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<\/p>\nWe must go back to pre-Islamic Arabia, where images, statues, and idols were venerated as part of polytheism. Pre-Islamic Arabs would travel to cities to worship their idols in sanctuaries.<\/p>\n
Muhammad was a member of the Quraysh tribe, which guarded the sacred Kaaba in Mecca and the idols and images within it. But the prophet\u2019s followers were growing in number, and with them, criticism of idolatry and polytheism\u2014for attributing to an image powers that belong only to\u00a0Allah. This is considered the gravest sin in Islam (1), since they believed there is only one God,\u00a0Allah,\u00a0thus sparking unease among the local tribes, who would travel to the sacred site of Mecca to worship their idols\u2014a practice they feared would be threatened if the Prophet and his followers prevailed.<\/p>\n
The first major event in the year 624 was the Battle of Badr (2), near Medina, in which approximately 300 of Muhammad\u2019s followers faced off against about 1,000 members of the Quraysh tribe, who lost the battle; this marked the first turning point in the spread of Islam.<\/p>\n
In the year 628, following several battles against the local tribes controlling Mecca, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was signed, which settled several issues, including a ten-year truce and permission for the Prophet\u2019s Muslim followers to enter the city the following year for three days (3).<\/p>\n
In the year 630, the truce was broken, and Muhammad finally took control of Mecca at the head of some 10,000 men, ordering the destruction of the idols inside the Kaaba, except for the\u00a0Black Stone (4), which is sacred to Muslims and is currently located on the eastern side of the Kaaba.<\/p>\n
On this point, some historians, such as Abu I-Walid al-Azraqui in his book\u00a0News of Mecca,\u00a0written in the 9th century, noted that Muhammad also protected an image of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus, known as Isa to Muslims. In the 21st century, British historian Karen Armstrong echoed al-Azraqui\u2019s account in an article in *The Guardian* (5). As is well known, Mary and Jesus are respected figures in Islam, as evidenced by Sura 19 of the Quran, dedicated to Mary (Maryam).<\/p>\n
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Daesh considers itself the sole heir to the Prophet\u2019s doctrine<\/p>\n
Fourteen centuries later, Daesh, a millenarian terrorist organization, considered itself the exclusive heir to the prophet\u2019s doctrine, applying it in an extremist manner and carrying out a campaign of destruction in the areas it had conquered in Syria and Iraq\u2014including sites that were, in some cases, World Heritage Sites\u2014due to its rejection of the worship of figures which, as mentioned earlier, constituted shirk, or sin, in their view.<\/p>\n
The city of Palmyra in Syria, a World Heritage Site, was razed from the time of its occupation in May 2015 until the organization\u2019s defeat in 2017. Among the destroyed heritage sites were the city\u2019s tetrapylon and the Roman theater, which served as the scene of horrific executions of Syrian soldiers at the hands of jihadists (6). Also destroyed in 2015 were the Lion of Al-L\u0101t\u2014considered a World Heritage Site and restored in October 2017\u2014as well as the city\u2019s Roman Triumphal Arch.<\/p>\n
Ten years later, in Spain, in February 2025, the Spanish National Research Council documented the devastation of the ancient city of Palmyra in a report prepared by Spanish and Syrian archaeologists, which detailed severe damage to 12 of the archaeological site\u2019s most important monuments (7).<\/p>\n
Palmyra and its citizens suffered particularly severely from this destructive fervor.\u00a0Among the last to perish was 82-year-old Khaled al-Asaad, director of the city\u2019s museum, an eminent Syrian archaeologist and anthropologist who had dedicated more than 50 years to historical heritage. He was accused of idolatry and of refusing to reveal to Daesh the location of the city\u2019s millennia-old treasures; he was beheaded in August 2015 (8).<\/p>\n
