Afrinpost – Special
New photos of the minaret restoration work of the “Sheih / Sheikh Al-Hadid” mosque were recently circulated, and the Turkish flag was raised on it, after the minaret was dropped on the eighth of last March, when the minaret of the old mosque collapsed in the town of “Shieh / Sheikh Al-Hadid” in the countryside of Afrin.
The mosque is known as the “Al-Tahtani Mosque”, and the minaret, which fell, is more than a hundred years old, and it was built in 1912. While its fall was the result of excavation work carried out by gunmen of the “Sultan Suleiman Shah” militia, known as the “Al-Amshat” which occupies the district, in search of possible archaeological finds.
The news of the fall of the minaret passed without attracting sufficient attention (despite the fact that the “Afrinpost” highlighted the case at that time), where the fall of historical minaret came in the context of the violations committed in Afrin, the most important of which are kidnappings, killings, asking for ransoms, and imposing royalties.
Irina Bokova, Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, had said on the sixteenth of September 2015: “The archaeological sites in Syria are being looted on a massive scale,” and that the sales proceeds of these looted antiquities fund the extremists of the “IS”. This reality has not changed in Afrin, as antiquities are being looted through smugglers and transformed to Turkey and the history of the region is being sold.
Observers from Afrin confirm that the demolishing of the historic minaret of the “Shieh” mosque was intended to end the history and erase the culture of the region, which is the most important goal of all excavations of the antiquities as well as the restoration that is taking place in some mosques, such as the Nabi Huri Mosque and the Omar Bin Al-Khattab Mosque.
Observers clarify that what must be addressed in the matter of the minaret falling down is that the excavation work was carried out publicly over a period of two months and in an important location of the town near the square, without any objection or official interference from the so-called “local council” or the ” Civil Police”. And the demolishing of the mosque was preceded by the seizure and demolition of shops near it, then the excavation work moved to the mosque itself.
In another dimension, the demolition of the historical minaret of the Shieh mosque reveals that the religious slogans that the occupation and the militia affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization propagate are formal and propagandist only, as it is known that mosques, according to the religious custom, are considered the homes of God and have sanctity.
Days ago, activists circulated pictures of the new minaret of the “Shieh” mosque project, and the Turkish flag was raised on it, which is the same scene in the Nabi Huri Mosque, which is being restored with Ottoman features, and thus erasing the cultural and social memory, which is the deeper goal of the Turkification process. What can be said is that a systematic robbery against Afrin culture and history in favor of the Turks is being done, in light of the suspicious world silence.
