Al-Aziz Uthman was the king of Egypt from 4 March 1193 to 29 November 1198. He was the second ruler of the Ayyubid dynasty. His father Saladin was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and one of the most heroic historical figures in the Middle East due to his role in defeating the crusaders of Europe.
Al-Aziz grew up to be a highly religious person. He became the ruler of Egypt when he was only 22 years old. During his reign, the Great Pyramids of Giza located in Egypt were considered to be one of the wonders of the world like how it is today. However, Al-Aziz believed that the existence of the pyramids was against his religion. So he decided to order the destruction of the pyramids.
A large number of stonemasons and workers were employed for the destruction of the pyramids. The workers put in their best efforts to destroy the pyramids. They kept destroying the stones of the pyramids every day for eight months. The stones used to build the pyramids were massive in size. For this reason, the process to destroy each stone of the pyramid was a painful and exhausting process. Whenever a heavy stone of the pyramid fell to the ground, it would sink to the sand and a lot of effort had to be made to remove it from the ground.
After spending a lot of money for eight long months, Al-Aziz came across a harsh realization. He realized that the cost of destroying the pyramids would be as much as the cost it took to build them. This made people realize that the construction techniques used by the ancient Egyptians were of such high quality that the plan of destroying the pyramids had to be abandoned after eight months. The evidence of the attempted destruction of the pyramids, a large vertical gash, can still be seen today.
Originally published at https://original.newsbreak.com.
