Worldwide attention is focused on the crisis in Iraq as Sunni Muslim militant forces from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) sweep through the region killing and rampaging unimpeded.
A recent Washington Post article highlighted ISIS’s destruction of the purported tomb of the Old Testament prophet Jonah. The author did a good job describing ISIS’s motives (basically, if it’s not Sunni Muslim it’s bad) and correctly noted that militants destroying sacred places in the name of religion is not a new historical phenomenon. The article noted the Roman army’s destruction of the Jerusalem temple, the Nazi rampage against “degenerate art,” and the Taliban’s attack on the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001.
