Buddhas of Bamiyan – The Destruction of the Statues in Bamiyan
The Destruction of the Statues in Bamiyan
The two colossal statues of Buddha carved into the sandstone cliffs of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, were demolished by the Taleban on March 2001. The Taleban people was a fundamentalist Islamic militia that has governed most of Aghanistan from 1996 to December 2001.
Against international protests and appeals, the supreme Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered their destruction as part of a campaign to rid the land of all un-Islamic graven images. The leader issued an edict declaring the statues (and therefore the ancient Buddhas) as insulting to Islam. This means that all idolatrous images of humans and animals and all those idols considered by them to be an insult to Islam had to be destroyed.
Taleban leader rejected also a proposal to build a concrete wall in front of the two Buddhas statues instead of their destruction.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink Comments off
