(The Myth of the Torment Of the Grave)

Book (The Myth of the Torment Of the Grave)

Table of contents

Section 1

An Interview about the Myth of the Torment of the Grave

Section 2: (The Book)

 Introduction

Preface

Written within the first and last paper edition:

  CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

Conclusion:

Section 1: An Interview about the Myth of the Torment of the Grave

An Old Interview with Dr. A. S. Mansour, Published in Al-Midan Newspaper, in Egypt, in the 1990s, about the Myth of the Torment of the Grave and Lies of the Bald-Snake Sheikhs

Published in February 18, 2014

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

(N.B.: this interview was published before on several websites before we have launched our Quranism website ahl-alquran.com, where now all of our articles published before on any website are found. Because of the fact that they are so many articles and so many attempts of hackers to destroy our website, some articles were partially copied and some disappeared, while others lost their format; we've managed to retrieve all of them in a neat manner, including the one you are reading now, and Mr. Muhammad Dandan is the one to notify us that this article has been deleted by hackers, though its previous readership reached more than 57657 hits, and he made a thorough check on all articles within our archive to make sure everything is OK. We now re-publish the complete version of this article/interview, with due thanks to Mr. Muhammad Dandan; God bless him.)

Introduction:

1- In 1993, the first and last paper edition of our book titled "The Myth of the Torment Of the Grave" emerged in Cairo, Egypt, and we have refuted in it this falsehood that the dead sinners are being tortured in their tombs by a mythical creature called the bald snake, a lie concocted by Middle-Ages imams which has nothing to do with Islam (i.e., Quranism), and we have proven how this lie has its Pharaonic mythological roots. This book has caused a tremendous shock, and this is typical of most of our writings in general, as our reformist writings trouble very much the sheikhs of the bald snake who terrify and intimidate people by such tales and myths of the so-called torment of the grave so as to gain authority and control over the gullible masses among the Muhammadans, while contradicting the Quran on purpose to get transient gains, power, and wealth and help impose theocracy on Egyptians and Arabs later on. Thus, clergymen live off spreading obscurantism and ignorance settled in minds of the masses in the form of 'sanctified' and 'hallowed' myths that no one before us had the courage to refute and expose by discussing them in light of the Quran and the methodology of reasonable minds ordained in Islam (Quranism).

2- Reactions to this book led Azharite clergy to author articles to verbally abuse us virulently and to attempt to refute the book; even sheikhs of mausoleums and tombs hate us for writing this book. We never gain any intellectual benefit from reactions and writings of Azharite clergy, as they repeat the same naïve superficial statements ad infinitum ad nauseam, but indeed, we have enjoyed the laughable  reactions and supposed refutations of sheikhs of mausoleums and tombs, who at least never attributed their myths of blissful paradise or fire pits inside tombs to Muhammad, unlike imams/scholars of fiqh/hadiths and oral narrators and orators in the Middle-Ages mosques. We took interests in their defense because they added to our knowledge of modern myths still propagated until now in Egypt, revived and re-packaged by the era of Neo-Salafism sponsored by the KSA.

3- Many journalists in the Egyptian press attacked us and attempted to refute our 1993 book by quoting hadiths of the so-called Sunna, and this made the journalist Motawe' Barakat of the Cairo-based Midan newspaper to interview us about our book, and this interview was published in two pages, stirring wide interest and more controversy. This led the newspaper to interview Azharite clergymen as well as sheikhs of tombs and undertakers who attempted to refute us regarding the bald snake and the torment of the grave; their words were laughter-inducing and never convincing to readers, and this stance indicated that the bald snake is still residing in their minds, making them lose this world and the next.     

Firstly: before getting to the questions posed by the journalist of the independent newspaper Al-Midan and our answers, let us assert the following points:

1- We may wonder why this mythical creature/snake of the so-called the torment of the grave is described as ''bald''? All reptiles are hairless, anyway, and no one ever seen a hairy snake, we presume! No one among the Muhammadans thought of that; when myths control the minds fully, the minds are rendered crippled and cannot think at all. 

2- The Azharite clergy insist that the torment of the grave and the bald snake are things known necessarily within the religion of Islam; we vehemently and outspokenly reject such falsehoods as having nothing to do whatsoever with Islam (i.e., Islam is only the Quran), as such myths are Sunnite ones derived from Pharaonic roots.  

3- The silly expression (known necessarily within religion) has been produced within the Mameluke Era in the 8^th century A.H. by clergymen of imitation, obscurantism, and backwardness who refused to apply ijtihad of the previous eras that caused many unsettled differences and disputes among sects, schools of thought and fiqh, philosophers, etc. and the ancient imams who differed among one another became deified beings to imams of obscurantist eras who refused innovative ideas of all sorts and imposed on people to follow Salafist ancestral ideas and notions; this lasted during the Mameluke and Ottoman eras. At the time, no one dared to oppose, criticize, discuss, question, or refute views of earlier imams or the founding fathers of the Sunnite-Sufi religion. Within such an atmosphere, silly phrases have emerged and repeated like: (known necessarily within religion); (the unanimity of the Umma/nation); and (the unanimous view held by ancient imams). In fact, the so-called unanimity is a myth; no groups of imams in any era ever agreed upon one single issue of fiqh, within all sects/groups and sub-creeds of Sunnites, Shiites, and Sufis as well as philosophers of Kalam and Mu'tazala and heir likes, since all of them abandoned the Quran and followed their whims. The topics that were never agreed upon within lots of details include the so-called torment of the grave, paradise inside tombs, infallibility of saints and prophets, and Afterlife intercession of Muhammad and other prophets, saints, angels, etc. For more details on that topic, we recommend that readers should peruse the book titled "Discourses of Muslims Sects and Differences of Performers of Prayers" authored by the Kalam philosopher and imam of fiqh Abou Al-Hassan Al-Ashaary who died in 330 A.H., and he wrote this book about differences in sects, philosophies, and doctrines of the Muhammadans, during the Abbasid Era of ijtihad (i.e., innovative creative thinking) even within the one group/school of thought, and the unsettled disputes in so many topics, including the so-called torment of the grave.  

