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Permalink Reply by Alan Lake on May 22, 2012 at 21:33

Trouble in paradise: Maldives and Islamic extremism

By Amal Jayasinghe (AFP) – Feb 11, 2012  

MALE — At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination.

On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era.

"They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety.

"We lost all our 12th century statues. They were made of coral stone and limestone. They are very brittle and there is no way we can restore them," he explained.

"I wept when I heard that the entire display had gone. We are good Muslims and we treated these statues only as part of our heritage. It is not against Islam to display these exhibits," he said.

Five people have since been arrested after they returned the following day to smash the CCTV cameras, he said.

The authorities have banned photography of the damage, conscious that vandalism of this kind which echoes the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban is damaging for the nation's image.

The gates of the two-storeyed grey building, which opened in 2010, are padlocked and an unarmed guard keeps watch.

The Maldives, a collection of more than 1,100 coral-fringed islands surrounded by turquoise seas, is known as a "paradise" holiday destination that draws hundreds of thousands of travellers and honeymooners each year.

Visitors' contact with the local population is deliberately kept at bay, however, with most foreigners simply transferring from the main international airport directly to their five-star resorts on outlying islands.

Few have any idea they are visiting a country of 330,000 Muslims with no religious freedom, where women can be flogged for extramarital sex and consuming alcohol is illegal for locals.

Islam is the official religion of the Maldives and open practice of any other religion is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

The religious origins of the Maldivian people are not clearly established, but it is believed that a Buddhist king converted to Islam in the 12th century.

Thereafter, the country practised a mostly liberal form of the religion, but more fundamentalist interpretations have spread with the arrival of money and ultra-conservative Salafist preachers from the Middle East.

In 2007, following a bombing that wounded a dozen foreign tourists, the former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom banned head-to-toe coverings for women as a sign of his intent to battle conservative Islamic thinking.

At the museum, another official said that fundamentalists had threatened to attack the museum on previous occasions unless it withdrew the Buddhist display.

The country's ultra-conservative Islamic group, the Adhaalath Party, condemned the attack, but said they remained opposed to Nasheed's decision to accept three monuments from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

"Our constitution does not allow idols and that is why we objected to the monuments," General Secretary Mohamed Muizzu said, referring to the gifts to mark a South Asian summit held in November in the Maldives.

The monuments, which included one of pillar featuring Buddhist motifs, and which had been on display in the southernmost island of Addu, have all since been vandalised.

The Adhaalath party supports new president Mohamed Waheed, who Nasheed accuses of taking part in a coup, and is due to join the new government.

Waheed called the museum attack "totally unacceptable" and denied there was religious violence in his country.

Former foreign minister Ahmed Naseem disagreed.

He said extremists were thriving in the Maldives and that they were partly responsible for the toppling of Nasheed and the installation of Waheed. "What we had was a military coup backed by religious extremists," he said.

"There is a strong influence of Islamic fundamentalists in the country and they will get stronger," Naseem told AFP. "These groups are funded from abroad. "This threat is not only to us, but the rest of the world as well."

The moderate Nasheed, who was educated in Sri Lanka and Britain, was consistently accused of being under the control of Jews and Christians by religious opposition parties now linked to the government

There were also demonstrations over proposals from the transport ministry to allow direct flights from Israel.

"We strongly condemn the anti-Semitic words and the other commentary recently," US assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs Robert Blake said during a visit to Male on Saturday.

"Under President Nasheed, the Maldives tried to improve relations with Israel and showed what a progressive country they were and we really commend them for that."

Permalink Reply by shiva on May 23, 2012 at 4:42

Goddess Nidhi-lakshmi as represented on a 9th century coral block

  Tantric deity in coral stone

Six-faced coral-stone stele

There are five faces on the three sides of the stele, and a very worn face on the top.

The stele is a vighnantaka dvarapala representation, designed to protect sacred ground (or the mandala) from evil.

'The adverse powers (Skt. vighna) that may destroy the sanctity of any consecrated place are assumed to be demonic and malevolent. The vighna, viganiin modern Divehi, means 'obstacle', anything that obstructs the path to enlightenment.

