Marwa Abdelsaddig

Pd:2
Ap World
6/4/15

The Luxor Massacre

In 1997 a horrific and unnecessary act occurred in Hatshepsut's Temple in Egypt. It was
an attack against tourists and basically against westernization in Egypt. On November 17,1997
six gun men hid out in Hatshepsuts temple and waited for the tourists to arrive. Once they did
arrive the gunmen started shooting everything in sight. The shooting went on for a whole forty
minutes with police nowhere in sight. There were in total 62 deaths not including the shooters
who were later found and killed. The gunmen were believed to be from the terrorist group known
as The Islamic Group. They are against having tourists in Egypt because they fear that they will
bring Westernization into Egypt. The Islamic Group has always been anti-western. They are very
religious and do not believe in western values or beliefs. They want to stick to the traditional
values and do not want any change. They would not like Egypt to move towards the modern
times because they believe that traditional values are the best values.
Many extremist Muslim groups exist today, including the Islamic Group, and they all do
not want westernization or any thing to do with modernizing. They have always had a hatred
towards America and because of this they do not want their countries to be anything like the
United States. They take Islam to the extreme and most muslims do not believe in their tactics to
get what they want. They believe in killing innocent people to get what they want, which is
against Islamic law. Most muslims believe in peace and equality amongst all people and violence
is only turned to when there is no other choice. People believe that all muslims have the same
ideals as the extremist muslims but that is not the case, all other muslims believe that what the

Marwa Abdelsaddig
Pd:2
Ap World
6/4/15

islamic extremist groups are doing is wrong because they are killing innocent lives to get their
thoughts across, which is never justified.
Most parts of Egypt today are very modernized and westernized. This is what the Islamic
Group does not want. They would like Egypt to stick with traditional ideals and never be the
same as the United States. They believe that if Egypt modernizes then people will forget about
their religion and start going against it. Islamic extremist groups have a very conservative view
of pretty much everything. One of the reasons why they do not want to modernize is because
they believe that women should be covered from head to toe and that they should always obey
their husbands and never go against him even if they think what he is doing is wrong. They
basically believe that women should have no rights or say in anything. this is one of the reasons
why they do not want to modernize, because now women have equal rights and are independent.
The Islamic Group is also responsible for many other terrorist acts in Egypt such as the
overthrow of the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state which caused many
innocent people to die because they were peacefully protesting. This was not fair to many people
because Egypt has many Christians in its population and if they had an Islamic controlled
government then they would not be equally represented. The Luxor massacre though was one of
the deadly and tragic acts the Islamic Group committed. Many innocent lives were lost simply
because they did not believe that Egypt should allow tourism anymore. This act was unnecessary

Marwa Abdelsaddig
Pd:2
Ap World
6/4/15

and way too violent. Not only did the Islamic Group shoot almost everyone in sight they also
mutilated them with butcher knives. They shot everyone then they went back and cut them open
with the knives which rendered most of the people unrecognizable. It was eventually concluded
that this act was committed by the Islamic Group because they cut out the insides of one
Japanese tourist and left a pamphlet inside his body that detailed why they committed this act
and it was signed by one of the known leaders of the Islamic Group. They wrote that they do not
want any more tourism coming into Egypt no matter where they come from because they do not
want them spreading wrong ideals.
In conclusion, the Luxor massacre was a very deadly and unnecessary act of terrorism by
The Islamic Group. They are a terrorist group that is very conservative that believes in extreme
violence and old ideals. They do not want to modernize in fear that the people will lose their
sense of religion and will start not following the rules of Islam. They consider themselves
muslim but in the rules of Islam it states that killing innocent people is never okay and war is
only justifiable when it is the only thing that you can turn to. In total the Islamic Group killed 62
innocent people that day for no good reason. They do have a right to voice their opinions but if
they do it with violence nobody will respect them.

Marwa Abdelsaddig
Pd:2
Ap World
6/4/15

Works Cited
Lancaster, John. "Gunmen Kill 60 in Massacre At Egyptian Tourist Facility." - The Tech. N.p., 18
Nov. 1997. Web. 03 June 2015.

"Luxor Massacre." (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

"Terrorism Update." Terrorism Update - Focus. N.p., Jan. 1998. Web. 03 June 2015.