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Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm (from Greek: εἰκών + κλάω) is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons. People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be figuratively applied to any individual who challenges "cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds that they are erroneous or pernicious."

Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater; in a Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile. Iconoclasm does not generally encompass the destruction of the images of a specific ruler after his or her death or overthrow, a practice better known as damnatio memoriae.

While iconoclasm may be carried out by adherents of a different religion, it is more commonly the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The term originates from the Byzantine Iconoclasm, the struggles between proponents and opponents of religious icons in the Byzantine Empire from 726 to 842 AD. Degrees of iconoclasm vary greatly among religions and their branches, but are strongest in religions which oppose idolatry, including the Abrahamic religions. Outside of the religious context, iconoclasm can refer to movements for widespread destruction in symbols of an ideology or cause, such as the destruction of monarchist symbols during the French Revolution.

Ancient era
In the Bronze Age, the most significant episode of iconoclasm occurred in Egypt during the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten, based in his new capital of Akhetaten, instituted a significant shift in Egyptian artistic styles alongside a campaign of intolerance towards the traditional gods and a new emphasis on a state monolatristic tradition focused on the god Aten, the Sun disk—many temples and monuments were destroyed as a result:

"In rebellion against the old religion and the powerful priests of Amun, Akhenaten ordered the eradication of all of Egypt's traditional gods. He sent royal officials to chisel out and destroy every reference to Amun and the names of other deities on tombs, temple walls, and cartouches to instill in the people that the Aten was the one true god."

Public references to Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death. Comparing the ancient Egyptians with the Israelites, Jan Assmann writes:

"For Egypt, the greatest horror was the destruction or abduction of the cult images. In the eyes of the Israelites, the erection of images meant the destruction of divine presence; in the eyes of the Egyptians, this same effect was attained by the destruction of images. In Egypt, iconoclasm was the most terrible religious crime; in Israel, the most terrible religious crime was idolatry. In this respect Osarseph alias Akhenaten, the iconoclast, and the Golden Calf, the paragon of idolatry, correspond to each other inversely, and it is strange that Aaron could so easily avoid the role of the religious criminal. It is more than probable that these traditions evolved under mutual influence. In this respect, Moses and Akhenaten became, after all, closely related."

Judaism
According to the Hebrew Bible, God instructed the Israelites to "destroy all [the] engraved stones, destroy all [the] molded images, and demolish all [the] high places" of the indigenous Canaanite population as soon as they entered the Promised Land.

In Judaism, King Hezekiah purged Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and all figures were also destroyed in the Land of Israel, including the Nehushtan, as recorded in the Second Book of Kings. His reforms were reversed in the reign of his son Manasseh.

Iconoclasm in Christian history
Scattered expressions of opposition to the use of images have been reported: the Synod of Elvira appeared to endorse iconoclasm; Canon 36 states, "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration." A possible translation is also: "There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls." The date of this canon is disputed. Proscription ceased after the destruction of pagan temples. However, widespread use of Christian iconography only began as Christianity increasingly spread among Gentiles after the legalization of Christianity by Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 312 AD). During the process of Christianisation under Constantine, Christian groups destroyed the images and sculptures expressive of the Roman Empire's polytheist state religion.

Among early church theologians, iconoclastic tendencies were supported by theologians such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, Eusebius and Epiphanius.

Byzantine era
The period after the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–565) evidently saw a huge increase in the use of images, both in volume and quality, and a gathering aniconic reaction.

One notable change within the Byzantine Empire came in 695, when Justinian II's government added a full-face image of Christ on the obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine coin types. He started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only. A letter by the Patriarch Germanus, written before 726 to two iconoclast bishops, says that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter," but there is little written evidence of the debate.

Government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine Emperor Leo III, who issued a series of edicts between 726 and 730 against the veneration of images. The religious conflict created political and economic divisions in Byzantine society; iconoclasm was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire who had to frequently deal with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople and the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces strongly opposed iconoclasm. <!-- this should come out since there is a main article on the subject - it just needs to be introduced here

The first iconoclastic period: 730–787
Sometime between 726 and 730, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian began the iconoclast campaign. He ordered the removal of an image of Jesus prominently placed over the Chalke gate, the ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople, and its replacement with a cross. Some of those assigned to the task were killed by a band of iconodules.

Over the years conflict developed between those who wanted to use the images, claiming that they were "icons" to be "venerated", and the iconoclasts who claimed they were simply idols. Pope Gregory III "convoked a synod in 730 and formally condemned iconoclasm as heretical and excommunicated its promoters. The papal letter never reached Constantinople as the messengers were intercepted and arrested in Sicily by the Byzantines". The Byzantine Emperor Constantine V convened the Council of Hieria in 754. The 338 bishops assembled concluded, "the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation—namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods ... If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc ... let him be anathema". This Council claimed to be the legitimate "Seventh Ecumenical Council".

Second Council of Nicaea 787

In 780, Constantine VI ascended the throne in Constantinople, but being a minor, was managed by his mother Empress Irene. She decided that an ecumenical council needed to be held to address the issue of iconoclasm and directed this request to Pope Adrian I (772–795) in Rome. He announced his agreement and called the convention on 1 August 786 in the presence of the Emperor and Empress. The initial proceedings were interrupted by the violent entry of iconoclast soldiers faithful to the memory of the prior Emperor Constantine V. This caused the council to be adjourned until a reliable army could be assembled to protect any proceedings. The council was reassembled at Nicaea 24 September 787. During those proceedings the following was adopted:

"... we declare that we defend free from any innovations all the written and unwritten ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us. One of these is the production of representational art; this is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another's message.

... we decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses and by public ways; these are the images of our Lord, God and saviour, Jesus Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer, and of the revered angels and of any of the saintly holy men. The more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gospels and to other sacred cult objects."

(Note:see also for the original pretranslation text of this council in Greek and Latin)

Views in Byzantine iconoclasm
Accounts of iconoclast arguments are largely found in iconodule writings. To understand iconoclastic arguments, one must note the main points:
 * 1) Iconoclasm condemned the making of any lifeless image (e.g., painting or statue) that was intended to represent Jesus or one of the saints. The "Epitome of the Definition of the Iconoclastic Conciliabulum" (Synod of Hiereia) held in 754 declared:

"Supported by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, we declare unanimously, in the name of the Holy Trinity, that there shall be rejected and removed and cursed one of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material and colour whatever by the evil art of painters ... If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (χαρακτήρ, charaktēr) of the Word after the Incarnation with material colours, let him be anathema! ... If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, let him be anathema!"

 * 1)  For iconoclasts, the only real religious image must be an exact likeness of the prototype—of the same substance—which they considered impossible, seeing wood and paint as empty of spirit and life.  Thus for iconoclasts the only true (and permitted) "icon" of Jesus was the Eucharist, which was believed to be his body and blood.
 * 2)  Any true image of Jesus must be able to represent both his divine nature (which is impossible because it cannot be seen nor encompassed) as well his human nature.  But by making an icon of Jesus, one is separating his human and divine natures, since only the human can be depicted (separating the natures was considered nestorianism), or else confusing the human and divine natures, considering them one (union of the human and divine natures was considered monophysitism).
 * 3)  Icon use for religious purposes was viewed as an innovation in the Church, a Satanic misleading of Christians to return to pagan practice.

"Satan misled men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The Law of Moses and the Prophets cooperated to remove this ruin. ... But the previously mentioned demiurge of evil ... gradually brought back idolatry under the appearance of Christianity."

It was also seen as a departure from ancient church tradition, of which there was a written record opposing religious images. The chief theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur (John of Damascus), who, living in Muslim territory as advisor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far enough away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople. John declared that he did not venerate matter, "but rather the creator of matter". However he also declared, "But I also venerate the matter through which salvation came to me, as if filled with divine energy and grace". He includes in this latter category the ink in which the gospels were written as well as the paint of images, the wood of the Cross, and the Body and Blood of Jesus.

The iconodule response to iconoclasm included: -->
 * 1)  Assertion that the biblical commandment forbidding images of God had been superseded by the incarnation of Jesus, who, being the Second Person of the Trinity, is God incarnate in visible matter. Therefore, they were not depicting the invisible God, but God as He appeared in the flesh. This became an attempt to shift the issue of the incarnation in their favor, whereas the iconoclasts had used the issue of the incarnation against them.
 * 2)  Further, in their view idols depicted persons without substance or reality while icons depicted real persons. Essentially the argument was "all religious images not of our faith are idols; all images of our faith are icons to be venerated". This was considered comparable to the Old Testament practice of offering burnt sacrifices only to God, and not to any other gods.
 * 3)  Moses had been instructed by God according to Exodus 25 to make golden statues of cherubim angels on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, and according to Exodus 26 God instructed Moses to embroider the curtain which separated the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle with cherubim. Moses had also been told by God to embroider the tent walls of the Tabernacle with cherubim angels according to Exodus 26 and Exodus 36.
 * 4)  Regarding the written tradition opposing the making and veneration of images, they asserted that icons were part of unrecorded oral tradition (parádosis, sanctioned in Christianity as authoritative in doctrine by reference to Thessalonians 2, Basil the Great, etc.).
 * 5)  Arguments were drawn from the miraculous Acheiropoieta, the supposed icon of the Virgin painted with her approval by St. Luke, and other miraculous occurrences around icons, that demonstrated divine approval of Iconodule practices.
 * 6)  Iconodules further argued that decisions such as whether icons ought to be venerated were properly made by the church assembled in council, not imposed on the church by an emperor. Thus the argument also involved the issue of the proper relationship between church and state. Related to this was the observation that it was foolish to deny to God the same honor that was freely given to the human emperor.