'The nature of vighna is evil; their Lord is Yama, the God of Death. As in Indian Buddhist mythology, one of the aspects of Yama is the personification of evil in man and of his inevitable death. The vighna is assumed to be an amorphous and turbulent mass and, despite their importance, in Buddhist iconography they are never represented with as much precision as the vighnantaka. The latter are the awesome guardians of the gates (akin to the dvarapala) which are expected to put an end to the vighna with their terrifying appearance. The vighnantaka are a common feature in Buddhist sculpture and these fearsome looking images are a frequent feature by the gates of Buddhist holy sites

Inscriptions in old Maldivian Eveyla Akuru script at the four corners of the largest head, which dominates the most finished side of the stele The inscriptions on either side of the head

 below the ears have been identified as Vajrayana mantras

Carved from coral stone, the stele was found in the early 1960s during roadworks at Aifaanu Magu in Henveiru ward, Male'. Human bones were found around the stele and an adolescent female skull had been placed on top.

Regarding human sacrifices in early Maldives, Romero-Frias writes:
'Blood sacrifices, and even human sacrifices, were indeed a feature of Dravidian Devi worship. In South India even to this day, bloody ceremonies including animal sacrifices and nightly processions with lights are still part of the worship of goddess Mari.
'It is very likely that Buddhism, upon its arrival in Maldives, sought to stop human sacrificial offerings offered to the ancestral Goddess, so common throughout Dravidian village India. The readiness to offer these sacrifices can be traced to the extreme fear Maldivians had of epidemics and diseases in general.

Permalink Reply by shiva on May 23, 2012 at 5:16

Chief of the Five Thieves - Buddha head, Toddoo island, Maldives

The discovery and destruction of the big statue of Thoddu in 1959 - Statue smashed a second time at Mulee-aage
by Adam Haleem
Haveeru, 30 May 2009

Found carefully buried on Thoddu in 1959, this statue had been preserved underground for nearly 800 years. To hide it after Buddhist Maldives was declared an Islamic kingdom by royal decree in 1153, islanders removed the statue from a higher position and placed it upright on the floor of the temple where sand had been spread. It was then surrounded by hewn stone slabs and more sand and rocks. A protective slab was placed over the statue and additional rocks and sand were added to the pile until the temple had become a mound. The heap was then covered in soil.

 

