A Kuwaiti Islamic preacher has raised many eyebrows by echoing the calls made by extremist group Isis to destroy the ancient Egyptian Sphinx and pyramids — one of the seven wonders of the world that has captured the imaginations of people for centuries.
The preacher recognised by an Egyptian newspaper as Ibrahim Al Kandari reportedly said that just because early Muslims did not dare destroy them, it did not mean all present-day Muslims must follow them.
"The fact that early Muslims who were among Prophet Mohammed's followers did not destroy the pharaoh's monuments upon entering the Egyptian soil, does not mean that we shouldn't do it now," Al-Watan daily newspaper quoted Al Kandari as saying.
Adding that the monuments must be destroyed to end the worship of images, the preacher tended to sync his line of logic with the so called Islamic State's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's, who had once claimed that the vandalism of the buildings was their "religious duty."
The development comes a week after it was reported that a "fatwa" from a Qatari-owned online portal had called for the destruction of the historic pyramids and the sphinx, terming the monuments "un-Islamic".
Late last month, the ultra-radical Islamic militant group, composed of hardliner Sunnis, released a video which showed jihadists destroying Iraqi artifacts in Mosul, some of which are reportedly Assyrian and Akkadian antiquities dating back to 7th century BC.
On 10 March, the Sunni hardliners destroyed a 10th century Chaldean Catholic church located north of Mosul and reportedly wrecked a nearby graveyard with a bulldozer.