Pre-Reformation
Peter of Bruys opposed the usage of religious images, the Strigolniki were also possibly iconoclastic. Claudius of Turin was the bishop of Turin from 817 until his death. He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm.

Reformation era
The first iconoclastic wave happened in Wittenberg in the early 1520s under reformers Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt, in the absence of Martin Luther, who then, concealed under the pen-name of 'Junker Jörg', intervened to calm things down. Luther argued that the mental picturing of Christ when reading the Scriptures was similar in character to artistic renderings of Christ.

In contrast to the Lutherans who favoured certain types of sacred art in their churches and homes, the Reformed (Calvinist) leaders, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images of God. As a result, individuals attacked statues and images, most famously in the beeldenstorm across the Low Countries in 1566.

The belief of iconoclasm caused havoc throughout Europe. In 1523, specifically due to the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the visible Church nor lay authorities. According to Peter George Wallace "Zwingli's attack on images, at the first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zürich and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was unwilling to condone." Due to this action of protest against authority, "Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that men could not live in society without laws and constraint".

Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Basel (in 1529), Zürich (1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), Scotland (1559), Rouen (1560), and Saintes and La Rochelle (1562). Calvinist iconoclasm in Europe "provoked reactive riots by Lutheran mobs" in Germany and "antagonized the neighbouring Eastern Orthodox" in the Baltic region.

The Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Northern France) were disrupted by widespread Calvinist iconoclasm in the summer of 1566.

During the Reformation in England, which started during the reign of Anglican monarch Henry VIII, and was urged on by reformers such as Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer, limited official action was taken against religious images in churches in the late 1530s. Henry's young son, Edward VI, came to the throne in 1547 and, under Cranmer's guidance, issued injunctions for Religious Reforms in the same year and in 1550, an Act of Parliament "for the abolition and putting away of divers books and images."

During the English Civil War, the Parliamentarians reorganised the administration of East Anglia into the Eastern Association of counties. This covered some of the wealthiest counties in England, which in turn financed a substantial and significant military force. After Earl of Manchester was appointed the commanding officer of these forces, in turn he appointed Smasher Dowsing as Provost Marshal, with a warrant to demolish religious images which were considered to be superstitious or linked with popism. Bishop Joseph Hall of Norwich described the events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and idolatry, behaved thus:

"Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses! What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what a hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together."

Protestant Christianity was not uniformly hostile to the use of religious images. Martin Luther taught the "importance of images as tools for instruction and aids to devotion," stating: "If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?" Lutheran churches retained ornate church interiors with a prominent crucifix, reflecting their high view of the real presence of Christ in Eucharist. As such, "Lutheran worship became a complex ritual choreography set in a richly furnished church interior." For Lutherans, "the Reformation renewed rather than removed the religious image."

Lutheran scholar Jeremiah Ohl writes: "Zwingli and others for the sake of saving the Word rejected all plastic art; Luther, with an equal concern for the Word, but far more conservative, would have all the arts to be the servants of the Gospel. 'I am not of the opinion' said [Luther], 'that through the Gospel all the arts should be banished and driven away, as some zealots want to make us believe; but I wish to see them all, especially music, in the service of Him Who gave and created them.' Again he says: 'I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible.... But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God's will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear, of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ's picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes?"The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who had pragmatic reasons to support the Dutch Revolt (the rebels, like himself, were fighting against Spain) also completely approved of their act of "destroying idols," which accorded well with Muslim teachings.

A bit later in Dutch history, in 1627 the artist Johannes van der Beeck was arrested and tortured, charged with being a religious non-conformist and a blasphemer, heretic, atheist, and Satanist. The 25 January 1628 judgment from five noted advocates of The Hague pronounced him guilty of "blasphemy against God and avowed atheism, at the same time as leading a frightful and pernicious lifestyle. At the court's order his paintings were burned, and only a few of them survive."

Other instances
In Japan during the early modern age, the spread of Catholicism also involved the repulsion of non-Christian religious structures, including Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and figures. At times of conflict with rivals or some time after the conversion of several daimyos, Christian converts would often destroy Buddhist and Shinto religious structures.

Many of the moai of Easter Island were toppled during the 18th century in the iconoclasm of civil wars before any European encounter. Other instances of iconoclasm may have occurred throughout Eastern Polynesia during its conversion to Christianity in the 19th century.

After the Second Vatican Council in the late 20th century, some Roman Catholic parish churches discarded much of their traditional imagery, art, and architecture.

Muslim iconoclasm
Islam has a strong tradition of forbidding the depiction of figures, especially religious figures, with Sunni Islam forbidding it more than Shia Islam. In the history of Islam, the act of removing idols from the Ka'ba in Mecca has great symbolic and historic importance for all believers.

In general, Muslim societies have avoided the depiction of living beings (both animals and humans) within such sacred spaces as mosques and madrasahs. This ban on figural representation is not based on the Qur'an, instead, it is based on traditions which are described within the Hadith. The prohibition of figuration has not always been extended to the secular sphere, and a robust tradition of figural representation exists within Muslim art. However, Western authors have tended to perceive "a long, culturally determined, and unchanging tradition of violent iconoclastic acts" within Islamic society.

Early Islam in Arabia
The first act of Muslim iconoclasm dates to the beginning of Islam, in 630, when the various statues of Arabian deities housed in the Kaaba in Mecca were destroyed. There is a tradition that Muhammad spared a fresco of Mary and Jesus. This act was intended to bring an end to the idolatry which, in the Muslim view, characterized Jahiliyyah.

The destruction of the idols of Mecca did not, however, determine the treatment of other religious communities living under Muslim rule after the expansion of the caliphate. Most Christians under Muslim rule, for example, continued to produce icons and to decorate their churches as they wished. A major exception to this pattern of tolerance in early Islamic history was the "Edict of Yazīd", issued by the Umayyad caliph Yazīd II in 722–723. This edict ordered the destruction of crosses and Christian images within the territory of the caliphate. Researchers have discovered evidence that the order was followed, particularly in present-day Jordan, where archaeological evidence shows the removal of images from the mosaic floors of some, although not all, of the churches that stood at this time. But Yazīd's iconoclastic policies were not continued by his successors, and Christian communities of the Levant continued to make icons without significant interruption from the sixth century to the ninth.

Egypt
Al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century, attributes the missing nose on the Great Sphinx of Giza to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim in the mid-1300s. He was reportedly outraged by local Muslims making offerings to the Great Sphinx in the hope of controlling the flood cycle, and he was later executed for vandalism. However, whether this was actually the cause of the missing nose has been debated by historians. Mark Lehner, having performed an archaeological study, concluded that it was broken with instruments at an earlier unknown time between the 3rd and 10th centuries.

Ottoman conquests
Certain conquering Muslim armies have used local temples or houses of worship as mosques. An example is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), which was converted into a mosque in 1453. Most icons were desecrated and the rest were covered with plaster. In 1934 the government of Turkey decided to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum and the restoration of the mosaics was undertaken by the American Byzantine Institute beginning in 1932.

Contemporary events
Certain Muslim denominations continue to pursue iconoclastic agendas. There has been much controversy within Islam over the recent and apparently on-going destruction of historic sites by Saudi Arabian authorities, prompted by the fear they could become the subject of "idolatry."

A recent act of iconoclasm was the 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamyan by the then-Taliban government of Afghanistan. The act generated worldwide protests and was not supported by other Muslim governments and organizations. It was widely perceived in the Western media as a result of the Muslim prohibition against figural decoration. Such an account overlooks "the coexistence between the Buddhas and the Muslim population that marveled at them for over a millennium" before their destruction. According to art historian F. B. Flood, analysis of the Taliban's statements regarding the Buddhas suggest that their destruction was motivated more by political than by theological concerns. Taliban spokesmen have given many different explanations of the motives for the destruction.

During the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, the radical Islamist militia Ansar Dine destroyed various Sufi shrines from the 15th and 16th centuries in the city of Timbuktu, Mali. In 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a former member of Ansar Dine, to nine years in prison for this destruction of cultural world heritage. This was the first time that the ICC convicted a person for such a crime.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant carried out iconoclastic attacks such as the destruction of Shia mosques and shrines. Notable incidents include blowing up the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) and destroying the Shrine to Seth in Mosul.

Iconoclasm in India
In early Medieval India, there were numerous recorded instances of temple desecration mostly by Indian Muslim kings against rival Indian Hindu kingdoms, which involved conflicts between Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.