4- We have proven that the so-called torment of the grave by the bald snake is derived from the Pharaonic mythology that lived on for millennia, a myth revived with additions and omissions under the guise of hadiths ascribed falsely to Muhammad and under the pretext of Quranic 'interpretations' that followed whims of so many Kalam (i.e. Arab religious philosophy) authors and imams of Sunna and fiqh to distort and twist meanings of many Quranic verses that contradict many Quranic teachings, values, rules, and principles. Of course, at the Abbasid Era, those who held opposite views expressed them openly, as ijtihad and intellectual wars and rivalry was rife, especially between those who called for the use of reason and reform of thought (i.e., the Mu'tazala philosophers) and the Sunnite imams/authors who invent and fabricate hadiths, ascribed to Muhammad and his so-called companions, to hide their own ignorance and static minds that could never think or ponder upon the Quran and to prevent anyone criticizing their ideas. The Mu'tazala philosophers were among those who denied Sunna and hadiths, rejecting them altogether; yet, some of them invented their own hadiths (thus imitating Shiites) to spite Sunnites by refuting and undermining their hadiths with counter-hadiths using the same way of Sunnites. The result of such silly disputes is thousands of contradictory hadiths that crippled people for centuries until now; many scholars tried in vain to reconcile these hadiths, and when the era of imitation, stagnation, and backwardness dominated, ijtihad and the use of reasoning minds disappeared, causing Sunnite myths to reign supreme – including the bald snake – and no one dared to oppose them so as not to appear as an 'enemy' of Muhammad and hadiths! Thus, the silly phrases like (known necessarily within religion); (the unanimity of the Umma/nation); and (the unanimous view held by ancient imams) have been repeated until now and each phrase will be refuted in a separate article that will be published soon on our website. Azharite curricula tackle all such issues and refer to discrepancies among views on each topic and issue, but within their support of Sunnite religion and its backward stances and visions.                

5- Our own personal methodology regarding such controversial issues is as follows: pondering the Quranic verses while bearing in mind that they explain one another and determining Quranic terminology using the Quranic text itself, and then to gather all verses related to a given topic to reach the Truth and spread it, while seeking to please God and never to care at all about pleasing mortals or about their angry reactions. We are to support God's Path and Truth, not to care for incurring ire and wrath of people. And the very last step is to delve into the roots of the issue at hand within Muhammadans' traditions/books and how they are manifested at present, and hoe to be refuted by the Quran alone.    

6- After our long years of arduous study since 1977, we are quite sure that all views contrary to the Quran, like deifying mortals/prophets as intercessors and infallible beings and the myth of the torment/paradise inside tombs, existed before Islam, and the Quran refers to them and refutes them thoroughly.

7- The myth of the bald snake tormenting the wicked dead sinners is derived from the Pharaonic mythology whose influence went on for millennia but we did not know it until Champollion decoded the hieroglyphic characters and letters, and the influence of the Pharaonic mythology on Sufism of the Mameluke Era is the topic of coming book of ours that will be published on our website. We say briefly here that at the Mameluke Era, some Sufis worked as ''tourist guides'' to mausoleums to explain miracles and blessings ascribed to Sufi entombed saints and to get money by serving 'holy' tombs and spreading tales about them, including paradise/torment of the grave, and they repeated in Arabic what their Pharaonic ancestors used to repeat in hieroglyphics, as we know from books authored by Egyptologists.    

8- Hadith narrators were employed by the Umayyads to tell these myths tales, among other narratives and hadiths, to people all over mosques, after and before prayers, to distract them away from revolting against caliphs; orators would increase suspense to their tales to attract wider audiences and gain popularity and influence (to get more money by caliphs), and they typically used to ascribe such myths and narratives typically to Muhammad. Such narrators used to be paid by the caliphs to defend and justify atrocities of the Umayyads indirectly within the façade of preaching and sermonizing. Such oral traditions that have been spread during the Umayyad Era had the chance to be written down during the Abbasid Era, with much additions and distortions by many authors, including the Persian author follower of Mazdakism, whose first name was Ibn Berzaweih surnamed Al-Bokhary, who died in 256 A.H.

9- Indeed, tales and hadiths of the torment of the grave were popular among narrators during the Umayyad Era, and a clergymen/scholar named Al-Awzaay, who served both the Umayyads and Abbasids, was a popular narrator of hadiths and his tales about torment of the grave, which were supported by their Pharaonic roots that people knew in the collective memory for thousands of years for many generations. Al-Awzaay was the first one to spread such myths by inventing hadiths and he invented the so-called penalty for apostasy to allow caliphs to massacre their enemies.

10- Some Muhammadan cattle and ignoramuses assume that Satan has tendered a resignation once the Quran was conveyed fully and Muhammad died; this cannot be true, and that all conquered nations accepted Islam willingly without doubts or any influence of former civilizations and myths, again another grave error in history. Another fallacy is that the Muhammadans assume that their Sunnite faith is spotless and perfect and that they imitate Muhammad and his method of applying Islam. This is why they hate any Quranist preachers who are outspoken and vociferous in their call for religious reform among all Muhammadans worldwide, and instead, they proselytize Wahabism in remote areas worldwide in deserts, forests, North and South Poles, and at the Equator. Other sly foxes desire to reach power and establish theocracy to make all Muhammadans submit to them blindly as representative of God's religion! They aim to conquer the world and massacre Christians/crusaders like Arabs of the Middle Ages!

11- Such foxes and cattle among the Muhammadans desire to control the awareness of the nations by making them engrossed in Sunnite, Wahabi mythology as opium, and especially hadiths of the so-called torment of the grave, so as to stop them from criticizing and questioning Wahabism, and they are ready to accuse Quranist reformers of being heretics and apostates for their denying Sunna and hadiths. Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by the motto (no one is allowed to produce ijtihad to understand the texts), as if their 'holy' texts of hadiths and fiqh have one definite meaning! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people to prevent them from thinking critically and to control minds of people to the authority of clergy who steal their money, and they would control the masses to allow theocrats to reach power and to make the masses turn into suicide bombers and fierce fighters to change 'vice' by force whenever needed! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by making them afraid of the bald snakes waiting in tombs, with open mouths, to devour those who dare disobey or question clergymen.

12- Thus, Salafist books are filled with details of the so-called torment of the grave and not the other myth of bliss/paradise inside tombs! This is intellectual and moral terrorism that destroys human dignity and mind and it is more dangerous than bloody terrorism and other atrocities; Salafists make people forget that God provided human beings with dignity and made them rule over earth as successors. Hence, Salafists and Wahabis make the gullible masses turn unawares into polytheists who lose both this world and the next, while Satan is glad for their efforts, as they assume that Satan has tendered a resignation to seek a work contract on Mars instead of earth controlled by the bald snake and its clergy!