The museum suffered not only the destruction of its main monuments but also the looting of some 3,500 architectural artifacts (9). Archaeologist Joanne Farchakh told the newspaper *The Independent* that \u201cThe antiquities from\u00a0Palmyra<\/a>are already for sale in London. There are Syrian and Iraqi artifacts seized by the Islamic State that are already in Europe. They are no longer in Turkey, where they were first sent; they left Turkey a long time ago\u201d (10).<\/p>\n Building on Su\u00e1rez-Mansilla\u2019s 2020 research,\u00a0Dr. Bel\u00e9n Cuenca Abell\u00e1n, an expert in Arab and Islamic culture and an art historian, notes that, in the period leading up to the conflict, the buying and selling of historical heritage in the Middle East to finance terrorist activities was a recurring practice. However, the illicit trafficking of artworks increased during the years of war with Daesh.\u00a0The destructive acts targeting artworks\u2014which Cuenca describes as \u201cperformative\u201d in order to create a major impact in the media\u2014followed a specific plan of diversion aimed at stealing high-value pieces to fuel the illegal financing of these armed groups.<\/p>\n When asked how this illegal financing through the sale of the region\u2019s artistic heritage could be proven or demonstrated, Cuenca responds:<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary source for reconstructing how Daesh systematically plundered archaeological heritage comes from documentation seized by the U.S. Armed Forces during military operations conducted in eastern Syria in 2015. Among the recovered documents, the registry of the Ministry of Natural Resources\u2014known as Diwan al-Rikaz\u2014stands out. It was located following the death of Abu Sayyaf and contained an inventory of more than 550 looted archaeological artifacts. Additionally, documentation was found confirming that these artifacts were transported from the occupied territories to international markets.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the major problems is that most of the objects lacked a prior archaeological inventory, which greatly hindered their identification and restitution. Investigations suggest that the artifacts were sold on the Asian art market (China, Japan, and South Korea) via Turkey, with the group also resorting to extortion and document forgery to introduce the pieces into the legitimate Western market. However, the exact amount of financial gains obtained by Daesh through these activities remains unknown (Su\u00e1rez-Mansilla, 2020: 312\u2013313).<\/p>\n Mosul, Iraq, suffered a similar fate to Palmyra; the city was occupied in June 2014, and during that time, the so-called caliphate was proclaimed from the Al-Nuri Mosque by the leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.<\/p>\n The city entered a spiral of terror that lasted until July 2017, when\u2014following a brutal, months-long war of attrition between Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga against the terrorist organization\u2014the last jihadist strongholds in western Mosul were finally taken,\u00a0though not before the terrorist organization itself blew up the Al-Nuri Mosque.\u00a0The reconstruction of the mosque, spearheaded by UNESCO, was completed in 2025 (11).<\/p>\n But the destruction was not limited to the mosque. In early 2015, they blew up the city\u2019s library, which housed 8,000 books, and in February of that same year, they released a video showing the city museum, where they were demolishing statues of incalculable historical value with sledgehammers under the pretext of idolatry or shirk (12).<\/p>\n Following the defeat of the terrorist organization, the difficult reconstruction of the city began, particularly in the western part. Among the targets was not only the aforementioned mosque but also the looted Mosul Cultural Museum, which has since been restored with the help of private international foundations and public agencies (13); the museum is scheduled to reopen in late 2026.<\/p>\n But it was not only Daesh; the first Taliban regime in Afghanistan (1996\u20132001) also\u00a0attacked cultural heritage it deemed idolatry, destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan with explosives in 2001 (14),\u00a0which were carved in the 6th and 7th centuries and represented Buddhist art in that Afghan valley, all in accordance with their most radical interpretation of Islam, which does not recognize any monotheistic religion other than Islam.<\/p>\n The second Taliban regime has not yet gone to such extremes,\u00a0but they did attack store mannequins,\u00a0just as Daesh did in Mosul and Raqqa. In 2022, it demanded that shopkeepers cut off the mannequins\u2019 heads, because this goes against Sharia law and they could be worshipped as idols; it reversed the order months later, allowing the mannequins\u2019 heads to be covered with a bag (15).