Not only does this belief eliminate the production of any representative art, but it also triggers the destruction of such artworks as Muslims may encounter. Non-representational art is allowed, but only if it is in the service of Islam and only if it cannot be interpreted as arising from an “infidel” worldview.
The fact that artworks can be sold, however, creates an internal tension within Islam: destroy the artworks, or use them to fund the mission? Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra and Gordon Govier write:
ISIS has become one of the world’s best-funded terrorist groups, earning most of its profits by selling seized oil. But details keep emerging of the estimated No. 2 source of its billion-dollar revenue stream: looting.
This question repeatedly confronts Islam: Destroy the cultural artifacts or sell them? If the artifacts are destroyed, a chance to fund the mission is lost. If the artifacts are sold, the seller is open to the charge of hypocrisy on his own terms: he has allowed the “idolatrous” images to continue existing, which for a Muslim is a sin.
The term “ISIS” has become common, along with its variants, “ISIL” and “IS” - referring respectively to the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” and the “Islamic State.”
Under any name, Islam has destroyed archeological treasures wholesale. Scientists and historians from all parts of the world lamented the use of construction equipment and explosives to eliminate all traces of the ancient city of Nimrud, an Assyrian city founded around 1200 BC.
The city’s name is sometimes transliterated as ‘Nimrod.’ It is difficult for non-Muslims to grasp the worldview which demands the destruction of archeological findings from ancient civilizations. Zylstra and Govier continue:
The group often destroys statues and other objects it deems idolatrous. Last month, ISIS bulldozed the ancient city of Nimrod, prompting the senior editor of the New York Review of Books to call for military protection of archeological sites. Italy’s culture minister and Iraq’s tourism and antiquities minister have advanced similar proposals.
In early 2015, ISIS destroyed an ancient architectural feature known as the ‘Nineveh Wall.’ In 2014, ISIS had bulldozed a colossal ancient Assyrian gateway lion sculpture dating to the 8th century BC.
While, on the one hand, Islam is committing these acts of wanton destruction based on intolerance and xenophobia, ISIS paradoxically preserves other artifacts, equally offensive to Muslim sensibilities, in order to sell them.
ISIS cannot avoid the charge of hypocrisy. If it were consistently to apply Islamic values, it would not allow any of these archeological finds to exist. But it violates the worldview it proclaims for the sake of money. ISIS compromises its allegedly Islamic values for the sake of opportunism.
But thousands of potentially lucrative archaeological sites are now under ISIS control. The resulting looting has given rise to the term “blood antiquities.” A parallel to Africa’s “blood diamonds,” where mines in a war zone are looted to finance military operations, ancient artifacts are helping to fund ISIS’s reign of terror.
In a bizarre and nightmarish circumstance, historians and scholars are thankful that ISIS needs cash to continue its terrorist activities: the need for funding is enabling the survival of at least a few of the world’s oldest cultural treasures.
While some of the destroyed items had been catalogued, photographed, and described, other objects had yet to be identified or analyzed. Indiscriminate ruination annihilated both known finds and those which lay undiscovered waiting in vain to be unearthed.
In the blanket destruction caused by bulldozing entire cities, many artifacts have been lost forever.
