon "NO". The pyramids of
Giza are under no threat whatsoever, and neither is any of the rest of
Egypt's glorious archaeological record."
He then portrays me as
"scaremongering" and "offer[ing] a deeply misleading account
of what has been happening in Timbuktu," because I had written,
"Currently, in what the International Criminal Court is describing as a
possible 'war crime,' Islamic fanatics are destroying
the ancient heritage of the city of Timbuktu in Mali—all to Islam's
triumphant war cry, 'Allahu Akbar!'" Morgan explains:
To read that that you'd think that the only
Muslims involved in events at Timbuktu were the ones doing the vandalism. But
of course it was Islamic buildings that they were attacking. Ansar
al-Din, the al-Qaeda-affiliated zealots in northern Mali, consider the
traditional Sufi practices of Timbuktu to be heretical.
This is strange logic, indeed. Because the
Salafis of Mali consider Sufi buildings insufficiently Islamic—as all
Salafis, Wahhabis, and "radicals" do—according to Morgan, that is
proof positive that the Pyramids, which are purely pagan, are
"under no threat whatsoever" from Egypt's Salafis.
If Morgan's point is that, by destroying Sufi
Muslim shrines, the "al-Qaeda-affiliated zealots" are not
practicing "true Islam"—that's still neither here nor there. All
Salafis—whether in Mali or in Egypt, whether "al-Qaeda affiliated"
or not—reject Sufism as a heresy and pagan Pyramids as worse; and in Egypt,
the Salafis are now out of the prisons and sitting in Parliament.
All of these apologists are unaware that the
Koran portrays pre-Islamic Egypt's Pharaoh as the quintessential infidel,
with the result that the Pyramids, the handiwork of Pharaoh, have always been
seen by the pious as an affront to the total victory of Islam in Egypt—hence
why any number of Muslim leaders through the centuries tried to lay low those
defiant symbols of Egypt's pre-Islamic past; hence why such calls are again
become vocal.
Indeed, here's the latest bit of evidence:
just published in El-Balad, on
July 17, "Egypt's Justice and Development for Human Rights warned
against the ongoing incitements from a large number of men of the Islamic
religion to destroy the Pyramids and other Pharaonic antiquities, deeming
them pagan symbols of pre-Islamic Egypt…. these calls have greatly increased
after the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Dr. Muhammad
Morsi."
These calls are neither a joke nor a
"hoax": the same mentality that sought to destroy the Pyramids in
the past, is the same mentality that is gaining mastery over Egypt in the
present—with the exception that, if destroying the Pyramids was an impossible
task then, it is realizable now, a wonderful feather in the turban of any
aspiring "champion of Islam"—a feat that none of the greatest
caliphs and sultans could accomplish, try as they might.
Accordingly, those who understand that the
Great Pyramids belong to all mankind, not just Egyptians—and I say
this as a Copt, the nearest thing to a living descendant of Pharaonic
Egypt—must safeguard their preservation, and not abandon them to Islamic
zealots.
Still, the "leftist" mentality
remains oblivious, as if to say, so what if Islamic doctrine and history is
replete with the destruction of pre-Islamic monuments from one end of the
Islamic world to the other, including several attempts against the Pyramids?
So what if, at this very moment, Muslim fanatics are destroying artifacts in
the name of Islam, in Mali and elsewhere? So what if Egypt's Salafis are on
record calling for the destruction of the Pyramids?
Not to worry, the Huffington Post et al say
it's just a "hoax." Nothing to see here, folks; go right back to
sleep.
Incidentally, these media outlets and their
writers are the same ones who, when the day comes and the Pyramids are
attacked—just like when the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11—will wring
their hands and shake their heads, wondering, "Who knew?"
"How?" "Why?" Then, because they still cannot comprehend
Islam's teachings and history, they will, as ever, cite "grievance"
or "poverty" or "political oppression" as the real
reasons behind this latest atrocity, calling for more Western engagement and
head-sticking in the sand.
And so the vicious cycle of Islamic
intolerance followed by Western appeasement will continue, ad nauseam.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David
Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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