In the 8th century, Bengali troops from the Buddhist Pala Empire looted temples of Vishnu, the state deity of Lalitaditya's kingdom in Kashmir. In the early 9th century, Indian Hindu kings from Kanchipuram and the Pandyan king Srimara Srivallabha looted Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka. In the early 10th century, the Pratihara king Herambapala looted an image from a temple in the Sahi kingdom of Kangra, which was later looted by the Pratihara king Yashovarman.

During the Muslim conquest of Sindh
Records from the campaign recorded in the Chach Nama record the destruction of temples during the early 8th century when the Umayyad governor of Damascus, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, mobilized an expedition of 6000 cavalry under Muhammad bin Qasim in 712.

Historian Upendra Thakur records the persecution of Hindus and Buddhists:

"Muhammad triumphantly marched into the country, conquering Debal, Sehwan, Nerun, Brahmanadabad, Alor and Multan one after the other in quick succession, and in less than a year and a half, the far-flung Hindu kingdom was crushed ... There was a fearful outbreak of religious bigotry in several places and temples were wantonly desecrated. At Debal, the Nairun and Aror temples were demolished and converted into mosques."

The Somnath temple and Mahmud of Ghazni
<!-- should have its own section In 1296 AD, the temple was once again destroyed by Sultan Allauddin Khilji's army. According to Taj-ul-Ma'sir of Hasan Nizami, Raja Karan of Gujarat was defeated and forced to flee, "fifty thousand infidels were dispatched to hell by the sword" and "more than twenty thousand slaves, and cattle beyond all calculation fell into the hands of the victors". The temple was rebuilt by Mahipala Deva, the Chudasama king of Saurashtra in 1308 AD and the lingam was installed by his son Khengar sometime between 1326 and 1351 AD. In 1375 AD, the temple was once again destroyed by Muzaffar Shah I, the Sultan of Gujarat.

In 1451 AD, the temple was once again destroyed by Mahmud Begda, the Sultan of Gujarat. In 1701 AD, the temple was once again destroyed by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb built a mosque on the site of the Somnath Temple, using some columns from the temple, whose Hindu sculptural motifs remained visible.

Mahmud of Ghazni was an Afghan Sultan who invaded the Indian subcontinent during the early 11th century. His campaigns across the gangetic plains are often cited for their iconoclastic plundering and destruction of temples such as those at Mathura and he looked upon their destruction as an act of "jihad". He sacked the second Somnath Temple in 1026, and looted it of gems and precious stones and the famous Shiva lingam of the temple was destroyed.

Historical records compiled by Muslim historian Maulana Hakim Saiyid Abdul Hai attest to the iconoclasm of Qutb-ud-din Aybak. The first mosque built in Delhi, the "Quwwat al-Islam" was built after the demolition of the Hindu temple built previously by Prithvi Raj and certain parts of the temple were left outside the mosque proper. This pattern of iconoclasm was common during his reign, although an argument goes that such iconoclasm was motivated more by politics than by religion.

Another ruler of the sultanate, Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, conquered and subjugated the Hindu pilgrimage site Varanasi in the 11th century and he continued the destruction of Hindu temples and idols that had begun during the first attack in 1194.

No aspect of Aurangzeb's reign is more cited—or more controversial—than the numerous desecrations and even the destruction of Hindu temples. During his reign, tens of thousands of temples were desecrated: their facades and interiors were defaced and their murtis (divine images) looted. In many cases, temples were destroyed entirely; in numerous instances mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes using the same stones. Among the temples Aurangzeb destroyed were two that are most sacred to Hindus, in Varanasi and Mathura. In both cases, he had large mosques built on the sites.

The Kesava Deo temple in Mathura, marked the place that Hindus believe was the birthplace of Shri Krishna. In 1661 Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the temple, and constructed the Katra Masjid mosque. Traces of the ancient Hindu temple can be seen from the back of the mosque. Aurangzeb also destroyed what was the most famous temple in Varanasi – the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

The temple had changed its location over the years, and in 1585 Akbar had authorized its location at Gyan Vapi. Aurangzeb ordered its demolition in 1669 and constructed a mosque on the site, whose minarets stand 71 metres above the Ganges. Traces of the old temple can be seen behind the mosque. Centuries later, emotional debate about these wanton acts of cultural desecration continues. Aurangzeb also destroyed the Somnath temple in 1706.

Hindus claim that Mughals destroyed the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, located at the birthplace of Rama, and built the Babri Masjid on the holy site, which has since been a source of tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities.

Writer Fernand Braudel wrote in A History of Civilizations (Penguin 1988/1963, pp. 232–236), Islamic rule in India as a "colonial experiment" was "extremely violent", and "the Muslims could not rule the country except by systematic terror. Cruelty was the norm – burnings, summary executions, crucifixions or impalements, inventive tortures. Hindu temples were destroyed to make way for mosques. On occasion there were forced conversions. If ever there were an uprising, it was instantly and savagely repressed: houses were burned, the countryside was laid waste, men were slaughtered and women were taken as slaves."

C. K. Kareem also notes that Tipu Sultan issued an edict for the destruction of Hindu temples in Kerala.

In a two-volume book by Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi and Ram Swarup, Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, includes a list of 2000 mosques that it is claimed were built on Hindu temples in the first volume, which it is asserted is based primarily on the books of Muslim historians of the period or the inscriptions of the mosques. The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist temples. The authors claim that the material presented in this book are only the tip of an iceberg.

During Goa inquisitions
Diago de Boarda, a priest, and his advisor Vicar General, Miguel Vaz, had made a 41-point plan for torturing Hindus. Under this plan Viceroy Antano de Noronha issued in 1566, an order applicable to the entire area under Portuguese rule:

"I hereby order that in any area owned by my master, the king, nobody should construct a Hindu temple and such temples already constructed should not be repaired without my permission. If this order is transgressed, such temples shall be, destroyed and the goods in them shall be used to meet expenses of holy deeds, as punishment of such transgression."

In 1567 the campaign of destroying temples in Bardez met with success. At the end of it 300 Hindu temples were destroyed. In 1583 Hindu temples at Assolna and Cuncolim were destroyed through army action.

"The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshipped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers",

wrote Filippo Sassetti, who was in India from 1578 to 1588.

An order was issued in June 1684 eliminating the Konkani language and making it compulsory to speak Portuguese language. Following that law all the symbols of non-Christian sects were destroyed and the books written in local languages were burnt.

In India
On December 6, 1992, a large crowd of Hindu karsevaks (volunteers) entirely destroyed the 16th-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India, in an attempt to reclaim the land known as Ram Janmabhoomi. The demolition occurred after a religious ceremony turned violent and resulted in several months of intercommunal rioting between India's Hindu and Muslim communities, causing the death of at least 2,000 people most of which were Muslims.

In June 2010, during rioting in Sangli, people threw stones inside a Ganesha mandal.

The 2010 Deganga riots began on 6 September when mobs resorted to arson and violence over a disputed structure at Deganga, Kartikpur and Beliaghata under the Deganga police station area. The violence began late in the evening and continued throughout the night into the next morning. The violence finally calmed down on 9 September after hundreds of business establishments and residences were looted, destroyed and burnt, dozens of people were severely injured and several places of worship desecrated and vandalized.

In June 2011 at Asansol Market area, a Hindu temple, under construction led by Bastim Bazaar Sarbojanin Durga Puja Committee was and approved by ADM on 12 April 2011, was attacked by an Islamic mob.

In April 2021, a Hindu extremist under the influence of the Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati destroyed an idol of Sai Baba at a temple in Delhi incorrectly labeling Sai Baba as a Jehadist. The act was condemned by the Hindu and the Muslim community.

In Bangladesh
In Bangladesh atrocities including targeted attacks against temples and open theft of Hindu property have increased sharply in recent years after the Jamat-e-Islami joined the coalition government led by the Bangladesh National Party. Hindu temples in Bangladesh have also been vandalised.

On the February 6, 2010, Sonargaon temple in Narayanganj district of Bangladesh was destroyed by Islamic fanatics.

In Pakistan
Several Hindu temples have been destroyed in Pakistan. A notable incident was the destruction of the Ramna Kali Mandir in former East Pakistan. The temple was bulldozed by the Pakistani Army on March 27, 1971. The Dhakeshwari Temple was severely damaged during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and over half of the temple's buildings were destroyed. In a major disrespect of the religion, the main worship hall was taken over by the Pakistan Army and used as an ammunitions storage area. Several of the temple custodians were tortured and killed by the Army though most, including the head priest, fled first to their ancestral villages and then to India and therefore escaped death.

In 2006 the last Hindu temple in Lahore was destroyed to pave the way for construction of a multi-story commercial building. The temple was demolished after officials of the Evacuee Property Trust Board concealed facts from the board chairman about the nature of the building. When reporters from Pakistan-based newspaper Dawn tried to cover the incident, they were accosted by the henchmen of the property developer, who denied that a Hindu temple existed at the site.

Several political parties in Pakistan have objected to this move, such as the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistani Muslim League-N. The move has also evoked strong condemnation in India from minority bodies and political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress Party, as well as Muslim advocacy political parties such as the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat. A firm of lawyers representing the Hindu minority has approached the Lahore High Court seeking a directive to the builders to stop the construction of the commercial plaza and reconstruct the temple at the site. The petitioners maintain that the demolition violates section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code prohibiting the demolition of places of worship.

