Christian Singles Dating: Take Time Out to Grow With God

Finding the right partner is a great issue for all you Christian singles dating out there who are looking for a life partner. Not only do you need to be attracted to your partner, but your Christian faith beliefs must be harmonious. All of you Christian singles dating in search of the one, are single for many different reasons, maybe you have lost a loved one, or just haven’t found the right person, whatever the reason, and there is no need to become lonely or despondent. If you find yourself alone for a while then try to use this time to grow with God, as Christian singles you all need some time out for strengthening and growing.

Be Honest with Yourself and With God!

It can be exhausting attending events specially organized for Christian singles, and some of you tend to date Christian men and women because they are Christian. When you meet someone face to face there is always more pressure to say yes to a date. If you are looking for a life partner then marriage is your goal and those of you Christian singles dating people who you wouldn’t dream of marrying are being dishonest to them, to yourself and to God. God doesn’t want any of you to be single, but he wants you to make the right choice.

Christian singles dating journeys follow many different pathways in search of that like minded partner. Signing up to a Christian dating service online is proving more popular due to many of you having a hectic working life. As your faith is first and foremost online Christian dating gives you the opportunity to get to know a person’s personality and values before committing to a date. Many specialist Christian dating sites offer a Christian singles dating guide and professional advice through the whole dating process. Chat rooms are a great way to meet other Christian singles where you can share advice, dating tips and experiences. It’s a modern world we live in, and thanks to the internet your dating journey has become much more relaxed and safer.

Genesis 1:27

So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.

Meet Christian Singles: God Wants You to Find Your Soul Mate

There is no need to be lonely anymore! You can meet other Christian singles looking for that special reunion with their soul mate. Open yourself up to what God has in store for you. By using Christian online dating you will have more chance to meet Christian singles who share your values and commitment to God. Remember as a Christian you must adhere to the principles of relationships as outlined in the bible and Gods spirit will guide you.

Share Your Values

Shy? Nervous? Don’t be! You will meet Christian singles just like you. Share your values and meet new friends on your journey to love. With our busy lives it’s hard to meet Christian singles socially and we tend to hang out in the same social circles. Christian online dating will open your circle, and give you more opportunity to meet the one. By dating online you can browse profiles in your own time with no pressure, be anonymous, and take things as slow or as fast as you want. There is no safer way to meet Christian singles!

“Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love”. “One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life”. That word is love! A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence, but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things. Love makes a poet out of everyone!

Genesis 2:18
“And the lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him!

Christian Singles: Are You Tired of Being Single?

Christian singles are signing up online every day, so you don’t want to miss the boat! If you believe that finding that special someone is impossible then go online and get inspired by the success stories. Christian singles are from all walks of life, so that special someone might be waiting for you now. Online dating allows you to filter through members and find people who compliment your personality and Christian values. There has never been a more safer and enjoyable way to meet like minded Christian singles while spreading your faith.

Finding Your Mate is Easier Than You Think

These sites recognize that the Christian singles niche is a sensitive area, and give you the chance to communicate without the awkwardness of face to face dating. Sensitive subjects like children, separation and relationship history can be discussed in a much more relaxed way online. It’s proven that meeting Christian singles like you in your church or at local Christian events is happening less and less. Since the internet revolutionized online dating millions of Christian singles have signed up online to start their journey to love. It’s not only fun but the proof is there that it really does work for you, and it gives you the opportunity to meet some wonderful people.

Remember God wants you to be as one with a perfect partner and share your beliefs and worship him together harmoniously. He will guide you, and you will know when you meet the right partner. Dating online opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Christian singles today and access to a plethora of options. Choosing the right catch from the sea of members is much easier than you think, so don’t let them be the one that got away and start fishing today.

Psalm 33:22
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.

Christian Singles: Don’t despair if you are not attached!

As so many Christian singles are struggling to find a partner, fellow Christians have recognized a niche to help you. These guys have researched the problem thoroughly and have developed online dating sites just for Christian singles.

They are much more than just a list of Christian singles wanting to find a partner, they are there to guide you and offer a variety of help, along with advice. It’s hard for Christian singles to meet their match and find an ideal mate who shares their beliefs and values, so these websites have been developed to enable you to meet Christian singles just like you without the awkwardness of that first meeting.

You Have Found the Place to Meet Your Match!

Don’t be afraid of the online dating world, these websites have been especially developed for Christian singles just like you. The beauty of online dating is that you are in total control, and there is no pressure on that first date. The whole idea is so that you can relax, and filter through other Christian singles until you find the right people to communicate with.

Through the first stages of communication you can stay totally incognito by using an alias name, so all your details are private. The great part is that you get to meet fellow Christian singles from all walks of Christian life who you can share your experiences with, your fears, and swap advice while spreading your faith.

Most Christian singles know how important it is to God to be equally yoked in their relationship and share the love of our Lord together in harmony. It’s OK to be friends with non-Christian singles but in a love relationship it will not last and will cause unhappiness on both sides.

