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[ by Charles Cameron — there’s some question as to the authenticity of the footage of destruction in the Mosul Museum, hence the triple post of which this is part 1 ]
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First the grief, the terrible wailings:

#Iraq #Mosul #IS (Via @stevoiraq) pic.twitter.com/YLHzsPgKbq

— Ahmed Shames (@AhmedUK_IQ) February 27, 2015

The reason for the grief:

"The Mosul museum is a major museum. It has a remarkable collection of finds that date back to the Neolithic era." http://t.co/PIArDCKNKv

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) February 27, 2015

I have to say, I too was moved to tears by the video.

The symbolic impact:

pic.twitter.com/It3WHI0WBf

— steven nabil (@stevoiraq) February 27, 2015

An individual’s response ties the destruction of statuary in with the destruction of lives:

And one more thing against Cultural terrorism of #ISIS. Je Suis #MosulMuseum #Iraq pic.twitter.com/um7U6komWA

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) February 28, 2015

A communal response as reported by the same individual:

Baghdad responds: #Iraq National Museum Re-Opens days after #ISIS thuggery in Mosul's.US invasion 2003 forced closure pic.twitter.com/fWg07rI98p

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) February 28, 2015

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Two useful articles:

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And let’s not forget the Christian tradition of iconoclasm, both Orthodox and Protestant, either:

The torture and martyrdom of the iconophile Bishop Euthymius of Sardeis by the iconoclast Byzantine Emperor Michael II in 824, in a 13th-century manuscript

[ by Charles Cameron — a missile wrapped in a paradox inside a sandstorm — Syria ]
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So. tell me, which? This?

And it works every time. EVERY. TIME. http://t.co/kHlplPR5cI pic.twitter.com/VwVWRnXVAS

— J.M. Berger (@intelwire) February 24, 2015

or this?

Non-US-backed rebels use American TOW missile captured from #ISIS, which captured it from US-backed rebels!! #Syria pic.twitter.com/u1Y16Z1vfc

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) February 24, 2015

Or can you have it both ways?

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Six minutes separates those two tweets.

the title of this post is very likely confused. As am I.

[ by Charles Cameron — why scholarship should inform punditry ]
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I am a bit surprised, I have to say, that I haven’t seen — and Google doesn’t seem to have found, either — a clear rebuttal to one highly significant detail in David Brooks‘ discussion with Mark Shields and Judy Woodruff on Islamic eschatology.

In the PBS NewsHour segment labeled Shields and Brooks on fighting Islamic extremism (above), Brooks makes the statement:

I do think you have to take the religion seriously, that these people are — it’s not like they can’t get what we want. They want something they think is higher than what we want. Their souls are involved. And I’m saying you have to conceive of them as moving, as acting in a religious way.

And you have to have religious alternatives. And they are driven by an end times ideology. They think there’s going to be some cataclysm battle and Mohammed will come down. And if you ignore that part of it, write it off as sort of marginal, that they are being produced by economic dysfunction, I just think you’re missing the main deal.

I’m largely in agreement with this, but the phrase “and Mohammed will come down” is just plain wrong. In Islamic eschatology, it is claimed that Jesus (‘Isa ibn Maryam) — not Muhammad — will “come down” from heaven at the ‘Umayyad mosque in Damascus:

God will send the Messiah, son of Mary, and he will descend to the white minaret in the east of Damascus, wearing two garments dyed with saffron, placing his hands on the wings of two angels. When he lowers his head, beads of perspiration will fall from it, and when he raises his head, beads like pearls will scatter from it.

The return of Jesus and his “breaking the cross” and preaching the one faith of Submission (Islam) may be what Brooks should have mentioned — or perhaps he meant the arrival and recognition of the Mahdi, who does not “come down” to us but is already among us by the time his end times role begins.

I can see how this may seem a slight slip-of-the-tongue to David Brooks, who is after all not solely preoccupied with IS, Islam, and / or apocalyptic — but it’s not something that should go unchallenged if we are to “take the religion seriously”.

[ by Charles Cameron — in real estate it’s location, location, location — in thought space it’s context, context, context ]
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Timothy Furnish offers us context for the newly released video of Islamic State beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians (screencap in upper panel, below) with two striking images of precedents, one of which I have reproduced in part (lower panel), illustrating how the Ottomans beheaded tens of thousands of Georgian Christians:

Furnish’s post is titled ISIS Beheadings: Hotwiring the Apocalypse One Christian Martyr At A Time.

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I am saddened to say that this is indeed part of the history of Islamic relations with Christianity.

I am happy to add, however, that it is not the whole story. In the upper panel, below, you see Muslim and Christian at a very different form of battle, as found in the Book of Games, Chess, dice and boards, 1282, in the library of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial:

Religious tolerance in Islam is illustrated as found today in India, in this picture of a Muslim mother in full niqab taking her son, dressed as the Hindu deity Krishna, to a festival — very probably the Janmashtami or birthday celebration of the child-god (lower panel, above).

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It will be interesting to see how President Sisi repsonds to this murderous IS attack on Egyptian citizens.

[ by Charles Cameron — old enough to appreciate this beauty ]
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I don’t usually like comparing people to animals, it’s all too often a means of demonizing them so they can be killed without compunction — but hey, IMO this exception proves the rule!

Source:

Daily Mail: The granny who stood up to ISIS