On June 29, 2005, following the arrest of an illiterate Christian janitor on allegations of allegedly burning Qur'an pages, a mob of between 300 and 500 Muslims destroyed a Hindu temple and houses belonging to Christian and Hindu families in Nowshera. Under the terms of a deal negotiated between Islamic religious leaders and the Hindu/Christian communities, Pakistani police later released all previously arrested perpetrators without charge.

In Malaysia
Between April to May 2006, several Hindu temples were demolished by city hall authorities in the country, accompanied by violence against Hindus. On April 21, 2006, the Malaimel Sri Selva Kaliamman Temple in Kuala Lumpur was reduced to rubble after the city hall sent in bulldozers. Many Hindu advocacy groups have protested what they allege is a systematic plan of temple cleansing in Malaysia. The official reason given by the Malaysian government has been that the temples were built "illegally". However, several of the temples are centuries old. On May 11, 2006, armed city hall officers from Kuala Lumpur forcefully demolished part of a 60-year-old suburban temple that serves more than 1,000 Hindus.

In Saudi Arabia
On March 24, 2005, Saudi authorities destroyed religious items found in a raid on a makeshift Hindu shrine found in an apartment in Riyadh.

In Fiji
In Fiji according to official reports, attacks on Hindu institutions increased by 14% compared to 2004. This intolerance of Hindus has found expression in anti-Hindu speeches and destruction of temples, the two most common forms of immediate and direct violence against Hindus. Between 2001 and April 2005, one hundred cases of temple attacks have been registered with the police. The alarming increase of temple destruction has spread fear and intimidation among the Hindu minorities and has hastened immigration to neighboring Australia and New Zealand. Organized religious institutions, such as the Methodist Church of Fiji, have repeatedly called for the creation of a theocratic Christian State and have propagated anti-Hindu sentiment. State favoritism of Christianity, and systematic attacks on temples, are some of the greatest threats faced by Fijian Hindus. Despite the creation of a human rights commission, the plight of Hindus in Fiji continues to be precarious. -->Perhaps the most notorious episode of iconoclasm in India was Mahmud of Ghazni's attack on the Somnath Temple from across the Thar Desert. The temple was first raided in 725, when Junayad, the governor of Sind, sent his armies to destroy it. In 1024, during the reign of Bhima I, the prominent Turkic-Muslim ruler Mahmud of Ghazni raided Gujarat, plundering the Somnath Temple and breaking its jyotirlinga despite pleas by Brahmins not to break it. He took away a booty of 20 million dinars. The attack may have been inspired by the belief that an idol of the goddess Manat had been secretly transferred to the temple. According to the Ghaznavid court-poet Farrukhi Sistani, who claimed to have accompanied Mahmud on his raid, Somnat (as rendered in Persian) was a garbled version of su-manat referring to the goddess Manat. According to him, as well as a later Ghaznavid historian Abu Sa'id Gardezi, the images of the other goddesses were destroyed in Arabia but the one of Manat was secretly sent away to Kathiawar (in modern Gujarat) for safekeeping. Since the idol of Manat was an aniconic image of black stone, it could have been easily confused with a lingam at Somnath. Mahmud is said to have broken the idol and taken away parts of it as loot and placed so that people would walk on it. In his letters to the Caliphate, Mahmud exaggerated the size, wealth and religious significance of the Somnath temple, receiving grandiose titles from the Caliph in return.

The wooden structure was replaced by Kumarapala (r. 1143–72), who rebuilt the temple out of stone.

From the Mamluk dynasty onward
Historical records which were compiled by the Muslim historian Maulana Hakim Saiyid Abdul Hai attest to the religious violence which occurred during the Mamluk dynasty under Qutb-ud-din Aybak. The first mosque built in Delhi, the "Quwwat al-Islam" was built with demolished parts of 20 Hindu and Jain temples. This pattern of iconoclasm was common during his reign.

During the Delhi Sultanate, a Muslim army led by Malik Kafur, a general of Alauddin Khalji, pursued four violent campaigns into south India, between 1309 and 1311, against the Hindu kingdoms of Devgiri (Maharashtra), Warangal (Telangana), Dwarasamudra (Karnataka) and Madurai (Tamil Nadu). Many Temples were plundered; Hoysaleswara Temple and others were ruthlessly destroyed.

In Kashmir, Sikandar Shah Miri (1389–1413) began expanding, and unleashed religious violence that earned him the name but-shikan, or 'idol-breaker'. He earned this sobriquet because of the sheer scale of desecration and destruction of Hindu and Buddhist temples, shrines, ashrams, hermitages, and other holy places in what is now known as Kashmir and its neighboring territories. Firishta states, "After the emigration of the Brahmins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down." He destroyed vast majority of Hindu and Buddhist temples in his reach in Kashmir region (north and northwest India).

In the 1460s, Kapilendra, founder of the Suryavamsi Gajapati dynasty, sacked the Shaiva and Vaishnava temples in the Cauvery delta in the course of wars of conquest in the Tamil country. Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya looted a Bala Krishna temple in Udayagiri in 1514, and looted a Vitthala temple in Pandharpur in 1520.

A regional tradition, along with the Hindu text Madala Panji, states that Kalapahar attacked and damaged the Konark Sun Temple in 1568, as well as many others in Orissa.

Some of the most dramatic cases of iconoclasm by Muslims are found in parts of India where Hindu and Buddhist temples were razed and mosques erected in their place. Aurangzeb, the 6th Mughal Emperor, destroyed the famous Hindu temples at Varanasi and Mathura, turning back on his ancestor Akbar's policy of religious freedom and establishing Sharia across his empire.

During the Goa Inquisition
Exact data on the nature and number of Hindu temples destroyed by the Christian missionaries and Portuguese government are unavailable. Some 160 temples were allegedly razed to the ground in Tiswadi (Ilhas de Goa) by 1566. Between 1566 and 1567, a campaign by Franciscan missionaries destroyed another 300 Hindu temples in Bardez (North Goa). In Salcete (South Goa), approximately another 300 Hindu temples were destroyed by the Christian officials of the Inquisition. Numerous Hindu temples were destroyed elsewhere at Assolna and Cuncolim by Portuguese authorities. A 1569 royal letter in Portuguese archives records that all Hindu temples in its colonies in India had been burnt and razed to the ground. The English traveller Sir Thomas Herbert, 1st Baronet who visited Goa in the 1600s writes: "... as also the ruins of 200 Idol Temples which the Vice-Roy Antonio Norogna totally demolisht, that no memory might remain, or monuments continue, of such gross Idolatry. For not only there, but at Salsette also were two Temples or places of prophane Worship; one of them (by incredible toil cut out of the hard Rock) was divided into three Iles or Galleries, in which were figured many of their deformed Pagotha's, and of which an Indian (if to be credited) reports that there were in that Temple 300 of those narrow Galleries, and the Idols so exceeding ugly as would affright an European Spectator; nevertheless this was a celebrated place, and so abundantly frequented by Idolaters, as induced the Portuguise in zeal with a considerable force to master the Town and to demolish the Temples, breaking in pieces all that monstrous brood of mishapen Pagods. In Goa nothing is more observable now than the fortifications, the Vice-Roy and Arch-bishops Palaces, and the Churches. ..."

In modern India
Dr. Ambedkar and his supporters on 25 December 1927 in the Mahad Satyagraha strongly criticised, condemned and then burned copies of Manusmriti on a pyre in a specially dug pit. Manusmriti, one of the sacred Hindu texts, is the religious basis of casteist laws and values of Hinduism and hence was/is the reason of social and economic plight of crores of untouchables and lower caste Hindus. One of the greatest iconoclasts for all time, this explosive incident rocked the Hindu society. Ambedkarites continue to observe 25 December as "Manusmriti Dahan Divas" (Manusmriti Burning Day) and burn copies of Manusmriti on this day.

The most high-profile case of Independent India was in 1992. Hindu mob, led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, destroyed the 430-year-old Islamic Babri Masjid in Ayodhya which is claimed to be built after destroying the Ram Mandir.

China
There have been a number of anti-Buddhist campaigns in Chinese history that led to the destruction of Buddhist temples and images. One of the most notable of these campaigns was the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of the Tang dynasty.

During and after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, there was widespread destruction of religious and secular images in China.

During the Northern Expedition in Guangxi in 1926, Kuomintang General Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing Buddhist images, turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang party headquarters. It was reported that almost all of the viharas in Guangxi were destroyed and the monks were removed. Bai also led a wave of anti-foreignism in Guangxi, attacking Americans, Europeans, and other foreigners, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners and missionaries. Westerners fled from the province and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents. The three goals of the movement were anti-foreignism, anti-imperialism and anti-religion. Bai led the anti-religious movement against superstition. Huang Shaohong, also a Kuomintang member of the New Guangxi clique, supported Bai's campaign. The anti-religious campaign was agreed upon by all Guangxi Kuomintang members.

There was extensive destruction of religious and secular imagery in Tibet after it was invaded and occupied by China.

