Echoes of the Taliban

last updated 8 January 2015

Cairo

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, Egypt’s government-backed religious authority, issued a fatwa this week banning the display of statues for decoration. The ban didn’t specifically mention ancient statuary, but archaeologists and other scholars said they feared that Islamic extremists might interpret it that way and destroy the Sphinx or other national treasures. In 2001, the Taliban issued a similar edict in Afghanistan and then followed it by blowing up two enormous ancient Buddhas. But Egypt’s Islamist opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, said few would take the fatwa seriously. “The people are more concerned with corruption,” said party spokesman Issam al-Aryan. “What they would like to see is a fatwa banning the presence of the same people at the helm of the country for 25 years.”