Christian singles are looking for a different relationship to non-believers, but many become lonely and fall easy under the pressure of society just to be with someone. The point of these sites is to take the pressure off all you Christian singles, and give you the chance to meet someone who is right for you.

There is only everything to gain by having a browse! These websites have been developed because the fellow Christians who created them know how difficult it is for Christian singles today to find the one. So don’t be afraid, take your time and you never know that special person might be online right now.

2 Corinthians 6:14

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Best answer:

Answer by Ikki
go to a college campus, and pretend to be 21

Give your answer to this question below!

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American Hennacy


Image by Think-N-Evolve

"An anarchist is someone who doesn’t need a cop to make him behave."

"Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don’t need them, and the bad people don’t obey them."

"Too many of us dissipate our energy by being ‘for all good causes,’ attending meetings and passing resolutions, organizing and presenting petitions — all this effort to change others, when if we really got down to it we could use this energy to change ourselves… We become tired radicals because we use our weakest weapon: the ballot box, where we are always outnumbered, and refuse to use our strongest weapon: spiritual power."

"Despite the popular idea of anarchists as violent men, Anarchism is the one non-violent social philosophy.… The function of the Anarchist is two-fold. By daily courage in non-cooperation with the tyrannical forces of the State and the Church, he helps to tear down present society; the Anarchist by daily cooperation with his fellows in overcoming evil with good-will and solidarity builds toward the anarchistic commonwealth which is formed by voluntary action with the right of secession."

"We really can’t change the world. We really can’t change other people! The best we can do is to start a few thinking here and there. The best way to do this, if we are sincere, is to change ourselves!"

"[T]he only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority."

"At times those who do not want to have their inconsistencies pointed out say in a super-sweet voice to me ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ I reply ‘O.K., judge me, then.’"

"A Christian Anarchist does not depend on bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused and dying world."

"When I was working a man asked me ‘Why does a fellow like you, with an education, and who has been all over the country, end up in this out-of-the-way place working for very little on a farm?’ I explained that all people who had good jobs in factories, etc. had a withholding tax for war taken from their pay, and that people who worked on farms had no tax taken from their pay. I told him that I refused to pay taxes. He was a returned soldier and said that he did not like war either, but what could a fellow do about it? I replied that we each did what we really wanted to."

"The dictionary definition of a Christian is one who follows Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good, with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world."

"I am writing this preliminary statement of my reasons for not paying taxes ahead of time, as I was recently informed by your office that I would be imprisoned for my constant refusal to pay taxes. Upon my arrest I will give you the correct report of my earnings to date in 1948. My belief in the iniquity of government, which exists primarily to wage war, has been stated this last six years in my statement to your department when I refused to pay any tax, and also in articles in the Catholic Worker".

Quote Source -> secure.wikimedia.org/wikiquote/en/wiki/Ammon_Hennacy

The Fenway, Christian Science Church and Hotel Hemenway in background


Image by Boston Public Library
File name: 08_06_016312

Title: The Fenway, Christian Science Church and Hotel Hemenway in background

Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)

Date created: 1932-05

Physical description: 1 negative : glass, black & white ; 4 x 5 in.

Genre: Glass negatives

Subjects: Parks; Parkways

Notes: Title and date from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.

Collection: Leslie Jones Collection

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: Copyright © Leslie Jones.

Preferred credit: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Christian Singles Related Info

Best answer:

Answer by John S
plentyoffish.com

What do you think? Answer below!

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NCYC 2009 – CONVERGE


Image by Digitalorthodoxy
Photos taken at the National Christian Youth Convention held in Melbourne during the month of January 2009.

Theme: Converge
Venue: Melbourne
Dates: January 3 to 9 2009
Website: ncyc.org.au/
Flickr Pool: www.flickr.com/groups/ncyc/pool/

Camera Used: Sony Alpha 100
Lens (for the most-part): Sony 18-70mm

NCYC 2009 – Converge


Image by Digitalorthodoxy
Photos taken at the National Christian Youth Convention held in Melbourne during the month of January 2009.

Theme: Converge
Venue: Melbourne
Dates: January 3 to 9 2009
Website: ncyc.org.au/
Flickr Pool: www.flickr.com/groups/ncyc/pool/

Camera Used: Sony Alpha 100
Lens (for the most-part): Sony 18-70mm

Christian Singles Related Info

Best answer:

Answer by Paige
I met my boyfriend on Chemistry.com
It wasn’t free but it gave me a free trial I think.
I never paid for it – after I got his name I found him on Myspace.

Give your answer to this question below!