<\/p>\n Conclusions<\/p>\n Daesh has considered itself the sole legitimate heir to the prophet\u2019s doctrine and has reduced to rubble any historical heritage that deviates from the radical Sunni interpretation; it has done so with museums, Shiite mosques, Christian churches, Syrian antiquities, and their temples, and even destroyed Sunni mosques such as the Nabi Yunus Mosque in Mosul in 2014, where the remains of the prophet Jonah were believed to rest and which the terrorist organization deemed a place of heresy (16).<\/p>\n In conclusion, jihadism, in the areas where it has exercised governance, considers the demolition or defacement of images of all kinds\u2014whether historical or even mannequins in clothing stores\u2014to be mandatory due to the danger of shirk, whereas in the vast majority of Muslim countries, there is no general policy of demolishing such images, much less of attacking historical heritage.<\/p>\n BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/p>\n 1- NUR EL ISLAM. Dogma in the Quran and Sunnah: Major Polytheism.\u00a0https:\/\/nurelislam.jimdofree.com\/dogma-en-el-quran-y-sunnah\/el-gran-politeismo<\/a><\/p>\n 2- ISLAMIC RELIEF SPAIN. The Battle of Badr.\u00a0https:\/\/www.islamic-relief.es\/recursos-islamicos\/la-batalla-de-badr\/<\/a><\/p>\n 3- IRSHAD Hasnain. Almidrar Institute. The Treaty of Hudaibiya: Background, Conditions, Significance, and Timeless Lessons. Original in English.\u00a0https:\/\/almidrar.com\/treaty-of-hudaibiyha\/<\/a><\/p>\n 4- MONOGRAPHS. Muhammad\u2019s Flight from Mecca to Medina.\u00a0https:\/\/www.monografias.com\/trabajos104\/huida-mahoma-meca-medina\/huida-mahoma-meca-medina<\/a><\/p>\n 5- ARMSTRONG, Karen. The Guardian. The Muslim Prophet Born in Bethlehem. December 23, 2006. Original in English.\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2006\/dec\/23\/religion.christmas<\/a><\/p>\n 6- ARRIZABALAGA, M\u00f3nica. ABC Digital. Daesh destroys the Tetrapylon and part of the Roman theater in Palmyra. January 20, 2017.\u00a0https:\/\/www.abc.es\/internacional\/abci-daesh-destruye-tetrapilo-y-parte-teatro-romano-palmira-201701201017_noticia.html<\/a><\/p>\n 7- CSIC. The CSIC documents the devastation of the ancient city of Palmyra, a World Heritage Site, following the fall of the Assad regime. February 13, 2025.\u00a0https:\/\/www.csic.es\/es\/actualidad-del-csic\/el-csic-documenta-la-devastacion-de-la-antigua-ciudad-de-palmira-patrimonio-de-la-humanidad-tras-la-caida-del-regimen-de-al-asad<\/a><\/p>\n 8- D.B. El Espa\u00f1ol digital. Body of an archaeologist beheaded by ISIS for protecting cultural heritage found in Palmyra. February 8, 2021.\u00a0https:\/\/www.elespanol.com\/cultura\/patrimonio\/20210208\/encuentran-palmira-arqueologo-decapitado-isis-proteger-patrimonio\/557445386_0.html<\/a><\/p>\n 9- LA VANGUARDIA. Source: EFE. The Palmyra Museum lost 3,500 artifacts during the jihadist occupation. August 23, 2020.\u00a0https:\/\/www.lavanguardia.com\/cultura\/20200823\/482980041000\/museo-palmira-perdio-piezas-ocupacion-yihadista.html<\/a><\/p>\n 10- LATIN AMERICAN SUMMARY. Source: The Independent. Not everything from Syria is barred from entering the West: Why does ISIS destroy historical monuments? September 4, 2015.\u00a0https:\/\/www.resumenlatinoamericano.org\/2015\/09\/04\/no-todo-lo-que-viene-de-siria-tiene-el-ingreso-vedado-a-occidente-por-que-el-estado-islamico-destruye-importantes-monumentos-historicos\/<\/a><\/p>\n 11- EFE NEWS AGENCY. UNESCO Completes Reconstruction of the Mosul Mosque Where ISIS Proclaimed Its Caliphate. February 5, 2025.\u00a0https:\/\/efe.com\/cultura\/2025-02-05\/unesco-mezquita-mosul-obras-reconstrucion-ei\/<\/a><\/p>\n 12- UNESCO. Statement by Irina Bokova. UNESCO Condemns Terrorist Attack on Mosul Museum, Iraq. February 26, 2015. Original in English.\u00a0https:\/\/news.un.org\/es\/story\/2015\/02\/1324331<\/a><\/p>\n 13- GOOD NEWS GOOD VIBES. Source: ALIPH. The Mosul Cultural Museum Is Reborn and Heals the Wounds of War. April 22, 2026. Original in English.\u00a0https:\/\/goodnewsgoodvibes.com\/es\/article\/mosul-cultural-museum-reopening-2026-restored<\/a><\/p>\n 14- P\u00c9REZ SEGU\u00c9S, Max. CENTRAL ASIA OBSERVATORY. 25 Years Since the Destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan. May 28, 2026.\u00a0https:\/\/asiacentral.casaasia.es\/25-anos-de-la-destruccion-de-los-budas-de-bamiyan-afganistan\/<\/a><\/p>\n 15- NOOROZI EBRAHIM. Clar\u00edn Digital. Women in Afghanistan: The Mannequins of Kabul, Hooded and Masked Under the Taliban Regime. January 16, 2023.\u00a0https:\/\/www.clarin.com\/mundo\/mujeres-afganistan-maniquies-kabul-encapuchados-enmascarados-regimen-taliban_0_jAZ70W7o8W.html<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20220916073918075741.jpg\")
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