They began digging and when they found a statue and everyone began to shout and yell at the statue. 'Chief of the Five Thieves [from the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves], you are the motherless one!', one of them bellowed as he pointed a finger at the carving. 'The thief was hiding!' yelled another man even more loudly. By sunrise next day, a group of people had broken the head off the statue. It was put back on and the statue was placed under a roof. People began to yell, 'The religion of worshipping statues has begun!' And later in Male', people who were similarly gripped by anger attacked the huge statue and further damaged it. This is the story of the second destruction of the statue found in the ruins of a Buddhist temple in Thoddu in 1959. According to the book 'A New Light on the History of Maldives', Mudhin Ibrahim of Thoddu went to collect stones from a large pile on the island known locally as the 'Sea Ghost's big stone mound', and as he dug into it he noticed something unusual. A special expedition was sent to Thoddu to explore the area. On this expedition were Mohamed Ismail Didi and Abdul Hakeem Hussein Manik. In addition two other men, photographer Ali Najeeb and Thulhaadhoo Hassan Manik Dhon Manik accompanied them. They are all dead now; the last to die was Abdul Hakeem Hussein Manik at the age of 90 in 2003. The digging was conducted with the help of 76 men who were paid a daily rate of Rf2.50 each. The mound was covered in coconut palms and sea hibiscus trees. It was photographed, the palms were felled and digging began. First they discovered the foundations of an ancient stupa and smaller constructions, and a wide stepped staircase. Several days later, they found a rectangular sandstone slab. When they lifted the slab, underneath was a large statue. 'Chief of the Five Thieves, you are the motherless one!' yelled the man who first saw the statue, according to the history book. Abdul Hakeem said people working at the site began to shout when they saw the statue and wanted to destroy it. 'The statue was very beautiful,' he commented in 2001. Hakeem said the statue looked very much like one at the end of the Havelock road in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in fact there was no difference. According to the history book, the statue had the robes a monk similar to the Gotama Buddha statues in Sri Lanka. The view of the history committee is that when news reached Thoddu that Maldives had become Islamic and the practice of Buddhism outlawed, the people of Thoddu went to the extreme trouble of burying the Buddhist sculpture before officials came to destroy the temple. Therefore this must have happened in 1153, when Maldives was proclaimed Islamic, or soon after that. 'It may be that they hid it in hope of the eventual return of Buddhism,' said Hakeem. 'With the coins was a piece of hip bone [in 'History of Maldives in a New Light', the term 'hip bone' is not used, instead the object is described as 'an ingredient for herbal medicine'] . The silver coins had some sort of engraving and people said they were coins of Alexander the Great,' said Hakeem. 'While people were absorbed in looking at these things, Mudhin Ibrahim came running up and claimed that it was a place that he had discovered and the gold belonged to him. Mudhin was jumping up and down for a miniscule piece of gold. On the instructions of the expedition team, the digging commenced again and people started shouting as they found something else. Others went running to see. It was a round casket made of coral stone. Inside was a metal container and laying around it were three rings and some coins. Inside the silver container was a golden container and inside that was a gold cylinder. Photographs of two coins found in Thoddu island Buddhist ruins in 1959. The coin on the right was identified by the British Museum as a denarius from the Roman Republic of Caius Vibius Pansa, minted in Rome in 90BC. It could have been circulating in the Roman Empire for up to 100 years. All coins found on Thoddu were later stolen in Male' According the history book, when the statue and the curved coral container were found, people became almost hysterical. Everyone wanted to make claims to what had been found. One said, 'I found the diamond treasure trove', and another claimed he saw a nest of local snake eggs. 'Mudhin threw his arms in the air and told me that whatever people found, it was from a place that he discovered, and the reward rightfully belonged to him,' said Hakeem. After these discoveries, the expedition team kept searching. One morning while they were at the digging site, the statue was bashed with a rock and damaged. According to Hakeem, they didn't think the people of Thoddu would get angry enough to destroy the statue. 'Before when the head of the statue was broken off, when it put on, it was fine,' said Abdul Hakeem. The people who went at dawn to destroy the statue, appeared to be afraid of it. After the vandalism, the pieces were put together, wrapped in a hessian bag and put in a box. Banana leaves were used as padding and it was taken to Male' and placed in Mulee-aage [an important official residence]. The statue was under a verandah at the southern side of the building. Ministers and high officials went to see it. Although almost all officials viewed the statue, prime minister Ibrahim Nasir did not. Some high officials had great suggestions about what to do with it. Ahmed Hilmy Didi said that if advertised as a statue found washed up at the beach, Sri Lankans would pay a high price for it. Sheikh Rushdie said not to do that. He suggested placing the statue on public display on a nice wall, and it would attract people from Sri Lanka who would pay dollars to see it. It was not good idea to sell it, according to Rushdie. Despite all these ideas, the statue remained at Mulee-aage. News of the Thoddu statue had spread all over Male' and some people became very angry. About six days after it arrived, a group of people went in and smashed the statue to pieces. The only part remaining was the head section. Next day, the most widely discussed topic was that the worship of statues had begun in Male' and some people had converted to Buddhism. People gathered at various places in Male' and shouted about their concerns. 'Nasir was unable muster the courage do anything about it,' said Hakeem. 'He certainly had no wish to investigate the destruction of the statue.' An object that would have given insight into the ancient history of Maldives was destroyed while it was in Mulee-aage, and historians, including Hakeem, believe the statue was destroyed by disapproving government employees from that building. The head of the Thoddu statue is now was in the museum in Male', the coral stone casket went missing and Thoddu's temple has been buried again. Many more images of the destroyed relics

Permalink Reply by Philip Smeeton on May 30, 2012 at 18:01

We must ask ourselves what the objectives of Islam are.

One objective is to eradicate all education, knowledge and non Islamic culture. To return to an ignorant primitive herding and agricultural system.