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Buddha, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 1990s


Image by james_gordon_los_angeles
The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (140 mi) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507 AD, the larger in 554 AD,the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.
The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which was worn away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.
The lower parts of the statues’ arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix while supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs were spaces that held wooden pegs which served to stabilize the outer stucco.
They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were "idols".International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban. Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues.
History
Bamiyan lies on the Silk Road which lies in the Hindu Kush mountain region, in the Bamiyan Valley. The Silk Road is a caravan route linking the markets of China with those of Western Asia. Until the 11th century, Bamiyan was part of the kingdom of Gandhara. It was the site of several Buddhist monasteries, and a thriving center for religion, philosophy, and Indian art. It was a Buddhist religious site from the 2nd century up to the time of the Islamic invasion in the 9th century. Monks at the monasteries lived as hermits in small caves carved into the side of the Bamiyan cliffs. Many of these monks embellished their caves with religious statuary and elaborate, brightly colored frescoes.
The two most prominent statues were the giant standing Buddhas Vairocana and Sakyamuni, identified by the different mudras performed, measuring 55 and 37 metres (180 and 121 feet) high respectively. Before being blown up in 2001 they were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world (the 8th century Leshan Giant Buddha is taller,[7] but the statue is sitting). Since then the Spring Temple Buddha has been built in China, and at 128 m (420 ft) it is the tallest statue in the world. Plans for the construction of the Spring Temple Buddha were announced soon after the blowing up of the Bamiyan Buddhas and China condemned the systematic destruction of the Buddhist heritage of Afghanistan.
The smaller of the statues was built between 544 and 595, the larger was built between 591 and 644.[8] They are believed to have been built by the Kushans, with the guidance of local Buddhist monks, at the heyday of their empire. The larger figure was also said to portray Dīpankara Buddha. They were perhaps the most famous cultural landmarks of the region, and the site was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the surrounding cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley.
The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang passed through the area around 630, and described Bamiyan in the Da Tang Xiyu Ji as a flourishing Buddhist center "with more than ten monasteries and more than a thousand monks". He also noted that both Buddha figures were "decorated with gold and fine jewels" (Wriggins, 1995). Intriguingly, Xuanzang mentions a third, even larger, reclining statue of the Buddha. A monumental seated Buddha, similar in style to those at Bamiyan, still exists in the Bingling Temple caves in China’s Gansu province.
The destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas became a symbol of oppression and a rallying point for the freedom of religious expression. Despite the fact that most Afghans are now Muslim, they too had embraced their past and many were appalled by the destruction.
Attacks on the Buddha’s statue 11th to the 20th centuryThe enormous statues, the male Salsal ("light shines through the universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"),as they were called by the locals, did not fail to fire the imagination of Islamic writers in centuries past. The larger statue reappears as the malevolent giant Salsal in medieval Turkish tales.
Preface to 2001, under the TalibanAbdul Wahed, a Taliban commander operating in the area, announced his intention to blow up the Buddhas in 1997 even before he had taken control of the valley. Once he was in control of Bamiyan in 1998, Wahed drilled holes in the Buddhas’ heads for explosives. He was prevented from taking further action by the local governor and direct order of Mullah Omar, although tyres were burnt on the head of the great Buddha.In July 1999, Mullah Mohammed Omar issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamiyan Buddha’s statue. Because Afghanistan’s Buddhist population no longer exists, which removed the possibility of the statues being worshiped, he added: "The government considers the Bamiyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamiyan shall not be destroyed but protected."asked for UN assistance to rebuild drainage ditches around tops of the alcoves in which the Buddhas were set.
However, Afghanistan’s radical clerics began a campaign to crack down on "un-Islamic" segments of Afghan society. The Taliban soon banned all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television, in accordance with what they considered a strict interpretation of Sharia.
Information and Culture Minister Qadratullah Jamal told Associated Press of a decision by 400 religious clerics from across Afghanistan declaring the Buddhist statues against the tenets of Islam. "They came out with a consensus that the statues were against Islam," said Jamal.
According to UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, a meeting of ambassadors from the 54 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was conducted. All OIC states – including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three countries that officially recognised the Taliban government – joined the protest to spare the monuments. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates later condemned the destruction as "savage". Although India never recognised the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, New Delhi offered to arrange for the transfer of all the artifacts in question to India, "where they would be kept safely and preserved for all mankind.", but these overtures were rejected by the Taliban. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf sent Moinuddin Haider to Kabul to try to prevent the destruction, by arguing that it was un-Islamic and unprecedented. According to Taliban minister, Abdul Salam Zaeef, UNESCO sent the Taliban government 36 letters objecting to the proposed destruction. He asserted that the Chinese, Japanese and Sri Lankan delegates were the most strident advocates for preserving the Buddhas. The Japanese in particular proposed a variety of different solutions to the issue, these included removing the statues to Japan, covering the statues from view and the payment of money.
