{"id":472,"date":"2005-07-22T03:27:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=472"},"modified":"2005-07-22T03:27:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-22T03:27:00","slug":"472","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=472","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Historic preservation leads to . . . polytheism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those fun-loving Wahabi Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia fear that preserving historic buildings in their holy city of Mecca–even sites associated with the prophet Muhammed himself–might lead to polytheism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their reasoning is so convoluted that I cannot easily summarize it. But an Arab architectural historian (apparently) says, “They (Wahhabis) have not allowed preservation of old buildings, especially those related to the prophet. They fear other Muslims will come to see these buildings as blessed and this could lead to polytheism and idolatry.”<\/p>\n

So it is better to let them be bulldozed. (Does the developer pay off the clerics?) It’s a pity that this Saudi blogger<\/a> felt afraid to keep blogging: he would have had some interesting comments. Read his archives.<\/p>\n

Letting women drive cars leads to polytheism too. But you knew that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historic preservation leads to . . . polytheism? Those fun-loving Wahabi Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia fear that preserving historic buildings in their holy city of Mecca–even sites associated with the prophet Muhammed himself–might lead to polytheism. Their reasoning is so convoluted that I cannot easily summarize it. But an Arab architectural historian (apparently) says, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-472","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":984,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=984","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":0},"title":"Seizing Symbols of Love","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Valentine's Day card that I bought for M. would be illegal to Saudi Arabia's Wahabi Muslims.It would be an acknowledgment that women are more than a necessary evil, household appliances in veils. Maybe it's an incitement to polytheism too. Who knows?In fact \"red items\" are a problem.So if I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Islam\"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=islam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":273,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=273","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":1},"title":"Kinder, gentler polytheism Charged with\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Kinder, gentler polytheism Charged with reviewing both it and a new book about the emperor Julian, I have finally begun Jonathan Kirsch's God Against the Gods. Even as the legacy of the Vietnam War still influences American politics, so the fourth-century C.E. conflict between the ideas of Julian and his\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10186,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10186","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":2},"title":"I Will Be Buying this Book on Polytheistic Theology","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"New from Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Ascendant: Modern Essays on Polytheism and Theology. From the publisher: Monotheistic assumptions so pervade our culture that even those few people born into polytheist religions (or those who grew up with no religion at all) cannot help but be influenced by them. Polytheology raises questions that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Pagan studies\"","block_context":{"text":"Pagan studies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pagan-studies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10181,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10181","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":3},"title":"Pentagram Pizza with Milky Devotion and Unlikely Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Is this a case of misplaced devotional offerings? The Tamil Nadu Milk Dealers Association says yes. \u2022 The Live Science news site is not the place where you expect tor read about Norse (or any other) polytheism, but this article strikes a reasonable note. \u2022 Icelandic elves again, this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"elves\"","block_context":{"text":"elves","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=elves"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/pentagrampizza.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=841","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":4},"title":"Polytheism, not Tradition","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Keep an eye on the International Year of Polytheism Web project.This is really more of a conceptual art piece than any sort of reconstructionism (definitely not reconstructionism or capital-T Tradition), although it has been mentioned earlier in the Pagan blogosphere.Still, if anyone wants to \"wants to overcome the epoch of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1235,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1235","url_meta":{"origin":472,"position":5},"title":"Downsizing Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A 2003 panel from Partially Clips\u2014A Webcomic for Grownups. Click to embiggen if necessary.","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chasclifton.com\/uploaded_images\/canoe_sm-753434.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}