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Timbuktu world heritage site attacked by Islamists

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 1:40 am

Reuters in Bamako, July 1, 2012

Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes have destroyed the centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the Unesco-listed city of Timbuktu in front of shocked locals, witnesses say.

The attack by the al-Qaida-linked Ansar Dine group came days after Unesco placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger [....]

"They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly," said a local journalist, Yeya Tandina.

Tandina and other witnesses said Ansar Dine had already destroyed the mausoleums of three local saints – Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi el-Mokhtar and Alfa Moya – and at least seven tombs. "The mausoleum doesn't exist any more and the cemetery is as bare as a soccer pitch," a local teacher, Abdoulaye Boulahi, said of the Mahmoud burial place [....]

Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/01/timbuktu-world-heritage-site-attacked?newsfeed=true

Mali militants destroy more Sufi shrines
Reuters, July 2, 2012

BAMAKO: Al Qaeda-linked Mali militants armed with guns and pick-axes continued to destroy ancient mausoleums in the famed city of Timbuktu on Sunday, the second day of attacks on the UNESCO heritage sites, witnesses said.

The Salafist Ansar Dine group considers the shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam to be idolatrous. Sufi shrines have also been attacked by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year [...]

Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova has called for an immediate halt to the attacks.

“We are subject to religion and not to international opinion. Building on graves is contrary to Islam. We are destroying the mausoleums because it is ordained by our religion,” Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for Ansar Dine, told Reuters by telephone from the northern city on Sunday [...]

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 2:28 am

The link to the original article doesn't work, appraiser. 

Shades of Bamiyan! A tiny faction of fanatics, mostly from one tiny tribe, uses the chaos of Mali's power vacuum to destroy an irreplaceable cultural gem. Ansar Dine, without a shred of religious cred, declares Sufism (which has a history at least as old as Islam itself) to be idolatrous.

Let me point out that the breakup of Mali couldn't have happened without the arming of avowed jihadis to fight against Gaddafi. Unintended consequences, I know.

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 4:48 pm (re: artappraiser)

The link to the original article doesn't work, appraiser.

Oops; thanks-fixed now--what happened was my pasting got a little out of control there, I didn't put a link there but some text.

I just posted it because I caught it on the Guardian site, reading something else, and it seemed to be the first mention, from a local source with nobody else covering it;  I was curious to see if maybe more would come of it or the story would just fade away.

Well, now in searching for the old link, I see there's quite a bit more coverage. And yeah, it's up to people to decide whether that's warranted or not, making a mountain out of a molehill or not, or who to ultimately blame. On the other hand, you can't expect UNESCO not to want to make a big deal about it, they can't avoid seeing it as an attack on them and their authority as well, coming right after they cited the place.

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 6:11 pm (re: acanuck)

The destruction of old Timbuktu strikes me as a pretty big deal. The West and the Arab League can summon up billions on short notice to bankroll strategically motivated regime change in Libya and Syria, but dither over whether and how to stop 30 gunmen with pickaxes from methodically wiping out an important part of the world's cultural patrimony.

It's not just the mausoleums that are in danger, either. There are several libraries filled with centuries-old art and manuscripts.

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 6:58 pm (re: artappraiser)

Let the Muslims protect Muslim mausoleums. It strikes me as not a big deal.

You have to be kidding if you think NATO is now going to add 'protecting burial and holy sites and structures of various religious sects and offshoots anywhere in the world" to its charter.

At least no lives have been lost, and the Sharia fanatics work off some Holy steam.

by NCD 7/2/2012 - 8:04 pm (re: acanuck)

Notice that I did say "the West and the Arab League." The Saudis and their Gulf proxies are Muslims, no? They could spare a regiment or two.

In any case, I'd feel the same way as I do about Timbuktu and the Bamiyan buddhas if some yahoos were torching the Sistine Chapel or the Vatican Library, or looting the tombs of the pharaohs or the Baghdad Museum. I'm not at all religious but that's all part of our common heritage as human beings.