A statement issued by the ministry of religious affairs of Taliban regime justified the destruction as being in accordance with Islamic law. Abdul Salam Zaeef held that the destruction of the Buddhas was finally ordered by Abdul Wali, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Dynamiting and destruction, March 2001
Destruction of the site by the Taliban
Site of the larger statue after it was destroyed
Site of the smaller statue in 2005 after it was destroyedThe statues were destroyed by dynamite over several weeks, starting on March 2, 2001,carried out in different stages. Initially, the statues were fired at for several days using anti-aircraft guns and artillery. This caused severe damage, but did not obliterate them. During the destruction, Taliban Information Minister Qudratullah Jamal lamented that, "this work of destruction is not as simple as people might think. You can’t knock down the statues by shelling as both are carved into a cliff; they are firmly attached to the mountain."Later, the Taliban placed anti-tank mines at the bottom of the niches, so that when fragments of rock broke off from artillery fire, the statues would receive additional destruction from particles that set off the mines. In the end, the Taliban lowered men down the cliff face and placed explosives into holes in the Buddhas. After one of the explosions failed to completely obliterate the face of one of the Buddhas, a rocket was launched which left a hole in the remains of the stone head.
On 6 March 2001 The Times quoted Mullah Mohammed Omar as stating, "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to God that we have destroyed them." During a 13 March interview for Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun, Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel stated that the destruction was anything but a retaliation against the international community for economic sanctions: "We are destroying the statues in accordance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue".
On 18 March, The New York Times reported that a Taliban envoy said the Islamic government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation offered money to preserve the ancient works. The report also added, however, that other reports "have said the religious leaders were debating the move for months, and ultimately decided that the statues were idolatrous and should be obliterated."
Then Taliban ambassador-at-large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, said that the destruction of the statues was carried out by the Head Council of Scholars after a single Swedish monuments expert proposed to restore the statues’ heads. Hashimi is reported as saying: "When the Afghan head council asked them to provide the money to feed the children instead of fixing the statues, they refused and said, ‘No, the money is just for the statues, not for the children’. Herein, they made the decision to destroy the statues"; however, he did not comment on the claim that a foreign museum offered to "buy the Buddhist statues, the money from which could have been used to feed children.". However, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was a much more difficult event than that it can be simply summarized as fundamentalist vandalism. To the contrary, a detailed study of the event from a transcultural perspective might conceptualize this tragic event – six months before 9/11 – as one of the first acts of performative iconoclasm in the age of the internet (broadcasted on utube until today). The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in front of the helpless international community was therefore also an attack against the globalizing concept of "cultural heritage".
Commitment to rebuildThough the figures of the two large Buddhas are almost completely destroyed, their outlines and some features are still recognizable within the recesses. It is also still possible for visitors to explore the monks’ caves and the passages which connect them. As part of the international effort to rebuild Afghanistan after the Taliban war, the Government of Japan and several other organizations, among them the Afghanistan Institute in Bubendorf, Switzerland, along with the ETH in Zurich, have committed to rebuilding, perhaps by anastylosis, the two largest Buddhas.
Developments since 2002In May 2002, a mountainside sculpture of the Buddha was carved out of a mountain in Sri Lanka. It was designed to closely resemble one of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
The Afghan government has commissioned Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata to recreate the Bamiyan Buddhas using fourteen laser systems to project the images of the Buddhas onto the cliff where they once stood. The laser systems will be solar and wind-powered. The project, which will cost an estimated million, is currently pending UNESCO approval. If approved, the project is estimated to be completed by June 2012.
In September 2005, Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, Taliban governor of Bamiyan province at the time of the destruction and widely seen as responsible for its occurrence, was elected to the Afghan Parliament. On 26 January 2007, he was assassinated in Kabul.
Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei made a 95-minute documentary titled The Giant Buddhas (released in March 2006) on the statues, the international reactions to their destruction, and an overview of the controversy. Testimonies by local Afghans are recorded which validate that the destruction was ordered by Osama Bin Laden and that initially, Mullah Omar and the Afghans in Bamiyan had opposed the destruction.
Since 2002, international funding has supported recovery and stabilization efforts at the site. Fragments of the statues are documented and stored with special attention given to securing the structure of the statue still in place. It is hoped that, in the future, partial anastylosis can be conducted with the remaining fragments. In 2009, ICOMOS constructed scaffolding within the niche to further conservation and stabilization. Nonetheless, several serious conservation and safety issues exist and the Buddhas are still listed as World Heritage in Danger.
In the summer of 2006, Afghan officials were deciding on the timetable for the re-construction of the statues. As they wait for the Afghan government and international community to decide when to rebuild them, a .3 million UNESCO-funded project is sorting out the chunks of clay and plaster — ranging from boulders weighing several tons to fragments the size of tennis balls — and sheltering them from the elements.
The Buddhist remnants at Bamiyan were included on the 2008 World Monuments Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites by the World Monuments Fund.
