Attacks on Shrines Rattle Libya

[rug]

A historic Sufi mosque was destroyed in Tripoli on Saturday. Religious extremists are suspected in the attack. Reuters

Updated August 26, 2012, 7:45 p.m. ET
By MARGARET COKER

Libya's newly elected congress held an emergency session on Sunday about the destruction over the weekend of two of the country's most revered Sufi shrines by suspected religious extremists, who some lawmakers allege may have undertaken their actions in collusion with security officials.

The brazen attacks in two cities underscore the shaky nature of the emerging democracy in Libya, where elected officials have little sway over security forces. The destruction has raised fears that conservative religious groups—whose candidates were soundly beaten in the country's July election—may attempt to sabotage Libya's transition to a secular, modern state.

At sunrise on Saturday, suspected Libyan adherents of the rigid Salafi school of Islam brought bulldozers into the center of Tripoli and flattened the expansive, centuries-old Sidi Al-Sha'ab shrine. Uniformed members of at least two separate government security divisions that answer to the Interior Ministry barricaded the busy seafront road where the religious complex was located and allowed the daylong demolition to continue, according to witnesses.

That destruction followed vandalism Friday night at Libya's most revered Sufi mosque in Zlitan, west of the capital, and the burning of an adjoining library that housed hundreds of theological treatises dedicated to the mystical branch of Islam that historically has been practiced across much of North Africa.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444230504577613260789607638.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[longship]

1. As an atheist I want to go on record that this shit pisses me off.

No matter what anybody thinks of atheists. We weren't the ones who blew up the beautiful and astounding Bayiman Buddhas. We don't mow down mosques, temples, religious icons, churches, etc.

I will resist my temptation to turn this post into yet another anti-religious diatribe by an atheist. Instead, to all those theists who see this as a horrible thing, I stand with you.

Religion is a huge part of human culture. No rational person would want any historic artifact to be destroyed merely because its culture is different than the majority. To claim otherwise, is to promote totalitarianism.

I love sacred music as much as secular. I love sacred art as well as secular. The same for architecture. To walk into St. John the Divine in NYC is a transforming experience even for an atheist. To hear a Bach Cantata performed live in that space equally raises numinous feelings even in this atheist.

I don't need to believe in gods to appreciate the cultural and historic importance of religion.

I despise this shit, whoever does it.

[humblebum]

2. A very wise respectful post. However, atheists have done such things, too.

And on a much more massive scale. So to say "We don't mow down mosques, temples, religious icons, churches, etc." is just plain false.