In an ancient area of Syria, where some historical sites date to more than a thousand years ago, the grave of Hejr bin Udai had stood for more than 1383 years — one of the holy Shia Muslim sites in the small village of Adra.
Today only dirt, broken doors, and walls remain.
Once it was believed anti-Shi’ism means torturing and killing Shia Muslims or calling them infidels, however anti-Shi’ism does not stop there. Discrimination and inhumane violations toward Shia is growing and finding new faces.
The most recent face of anti-Shi’ism is deleting their history by destroying and demolishing their holy sites while Shia Muslims existed from the time of the Prophet Muhammad and have a long history.
Since Shia cleansing cannot be successful without cleansing the history, terrorists now target Shia historical sites and shrines. It is assumed that their brilliant history can be blacked out by targeting their sites.
This trend started with destroying graves of four Shia Imams in Saudi Arabia and continued by demolishing Shia mosques and Islamic Centers in Bahrain. The shrine in Iran was bombed once. In Syria the shrine of Lady Sukaina was destroyed, then Shia mosques burned down, and shrine of Lady Zainab was attacked multiple times. Holy shrines in Iraq have been targeted many times. In Pakistan Islamic centers were bombed repeatedly. And now, once again a grave of a very influential companion of Prophet of Islam was demolished and his grave was dug up.
It is unfortunate to see hatred has grown so much that targeting deceased is considered honor by anti-Shia groups.
Shia Rights Watch condemns the inhumane act of terrorism that attacks Shia Muslim’s holy sites. “Such acts can only carried by brain washed terrorists who have no respect for humanity” said, SRW’s director, Mustafa Akhwand. “Anti-Shia groups might be able to abuse their power to attack historical sites, however they cannot delete the Shia Muslims from the history”, he continued.
SRW asks humanitarian groups and departments of historic resources around the world to take action and stop demolition of Shia historical sites now before it’s too late.
