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Will Muslim Extremists Destroy the Sphinx?
Written by Bruce Walker
Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Egyptian jihadist, has called for the destruction of the Sphinx and the great pyramids so long associated with the splendor of Ancient Egypt. In a November 10 interview on an Egyptian television station, al-Gohary denounced those historical monuments as idols offensive to Islam: “All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues. God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols. When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”
Other Muslims disagree. Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro, the vice president of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, agrees that when Amr ibn al-Aas conquered Egypt for Islam, he did not seek to destroy the Sphinx and other ancient monuments, and Moro gave the reason: “The Prophet destroyed the idols because people worshiped them, but the Sphinx and the Pyramids are not worshiped.”
Most Egyptians have regarded these ancient monuments as an integral part of Egyptian culture. Ahmed Osman, an Egyptian author who is an expert on ancient Egypt, told Al-Arabiya English, “The fundamental Salafis have demanded to cover Pharaonic statues, because they regard them to be idols. But so far the government has done nothing to indicate what is the future of Egyptian antiquities.” The nation has been dominated by Muslim governments for 1,400 years, and during those centuries Egyptians sought to preserve, not destroy, relics which were an important party of ancient history.