Oil painting discoveryAfter the destruction of the Buddhas, 50 caves were revealed. In 12 of the caves wall paintings were discovered.In December 2004, an international team of researchers stated the wall paintings at Bamiyan were painted between the 5th and the 9th centuries, rather than the 6th to 8th centuries, citing their analysis of radioactive isotopes contained in straw fibers found beneath the paintings. It is believed that the paintings were done by artists travelling on the Silk Road, the trade route between China and the West.
Scientists from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo (Japan), the Centre of Research and Restoration of the French Museums-CNRS (France), the Getty Conservation Institute (United States) and the ESRF (the European Synchrotron radiation facility) in Grenoble analysed samples from the paintings, typically less than 1 mm across. They discovered that the paint contained pigments such as vermilion (red mercury sulfide) and lead white (lead carbonate). These were mixed with a range of binders, including natural resins, gums (possibly animal skin glue or egg) and oils, probably derived from walnuts or poppies.Specifically, researchers identified drying oils from murals showing Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures as being painted in the middle of the 7th century.It is believed that they are the oldest known surviving examples of oil painting, possibly predating oil painting in Europe by as much as six centuries.The discovery may lead to a reassessment of works in ancient ruins in Iran, China, Pakistan, Turkey and India.
Initial suspicion that the oils might be attributable to contamination from fingers, as the touching of the painting is encouraged in Buddhist tradition, was dispelled by spectroscopy and chromatography giving an unambiguous signal for the intentional use of drying oils rather than contaminants. Oils were discovered underneath layers of paint, unlike surface contaminants.
Another giant statue unearthedOn 8 September 2008 archeologists searching for a legendary 300-metre statue at the site of the already dynamited Buddhas announced the discovery of an unknown 19-metre (62-foot) reclining Buddha, a pose representing Buddha’s passage into nirvana.
RestorationThe UNESCO Expert Working Group on Afghan cultural projects convened to discuss what to do about the two statues between 3–4 March 2011 in Paris. Researcher Erwin Emmerling of Technical University Munich announced he believed it would be possible restore the smaller statue using an organic silicon compound.
The Paris conference issued a list of 39 recommendations for the safeguarding of the Bamiyan site. These included leaving the larger Western niche empty as a monument to the destruction of the Buddhas, a feasibility study into the rebuilding of the Eastern Buddha, and the construction of a central museum and several smaller site museums.
Work has since begun on restoring the Buddhas using the process of anastylosis, where original elements are combined with modern material. It is estimated that roughly half the pieces of the Buddhas can be put back together according to Bert Praxenthaler, a German art historian and sculptor involved in the restoration. The project, which also aims to encourage tourism to the area, is being organised by two organisations, UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). The work has come under some criticism. It is felt by some that the empty niches should be left as monuments to the fanaticism of the Taliban, while others believe the money could be better spent on housing and electricity for the region.
Bamiyan is at an altitude of about 9,200 feet (2,800 m) and with a population of about 61,863, is the largest town in the region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan and the capital of Bamyan Province. It lies approximately 240 kilometres north-west of Kabul, the national capital. Bamyan was the site of an early Hindu–Buddhist monastery from which Bamyan takes its name (Sanskrit varmayana, "coloured"). Many statues of Buddha are carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. In 2008, Bamyan was found to be the home of some of the world’s oldest oil paintings.
GeographySituated on the ancient Silk Road, the town was at the crossroads between the East and West when all trade between China and the Middle East passed through it. The Hunas made it their capital in the 5th century. Because of the cliff of the Buddhas, the ruins of the Monk’s caves, Shar-i-Gholghola (‘City of Sighs’, the ruins of an ancient city destroyed by Genghis Khan), and its local scenery, it is one of the most visited places in Afghanistan. The Shar-i-Zohak mound ten miles south of the valley is the site of a citadel that guarded the city, and the ruins of an acropolis could be found there as recently as the 1990s.
The town is the cultural center of the Hazara ethnic group of Afghanistan. Most of the population lives in downtown Bamyan. The valley is cradled between the parallel mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba.
Bamyan is a small town with a bazaar at its center. It has no infrastructure of electricity, gas, or water supplies. According to Sister Cities International, Bamyan has established a sister city relationship with Gering, Nebraska, United States. It has an airport with a gravel runway.
Mountains cover ninety percent of the province, and the cold, long winter, lasting for six months, brings temperatures of three to twenty degrees Celsius below zero. Mainly Daizangi people live in the area. Transportation facilities are increasing, but sparse.
The main crops are wheat, barley, mushung, and baquli, grown in spring. When crops are damaged by unusually harsh weather, residents herd their livestock down to Ghazni and Maidan Provinces to exchange for food.
Bamiyan’s climate is transitional between arid (Köppen BWk) and semi-arid (Köppen BSk). Winters are short but cold, while summers are very warm and dry.
History
Bamyan in 600 AD, capital of a Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdom.
The city of Bamyan was part of the Buddhist Kushan Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era. After the Kushan Empire fell to the Sassanids, Bamyan became part of the Kushansha, vassals to the Sassanids. The Hephthalites conquered Bamyan in the 5th century. After their Khanate was destroyed by the Sassanids and Turks in 565, Bamyan became the capital of the small Kushano-Hephthalite kingdom until 870, when it was conquered by the Saffarids. The area was conquered by the Ghaznavids in the 11th century.
For decades, Bamyan has been the center of combat between zealous Muslim Taliban forces and the anti-Taliban alliance – mainly Hizb-i-Wahdat – amid clashes among the warlords of local militia. Bamyan is also known as the capital of Daizangi.

Destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan


Image by james_gordon_los_angeles
The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (140 mi) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507 AD, the larger in 554 AD,the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.
The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which was worn away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.
The lower parts of the statues’ arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix while supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs were spaces that held wooden pegs which served to stabilize the outer stucco.
They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were "idols".International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban. Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues.
History
Bamiyan lies on the Silk Road which lies in the Hindu Kush mountain region, in the Bamiyan Valley. The Silk Road is a caravan route linking the markets of China with those of Western Asia. Until the 11th century, Bamiyan was part of the kingdom of Gandhara. It was the site of several Buddhist monasteries, and a thriving center for religion, philosophy, and Indian art. It was a Buddhist religious site from the 2nd century up to the time of the Islamic invasion in the 9th century. Monks at the monasteries lived as hermits in small caves carved into the side of the Bamiyan cliffs. Many of these monks embellished their caves with religious statuary and elaborate, brightly colored frescoes.
The two most prominent statues were the giant standing Buddhas Vairocana and Sakyamuni, identified by the different mudras performed, measuring 55 and 37 metres (180 and 121 feet) high respectively. Before being blown up in 2001 they were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world (the 8th century Leshan Giant Buddha is taller,[7] but the statue is sitting). Since then the Spring Temple Buddha has been built in China, and at 128 m (420 ft) it is the tallest statue in the world. Plans for the construction of the Spring Temple Buddha were announced soon after the blowing up of the Bamiyan Buddhas and China condemned the systematic destruction of the Buddhist heritage of Afghanistan.
The smaller of the statues was built between 544 and 595, the larger was built between 591 and 644.[8] They are believed to have been built by the Kushans, with the guidance of local Buddhist monks, at the heyday of their empire. The larger figure was also said to portray Dīpankara Buddha. They were perhaps the most famous cultural landmarks of the region, and the site was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the surrounding cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley.
The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang passed through the area around 630, and described Bamiyan in the Da Tang Xiyu Ji as a flourishing Buddhist center "with more than ten monasteries and more than a thousand monks". He also noted that both Buddha figures were "decorated with gold and fine jewels" (Wriggins, 1995). Intriguingly, Xuanzang mentions a third, even larger, reclining statue of the Buddha. A monumental seated Buddha, similar in style to those at Bamiyan, still exists in the Bingling Temple caves in China’s Gansu province.
The destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas became a symbol of oppression and a rallying point for the freedom of religious expression. Despite the fact that most Afghans are now Muslim, they too had embraced their past and many were appalled by the destruction.
Attacks on the Buddha’s statue 11th to the 20th centuryThe enormous statues, the male Salsal ("light shines through the universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"),as they were called by the locals, did not fail to fire the imagination of Islamic writers in centuries past. The larger statue reappears as the malevolent giant Salsal in medieval Turkish tales.
Preface to 2001, under the TalibanAbdul Wahed, a Taliban commander operating in the area, announced his intention to blow up the Buddhas in 1997 even before he had taken control of the valley. Once he was in control of Bamiyan in 1998, Wahed drilled holes in the Buddhas’ heads for explosives. He was prevented from taking further action by the local governor and direct order of Mullah Omar, although tyres were burnt on the head of the great Buddha.In July 1999, Mullah Mohammed Omar issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamiyan Buddha’s statue. Because Afghanistan’s Buddhist population no longer exists, which removed the possibility of the statues being worshiped, he added: "The government considers the Bamiyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamiyan shall not be destroyed but protected."asked for UN assistance to rebuild drainage ditches around tops of the alcoves in which the Buddhas were set.
However, Afghanistan’s radical clerics began a campaign to crack down on "un-Islamic" segments of Afghan society. The Taliban soon banned all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television, in accordance with what they considered a strict interpretation of Sharia.
Information and Culture Minister Qadratullah Jamal told Associated Press of a decision by 400 religious clerics from across Afghanistan declaring the Buddhist statues against the tenets of Islam. "They came out with a consensus that the statues were against Islam," said Jamal.
According to UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, a meeting of ambassadors from the 54 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was conducted. All OIC states – including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three countries that officially recognised the Taliban government – joined the protest to spare the monuments. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates later condemned the destruction as "savage". Although India never recognised the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, New Delhi offered to arrange for the transfer of all the artifacts in question to India, "where they would be kept safely and preserved for all mankind.", but these overtures were rejected by the Taliban. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf sent Moinuddin Haider to Kabul to try to prevent the destruction, by arguing that it was un-Islamic and unprecedented. According to Taliban minister, Abdul Salam Zaeef, UNESCO sent the Taliban government 36 letters objecting to the proposed destruction. He asserted that the Chinese, Japanese and Sri Lankan delegates were the most strident advocates for preserving the Buddhas. The Japanese in particular proposed a variety of different solutions to the issue, these included removing the statues to Japan, covering the statues from view and the payment of money.
