Heritage Conservation based on Islamic Perspective. ( Part 3 )

The anti-heritage view definitely not demonstrates the Islamic view on heritage conservation. They even tried to defend their argument based on few versus from Islamic sources, but obviously it's out of the context.

Therefore, one cannot deny that Islam is not against heritage conservation as there are no versus from Quran or Hadith indicate this effort is prohibited. By contrast, few versus show indirectly that ancient heritage is vital in Islam.

For example, in chapter of Rum, Allah said:-

“Do they not travel in the land, and see what the end of those before them was? They were superior to them in strength, and they tilled the earth and populated it in greater numbers than these (pagans) have done, and there came to them their Messengers with clear proofs. Surely, Allah wronged them not, but they used to wrong themselves.” (Ar-Rum 30:9)

According to this versus, Allah asks people to travel and observe the ancient remains of bygone civilizations as the mean to learn from their history. Thus, it also interpreted to mean that manage and preserve ancient sites is necessary so that man can learn from history.

The other obvious fact would be by the acts of the companions. In Islam, the companions of prophet (PUBH) have their own status as they lived together with him (PUBH). So, they are the best persons in understanding and implementing the versus from Quran and Sunnah. Moreover, prophet (PUBH) have declared them as the guidance for Muslim after prophetic period.

According to the Islamic history, the companions conquered many new lands, especially during the righteous caliph period. Meanwhile, most of these lands are rich with historical material because of its location as the past central for old civilization like Byzantine, Roman, Persian and Greek. However, there are not record that the companions destroyed any idols, statues or any artifacts related to ancient civilization.

For example, after Islam entered into Egypt during the Caliph Umar period, he never issued any order to destroy ancient material like pyramid, sphinx and any bygone material that related to old Pharaoh civilization. The same situation happened in Levant ( Syria ) during Islamic period. In fact, numerous of old monuments and sites located in that country still preserved since hundreds years ago. Even in Afghanistan, if the existence of Bamiyan-the giant centuries old Buddha statue- that claimed by Taliban movement against to Islamic teaching, why not the companions destroy it early?