Many religious and secular images were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, ostensibly because they were a holdover from China's traditional past (which the Communist regime led by Mao Zedong reviled). The Cultural Revolution included widespread destruction of historic artworks in public places and private collections, whether religious or secular. Objects in state museums were mostly left intact.

South Korea
According to an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies: "Over the course of the last decade [1990s] a fairly large number of Buddhist temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues have been identified as idols, and attacked and decapitated in the name of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work by stealth of night."

Angkor
Beginning c. 1243 AD with the death of Indravarman II, the Khmer Empire went through a period of iconoclasm. At the beginning of the reign of the next king, Jayavarman VIII, the Kingdom went back to Hinduism and the worship of Shiva. Many of the Buddhist images were destroyed by Jayavarman VIII, who reestablished previously Hindu shrines that had been converted to Buddhism by his predecessor. Carvings of the Buddha at temples such as Preah Khan were destroyed, and during this period the Bayon Temple was made a temple to Shiva, with the central 3.6 meter tall statue of the Buddha cast to the bottom of a nearby well.

Damnatio memoriae
Revolutions and changes of regime, whether through uprising of the local population, foreign invasion, or a combination of both, are often accompanied by the public destruction of statues and monuments identified with the previous regime. This may also be known as damnatio memoriae, the ancient Roman practice of official obliteration of the memory of a specific individual. Stricter definitions of "iconoclasm" exclude both types of action, reserving the term for religious or more widely cultural destruction. In many cases, such as Revolutionary Russia or Ancient Egypt, this distinction can be hard to make.

Among Roman emperors and other political figures subject to decrees of damnatio memoriae were Sejanus, Publius Septimius Geta, and Domitian. Several Emperors, such as Domitian and Commodus had during their reigns erected numerous statues of themselves, which were pulled down and destroyed when they were overthrown.

The perception of damnatio memoriae in the Classical world was an act of erasing memory has been challenged by scholars who have argued that it "did not negate historical traces, but created gestures which served to dishonor the record of the person and so, in an oblique way, to confirm memory," and was in effect a spectacular display of "pantomime forgetfulness." Examining cases of political monument destruction in modern Irish history, Guy Beiner has demonstrated that iconoclastic vandalism often entails subtle expressions of ambiguous remembrance and that, rather than effacing memory, such acts of de-commemorating effectively preserve memory in obscure forms.

During the French Revolution
Throughout the radical phase of the French Revolution, iconoclasm was supported by members of the government as well as the citizenry. Numerous monuments, religious works, and other historically significant pieces were destroyed in an attempt to eradicate any memory of the Old Regime. A statue of King Louis XV in the Paris square which until then bore his name, was pulled down and destroyed. This was a prelude to the guillotining of his successor Louis XVI in the same site, renamed "Place de la Révolution" (at present Place de la Concorde). Later that year, the bodies of many French kings were exhumed from the Basilica of Saint-Denis and dumped in a mass grave.

Some episodes of iconoclasm were carried out spontaneously by crowds of citizens, including the destruction of statues of kings during the insurrection of 10 August 1792 in Paris. Some were directly sanctioned by the Republican government, including the Saint-Denis exhumations. Nonetheless, the Republican government also took steps to preserve historic artworks, notably by founding the Louvre museum to house and display the former royal art collection. This allowed the physical objects and national heritage to be preserved while stripping them of their association with the monarchy. Alexandre Lenoir saved many royal monuments by diverting them to preservation in a museum.

The statue of Napoleon on the column at Place Vendôme, Paris was also the target of iconoclasm several times: destroyed after the Bourbon Restoration, restored by Louis-Philippe, destroyed during the Paris Commune and restored by Adolphe Thiers.

After Napoleon conquered the Italian city of Pavia, local Pavia Jacobins destroyed the Regisole, a bronze classical equestrian monument dating back to Classical times. The Jacobins considered it a symbol of Royal authority, but it had been a prominent Pavia landmark for nearly a thousand years and its destruction aroused much indignation and precipitated a revolt by inhabitants of Pavia against the French, which was quelled by Napoleon after a furious urban fight.

Other examples
Other examples of political destruction of images include:
 * Five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, a pro-revolutionary group known as the New York Sons of Liberty tore down a statue of George III standing at Broadway and Bowling Green.
 * There have been several cases of removing symbols of past rulers in Malta's history. Many Hospitaller coats of arms on buildings were defaced during the French occupation of Malta in 1798–1800; a few of these were subsequently replaced by British coats of arms in the early 19th century. Some British symbols were also removed by the government after Malta became a republic in 1974. These include royal cyphers being ground off from post boxes, and British coats of arms such as that on the Main Guard building being temporarily obscured (but not destroyed).
 * With the entry of the Ottoman Empire to the First World War, the Ottoman Army destroyed the Russian victory monument erected in San Stefano (the modern Yeşilköy quarter of Istanbul, Turkey) to commemorate the Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The demolition was filmed by former army officer Fuat Uzkınay, producing Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı—the oldest known Turkish-made film.
 * In the late 18th century, French revolutionaries known as the sans-culottes sacked Brussels' Grand-Place, destroying statues of nobility and symbols of Christianity. In the 19th century, the place was renovated and many new statues added. In 1911, a marble commemoration for the Spanish freethinker and educator Francisco Ferrer, executed two years earlier and widely considered a martyr, was erected in the Grand-Place. The statue depicted a nude man holding the Torch of Enlightenment. The Imperial German military, which occupied Belgium during the First World War, disliked the monument and destroyed it in 1915. It was restored in 1926 by the International Free Thought Movement.
 * In 1942, the pro-Nazi Vichy Government of France took down and melted Clothilde Roch's statue of the 16th-century dissident intellectual Michael Servetus, who had been burned at the stake in Geneva at the instigation of Calvin. The Vichy authorities disliked the statue, as it was a celebration of freedom of conscience. In 1960, having found the original molds, the municipality of Annemasse had it recast and returned the statue to its previous place.
 * A sculpture of the head of Spanish intellectual Miguel de Unamuno by Victorio Macho was installed in the City Hall of Bilbao, Spain. It was withdrawn in 1936 when Unamuno showed temporary support for the Nationalist side. During the Spanish Civil War, it was thrown into the estuary. It was later recovered. In 1984 the head was installed in Plaza Unamuno. In 1999, it was again thrown into the estuary after a political meeting of Euskal Herritarrok. It was substituted by a copy in 2000 after the original was located in the water.
 * The Battle of Baghdad and the regime of Saddam Hussein symbolically ended with the Firdos Square statue destruction, a U.S. military-staged event on 9 April 2003 where a prominent statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down. Subsequently, statues and murals of Saddam Hussein all over Iraq were destroyed by US occupation forces as well as Iraqi citizens.
 * In 2016, paintings from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, were burned in student protests as symbols of colonialism.
 * In November 2019, a statue of Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović in Malmö, Sweden, was vandalized by Malmö FF supporters after he announced he had become part-owner of Swedish rivals Hammarby. White paint was sprayed on it; threats and hateful messages towards Zlatan were written on the statue, and it was burned. In a second attack the nose was sawed off and the statue was sprinkled with chrome paint. On 5 January 2020 it was finally toppled.
 * On 7 June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, a statue of merchant and trans-Atlantic slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, UK, was pulled down by demonstrators who then jumped on it. They daubed it in red and blue paint, and one protester placed his knee on the statue's neck to allude to Floyd's murder by a white policeman who knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes. The statue was then rolled down Anchor Road and pushed into Bristol Harbour.

In the Soviet Union
During and after the October Revolution, widespread destruction of religious and secular imagery in Russia took place, as well as the destruction of imagery related to the Imperial family. The Revolution was accompanied by destruction of monuments of tsars, as well as the destruction of imperial eagles at various locations throughout Russia. According to Christopher Wharton: "In front of a Moscow Cathedral, crowds cheered as the enormous statue of Tsar Alexander III was bound with ropes and gradually beaten to the ground. After a considerable amount of time, the statue was decapitated and its remaining parts were broken into rubble."The Soviet Union actively destroyed religious sites, including Russian Orthodox churches and Jewish cemeteries, in order to discourage religious practice and curb the activities of religious groups.

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and during the Revolutions of 1989, protesters often attacked and took down sculptures and images of Joseph Stalin, such as the Stalin Monument in Budapest.

The fall of Communism in 1989–1991 was also followed by the destruction or removal of statues of Vladimir Lenin and other Communist leaders in the former Soviet Union and in other Eastern Bloc countries. Particularly well-known was the destruction of "Iron Felix", the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky outside the KGB's headquarters. Another statue of Dzerzhinsky was destroyed in a Warsaw square that was named after him during communist rule, but which is now called Bank Square.

In the United States
During the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty pulled down and destroyed the gilded lead statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), melting it down to be recast as ammunition. Similar acts have accompanied the independence of most ex-colonial territories. Sometimes relatively intact monuments are moved to a collected display in a less prominent place, as in India and also post-Communist countries.

In August 2017, a statue of a Confederate soldier dedicated to "the boys who wore the gray" was pulled down from its pedestal in front of Durham County Courthouse in North Carolina by protesters. This followed the events at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in response to growing calls to remove Confederate monuments and memorials across the U.S.

