“Not all Arabs are Muslim; not all Muslims are Arab. In fact, only 23 percent of the Arab population living in the United States of America is Muslim; 77 percent are Christian.

“Islam being the fastest growing faith in this country, as it is in the world today, the number of Muslims in American has soared in the last decade 14 fold. Only half a million in the early 70’s, the estimated number of Muslims living in America today is between 6 to 7 mmillion. 75 percent of them are non-Arabs.

“Currently, there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world: in other words, one out of every five persons living on the fact of the earth are Muslim, a ratio that is projected to be one our of four by 2020.

“In view of such a significant number and a vast variety of races, nationalities, and cultures, in what sense if any can one speak of the typical Muslim, man or woman? Such a person has never existed–just as an Islam unified in its practices, policies, and goals has never existed.”

Source: Milani, Farzaneh and Abdulaziz Sachedina. “Imagining Unity: Muslim Cultural Diversity in North America”. Online video. UVA Newsmakers, 2003.

With a recent note on the Taliban’s inhibition of the music trade in Mingora, Pakistan and its effects on the distribution, enjoyment, and preservation of indigenous Pashtun music, I thought I’d surf a few minutes for additional reference to the destruction of the cultural artifacts of others at the hands of militant Islam.

Such were not hard to find, starting, perhaps, with the Bamyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

However, I was surprised to find out of the Islamic theocracy of Iran the destruction of an ancient bridge and threatened or now evolving degradation of other structural artifacts of global significance (see Amil Imani’s reference).

There seem too complaints of underhanded reconstruction underwritten by the Saudi state.  To address the repair of Balkan Islamic monuments, Jolyon Naegele suggests the wholesale bulldozing of the same has been to replace that heritage with architecture more favoring the Saudi Wahhabi vision.

For Israel and the Jews, Mark Ami-El notes the erasure of evidence of Jewish habitation beneath the Temple Mount through the construction of an underground mosque:

“After September 2000, the Muslim Waqf closed off the Temple Mount entirely to any archeological oversight by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Then, in order to complete new underground mosques at the site, it removed to city garbage dumps some 13,000 tons of rubble from the Temple Mount that included archeological remnants from the First and Second Temple periods.

“The intention is to turn the entire 36-acre Temple Mount compound into an exclusively Muslim site by erasing every sign, remnant, and memory of its Jewish past, including the destruction of archeological findings that are proof of this past.”

On behalf of traditional Malaysian culture, Chris Prystay tells a tale of subtle erasure of ancient folk dance and theater at the hands of Islamic influence and party politics:

“A Mak Yon performance, which runs over two or three nights, tells one of a dozen stories of mythological royalty. They are typically morality tales about the perils of lust or pride. The story of Dewa Muda, who struggles with sadness because he can’t reach his princess, is the most popular.

“The performances are also therapeutic. Villagers seeking a cure for depression or other emotional ills don the same costume as the lead dancer and shadow her as she dances around the stage. By acting out Dewa Muda’s own struggle, they purge their own. At the end of the play, the shaman leads the villager into a trance dance, chanting verses to banish the illness.

“Rituals like this are now performed in secret by a handful of retirees . . . .”

Read ’em and weep.

For hope, watch the University of Virginia video featuring Farzaneh Milani and Abdulaziz Sachedina, the latter careful, I think, to compare facets of Islamic ethnic and religious identity with “Italian-ness, and Germaness” but not, no mention, of Jewishness.

Still, four hours down the pike and 3,000 miles across the continent and off to Hawaii or up to Alaska, Muslims, like everyone else, may do things a little differently in America.  All welcome diverse and robust cultures, not one that would destroy all others.

Reference

Ami-El, Mark. “The Destruction of the Temple Mount Antiquities.” Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, August 1, 2002.

Anti-Wahhabi Blog (The). “Fanatics’ desparate effort to destroy pre-Islamic heritage.” Wednesday, September 12, 2007.

ArtsJournal.com. “Taliban Afghani Art Destruction.” Online Bibliography.

Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (The), CAIS. “Islamic Regime have Finally Destroyed 2200-year-old Parthian Bridge of Khoda-Afarid (Negin).” December 8, 2007.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY OF ISLAM.

Imani, Amil. “Culturecide of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” American Thinker, June 28, 2008.

Milani, Farzaneh and Abdulaziz Sachedina. “Imagining Unity: Muslim Cultural Diversity in North America”. Online video. UVA Newsmakers, 2003

Prystay, Chris. “Bit of Malay Culture Is Now Vanishing Under Muslim Rules.” The Wall Street Journal, recast via YaleGlobal Online, April 21, 2006.

Sells, Michael A. “ERASING CULTURE: WAHHABISM, BUDDHISM, BALKAN MOSQUES; same location: Naegele, Jolyon. “Yugoslavia: Saudi Wahhabi Aid Workers Bulldoze Balkan Monuments”.

Wikipedia. “Buddhas of Bamyan.” Noted September 8, 2008.

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