FACT CHECK: Was the Statue of Liberty Originally a Muslim Woman? No. Bartholdi’s idea of building the Egyptian statue had been inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes Daniel Greenfield
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260945/fact-check-was-statue-liberty-originally-muslim-daniel-greenfield
A popular meme on some sites is that the Statue of Liberty was “originally a Muslim woman”. Like a lot of viral memes, this is a myth.
The a grain of truth to the story is that the meme picked up on the interesting historical footnote that one of the earlier projects of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was a large woman holding up a torch and symbolizing Egypt’s progress. The giant statue would have been titled, “Egypt or Progress Carrying the Light to Asia”.
Since Egypt’s ruler had no money, the project went nowhere.
Bartholdi at the time was somewhat obsessed with Ancient Egypt. It was ancient Egypt that interested him rather than Islam. The statue was meant to celebrate Egyptian civilization rather than Islam.
In any case the idea that “Egypt” became the Statue of Liberty is a myth. How do we know that?
Here’s what Bartholdi had to say about it, “At that time my Statue of Liberty did not exist, even in my imagination, and the only resemblance between the drawing that I submitted to the Khedive and the statue now in New York’s beautiful harbor is that both held a light aloft. Now how is a sculptor to make a statue which is to serve the purpose of a lighthouse without making it hold the light in the air?”
The Statue of Liberty originally functioned as a lighthouse.
Over the years some have been obsessed with the idea of proving that both statues were the same. It’s a conspiracy theory up there with the two Titanics. The conspiracy theory took on new significance recently as some have dug it up to try and prove some point about the need to bring Muslim migrants from Syria, 13% of whom poll as supporting ISIS, to America. Even if the two statues were the same, it really would have nothing to do with the terror threat from Islamic groups. Furthermore, Bartholdi’s Egyptian statue was not inspired by Islam and would have been destroyed by Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Islamic State which even suggested destroying the pyramids.
A giant statue of a woman holding up a torch is not even an Egyptian symbol. It’s rather clearly a European one and owes its parentage to the Greeks. Islam frowns on statues and frowns even harder on representations of the female form.
Bartholdi’s idea of building the Egyptian statue had been inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes. The Colossus of Rhodes was a Greek work celebrating Helios or Apollo. Islam would not have approved.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, built by the Greeks in Egypt, had Poseidon on top. But, like so many treasures in Egypt, it was destroyed by the Muslim conquerors who first tried to turn it into a mosque, then tore it apart for building materials much the way that their ISIS and Taliban successors have done in modern times.
When the Lighthouse of Alexandria’s beacon was removed and replaced with a mosque, the light of civilization in the region went out and was replaced by the darkness and ignorance of barbarism.
Had Bartholdi built a statue in Egypt, it would have been destroyed by now. While the Statue of Liberty shines a beacon that reminds us to preserve civilization from the sorts of barbarism that burned the Library of Alexandria, destroyed the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the World Trade Center and countless other great works of architecture. The Statue of Liberty offers welcome, but it is also meant to guard against those who would come to this country to destroy civilization and replace it with the brutal theocratic code of the Koran.
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