re: #84 Dark_Falcon

I found out that Saudi Arabia destroys Qurans on a level that is near industrial scale. Elegant, artistic beautiful Qurans.

The Saudi state religion is the primitive and austere Wahhabi version of Islam, which defines many traditional Islamic practices as idolatrous. Notably, the state bans the importation of Korans published elsewhere. When foreign pilgrims arrive at the Saudi border by the millions for the annual journey to Mecca, what happens to the non-Saudi Korans they are carrying? The border guards confiscate them, to be shredded, pulped, or burned. Beautiful bindings and fine paper are viewed as a particular provocation—all are destroyed.

And historically, from the Ottoman records of the Sack of Taif in 1802:

The Wahhabis tore up the copies of the Koran … and other Islamic books they took from libraries, mosques and houses, and threw them down on the ground. They made sandals from the gold-gilded leather covers of the Koran and other books and wore them on their filthy feet. There were verses of the Koran and other sacred writings on those leather covers. The pages of those valuable books thrown around were so numerous that there was no space to step in the streets of Taif… . The Wahhabi bandits, who were gathered from the deserts for looting and who did not know the Koran, tore up all the copies they found and stamped on them. Only three copies of the Koran were saved from the plunder of a major town, Taif.

This pisses me off more than you can imagine. They are maliciously destroying not just Qurans, but works of art and beauty, and destroying history. The stuff that happens of here is either the result of small scale bigotry and ignorance, or stunning incompetence. What Saudi does is malicious.

I’m going to admit my anger at Saudi has built up over years. It’s now getting close to the anger I had after the 7/22 attacks in Norway.