13- Hence we understand the reason of the virulent attacks on our person from these Wahabi foxes and Sunnite cattle herds when we have refuted the myth of the torment of the grave in 1993; this refutation is making them lose both their money and their authority over the masses, and Quranist writings are obstacles impeding the theocracy desired by them to come into being one day. We remember a secular friend of ours to whom we gave a copy of our book, within a session attended by some cultural elite members, and he finished reading it in one sitting, in silence with full concentration, while ignoring and disregarding the discussions of this session in which he did not participate as he was so engrossed with our book. As we went out, he thanked us for this gift; he told us frankly that stories of the torment of the grave used to frighten him as a child and a grownup man, and he was furious regarding how Salafists used this myth to influence minds of the youth. If this was his condition, what about the rest of the simple people and gullible masses who lack culture?! What about the rest of the youth who dream of a better, promising future to find only sheikhs of the bald snake turning future into obscurantist doomed past. 

Secondly: the interview of Al-Midan newspaper:

- You have denied in your book the notion of the torment of the grave for entombed disbelieving sinners, but what about hadiths of Muhammad about it and about Paradise bliss for the entombed good people?

- Dr. Mansour: Those who believe in even a single hadith of any type are disbelieving in the Quran; it is impossible that one would believe in the Quran and in discourses contradicting it at the same time.    

- What evidence and proofs do you have that these hadiths about the torment of the grave contradict the Quran?

- Dr. Mansour: The Quran contains more than 20 verses that Muhammad never knew the realm of the invisible, unknown, or the future and consequently, he never spoke about it, whether future on this earth, upon/after death, or in the Hereafter. Let us quote some of these verses: "Say, "I am not different from the other messengers; and I do not know what will be done with me, or with you. I only follow what is inspired in me, and I am only a clear warner."" (46:9); "Say, "I do not say to you that I possess the treasuries of God, nor do I know the future, nor do I say to you that I am an angel. I only follow what is inspired to me." Say, "Are the blind and the seeing alike? Do you not think?"" (6:50); "Say, "I have no control over any benefit or harm to myself, except as God wills. Had I known the future, I would have acquired much good, and no harm would have touched me. I am only a warner, and a herald of good news to a people who believe."" (7:188). Thus, the real Quran-believing Muslims must accept this fact and never to believe in any hadiths and they should clear Muhammad's name of such narratives. Thus, hadiths about future events in this world and the next are mere myths contradicting the Quran.    

- But some people quote the Quranic verse 40:46, about Moses' Pharaoh and his people being tormented before the Last Day, to prove there is torment for sinners in their tombs?

- Dr. Mansour: The verse 40:46 has nothing to do with the so-called torment of the grave; it tackles torment of the souls of Moses' Pharaoh and his people in Barsakh until the Day of Resurrection. We imagine that Moses' Pharaoh suffers in Barsakh while seeing the weak Israelites living in bliss in the land in peace and security, as we infer from these verses: "Pharaoh exalted himself in the land, and divided its people into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons, while sparing their daughters. He was truly a corrupter. But We desired to favor those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders, and to make them the inheritors. And to establish them in the land; and to show Pharaoh, Haman, and their troops, the very thing they feared." (28:4-6). "So We took vengeance on them, and drowned them in the sea-because they rejected Our signs, and paid no heed to them. And We made the oppressed people inherit the eastern and western parts of the land, which We had blessed. Thus the fair promise of your Lord to the Children of Israel was fulfilled, because of their endurance. And We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people had built, and what they had harvested." (7:136-137). Thus, Moses' Pharaoh saw the Israelites in bliss occurred while his soul is being tormented in Barsakh, this is going on until the Last Day, when he and his people will enter into Hell as per these verses: "...a terrible torment besieged Pharaoh's people. The Fire; they will be exposed to it morning and evening. And on the Day the Hour takes place: "Admit the clan of Pharaoh to the most intense agony."" (40:45-46). Thus, this torment is never in a tomb or occurring to the body of Pharaoh, but in Barsakh until now and this is going to be until the Last Day before they enter Hell, and this Barsakh torture is done in a special way that cannot be fully imagined by us. This is a special case and the rest of sinning and disbelieving people will never undergo this Barsakh torture, except the people of Noah as per the Quran: "Because of their wrongs, they were drowned, and were hurled into a Fire..." (71:25).    

 - I beg your pardon, but what do you mean by Barsakh exactly?

- Dr. Mansour: This is the location were all souls exist before entering their bodies inside wombs, and to which they return when they leave bodies upon death, after being tested in life; thus, Barsakh contain souls of dead ancestors and souls of unborn-yet grandchildren. As for dead bodies, they return to dust from which they were originally created. The deeds of the soul lasts with it, and all souls remain in a state of stupor and timelessness as if asleep, and upon resurrection on the Last Day, and the universe is destroyed, souls of sinners would feel they have slept for a day of part of a day: "On the Day when the Hour takes place, the sinners will swear they had stayed but an hour. Thus they were deluded. But those endowed with knowledge and faith will say, "You remained in God's Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know."" (30:55-56); "On the Day when they witness it-as though they only stayed an evening, or its morning." (79:46). This means that sinners never experience torment in the grave; otherwise, they would have felt time very acutely for centuries, passing very slowly. This means that all dead people's souls will never feel the passage of time: from Adam to the last human being, all souls upon resurrection will feel as if they have slept for a short while in Barsakh; with the exception of the people of Noah and Moses' Pharaoh and his people whose souls are tortured in Barsakh, feeling the passage of time very slowly and in a perturbed state. Another exception are those who enjoy Barsakh Paradise as they were killed during their striving for God's sake and for His cause: "And do not say of those who are killed in the cause of God, "Dead." Rather, they are alive, but you do not perceive." (2:154); and those winners feel their loved ones left behind who are still alive, as we read in this verse: "Do not consider those killed in the cause of God as dead. In fact, they are alive, at their Lord, well provided for. Delighting in what God has given them out of His grace, and happy for those who have not yet joined them; that they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." (3:169-170).