2020 demonstrations
During the George Floyd protests of 2020, demonstrators pulled down dozens of statues which they considered symbols of the Confederacy, slavery, segregation, or racism, including the statue of Williams Carter Wickham in Richmond, Virginia.

Further demonstrations in the wake of the George Floyd protests have resulted in the removal of:
 * the John Breckenridge Castleman monument in Louisville, Kentucky;
 * plaques in Jacksonville, Florida's Hemming Park (renamed in 1899 in honor of Civil War veteran Charles C. Hemming), which were in remembrance of deceased Confederate soldiers;
 * the monumental obelisk of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument and a statue of Charles Linn in Linn Park, Birmingham, Alabama;
 * a statue of Junípero Serra in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco;
 * a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Montgomery, Alabama;
 * the monument to Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia;
 * the Appomattox statue in Alexandria, Virginia, leaving the monument's base empty but intact.

Multiple statues of early European explorers and founders were also vandalized, including those of Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.
 * Christopher Columbus was removed in Virginia, Minnesota, Chicago and beheaded in Boston MA.
 * George Washington statue was toppled in Portland, Oregon.

A statue of the African-American abolitionist statesman Frederick Douglass was vandalised in Rochester, New York, by being torn from its base and left close to a nearby river gorge. Donald Trump attributed the act to anarchists, but he did not substantiate his claim nor did he offer a theory on motive. Cornell William Brooks, former president of the NAACP, theorised that this was an act of revenge from white supremacists. Carvin Eison, who led the project that brought the Douglass statues to Rochester, thought it was unlikely that the Douglass statue was toppled by someone who was upset about monuments honoring Confederate figures, and added that "it's only logical that it was some kind of retaliation event in someone's mind". Police did not find evidence that supported or refuted either claim, and the vandalism case remains unsolved.

title: Iconoclasm


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Imbolc

Imbolc or Imbolg, also called Saint Brigid's Day (Lá Fhéile Bríde; Là Fhèill Brìghde; Laa'l Breeshey), is a Gaelic traditional festival. It marks the beginning of spring, and for Christians, it is the feast day of Saint Brigid, Ireland's patroness saint. Its traditional date is 1 February, about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Historically, its traditions were widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Imbolc is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with: Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain.

Imbolc is mentioned in early Irish literature, and some evidence suggests it was also an important date in ancient times. It is believed that Imbolc was originally a pagan festival associated with the lambing season and the goddess Brigid. Historians suggest that the saint and her feast day are Christianizations of these. The customs of St Brigid's Day did not begin to be recorded in detail until the early modern era. In recent centuries, its traditions have included weaving Brigid's crosses, hung over doors and windows to protect against fire, illness, and evil spirits. People also made a doll of Brigid (a Brídeóg), which was paraded around the community by girls, sometimes accompanied by 'strawboys'. Brigid was said to visit one's home on St Brigid's Eve. To receive her blessings, people would make a bed for Brigid, leave her food and drink, and set items of clothing outside for her to bless. Holy wells would be visited, a special meal would be had, and the day was traditionally linked with weather lore.

Although many of its traditions died out in the 20th century, it is still observed by some Christians as a religious holiday and by some non-Christians as a cultural one, and its customs have been revived in some places. Since the later 20th century, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed Imbolc as a religious holiday. Since 2023, "Imbolc/St Brigid's Day" has been an annual public holiday in Ireland.

Origins and etymology
Historians such as Ronald Hutton argue that St Brigid's Day must have pre-Christian origins. Some scholars argue that the date of Imbolc was significant in Ireland since the Neolithic. A few passage tombs in Ireland are aligned with the sunrise around the times of Imbolc and Samhain. This includes the Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara, and Cairn L at Slieve na Calliagh. Frank Prendergast argues that this alignment is so rare that it is a product of chance.

The etymology of Imbolc or Imbolg is unclear. A common explanation is that it comes from the Old Irish i mbolc (Modern Irish: i mbolg), meaning 'in the belly', and refers to the pregnancy of ewes at this time of year. Joseph Vendryes linked it to the Old Irish verb folcaim, 'to wash/cleanse oneself'. He suggested that it referred to a ritual cleansing, similar to the ancient Roman festival Februa or Lupercalia, which took place at the same time of year. Eric P. Hamp derives it from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning both 'milk' and 'cleansing'. Professor Alan Ward derives it from the Proto-Celtic *embibolgon, 'budding'. The early 10th century Cormac's Glossary has an entry for Oímelc, calling it the beginning of spring and deriving it from oí-melg ('ewe milk'), explaining it as "the time that sheep's milk comes". However, linguists believe this is the writer's respelling of the word to give it an understandable etymology.

The Táin Bó Cúailnge ('Cattle Raid of Cooley') indicates that Imbolc (spelt imolg) is three months after the 1 November festival of Samhain. Imbolc is mentioned in another Old Irish poem about the Táin in the Metrical Dindshenchas: "iar n-imbulc, ba garb a ngeilt", which Edward Gwynn translates "after Candlemas, rough was their herding". Candlemas is the Christian holy day which falls on 2 February and is known in Irish as Lá Fhéile Muire na gCoinneal, 'feast day of Mary of the Candles'.

Hutton writes that Imbolc must have been "important enough for its date to be dedicated subsequently to Brigid … the Mother Saint of Ireland". Cogitosus, writing in the late 7th century, first mentions a feast day of Saint Brigid being observed in Kildare on 1 February. Brigid is said to have lived in the 6th century and founded the important monastery of Kildare. She became the focus of a major cult. However, there are few historical facts about her, and her early hagiographies "are mainly anecdotes and miracle stories, some of which are deeply rooted in Irish pagan folklore". It is suggested that Saint Brigid is based on the goddess Brigid, or that she was a real person and the lore of the goddess was transferred to her. Like the saint, the goddess is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, blacksmithing, and domesticated animals, according to Cormac's Glossary and Lebor Gabála Érenn. It is suggested that the festival, which celebrates the start of lambing, is linked with Brigid in her role as a fertility goddess. Hutton says that the goddess might have already been linked to Imbolc and this was continued by making it the saint's feast day. Or it could be that Imbolc's association with milk drew the saint to it because of a legend that she had been the wet-nurse of Christ.

Historical customs
The festival of Imbolc is mentioned in several early Irish manuscripts, but they say very little about its original rites and customs. Imbolc was one of four main seasonal festivals in Gaelic Ireland, along with Beltane (1 May), Lughnasadh (1 August) and Samhain (1 November). The tale Tochmarc Emire, which survives in a 10th-century version, names Imbolc as one of four seasonal festivals, and says it is "when the ewes are milked at spring's beginning". This linking of Imbolc with the arrival of lambs and sheep's milk probably reflected farming customs that ensured lambs were born before calves. In late winter/early spring, sheep could survive better than cows on the sparse vegetation, and farmers sought to resume milking as soon as possible due to their dwindling stores. The Hibernica Minora includes an Old Irish poem about the four seasonal festivals. Translated by Kuno Meyer (1894), it says, "Tasting of each food according to order, this is what is proper at Imbolc: washing the hands, the feet, the head". This suggests ritual cleansing. It has been suggested that originally the timing of the festival was more fluid and associated with the onset of the lambing season, the beginning of preparations for the spring sowing, and the blooming of blackthorn.

Prominent folklorist Seán Ó Súilleabháin wrote: "The main significance of the Feast of St. Brigid would seem to be that it was a Christianisation of one of the focal points of the agricultural year in Ireland, the starting point of preparations for the spring sowing. Every manifestation of the cult of the saint (or of the deity she replaced) is bound up in some way with food production".

From the 18th century to the mid-20th century, many St Brigid's Day traditions were recorded by folklorists and other writers. They tell us how it was celebrated then and shed light on how it may have been celebrated in the past.

Brigid's crosses
In Ireland, Brigid's crosses (pictured) are traditionally made on St Brigid's Day. A Brigid's cross usually consists of rushes woven into a four-armed equilateral cross, although there were also three-armed crosses. They are traditionally hung over doors, windows, and stables to welcome Brigid and for protection against fire, lightning, illness, and evil spirits. The crosses are generally left until the next St Brigid's Day. In western Connacht, people made a Crios Bríde (Bríd's girdle); a great ring of rushes with a cross woven in the middle. Young boys would carry it around the village, inviting people to step through it and be blessed.

Welcoming Brigid
On St Brigid's Eve, Brigid was said to visit virtuous households and bless the inhabitants. As Brigid represented the light half of the year and the power that will bring people from the dark season of winter into spring, her presence was vital at this time of year.

Before going to bed, people would leave items of clothing or strips of cloth outside for Brigid to bless. The next morning, they would be brought inside and believed to have powers of healing and protection.