A statement issued by the ministry of religious affairs of Taliban regime justified the destruction as being in accordance with Islamic law. Abdul Salam Zaeef held that the destruction of the Buddhas was finally ordered by Abdul Wali, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Dynamiting and destruction, March 2001
Destruction of the site by the Taliban
Site of the larger statue after it was destroyed
Site of the smaller statue in 2005 after it was destroyedThe statues were destroyed by dynamite over several weeks, starting on March 2, 2001,carried out in different stages. Initially, the statues were fired at for several days using anti-aircraft guns and artillery. This caused severe damage, but did not obliterate them. During the destruction, Taliban Information Minister Qudratullah Jamal lamented that, "this work of destruction is not as simple as people might think. You can’t knock down the statues by shelling as both are carved into a cliff; they are firmly attached to the mountain."Later, the Taliban placed anti-tank mines at the bottom of the niches, so that when fragments of rock broke off from artillery fire, the statues would receive additional destruction from particles that set off the mines. In the end, the Taliban lowered men down the cliff face and placed explosives into holes in the Buddhas. After one of the explosions failed to completely obliterate the face of one of the Buddhas, a rocket was launched which left a hole in the remains of the stone head.
On 6 March 2001 The Times quoted Mullah Mohammed Omar as stating, "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to God that we have destroyed them." During a 13 March interview for Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun, Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel stated that the destruction was anything but a retaliation against the international community for economic sanctions: "We are destroying the statues in accordance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue".
On 18 March, The New York Times reported that a Taliban envoy said the Islamic government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation offered money to preserve the ancient works. The report also added, however, that other reports "have said the religious leaders were debating the move for months, and ultimately decided that the statues were idolatrous and should be obliterated."
Then Taliban ambassador-at-large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, said that the destruction of the statues was carried out by the Head Council of Scholars after a single Swedish monuments expert proposed to restore the statues’ heads. Hashimi is reported as saying: "When the Afghan head council asked them to provide the money to feed the children instead of fixing the statues, they refused and said, ‘No, the money is just for the statues, not for the children’. Herein, they made the decision to destroy the statues"; however, he did not comment on the claim that a foreign museum offered to "buy the Buddhist statues, the money from which could have been used to feed children.". However, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was a much more difficult event than that it can be simply summarized as fundamentalist vandalism. To the contrary, a detailed study of the event from a transcultural perspective might conceptualize this tragic event – six months before 9/11 – as one of the first acts of performative iconoclasm in the age of the internet (broadcasted on utube until today). The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in front of the helpless international community was therefore also an attack against the globalizing concept of "cultural heritage".
Commitment to rebuildThough the figures of the two large Buddhas are almost completely destroyed, their outlines and some features are still recognizable within the recesses. It is also still possible for visitors to explore the monks’ caves and the passages which connect them. As part of the international effort to rebuild Afghanistan after the Taliban war, the Government of Japan and several other organizations, among them the Afghanistan Institute in Bubendorf, Switzerland, along with the ETH in Zurich, have committed to rebuilding, perhaps by anastylosis, the two largest Buddhas.
Developments since 2002In May 2002, a mountainside sculpture of the Buddha was carved out of a mountain in Sri Lanka. It was designed to closely resemble one of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
The Afghan government has commissioned Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata to recreate the Bamiyan Buddhas using fourteen laser systems to project the images of the Buddhas onto the cliff where they once stood. The laser systems will be solar and wind-powered. The project, which will cost an estimated million, is currently pending UNESCO approval. If approved, the project is estimated to be completed by June 2012.
In September 2005, Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, Taliban governor of Bamiyan province at the time of the destruction and widely seen as responsible for its occurrence, was elected to the Afghan Parliament. On 26 January 2007, he was assassinated in Kabul.
Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei made a 95-minute documentary titled The Giant Buddhas (released in March 2006) on the statues, the international reactions to their destruction, and an overview of the controversy. Testimonies by local Afghans are recorded which validate that the destruction was ordered by Osama Bin Laden and that initially, Mullah Omar and the Afghans in Bamiyan had opposed the destruction.
Since 2002, international funding has supported recovery and stabilization efforts at the site. Fragments of the statues are documented and stored with special attention given to securing the structure of the statue still in place. It is hoped that, in the future, partial anastylosis can be conducted with the remaining fragments. In 2009, ICOMOS constructed scaffolding within the niche to further conservation and stabilization. Nonetheless, several serious conservation and safety issues exist and the Buddhas are still listed as World Heritage in Danger.
In the summer of 2006, Afghan officials were deciding on the timetable for the re-construction of the statues. As they wait for the Afghan government and international community to decide when to rebuild them, a .3 million UNESCO-funded project is sorting out the chunks of clay and plaster — ranging from boulders weighing several tons to fragments the size of tennis balls — and sheltering them from the elements.
The Buddhist remnants at Bamiyan were included on the 2008 World Monuments Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites by the World Monuments Fund.
