Art – When art and faith collide

Iconoclasm is in the eye of the beholder.

Who would have ever thought that cave art dating back more than 8,000 years could be treated like an ‘infidel’ and found guilty of religious offence to such an extent that they have to be obliterated? That’s what happened in the fall of 2012 in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, when a group of Salafi Muslims destroyed a number of prehistoric stone carvings at an archaeological site. Before being discovered on the Yakour plain near Marrakesh, 20 kilometres [12 miles] south of the towering Mount Toubkal, the carvings, – which depicted the sun and predated the arrival of the Phoenicians in Morocco – had survived thousands of years of harsh weather and tomb raiders. They were destroyed for being a form of idolatry, which Salafism prohibits.