Finally, you should understand that, despite what the Ansar Dine spokesman says, sharia does not mandate the destruction of other believers' shrines, any more than the Bible commands Christians to burn the Quran. There are quite a few aspects of Islamic law I'd have trouble living under, but I can't claim to live up to all 10 commandments, either. Ironically perhaps, Sufi rulers were quite flexible in how rigid a compliance with sharia they demanded of others.

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 9:24 pm (re: NCD)

I suspect most leaders of the Arab League don't exactly have that much interest in maintaining Sufi history.

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 8:41 pm (re: acanuck)

The Arab League, perhaps not. The Turks, on the other hand, have a long tradition of Sufi penetration into the ruling class. The janissary corps was largely Bektashi, and, to an extant also Mevlevi. The more obscure Kwajagan persisted and remained influential in government. and finance, to my personal knowledge, well into the last quarter of the last century and, I suspect even to this day, although Hasan Susud from whom I learned of them is no longer alive.

by jollyroger 7/3/2012 - 12:05 am (re: artappraiser)

This is very, very interesting. U.S.-trained Burkina Faso troops board a plane for a "training mission" in Mali -- a couple of days ago. Like I said, the thugs who are terrorizing Timbuktu are said to number two to three dozen. Seems to me you can load at least that many troops and their top-of-the-line equipment into a single C-130. Is it possible the U.S. military presence in Africa could be used to good effect for once?

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 7:31 pm

Forgot the link:

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-military-plans-small-operations-in-afr...

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 7:32 pm (re: acanuck)

Those that know my record know I am not big on conspiracy theorizing. That said, I cannot resist posting this piece from a week ago that I just ran across in checking for more news on this, the coincidence is so strong:

It’s War on Sufism: Hami
By Nazir Ganaie, Kashmir Observer, Srinagar, June 25:

Accusing the “agency hands” for disputing the Sufi ideology in Kashmir, president, Mutahida Ulema-e-Ahli-Sunnat Wal Jama’at (MUASW), Maulana Ghulam Rasool Hami Monday said that the Sufi Islam here remains under constant threat from all corners as some forces were working under some "hidden agenda".

Hami, who also heads the Karwan-e- Islami, said incidents at Khanyar came after the shrines at Chrari-Shareef (Budgam), Khanqahi-Maula at Tral, Jinab Sahib, Soura, Baba Hanief Sahab (Narbal, Budgam) were also targeted and destroyed.

“The attacks and desecration incidents at some shrines prove that agencies are threatening a disaster for the survival of Sufi Islam in Kashmir and hatred is being spread against the Sufi lovers. It’s a war on Sufism,” Hami told the reporters during a press conference at Dastgeer Sahab shrine at Sarai-Bala  here [....]

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 9:04 pm

I just found evidence that it's not true that there was no warning and that this just happened out of the blue, as current news reports tend to make one think. Actually, it looks like what's been going on is a "war" between UNESCO and Ansar Dine:

Priceless heritage at risk from extremists
Rebel group in control of Timbuktu desecrates venerated tomb and seeks to obliterate thousands of ancient manuscripts

By Emily Sharpe. Conservation, Issue 236, June 2012

(via cross-posting @ The Artnewspaper)
Published online: 06 June 2012

Concern for the cultural heritage of Mali is growing after militant Islamic fundamentalists desecrated a 15th-century tomb of a Muslim saint in Timbuktu in May, and threatened to destroy other tombs as well as anything else they perceive as being idolatrous or contrary to their version of Islam. The northern Malian city, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is home to several other such tombs and three historic mosques as well as many small museums. Timbuktu also has between 600,000 and one million ancient manuscripts housed in public and private collections that are vulnerable to acts of destruction from the occupying rebel forces as well as from those looking to profit from the political unrest.

Mali has been in a state of crisis since a military coup seized power in March. Two rebel factions—Ansar Dine and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Azawad—took control of the north in April. Members of the extremist Islamist group Ansar Dine, which is trying to impose Sharia law in the region, attacked and set fire to the mausoleum of the Muslim scholar Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar on 4 May. His grave is venerated by many local Muslims who visit to receive blessings [....]

by artappraiser 7/2/2012 - 9:02 pm

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