 As for the exceptions of Moses' Pharaoh and his people and Noah's people, we know that Pharaoh's body was never interred so as to be an example for others to avoid, and this means his torment is for his soul in Barsakh, not to his body: "Today We will preserve your body, so that you become a sign for those after you..." (10:92). Thus, this Pharaoh and his people were drowned and never buried in tombs at all. Thus, there is no bald snake biting the body of Moses' Pharaoh, as Sunnites claim in their myths, and he will be made an imam/leader to his people upon entering into Hell for eternity: "He will precede his people on the Day of Resurrection, and will lead them into the Fire. Miserable is the place he placed them in. They were followed by a curse in this, and on the Day of Resurrection. Miserable is the path they followed." (11:98-99). Thus, Moses' Pharaoh and his people were leaders/imams of disbelief and misguidance and they are tormented in Barsakh like Noah's people, unlike those who dedicated their lives for God's sake and got killed, who live in bliss of the Barsakh Paradise until entering the eternal Paradise after the Last Day; we know nothing about Barsakh Paradise except the few words about it in the Quran; thus, we are to believe in its existence without posing any questions about the realm of the unknown. Imagining any additional details would be mere mythology. Thus, Pharaoh and his people had nothing to do with the myth of the torment of the grave; their souls are tormented in Barsakh and they saw how the Israelites were saved and enjoyed in security: "So We drove them out of gardens and springs. And treasures and noble dwellings. So it was; and We made the Israelites inherit them." (26:57-59), Pharaoh, and his people who followed him, deserves this Barsakh torment because of his self-deification, disobedience, misguidance, and his severe persecution inflicted on the weak ones; he spent his life chasing two prophets, Moses and Aaron, and the Israelites who fled his tyranny and he desired to go on persecuting, oppressing, and torturing them. This is why God made him and his people imams/leaders of all disbelievers and tyrants coming after them: "" (28:41). God says the following about Qorayish tribesmen and their likes who followed the footsteps of Moses' Pharaoh: "As for those who disbelieve, neither their wealth nor their children will avail them anything against God. These will be fuel for the Fire. Like the behavior of Pharaoh's people and those before them. They rejected Our signs, so God seized them for their sins. God is Strict in retribution." (3:10-11); "Like the behavior of the people of Pharaoh, and those before them. They rejected the signs of God, so God seized them for their sins. God is Powerful, Severe in punishment." (8:52); "Such was the case with the people of Pharaoh, and those before them. They denied the signs of their Lord, so We annihilated them for their wrongs, and We drowned the people of Pharaoh-they were all unjust ones." (8:54). Likewise, the Noah's people were the first generation of humanity to witness a celestial message, as Noah's ministry among them went on for 950 years, as per the Quran, and eventually, Noah invoked the Lord by saying the following: "Noah said, "My Lord, do not leave of the unbelievers a single dweller on earth. If You leave them, they will mislead your servants, and will breed only wicked unbelievers." (71:26-27). Before the Flood/Deluge, Noah was commanded by God to build the Ark as the disbelievers will drown and their souls will be tormented in Barsakh and they will see that survivors in the Ark saved, and Noah knew all that and when they ridiculed him he retorted by 11:39; let us quote the whole context: "And it was revealed to Noah: "None of your people will believe, except those who have already believed, so do not grieve over what they do." "And build the Ark, under Our eyes, and with Our inspiration, and do not address Me regarding those who did wrong; they are to be drowned." As he was building the ark, whenever some of his people passed by him, they ridiculed him. He said, "If you ridicule us, we will ridicule you, just as you ridicule." "You will surely know upon whom will come a torment that will abase him, and upon whom will fall a lasting torment."" (11:36-39). The Barsakh torment for their souls is mentioned in this verse: "Because of their wrongs, they were drowned, and were hurled into a Fire. They did not find apart from God any supporters." (71:25). This means once they were drowned, their souls entered into fire in Barsakh and these words of Noah, inspired by God, were fulfilled: ""You will surely know upon whom will come a torment that will abase him, and upon whom will fall a lasting torment."" (11:39). This lasting torment of Noah's people, and Moses' Pharaoh and his people, goes on in Barsakh until the Day of Resurrection. The Barsakh bliss of those who were killed for God's cause also goes on until the Last Day, and both types of people feel the passage of time and are exceptions to the rule of the rest of the souls of humanity will feel nothing in Barsakh as they will be in deep slumber, and will feel upon resurrection that as if they had slept for a day or part of a day. Thus, Barsakh bliss and Barsakh torment for souls of exception cases we have mentioned above have nothing to do whatsoever with the myth of the torment of the grave.                  

- Are there two angels to judge the dead person in the tomb or would you deny this notion as well?

- Dr. Mansour: Of course, we deny this nonsense; why on earth a dead corpse be judged since the Day of Judgment has not yet taken place?! The only divine judgment on all of the human souls is on the Last Day; the Day of Resurrection, and details of this judgment is found exclusively in the Quran. To be judged in one's grave is also a notion derived from Pharaonic mythology in the Book of the Dead translated by Egyptologists; we refer you to the book of Adolf Erman, titled "The Religion of Ancient Egypt", and you will read in it notions of our ancestors the Pharaohs that are repeated in false hadiths ascribed forcibly to Muhammad after his death.    

- Could you please shed more light on Barsakh bliss and ordinary Barsakh of timelessness?

