Timbuktu, world heritage, under attack by rebels

© Unesco

Rebels, extremists, fighters, radicals, separatists all fight for a cause and use violence and destruction to achieve their objectives.
In Timbuktu, Mali, on the 6th of May 2012, some fighters entered the medieval town and "destroy a saint's tomb" setting it on fire, (according to a BBC report: link)
Timbuktu is the location of three great mosques dating back to the 14th century as well as 16 cemeteries ans mausoleums. The town was founded on gold and salt trade and reached its apogee in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was an intellectual and spiritual center with its Sankore university and other madrasas.
Destroying world heritage architecture is a way to erase the past and its memory. Do the destructors have a new way of life with new roots and new beliefs to implement in replacement?

(link to the Unesco site)

Giovanni Curatello: Isfahan's friday's mosque

At Dal al Athar, in Kuwait, Giovanni Curatello gave a lecture on his passionate interaction with Friday Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. Professor of art history at the Udine University in Italy, Curatello started his career as an archeologist in Isfahan where excavation were conducted in the seventies. In his lecture, he talked about  the different encounters in archeology, in architecture, in Islamic art, in geometrical patterns. The mosque was built in 772 under the Abasside rule and evolved with added elements throughout the passage of different rulers. The most obvious element talked about is the Dome of Nizam al Mulk, as Curatello mentioned, is an architectural masterpiece in its size, diameter, height and material used.
Curatello seem to travel extensively to the place where his passion started as he showed pictures of mosque taken last september. It looks like he will continue his exploration to expose the mysteries in the mosque. "The monument will only give answers to questions as far as the one asking is ready to receive; and only when it wishes to give them" says Curatello. The tale of the mosque was a "fascinating forest of colors", shapes, volumes and stories.

(more on the mosque : link )