Posted on 07/27/2023 12:53:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Late last week, a bulldozer toppled a minaret that has watched over the city of Basra, Iraq, for nearly three centuries, leaving local residents dismayed.
Minarets like this one serve as the beacons from which Muslims are called to prayer five times each day. At roughly 36 feet tall, this particular minaret has stood since 1727. Cultural officials say that the initial plan had been to preserve and relocate the Siraji Mosque's minaret, which was reportedly contributing to traffic jams, according to Reuters.
Officials from the Sunni Endowment Office, which oversees Sunni religious sites, say they had no knowledge of the impending destruction, and Ahmed al-Badrani, the city's culture minister, tells Reuters that he had not given permission to destroy the minaret.
Asaad al-Eidani, Basra's governor, attended the demolition in person. He defended the decision, claiming that local officials have been given more than a year to dismantle and move the minaret, per Reuters.
Al-Eidani cited public safety concerns as his justification, and claims that he did, in fact, receive permission from Iraq's Sunni Endowment Office for the demolition, according to Abdulrahman Zeyad and Dawood Salman of the Associated Press (AP). The office vehemently denies that claim.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Still, not a bad idea to knock down all minarets.
As with Lawyers, it’s a start! ;)
Call to prayer always creeped me out when I was over there
“300-Year-Old Minaret Toppled to Make Way for Road Expansion in Iraq”
“Still, not a bad idea to knock down all minarets.”
Agreed-
Why not knock ‘em all down and pave over the whole place?
Couple big Nuke Cookers would pull that oil up out of the ground, and the heat would pack it hard.
Nice payback for the dynamited Buddhas of Afghanistan.
Modernization- they can get their call to prayer via tv and show up to be counted, kind like the bible talks about.
What goes around, comes around.
Basra is a Shi’ite city. They should’ve gotten used to this kind of thing under Saddam.
“Drop your bombs between the minarets!”
“Down the Casbah way”
Better yet, get rid of all mosques!
Yes, it is.
Is this akin to knocking down all Confederate monuments and changing names of suspected Confederate sympathizers?
I would think that Muslims do not like this demolition.
I concur.
I once took some visitors from Rome, Italy to see what I proudly announced was “one of the oldest buildings in America.” It was built in the 1750s. They looked at me with amused indulgence. At least they didn’t laugh in my face.
Maybe that minaret didn’t seem as old to the Iraqis as it does to us.
Should have been done worldwide on 9/12.
It's just the latest shot in the centuries-old muzzie civil war.
I would expect this cry baby BS from the Smithsonian.
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