- Dr. Mansour: We urge all readers – ad sheikhs and clergymen in particular – to read details of this in our 1993 book, but let us assert briefly the following: all souls upon leaving the bodies by death are met with angels of death, who either bring glad tidings to the good souls that they are among the winners on the Last Day or bring bad news that they are among losers. The good souls die happily and enter the deep slumber of Barsakh timelessness. The souls of evil disbelievers, after hearing the bad news, ask in vain for a second chance: "Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back. That I may do right in what I have neglected." By no means! It is just a word that he utters. And behind them is a barrier, until the Day they are resurrected." (23:99-100). Timelessness of Barsakh is felt when one is asleep, even the people of the cave in the Quranic Chapter 18 felt they slept for a day or two thought they woke up after 309 years: "Even so, We awakened them, so that they may ask one another. A speaker among them said, "How long have you stayed?" They said, "We have stayed a day, or part of a day."..." (18:19); "And they stayed in their cave for three hundred years, adding nine." (18:25), and the same applies to the one who slept for 100 years: "Or like him who passed by a town collapsed on its foundations. He said, "How can God revive this after its demise?" Thereupon God caused him to die for a hundred years, and then resurrected him. He said, "For how long have you tarried?" He said, "I have tarried for a day, or part of a day." He said, "No. You have tarried for a hundred years..." (2:259). Souls return temporarily to Barsakh while people are asleep and enter into Barsakh upon death, never to get out until the Day of Resurrection, and even souls of sinners will feel they spent one hour: "On the Day when the Hour takes place, the sinners will swear they had stayed but an hour. Thus they were deluded. But those endowed with knowledge and faith will say, "You remained in God's Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know."" (30:55-56). Thus, those sinners were never tormented in Barsakh or on graves; otherwise, they would have felt the passage of time acutely and keenly. The timelessness of the Barsakh is the rule, even with the exceptions we have mentioned above based on the Quran. this has nothing to do at all with the myth of torment of the grave in tombs and cemeteries of the interred dead corpses. Even Moses' Pharaoh is tormented now in Barsakh as a soul, and his body is not tormented at all; see 10:92. The word 'rooh' or spirit in the Quran does not refer to human souls but to arch-angel Gabriel, and this entailed a lengthy article to explain, found on our Quranism website now. As for witnesses, called wrongly as martyrs, are mentioned in the Quran, as a term, to indicate those who preach the Truth and striving for it and will bear witness against their peoples on the Day of Resurrection (whether they die naturally or got murdered). We hope to be one of them on the Last Day. This has nothing to do with those got killed in such striving for God and enjoy Barsakh bliss; we hope also to be among them one day. When Azharite foes could not refute us, they felt the urge to write a report with false, base accusations leveled against us to fire us from our post as an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University in 1987, before we got incarcerated. Among their vile and false accusations (as the report got published later on partially in mid-1990s in some newspapers) is that we deny – in their claims – that Muhammad is the seal of prophets and the last one to them. They were afraid of us because we never fear mortals; we only fear God in piety and smash all their holy cows and intellectual idols and taboos that contradict the Quran; they feared us because we defied them while at Al-Azhar University, knowing very well they cannot refute us; otherwise, they would have shown their disbelief in the Quran. God knows we are innocent of their accusations and charges against us; we defied them when we authored five books in 1985 to teach for our students; they hated the fact that we defend Muhammad against lies and falsehoods of hadiths/narratives ascribed to him after his death which he never uttered at all.       

- Why did you get fired from Al-Azhar University? What are your views about the 1987 Azharite report against you that included accusations like insulting the Prophet and supporting Musaylimah the Liar? They seem to the your views such as denying Muhammad to be the best human being and the best prophet/messenger and that divine inspiration to him was confined to the Quran. What do you think?

- Dr. Mansour: Let us answer briefly to this group of questions; our views of ijtihad during the period of our working as an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University (1975 - 1985) are known in all our writings published now on our website and they do not differ from views expressed in this interview; we apply the Law of Al-Azhar that states clearly that the mission of Azharite people is to elucidate facts of Islam, and we provide proofs to our views from the Quranic verses that refute all ancestral traditions, but the Azharite powerful professors hindered the viva/discussion of our PhD thesis for three years 1977-1980 because we deny in this thesis that Sufism is part of Islam (i.e., the Quran), and we received the PhD degree in 1980 only after agreeing to omit two-thirds of the thesis that proves that Sufism contradicts the Quran. Later on, we had to research the Sunnite traditions to measure them using the criterion of the Quran, and we rejected all the so-called hadiths and Sunna, and when we expressed our views in five books that we taught to our students in the History Department, and we waited to get promoted in 1985, our only reward by Azharite heads and deans to suspend us from work, suspend our financial dues, prevent our promotion, and prevent us from ever leaving Egypt, and to interrogate us within inquisition-like measures to boot. Instead of accusing us of denying Sunna and hadiths, they accused us of insulting Muhammad by denying he would be regarded as infallible and the best human being and the best prophet/messenger. They were my foes and judges at the same time; they had authority and power and never proofs to refute us, and they pressured and threatened us to eat our words, but we adamantly refused. After we tendered our resignation as we despised Azharites who persecuted us, they refused to accept it and we sued them in court to force them to accept it, and this resulted in their firing us without giving us our financial dues, based on the report you refer to. They aimed by this report of false accusations to tarnish our reputation and image and to declare us as a heretic apostate. They wrongly assumed that we glorify Musaylimah who was a self-proclaimed false prophet emerging once Muhammad died. But in fact, in our book titled "Islamic World between Pre-Umayyad Caliphs and Abbasid Caliphs", we compared between Musaylimah the Liar and the Sufi saint/sheikh Ibrahim Al-Disouky of the Mameluke Era who indulged in self-deification in his famous book titled "AL-Jawhara" which is printed in Al-Azhar, and we ridiculed this Sufi man whose crimes are worse than those of Musaylimah, and yet Azharites glorify Al-Disouky until now! Yet, the committee of Azharite ignoramuses that wrote the report against us accuse us of favoring and defending Musaylimah, which is not true; in our book we refer to here, we compared between religious patterns during the pre-Umayyad era and the Mameluke Era of Sufi myths. As for accusing us of denying that Muhammad is the last prophet and seal of prophets, we never say that at all; in fact, our books is filled with the expression (Prophet Muhammad, the seal of all prophets). They fabricated this accusation to tarnish our image in Egypt. We are the first one to assert that God in the Quran does not tell us about preferred prophets to Him and commanded us never to distinguish and differentiate among His prophets and messengers; see the Quranic Chapter 2, 3, and 4. Thus, it is prohibited to say that Muhammad was the best human being and/or best prophet of them all; this statement makes the masses deify Muhammad as a god beside Allah; this is polytheism. We are never to describe Muhammad and Allah with words never mentioned in the Quran. Azharite men overlooked that we have written in this book that prophets and messengers are the best people among humanity as God chose them to convey divine messages. We insist that Muhammad never received any divine inspiration except the Quran; he was never inspired by utterance or narratives they call hadiths or Sunna at all. Muhammad delivered the divine message of the Quran wholly and completely, and he never left part of religion in scattered sayings or hadiths. When we argue and explain our viewpoints, we quote the Quran, God's Word, while Azharite men quote imams and authors of the Middle-Ages to refute us! We say to all of them these Quranic verses: "And say to those who do not believe, "Act according to your ability; and so will we." "And wait; we too are waiting."" (11:121-122).                       

- Why clergymen attack you though you defend Islam and quote the Quran, and why some secular thinkers attack you as an imposter? Is not that stance strange? What do you think?