Brigid would be symbolically invited into the house and a bed would often be made for her. In Ulster, a family member representing Brigid would circle the home three times carrying rushes. They would knock the door three times, asking to be let in. On the third attempt, they are welcomed in, a meal is had, and the rushes are then made into crosses or a bed for Brigid. In 18th-century Mann, the custom was to stand at the door with a bundle of rushes and say "Brede, Brede, come to my house tonight. Open the door for Brede and let Brede come in". Similarly, in County Donegal, the family member who was sent to fetch the rushes knelt on the front step and repeated three times, "Go on your knees, open your eyes, and let in St Brigid". Those inside the house answered three times, "She's welcome". The rushes were then strewn on the floor as a carpet or bed for Brigid. In the 19th century, some old Manx women would make a bed for Brigid in the barn with food, ale, and a candle on a table. The custom of making Brigid's bed was prevalent in the Hebrides of Scotland, where it was recorded as far back as the 17th century. A bed of hay or a basket-like cradle would be made for Brigid. Someone would then call out three times: "a Bhríd, a Bhríd, thig a stigh as gabh do leabaidh" ("Bríd Bríd, come in; thy bed is ready"). A corn dolly called the dealbh Bríde (icon of Brigid) would be laid in the bed and a white wand, usually made of birch, would be laid beside it. It represented the wand that Brigid was said to use to make the vegetation start growing again. Women in some parts of the Hebrides would also dance while holding a large cloth and calling out "Bridean, Bridean, thig an nall 's dean do leabaidh" ("Bríd, Bríd, come over and make your bed").

In the Outer Hebrides, ashes from the fire would be raked smooth, and, in the morning, people would look for some mark on the ashes as a sign that Brigid had visited. If there was no mark, they believed bad fortune would come unless they buried a cockerel at the meeting of three streams as an offering and burned incense on their fire that night.

Brigid's procession
In Ireland and Scotland, a representation of Brigid would be paraded around the community by girls and young women. Usually, it was a doll known as a Brídeóg ('little Brigid'), called a 'Breedhoge' or 'Biddy' in English. It would be made from rushes or reeds and clad in bits of cloth, flowers, or shells. In the Hebrides of Scotland, a bright shell or crystal called the reul-iuil Bríde (guiding star of Brigid) was set on its chest. The girls would carry it in procession while singing a hymn to Brigid. All wore white with their hair unbound as a symbol of purity and youth. They visited every house in the area, where they received either food or more decoration for the Brídeóg. Afterward, they feasted in a house with the Brídeóg set in a place of honour, and put it to bed with lullabies. When the meal was done, the local young men humbly asked for admission, made obeisance to the Brídeóg, and joined the girls in dancing and merrymaking. In many places, only unwed girls could carry the Brídeóg, but in some both boys and girls carried it.

In parts of Ireland, rather than carrying a Brídeóg, a girl took on the role of Brigid. Escorted by other girls, she went house-to-house wearing 'Brigid's crown' and carrying 'Brigid's shield' and 'Brigid's cross', all made from rushes. The procession in some places included 'strawboys', who wore conical straw hats, masks and played folk music; much like the wrenboys. Up until the mid-20th century, children in Ireland still went house-to-house asking for pennies for "poor Biddy", or money for the poor. In County Kerry, men in white robes sang from house to house.

Weather lore
The festival is traditionally associated with weather lore, and the old tradition of watching to see if serpents or badgers came from their winter dens may be a forerunner of the North American Groundhog Day. A Scottish Gaelic proverb about the day is:

Imbolc was believed to be when the Cailleach—the divine hag of Gaelic tradition—gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she wishes to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny so that she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people would be relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over. At Imbolc on the Isle of Man, where she is known as Caillagh ny Groamagh, the Cailleach is said to take the form of a gigantic bird carrying sticks in her beak.

Other customs
Families would have a special meal or supper on St Brigid's Eve to mark the last night of winter. This typically included food such as colcannon, sowans, dumplings, barmbrack or bannocks. Often, some of the food and drink would be set aside for Brigid.

In Ireland, a spring cleaning was customary around St Brigid's Day.

People traditionally visit holy wells and pray for health while walking 'sunwise' around the well. They might then leave offerings, typically coins or strips of cloth/ribbon (see clootie well). Historically, water from the well was used to bless the home, family members, livestock, and fields.

Scottish writer Donald Alexander Mackenzie also recorded in the 19th century that offerings were made "to earth and sea". The offering could be milk poured into the ground or porridge poured into the water as a libation.

In County Kilkenny, graves were decorated with box and laurel flowers (or any other flowers that could be found at that time). A Branch of Virginity was decorated with white ribbons and placed on the grave of a recently deceased maiden.

Present day customs

St Brigid's Day and Imbolc are observed by Christians and non-Christians. Some people still make Brigid's crosses and Brídeogs or visit holy wells dedicated to St Brigid on 1 February. Brigid's Day parades have been revived in the town of Killorglin, County Kerry, which holds a yearly "Biddy's Day Festival". Men and women wearing elaborate straw hats and masks visit public houses carrying a Brídeóg to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck for the coming year. There are folk music sessions, historical talks, film screenings, drama productions, and cross-weaving workshops. The main event is a torchlight parade of 'Biddy groups' through the town. Since 2009 a yearly "Brigid of Faughart Festival" is held in County Louth. This celebrates Brigid as both saint and goddess and includes the long-standing pilgrimage to Faughart as well as music, poetry, and lectures. The "Imbolc International Music Festival" of folk music is held in Derry at this time of year. In England, the village of Marsden, West Yorkshire holds a biennial "Imbolc Fire Festival" which includes a lantern procession, fire performers, music, fireworks, and a symbolic battle between giant characters representing the Green Man and Jack Frost.

More recently, Irish embassies have hosted yearly events on St Brigid's Day to celebrate famous women of the Irish diaspora and showcase the work of Irish female emigrants in the arts. In 2022, Dublin hosted its first "Brigit Festival", celebrating "the contributions of Irish women" past and present through exhibitions, tours, lectures, films, and a concert.

In 2016, the Green Party proposed that St Brigid's Day be made a public holiday in Ireland. This was put into effect in 2022 after the party entered government, and "Imbolc/St Brigid's Day" has been a yearly public holiday since 2023 to mark both the saint's feast day and the seasonal festival. A government statement noted that it would be the first Irish public holiday named after a woman, and "means that all four of the traditional Celtic seasonal festival will now be public holidays". The public holiday is observed on the first Monday of February, except for years where 1 February happens to fall on a Friday, in which case the holiday is observed on that Friday instead.

Neopaganism
Imbolc or Imbolc-based festivals are observed by some Neopagans, though practices vary widely. While some attempt to closely emulate the historic accounts of Imbolc, others rely on many sources to inspire their celebrations. Festivals typically fall near 1 February in the Northern Hemisphere and 1 August in the Southern Hemisphere.

Some Neopagans celebrate the festival at the astronomical midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox -- in the Northern Hemisphere, this is usually on 3 or 4 February -- while others rely on the full moon nearest this point. Some Neopagans designate Imbolc based on other natural phenomena, such as the emergence of primroses, dandelions, or similar local flora.

Celtic Reconstructionist
Celtic Reconstructionists strive to reconstruct ancient Celtic religion. Their religious practices are based on research and historical accounts, but may be modified slightly to suit modern life. They avoid syncretism (i.e., combining practises from different cultures). They usually celebrate the festival at the start of spring, or on the full moon nearest this. Many use traditional songs and rites from sources such as The Silver Bough and The Carmina Gadelica. It is a time of honouring the goddess Brigid, and many of her dedicants choose this time of year for rituals to her.

Wicca and Neo-Druidry
Wiccans and Neo-Druids celebrate Imbolc as one of the eight Sabbats in their Wheel of the Year, following Midwinter and preceding Ostara. In Wicca, Imbolc is commonly associated with the goddess Brigid; as such, it is sometimes seen as a "women's holiday" with specific rites only for female members of a coven. Among Dianic Wiccans, Imbolc is the traditional time for initiations.

title: Imbolc


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Isaiah

Isaiah ( or ;, Yəšaʿyāhū, "Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from Ἠσαΐας) was the 8th-century BC Israelite  prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.

The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet", but the exact relationship between the Book of Isaiah and the actual prophet Isaiah is complicated. The traditional view is that all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah were written by one man, Isaiah, possibly in two periods between 740 BC and c. 686 BC, separated by approximately 15 years.

Another widely held view suggests that parts of the first half of the book (chapters 1–39) originated with the historical prophet, interspersed with prose commentaries written in the time of King Josiah 100 years later, and that the  remainder of the book dates from immediately before and immediately after the end of the 6th-century BC exile in Babylon (almost two centuries after the time of the historical prophet), and that perhaps these later chapters represent the work of an ongoing school of prophets who prophesied in accordance with his prophecies.

Biography
The first verse of the Book of Isaiah states that Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. Uzziah's reign was 52 years in the middle of the 8th century BC, and Isaiah must have begun his ministry a few years before Uzziah's death, probably in the 740s BC. He may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh. Thus, Isaiah may have prophesied for as long as 64 years.

According to some modern interpretations, Isaiah's wife was called "the prophetess", either because she was endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah and Huldah, or simply because she was the "wife of the prophet". They had two sons, naming the elder Shear-Jashub, meaning "A remnant shall return", and the younger Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning, "Quickly to spoils, plunder speedily."