There will be no automobiles or industry because there will be no-one educated to a level where they are capable of maintaining and developing industrial technology. They only need our weapons technology in order to intimidate and subdue us and they study democracy in order to utilise its weaknesses. Most Muslims are poor ignorant uneducated peasants who given a democratic choice choose Islam and Islam has no use for democracy other than as a means to mislead true democracies and to achieve enough power to abolish democracy.

There will be no art other than calligraphic depictions of Muslim holy texts.

All science, medicine and general knowledge will disappear. As the only proper study for a Muslim is the holy texts given by Allah through the mouth of one man Mohammed. So all truth and knowledge can only have one source Mohammed, who is always right because the almighty Allah is infallible. To doubt this is to ask to have your head lopped off. So not many challenges to the word of Allah eventually.

This is the main objective of Islam to destroy everything not described in the holy books. Everything non-Islamic.

We shall all prey five times a day and blissfully submit to the Will of Allah. Everyone will be happy under the umbrella of the love of the Muslim brotherhood and the peace of Islam. Women joyfully accept their purpose to feed the appetites of men.

It's like some insane Hippy nightmare- choose peace and love or die.

Permalink Reply by shiva on May 30, 2012 at 19:04

Yo Philip you paint a grim picture, but I don't see it that way, muslims will still want their cars and mobile phones etc, and they know there will be enough kaffir to serve them, a perfect example of this is Malaysia

Malasia

Permalink Reply by Joe on May 30, 2012 at 22:51

I don't think that Philip paints an unrealistic picture.

Last year the British Museum had a politically-correct exhibition about Afghanistan as the cross-roads of civilisation.

They had almost nothing to display.  

And they barely even mentioned that it was because of islam.    Those things on display were from museums and collections around the world, stuff that the Taliban and/or the peasantry did not get to destroy, some of it whisked out of museums there 30 years ago.

And get this.  The plan was to return what was left of these bygone civilisations of Afghanistan to the Afghan government!  If that plan is followed through, you can bet that within 20 years there will be nothing left of those things.

Muslim societies will hold onto the technology of other civilisations, but they will not add to it.  And they will destroy those things that are representations of that which is not islam.  And eventually the technology will wear out.  And without valuable natural resources (like oil), they will be unable to keep up technologically, and will return to piracy and slavery.  Most of Malaysia's exports depend on natural resources and manufacturing.  In 30 years time a sharia-compliant Malaysia, with the continued brain-drain of Chinese and Indian professionals, and the exhaustion of non-renewable natural resources, will result in the country going backward.  No doubt they will go to war with Singapore or Thailand, when they see their relative wealth falling.

Islam is like a black hole.

Permalink Reply by Philip Smeeton on May 31, 2012 at 12:11

Yes but in the end everyone will be Muslim and totally ignorant.

Permalink Reply by Alan Lake on June 1, 2012 at 3:56

I think it will be a mixture in space, and go in waves in time.

So, some countries like Malaysia or Saudi Arabia will have their captive or imported Dhimmi populations to do the complex and innovative work for them, and other countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Guinea Bissau will keep be more chaotic and openly discriminatory, so that the non-Muslims in the end try get out, and they have a gradual depletion of the non-Muslim citizens.

But even within that model, Islam will go in its usual waves of slackening and hardening (or "spiritual renewal"), in which the barely tolerated kuffar get wiped from their positions of power and ethnically cleansed.  A perfect example of this is that "beacon of Islamic tolerance and good governance", Andalusia.

As any Muslim will proudly tell to you, Andalusia even had a Jewish vizier, and a resident population of Jews in one area.  But in 1066 the pendulum swung back, the vizier was killed along with 5000 of the Jews.

Or the Muslim will boast of Maimonides, the greatest medieval Jewish thinker, Talmudist and codifier, working happily in Andalusia.  Except that as soon as Maimonides was safely out of Dar al Islam, he said 
”never did a nation molest,degrade,debase &hate us as much as they”

I think this is an important point, because the most dangerous aspect of Islam is its variability and unpredictability (I'm talking about it as a social and political force not as a theological doctrine).  If it wasn't so variable by place and by time, people wouldn't get so easily confused, misled and deceived by it.