- Dr. Mansour: We take pride in our friendship with many members of the secular cultural elite; we respect everyone's religious freedom and freedom of thought and expression. Religious freedom in Islam is absolute and one is responsible for it only before the Almighty Lord on the Day of Judgment. All Quranic higher values long ignored and overlooked are the same ones as all human higher values: freedom, justice, peace, mercy, human rights, etc. just like secular values cherished by us and by the cultural secular elite members in Egypt and elsewhere. Quranism (i.e., real Islam) and secularism agree on rejecting and fighting religious clergy and political clergy, injustices, tyranny, racial discrimination, religious persecution, superiority, domination, aggression, and corruption. Thus, the enemies of Islam and secularism are the same within the intellectual peaceful war of ideas. In such war, the ammunition of Quranists (knowledge of the Quran and traditions) differ from that of secular people, and this is OK and required of course. Yet some extremists among secular ones desire to banish Islam as a religion altogether and they hate the Quran very much; this is their choice we respect and we wait like them for God's judgment on the Last Day; we care only that all people are peaceful regardless of their religious views and affiliations or even lack of them as long as they are never imposing their views on anyone among the citizens.  We consider our intellectual endeavors with secular thinkers who call for human rights and freedoms as intellectual jihad for God's sake; this is a religious duty overlooked by most people, even preachers of reform, as all reformists must resist and undermine tyrants, terrorists, charlatans, and clergy who gain financial profits by manipulating religion and by spreading and propagating falsehoods ascribed to God and seek to establish a theocracy. Thus, our intellectual war against the sheikhs of the bald snake is not to be taken personally; this is a struggle and a conflict between two trends who differ in religion and in thought/ideology. This is the war between obscurantism and real reform. This struggle between innovators and imitators harkens back to 10 centuries ago; like the struggle between the school of thought of Abou Hanifa, who was the first among deniers of hadiths and relied on free thinking, and Malik who invented hadiths and refused to resort to thinking at all as a means to understand religion. This is similar to the struggle between the pioneer Muhammad Abdou (who died in 1905) as he attempted to reform Al-Azhar but his endeavors were aborted by traditionalists like sheikh Eilish and his likes inside Al-Azhar in the late 1890s. Intellectual conflicts are OK and required, provided that freedom is provided for all within a positive atmosphere of intellectual freedom where thought, philosophy, arts, etc. are flourishing, just was the case of the First Abbasid Era. At the time, no one declared those who held opposite views as apostates or heretics, or enemies of Islam and the caliphate, and all thinkers were free to express anything they liked. Such atmosphere of freedom ended in the Second Abbasid Era with political unrest and revolts, and extremists of the Ibn Hanbal Sunnite doctrine controlled minds of the masses and served sultans and caliphs to dominate the subjects. Those were the ancestors of the bald-snake sheikhs of today! Those clergymen have not any proofs or mental faculties; they have no time for intellectual reasoning, researching, and thinking innovatively; they are busy flattering rulers obsequiously and serving those in power and hoarding ill-gotten money by ascribing lies and falsehoods to religion. This is the history of clergy, past and present. Real thinkers and scholars never ally themselves to rulers or any powerful persons; they are busy studying and gleaning information and reaching conclusions within thorough research. Thus, clergymen of today has nothing to do but to repeat myths and falsehoods of the Middle-Ages books, including the myth of the bald snakes tormenting the corpses, and they impose their views on society through media and mosques, using Saudi money, while their obscurantism impedes Egyptians from coping along with the advanced scientific and technological changes worldwide. When secular people refuse to remain living in the past and reformist thinkers deny hadiths, the clergymen declare all of them as heretic apostates who deserve to be put to death or incarcerated. Clergymen hate questions and discussions; they prefer to terrorize and intimidate the masses by myths of the torment of the grave for all those who oppose clergymen: the clergy ally themselves to State Security Apparatus officials to persecute Quranists accused of denying Sunna and hadiths, thus deemed 'heretics' to be punished severely upon Wahabi/Saudi commands. Thus, the bald-snake sheikhs persecute people for religious reason, hate the Quran, and earn ill-gotten money by spreading falsehoods. Shame on them all!                                           

Lastly: how we get to know the truth?! The answer from Dr. A. S. Mansour is as follows: if one wants an answer to that question, one is to read this interview from beginning to end again.

Section 2: (The Book)  (The Myth of the Torment Of the Grave)

Published in May 3, 2008

Authored by Ahmed Subhy Mansour

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy  

Dear fellow Quranists following our forum,

Peace be with all of you,

 We tickle your minds with refutation of a centuries-old myth: the falsehood known as the torment of the grave. Within many scientific and Quran-based lines of evidence and proofs, we deny such a lie ascribed falsely to Prophet Muhammad through hadiths authored and invented by Middle-Ages narrators/fabricators.

Let us quote some of these concocted hadith narratives about this myth.

 Hadith No. 1002 in Al-Bokhary, part 1, p 356: (...Abdulla Ibn Salama said that Malik said that Yahya Ibn Saeed said that Omeira daughter of Abdul-Rahman said that Aisha said that a Jewess met her to ask some questions, and eventually, the Jewess implored the Lord to spare Aisha the torment of the grave; Aisha asked her husband, ProphetMuhammad, about if dead ones are being tormented in their tombs, he asked her to wait to receive an answer; then, he rode his camel at noon and returned some time later, and he performed long prayers between two stones, and people prayed behind him, as their imam, and after he finished and found a multitude behind him, he preached to them for a longer while, and eventually asked them to seek refuge in God against torment of the grave ...).

 Hadith No. 1306 in Al-Bokhary, part 1, p 462: (... Abdan said that Abbi said that Shu'ba said that Al-Ashaath said that his father said that Masrooq said that Aisha said that a Jewess talked to Aisha in her chamber, and mentioned the torment of the grave, asking the Lord to spare Aisha from it, and after she left, Aisha asked her husband, the Prophet, about the torment of the grave and if it is true, and he answered in the affirmative, and Aisha said that from that day onward, every time the Prophet prayed, he implored God and sought refuge in Him against the torment of the grave ...).

 In the book of ''Moslem'', part 1, p. 410: (...Chapter on seeking refuge in God against the torment of the grave: Hadith No. 584, Harun Ibn Saeed said that Hirmilah Ibn Yahya said that Ibn Wahb said that Younis Ibn Yazeed said that Ibn Shihab said that Orwa Ibn Al-Zubayr said that Aisha said that her husband, the Prophet Muhammad, entered her chamber to find a Jewess asking about the torment of the grave, and the Prophet felt afraid, and many nights later, Aisha said that the Prophet told her that he was inspired by God to seek refuge in Him against the torment of the grave after each daily prayers ...)