Soon after this, Shalmaneser V determined to subdue the northern Kingdom of Israel, taking over and destroying Samaria and beginning the Assyrian captivity. So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was untouched by the Assyrian power. But when Hezekiah gained the throne, he was encouraged to rebel "against the king of Assyria", and entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt. The king of Assyria threatened the king of Judah, and at length invaded the land. Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant brought his powerful army into Judah. Hezekiah was reduced to despair, and submitted to the Assyrians. But after a brief interval, war broke out again. Again Sennacherib led an army into Judah, one detachment of which threatened Jerusalem. Isaiah on that occasion encouraged Hezekiah to resist the Assyrians, whereupon Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, which he "spread before the ".

"Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: 'Thus said GOD, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed, concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria— this is the word that GOD has spoken concerning him: Fair Maiden Zion despises you, She mocks at you; Fair Jerusalem shakes Her head at you. Whom have you blasphemed and reviled? Against whom made loud your voice And haughtily raised your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel!"

According to the account in 2 Kings 19 (and its derivative account in 2 Chronicles 32) an angel of God fell on the Assyrian army and 185,000 of its men were killed in one night. "Like Xerxes in Greece, Sennacherib never recovered from the shock of the disaster in Judah. He made no more expeditions against either Judea or Egypt."

The remaining years of Hezekiah's reign were peaceful. Isaiah probably lived to its close, and possibly into the reign of Manasseh. The time and manner of his death are not specified in either the Bible or other primary sources. The Talmud says that he suffered martyrdom by being sawn in two under the orders of Manasseh.

The book of Isaiah, along with the book of Jeremiah, is distinctive in the Hebrew bible for its direct portrayal of the "wrath of the " as presented, for example, in Isaiah 9:19 stating "Through the wrath of the of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire."

In Christianity

The Ascension of Isaiah, a pseudepigraphical Christian text dated to sometime between the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 3rd, gives a detailed story of Isaiah confronting an evil false prophet and ending with Isaiah being martyred – none of which is attested in the original Biblical account.

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) believed that the Prophet Isaiah "knew more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the Gospel". Jerome (c. 342–420) also lauds the Prophet Isaiah, saying "He was more of an Evangelist than a Prophet, because he described all of the Mysteries of the Church of Christ so vividly that you would assume he was not prophesying about the future, but rather was composing a history of past events." Of specific note are the songs of the Suffering Servant, which Christians say are a direct prophetic revelation of the nature, purpose, and detail of the death of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Isaiah is quoted many times by New Testament writers. The Gospel of John says that Isaiah "saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him."

The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Saint Isaiah the Prophet with Saint Christopher on May 9. Isaiah is also listed on the page of saints for May 9 in the Roman martyrology of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Book of Mormon quotes Jesus Christ as stating that "great are the words of Isaiah", and that all things prophesied by Isaiah have been and will be fulfilled. The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants also quote Isaiah more than any other prophet from the Old Testament. Additionally, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consider the founding of the church by Joseph Smith in the 19th century to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 11, the translation of the Book of Mormon to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 29, and the building of Latter-day Saint temples as a fulfillment of Isaiah 2:2.

In Islam
Isaiah (إِشَعْيَاء) is not mentioned by name in the Quran or the Hadith, but appears frequently as a prophet in Muslim sources such as the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ and various tafsirs. Al-Tabari (310/923) provides the typical accounts for Islamic traditions regarding Isaiah. He is listed among the prophets in the book of salawat Dalail al-Khayrat. He is further mentioned and accepted as a prophet by other Islamic scholars such as ibn Kathir, Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi and al-Kisa'i and also modern scholars such as Muhammad Asad and Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

According to Muslim scholars, Isaiah prophesied the coming of Jesus and Muhammad, although the reference to Muhammad is disputed by other religious scholars. Isaiah's narrative in Islamic literature can be divided into three sections. The first establishes Isaiah as a prophet of Judea during the reign of Hezekiah; the second relates Isaiah's actions during the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC by Sennacherib; and the third warns the nation of coming doom. Paralleling the Hebrew Bible, Islamic tradition states that Hezekiah was king in Jerusalem during Isaiah's time. Hezekiah heard and obeyed Isaiah's advice, but could not quell the turbulence in Israel. This tradition maintains that Hezekiah was a righteous man and that the turbulence worsened after him. After the death of the king, Isaiah told the people not to forsake God, and warned Israel to cease from its persistent sin and disobedience. Muslim tradition maintains that the unrighteous of Judea in their anger sought to kill Isaiah.

In a death that resembles that attributed to Isaiah in Lives of the Prophets, Muslim exegesis recounts that Isaiah was martyred by Israelites by being sawn in two.

In the courts of al-Ma'mun, the seventh Abbasid caliph, Ali al-Ridha, the great-grandson of Muhammad and prominent scholar of his era, was questioned by the Exilarch to prove through the Torah that both Jesus and Muhammad were prophets. Among his several proofs, al-Ridha references the Book of Isaiah, stating "Sha'ya (Isaiah), the Prophet, said in the Torah concerning what you and your companions say 'I have seen two riders to whom (He) illuminated earth. One of them was on a donkey and the other was on a camel. Who is the rider of the donkey, and who is the rider of the camel?'" The Exilarch was unable to answer with certainty. Al-Ridha goes on to state that "As for the rider of the donkey, he is 'Isa (Jesus); and as for the rider of the camel, he is Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family. Do you deny that this (statement) is in the Torah?" The Rabbi responds "No, I do not deny it."

In rabbinic literature
Allusions in Jewish rabbinic literature to Isaiah contain various expansions, elaborations and inferences that go beyond what is presented in the text of the Bible.

Origin and calling
According to the ancient rabbis, Isaiah was a descendant of Judah and Tamar, and his father Amoz was the brother of King Amaziah.

While Isaiah, says the Midrash, was walking up and down in his study he heard God saying "Whom shall I send?" Then Isaiah said "Here am I; send me!" Thereupon God said to him," My children are troublesome and sensitive; if you are ready to be insulted and even beaten by them, you may accept My message; if not, you would better renounce it". Isaiah accepted the mission, and was the most forbearing, as well as the most patriotic, among the prophets, always defending Israel and imploring forgiveness for its sins. When Isaiah said "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips", he was rebuked by God for speaking in such terms of His people.

Further accounts state that Isaiah was actually the maternal grandfather of King Manasseh, which would make Queen Consort Hephzibah from 2 Kings 21:1 his daughter and King Hezekiah his son-in-law. Hephzibah's name was used as a symbolic name for Zion following its restoration to the favor of Yahweh in Isaiah 62.

His death
It is related in the Talmud that Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai found in Jerusalem an account wherein it was written that King Manasseh killed Isaiah. King Manasseh said to Isaiah "Moses, your master, said 'No man may see God and live'; but you have said 'I saw the Lord seated upon his throne'"; and went on to point out other contradictions—as between Deuteronomy and Isaiah 40; between Exodus 33 and 2 Kings Isaiah thought: "I know that he will not accept my explanations; why should I increase his guilt?" He then uttered the tetragrammaton, a cedar-tree opened, and Isaiah disappeared within it. King Manasseh ordered the cedar to be sawn asunder, and when the saw reached his mouth Isaiah died; thus was he punished for having said "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips".

A somewhat different version of this legend is given in the Jerusalem Talmud. According to that version Isaiah, fearing King Manasseh, hid himself in a cedar-tree, but his presence was betrayed by the fringes of his garment, and King Manasseh caused the tree to be sawn in half. A passage of the Targum to Isaiah quoted by Jolowicz states that when Isaiah fled from his pursuers and took refuge in the tree, and the tree was sawn in half, the prophet's blood spurted forth. The legend of Isaiah's martyrdom spread to the Arabs and to the Christians as, for example, Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria (c. 318) wrote, "Isaiah was sawn asunder".

Archaeology
In February 2018, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced that she and her team had discovered a small seal impression which reads "[belonging] to Isaiah nvy" (could be reconstructed and read as "[belonging] to Isaiah the prophet") during the Ophel excavations, just south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The tiny bulla was found "only 10 feet away" from where an intact bulla bearing the inscription "[belonging] to King Hezekiah of Judah" was discovered in 2015 by the same team. Although the name "Isaiah" in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is unmistakable, the damage on the bottom left part of the seal causes difficulties in confirming the word "prophet" or a name "Navi", casting some doubts whether this seal really belongs to the prophet Isaiah.

title: Isaiah


text:
Talk:Inflected language

Is there a reason for mentioning English irregular verbs? Aren't regular ones inflected too? --Eric

 * Regular verbs are generally less inflected. I've made that clearer, I think. --AF

 * There are big classes of regular inflected verbs in English. These are represented by some of the most common verbs in English:

I-class 1: spin (for some speakers), drink, swim, sing, sink I-class 2: write, ride, smite O-class : blow, throw, grow
 * thefamouseccles 09:19 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that the Mohawk word given is not an inflected word, but a polysynthetic word. The terms "inflected" and "synthetic" are still synonyms in the common imagination, but linguistically the two are extremely different. thefamouseccles 09:20 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Inflected language