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A smashing religious, political statementTaleban rejects calls to save 2,000 year-old statues and other pieces
Summary: Defying pleas from leading political, religious and cultural groups worldwide, Afghanistan's ruling Taleban -- the country's pre-eminent political, military and spiritual group -- may have gone ahead with plans to destroy two immense 2,000 year-old images of the Buddha. The fundamentalist Islamic group said that the figures, and other paintings and artifacts like them featuring human likenesses of divinity, were "insulting to Islam." Several prominent groups, including the United Nations, fellow Islamic country Egypt and political ally Pakistan, asked that the statues be spared, but the plans were not altered.KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia has rejected international appeals to spare two immense 2,000 year-old images of the Buddha, instead promising to obliterate them immediately. The fundamentalist Islamic group, which regards all human likenesses of divinity as un-Islamic, says the statues carved into the rock face near the central Afghanistan town of Bamiyan are "insulting to Islam" and should be destroyed.
The announcement comes despite a last-minute appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to rethink the issue and four days after Taleban top religious figures said the statues would be destroyed. Governments, religious associations and heritage groups around the world have also called on the Taleban -- Afghanistan's dominant religious, political and military institution -- to preserve the unique Buddhist figures carved into the rock face near the central town of Bamiyan. Just hours after the Taleban's announcement, an India-based Afghan opposition group said Friday that authorities began smashing the statues. There was no independent confirmation that the destruction of the two Buddhas, in obedience of an edict to demolish all non-Islamic relics, had begun. "I have received numerous reports from Afghanistan throughout the day about the starting of Taleban demolishing the statues," said Abdullah Abdullah, a New Delhi-based spokesman for the anti-Taleban Northern Allegiance of Afghanistan. "But I cannot say categorically that they already demolished it or not." Religious edict spurs wave of reactionOn Monday the Taleban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, issued the religious edict, or fatwah, calling for all statues depicting divinity -- gods, prophets or other religious figures -- to be smashed. The pieces included the two towering Buddha images that soar 38 meters (125 feet) and 53 meters (174 feet) above Bamiyan. "Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshipped, not anyone or anything else," the decree said. "All statues would be destroyed," concurred Taleban cultural minister Mullah Qudratullah Jamal, adding that "whatever means of destruction are needed to demolish the statues will be used." The ruling was also directed at figures and religious artifacts -- including paintings and antiques, as well as sculptures -- left in a once famous museum in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.
The museum, once regarded as a treasure trove of Central Asia's pre-Islamic past, has been bombed and systematically looted during Afghanistan's years of civil war. Museums in the southern city of Ghazni, the western city of Herat and at Farm Hadda near the main eastern town of Jalalabad are also thought to be targets. Heritage groups, art museums offer assistanceThe Taleban wants to remove any reminders of the centuries before Islam when Afghanistan was a center of Buddhist learning and pilgrimage. The group's spiritual leaders say that Islam forbids the making of images, such as pictures and paintings of people. The United Nations world heritage body UNESCO has denounced the action as "vandalism" and urged other Islamic nations to put pressure on the Taleban to halt the destruction. On Thursday, one of the world's premier art museums, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, offered to buy Afghan artifacts in a desperate bid to stop the ruling Taleban from smashing priceless historic statues. "Let us come at our own cost and let us remove what we are able to remove," said Phillippe De Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum, a premier repository of art and artifacts. Religious, political ramifications are widespreadThe statue-smashing has scandalized Buddhists, Christians and Muslims around the world. Promiment religious figures have said the Taleban is not only destroying the history of civilization but damaging the cause of both Afghanistan and Islam. The political outcry has been just as adamant and widespread. 
Egypt, a largely Islamic nation like Afghanistan, said that the Taleban's edict was contrary to Islam because it respects other cultures "even if they include rituals that are against Islamic law." Even traditional foes India and Pakistan have found themselves in agreement. India, home in exile for Tibet's Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, said it would try to stop the destruction which one Taleban official linked to the 1992 razing by Hindu extremists of a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya in northern India. Meanwhile Pakistan, one of the Taleban's few foreign supporters, has added its voice to the condemnation, urging the group to preserve the "world's historical, cultural and religious heritage." But Adbullah said Pakistan's call for restraint came too late. "They made that threat three days ago, four days ago, and there was no statement from Pakistan," he said. Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Taleban begins destroying Afghan statues RELATED SITES: Taleban: Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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