 In the book of ''Moslem'', part 1, p. 411: (... Hadith No. 586: Zuhayr Ibn Harb said that Ishaq Ibrahim said that Jarir said that Mansour said that Abou Wael said that Masrooq said that Aisha said that two elderly women of the Yathreb tribes entered into the chamber of Aisha to talk to her, asserting to her that many dead people in their tombs are being tormented, but Aisha refused to believe them, but both women asserted that camels, horses, and cattle hear their cries when they get nearer to the cemeteries, and when Muhammad heard this, from that day onward he sought refuge in the Lord against the torment of the grave after each daily prayers ...).

 These are some 'holy', 'sacrosanct', and 'hallowed' narratives of the sanctified books held dear by Sunnites, who never cast doubts on the purported series of narrators. It is laughter-inducing and funny in the above hadiths we quote that as if no one would hear about these so-called torment of the grave if it had not been for the assumed Jewess talking supposedly to Aisha, as per such false story, people would not have heard of this notion. Such a story aims to undermine  Muhammad and make him appear as if he were negligent and ignorant, as if he would not have known about this notion if it had not been for an old Jewess. Such false notion within such false narratives are concocted and invented to terrorize and intimidate people and make them submit to clergymen who were in their turn obsequiously submissive to rulers. Thus, corrupt clergy and preachers forgot about spreading piety and disregarded pondering the Quran and its facts and teachings. It is funnier still that those wishing to avoid the so-called torment of the grave are advised at the time to read the Quranic Chapter 67, as per this silly hadith narrative, in revised edition of Al-Bokhary and Moslem part 2, p. 540: (... Hadith No. 3839: Al-Hassan Ibn Haleem said that Abou Al-Moujah said that Abdullah said that Sufyan said that Assim said that Ibn Masood said that when torment of the grave would attempt to attack the dead man in his tomb, but people would recite The Quranic Chapter 67 at his tomb, the torment escapes his legs, then they read it again, and torment escapes his belly, then again, and it escapes his head, and leave his body forever, for this Quranic Chapter 67 prevents the torment of the grave, provided that he would be among those who read it regularly every night during his lifetime, for it has been part of the Torah before being distorted by the Jews, and this hadith is uttered by the Prophet but it text is agreed upon by narrators ...).               

 Thus, the gullible masses who believe in the myth called torment of the grave must believe in such hadiths and the next one as well about intercession of the Quranic Chapter 67, from the hadiths book of Tirmezeiy, part 5, p. 164: (... chapter on the merits and qualities of the Quranic Chapter 67: M. Ibn Abdul-Malik said that Yahya Ibn Amr  said that his father said that Abou Al-Jawzaa said that Ibn Abbas said that when some of the companions of the Prophet pitched their tent beside a tomb, unknowingly, they saw that a man is reading the Quranic Chapter 67 over this tomb many times, and they told the Prophet about this, asking him about it, and he said to them that this Chapter prevents torment of the grave ... Abou Eissa and Abou Hurayrah asserted and repeated this story as good and true ...).

 Such fake narratives are refuted by the Quran, as we will show below. God says in the Quran: "On the Day when We raise in every community a witness against them, from among them, and bring you as a witness against these. We have revealed to you the Book, as an explanation of all things, and guidance, and mercy and good news for those who submit." (16:89); "Say, "The Holy Spirit has brought it down from your Lord, truthfully, in order to stabilize those who believe, and as guidance and good news for those who submit."" (16:102); "And before it was the Book of Moses, a model and a mercy. And this is a confirming Book, in the Arabic language, to warn those who do wrong-and good news for the doers of good." (46:12); "And on that Day, Hell is brought forward. On that Day, man will remember, but how will remembrance avail him?" (89:23).

 We would like readers to read carefully this booklet, or rather the lengthy article, below about refuting the myth of the torment of the grave and to write comments on it so that Quranists learn from one another; please accept our greetings to each one of you.

Dr. A. S. Mansour

Title of the booklet: "The Myth of the Torment of the Grave and Falsehoods of the Sheikhs of the Bald Snake"

Written by: Dr. A. S. Mansour

Preface written within the first and last paper edition:

 The whole world is about to step into the 21^st century with technological and scientific advancement that amaze everyone; meanwhile the Muhammadans focus still on myths that goes back to 20 centuries B.C., such as the Pharaonic myth of the torment of the grave and the bald snake, imposed on hadiths ascribed falsely to Muhammad. When we deny such a myth and refute it using he Quran, the Muhammadans accuse us of being a heretic and an apostate who cast doubts on what is known necessarily in their earthly Sunnite religion. Hence, the Muhammadans never live the present; they live the past of 4000 years ago of Pharaonic mythology, though Islam has emerged in the 7^th century A.D. and the Quran has stood firmly against myths, lies, and falsehoods. The Quran gives us a scientific and empirical methodology to discover and research, but ancestors in the Middle Ages abandoned the Quran and focused on myths instead. When the Arab renaissance began in Egypt in the 19^th century and first half of the 20^th century, it has been aborted since the 1970s as Wahabi Sunnite myths of the Middle Ages have re-surfaced to influence minds of religious youth in Egypt and the Arab world, bringing to them backwardness and obscurantism instead of using the Quran as the means to intellectual reasoning and knowledge as well as a liberating force. What is to become of Arab youths now?! Are they are being prepared to become slaves of the 21^st century to the modern-world countries?! Are Arabs are to remain backward and sink into oblivion while the world advances into the future with light speed?! Why the powers of darkness (i.e., agents of Wahabism) ascribe their terrorism, backwardness, obscurantism, and myths to the name of Islam, hijacked by them?! This brief study on the myth of the torment of the grave and tales linked to it is a humble attempt to clear the name of Islam of such falsehoods and to raise the awareness of the Muhammadans who deem themselves as Muslims. Our noble aim deserves that we tolerate, pardon, and bear patiently with verbal abuse and virulent attacks aiming to tarnish our reputation from those Wahabi Sunnites who have abandoned the Quran. May God aid all of us.           

Signature:     

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour

Cairo, 1993 A.D./1414 A.H.

