Eckart Frahm, professor of Assyriology at Yale University, sees a pattern in the targeting of religious shrines before the more blatantly political attacks on ancient monuments. “Isis is strongly opposed to the idea of nation states built upon . . . [pre-Islamic] traditions, and therefore seeks to destroy the material remains of those traditions,” he says. Danti explains a further complexity: the way in which jihadi ideology promotes the notion that its members are engaged in tasfiya, the cleansing of Islam of foreign or corrupting elements. “The majority of their deliberate attacks target Islamic heritage deemed as bidaa (innovative/heretical) and shirk (idolatrous/polytheistic). Their attacks on pre-Islamic heritage stem from their belief that they must destroy anything deemed shirk. They are fond of citing passages of the Koran that describe Abraham’s destruction of idols to legitimise their actions.” - www.ft.com