The Egyptian Muslim Statue of Liberty!

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY: WAS ORIGINALLY A MUSLIM WOMAN!

The statue, originally called ?The New Colossus,? had IN FACT been fashioned after a woman who was born in EGYPT!!!

The Statue of Liberty is a POTENT American symbol for immigrants worldwide. It is often invoked as an argument for why we SHOULD usher into the United States ALL those who seek safety and opportunity with open arms. Though, the United States has debated immigration since the VERY BEGINNING of the country's founding. A little known fact about Lady Liberty adds an intriguing twist to current days' debates about refugees from Muslim countries. The statue itself had ORIGINALLY been intended to represent a female EGYPTIAN PEASANT as the ?Colossus of Rhodes? for the Industrial Age. This may be surprising to those people who are more familiar with the statue's FRENCH roots, rather than its Arab one. The statue's structure had been designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel ?yes, that Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower and was given to the United States by France for its Centennial anniversary and is celebration of the alliance between the two countries, which formed during the French Revolution. The statue designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, had also been French. But he found inspiration in a very different place: EGYPT.

In 1855, Bartholdi had visited the Nubian monuments at Abu Simbel, which features tombs guarded by GIGANTIC colossus figures. He had become FASCINATED by the ancient architecture and then developed what the National Park Service had called a, ?Passion for LARGE scale public monuments and colossal structures.?

Eventually, Bartholdi had channeled that passion into a proposal for the inauguration of the Suez Canal. He had envisioned a colossal monument, featuring a robe clad woman which would represent Egypt at Port Said. Port Said is the city at the northern terminus of the canal in Egypt. In preparation for this undertaking, an author of MULTIPLE books about the statue, Barry Moreno, had written that Bartholdi had studied VARIOUS art like the Colossus and had honed the concept for a figure called ?Libertas,? which would stand at the canal.

?Taking the form of a veiled peasant woman,? writes Moreno, ?the statue was to stand 86 feet high, and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet.”

Early models of the statue had been called ?Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia.?

Edward Berenson, author of "A Translatlantic Story," had written that Bartholdi's concept morphed from, ?A gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant? into ?a colossal goddess.?

Regardless of what ANYONE views her as or calls her today, it stands that SHE IS MUSLIM, NONE THE LEST.

Egypt had invested ENORMOUS amounts of time and money into the landmark canal and had NOT been as eager about Bartholdi's idea. Ismail Pasha, the reigning Khedive in this days, had rejected the plan as being too costly. Eventually, a 180ft tall lighthouse had been installed at Port Said instead. REGARDLESS, Bartholdi had NOT discouraged. He eventually repurposed his concept into what he then called, ?Liberty Enlightening the World,? the statute's OFFICIAL name. The statue we know today as ?The Statue of Liberty? has been overlooking the New York Harbor since 1886.