Oil painting discoveryAfter the destruction of the Buddhas, 50 caves were revealed. In 12 of the caves wall paintings were discovered.In December 2004, an international team of researchers stated the wall paintings at Bamiyan were painted between the 5th and the 9th centuries, rather than the 6th to 8th centuries, citing their analysis of radioactive isotopes contained in straw fibers found beneath the paintings. It is believed that the paintings were done by artists travelling on the Silk Road, the trade route between China and the West.
Scientists from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo (Japan), the Centre of Research and Restoration of the French Museums-CNRS (France), the Getty Conservation Institute (United States) and the ESRF (the European Synchrotron radiation facility) in Grenoble analysed samples from the paintings, typically less than 1 mm across. They discovered that the paint contained pigments such as vermilion (red mercury sulfide) and lead white (lead carbonate). These were mixed with a range of binders, including natural resins, gums (possibly animal skin glue or egg) and oils, probably derived from walnuts or poppies.Specifically, researchers identified drying oils from murals showing Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures as being painted in the middle of the 7th century.It is believed that they are the oldest known surviving examples of oil painting, possibly predating oil painting in Europe by as much as six centuries.The discovery may lead to a reassessment of works in ancient ruins in Iran, China, Pakistan, Turkey and India.
Initial suspicion that the oils might be attributable to contamination from fingers, as the touching of the painting is encouraged in Buddhist tradition, was dispelled by spectroscopy and chromatography giving an unambiguous signal for the intentional use of drying oils rather than contaminants. Oils were discovered underneath layers of paint, unlike surface contaminants.
Another giant statue unearthedOn 8 September 2008 archeologists searching for a legendary 300-metre statue at the site of the already dynamited Buddhas announced the discovery of an unknown 19-metre (62-foot) reclining Buddha, a pose representing Buddha’s passage into nirvana.
RestorationThe UNESCO Expert Working Group on Afghan cultural projects convened to discuss what to do about the two statues between 3–4 March 2011 in Paris. Researcher Erwin Emmerling of Technical University Munich announced he believed it would be possible restore the smaller statue using an organic silicon compound.
The Paris conference issued a list of 39 recommendations for the safeguarding of the Bamiyan site. These included leaving the larger Western niche empty as a monument to the destruction of the Buddhas, a feasibility study into the rebuilding of the Eastern Buddha, and the construction of a central museum and several smaller site museums.
Work has since begun on restoring the Buddhas using the process of anastylosis, where original elements are combined with modern material. It is estimated that roughly half the pieces of the Buddhas can be put back together according to Bert Praxenthaler, a German art historian and sculptor involved in the restoration. The project, which also aims to encourage tourism to the area, is being organised by two organisations, UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). The work has come under some criticism. It is felt by some that the empty niches should be left as monuments to the fanaticism of the Taliban, while others believe the money could be better spent on housing and electricity for the region.
Bamiyan is at an altitude of about 9,200 feet (2,800 m) and with a population of about 61,863, is the largest town in the region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan and the capital of Bamyan Province. It lies approximately 240 kilometres north-west of Kabul, the national capital. Bamyan was the site of an early Hindu–Buddhist monastery from which Bamyan takes its name (Sanskrit varmayana, "coloured"). Many statues of Buddha are carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. In 2008, Bamyan was found to be the home of some of the world’s oldest oil paintings.
GeographySituated on the ancient Silk Road, the town was at the crossroads between the East and West when all trade between China and the Middle East passed through it. The Hunas made it their capital in the 5th century. Because of the cliff of the Buddhas, the ruins of the Monk’s caves, Shar-i-Gholghola (‘City of Sighs’, the ruins of an ancient city destroyed by Genghis Khan), and its local scenery, it is one of the most visited places in Afghanistan. The Shar-i-Zohak mound ten miles south of the valley is the site of a citadel that guarded the city, and the ruins of an acropolis could be found there as recently as the 1990s.
The town is the cultural center of the Hazara ethnic group of Afghanistan. Most of the population lives in downtown Bamyan. The valley is cradled between the parallel mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba.
Bamyan is a small town with a bazaar at its center. It has no infrastructure of electricity, gas, or water supplies. According to Sister Cities International, Bamyan has established a sister city relationship with Gering, Nebraska, United States. It has an airport with a gravel runway.
Mountains cover ninety percent of the province, and the cold, long winter, lasting for six months, brings temperatures of three to twenty degrees Celsius below zero. Mainly Daizangi people live in the area. Transportation facilities are increasing, but sparse.
The main crops are wheat, barley, mushung, and baquli, grown in spring. When crops are damaged by unusually harsh weather, residents herd their livestock down to Ghazni and Maidan Provinces to exchange for food.
Bamiyan’s climate is transitional between arid (Köppen BWk) and semi-arid (Köppen BSk). Winters are short but cold, while summers are very warm and dry.
History
Bamyan in 600 AD, capital of a Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdom.
The city of Bamyan was part of the Buddhist Kushan Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era. After the Kushan Empire fell to the Sassanids, Bamyan became part of the Kushansha, vassals to the Sassanids. The Hephthalites conquered Bamyan in the 5th century. After their Khanate was destroyed by the Sassanids and Turks in 565, Bamyan became the capital of the small Kushano-Hephthalite kingdom until 870, when it was conquered by the Saffarids. The area was conquered by the Ghaznavids in the 11th century.
For decades, Bamyan has been the center of combat between zealous Muslim Taliban forces and the anti-Taliban alliance – mainly Hizb-i-Wahdat – amid clashes among the warlords of local militia. Bamyan is also known as the capital of Daizangi.

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