CHAPTER I

 The notions of the torment of the grave and 'the bald snake' are never found in the Quran; they are mentioned in the so-called Sunna hadiths invented by men who have ascribed forcibly to Muhammad to reinforce their own fabricated views and lend them fake legitimacy, apart from distorting meanings and interpretations of Quranic verses to serve their purposes of consolidating invented myths. When a researcher like us who are faithful to the Quran clear Muhammad's name of lies and false narratives ascribed to him decades after his death, by using the Quran as the criterion to judge all issues, many accusations are leveled at us, on top of them all denying the so-called Sunna. The question raised here is as follows: what is the link between the so-called Sunna hadiths and the Quran?! In other words, why the so-called Sunna attributed to Muhammad is used as a motto to conceal clergymen's failure to think and use ijtihad and their rejection of the Quranic Truth? Actually, Muhammad had nothing called Sunna; he obeyed and adhered only to the Quran, and those who really love Muhammad must believe that his deeds and words are recorded exclusively in the Quranic text. In fact, Muhammad never uttered any of the so-called hadiths; otherwise, those ascribing hadiths to him are accusing him of rejecting the Quran and disobeying God, thus making themselves as enemies of Muhammad, the Quran, and God. the Muhammadans never ponder deeply on the Quranic verses; if they do, they would know that the real traditions or Sunna of Muhammad is applying the Quran, which is the method/way he adopted in his life. In fact, God in the Quran tells us that enemies of Muhammad are those who follow devilish, Satanist narratives/hadiths attributed falsely to God's religion though they contradict the Quran: "Likewise, We have assigned for every prophet an enemy-human and jinn devils-inspiring one another with fancy words in order to deceive. But had your Lord willed, they would not have done it. So leave them to their fabrications." (6:112). We read the following about the Last Day: "On that Day, the wrongdoer will bite his hands, and say, "If only I had followed the way with the Messenger. Oh, woe to me; I wish I never took so-and-so for a friend. He led me away from the Message after it had come to me; for Satan has always been a betrayer of man." And the Messenger will say, "My Lord, my people have abandoned this Quran." Likewise, to every prophet We assign enemies from among the wicked. But your Lord suffices as a Guide and Supporter." (25:27-31). This means that sinners and disbelievers will regret on the Last Day their not following the Quran because they befriended disobedient ones who urged them to reject the Quran: God's Path and Message. This regret after it will be too late is because the sinners and disobedient ones followed Satan who let them down, and this is why Muhammad will disown those who abandoned the Quran as per 25:30. This means that the Quran will be there but rejected and put aside and rarely pondered: this happens now by the Muhammadans who reject the Quranic message to believe in and adhere to other narratives that contradict it and add to religion things never commanded by God. these false narratives are hadiths attributed falsely to Muhammad and regarded as holy and sanctified so as to stop others from criticizing and refuting them using the Quran. This is why in 25:31, we read how believers in such lies are enemies and among the wicked. The so-called hadiths are never Sunna/method of Muhammad; abandoning the Quran and  rejecting it to favor the man-made narratives is showing hatred and enmity toward God and Muhammad, and this is why Muhammad with disown those enemies, who ascribed falsehoods to him never uttered by him, on the Last Day as per 25:30. Strangely, Sunnite books contain a story that Muhammad commanded others around him never to write anything after him except for the Quran and to remove anything else written about him or copied from his own words. Thus, Muhammad never uttered or knew any hadiths at all and so were his contemporaries who had nothing but the Quran as the only source of religion. Even the caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab said the following in his speech once he became caliph: (... There is no any other book after the Quran, and I follow it and will be never inventing anything new in religion ...). yet, whims prevailed and oral narratives/traditions called hadiths spread among people while attributed to Muhammad decades after his death; accumulated and increased exponentially, these so-called hadiths were written for the very first time in the 3^rd century A.H. in a systematic way. Thus, inventing hadiths increased the more; countless hadiths contradicted one another even in the same book by a given author, even in the same page of his book! All hadiths contradict the Quran by either adding to it useless items or by flagrantly denying Quranic facts and teachings. This is why discrepancies abound in all books of hadiths, within their texts and series of narrators; rivalry in fabricating and inventing hadiths, apart from political motives, led authors to invent hadiths to refute hadiths of other authors, with debates ensued for centuries among Sunnite scholars, until Napoleon Bonaparte surprised Egyptians by conquering Egypt, and at the time, Azharite scholars, or rather ignoramuses, attempted to seek the aid from their saint, Al-Bokhary, for protection, by reciting his book aloud in groups, and this was of no avail to them before weapons of the French, who broke into Al-Azhar Mosque with their horses, anyway!

  Thus a renaissance began to form when the French Expedition occurred and Great Britain interfered in the Persian Gulf as the Ottoman Empire grew weaker; the Muslim, or rather Muhammadan, societies were deeply shaken but two contradictory trends emerged: within the Najd region deserts, the Wahabi call emerged and sought to move people back in time, by reviving the extremist Ibn Hanbal Sunnite doctrine, while considering Sufism is the only cause for regression and backwardness, with the only 'salvation' to be found in hadiths written by the ancestors. The other opposite trend is Muhammad Ali Pacha, king of Egypt, when he was bent on modernizing Egypt to make it like European countries, but his grand project faltered in its steps because of foreign colonial powers. Meanwhile, the Wahabi Saudi state was established three times and collapsed twice. The third current KSA used oil revenues to spread Wahabism all over Egypt and Arab/'Islamic' countries and it invaded minds of the masses gradually. This has led to the rise of the same old myths and phenomena of the Middle-Ages: growing beards, dress-codes of the past, niqab and hijab, 'the bald snake' and the torment of the grave, among other myriads of myths rejected and refuted by the Quran.

 Before the era of Gulf oil, Egypt witnessed a true intellectual renaissance, and this movement included religious reform and ijtihad appearing amidst Al-Azhar, led by its head the imam Muhammad Abdou, with his modern school of thought seeking radical reform by the call to return to the Quran as the only and sole source of religion and Islamic legislations. This school of thought lingered faintly until 1960s in Egypt within the imam/head of Al-Azhar Mahmoud Shaltout who repeated phrases of M. Abdou in his books published in the 1960s, with enlightenment built on the school of M. Abdou, who died in 1905. Shaltout tackled issues like permitted bank interests and he refuted myths found in hadiths linked to the Last Day and declared that the only source of religious knowledge is the Quran, as hadiths are never authentic, absolute, or true and cannot be trusted, and he refuted myths linked to the realm of the future and the unknown, including the so-called torment of the grave. Yet, intellectual endeavors of Abdou and Shaltout are lost when the oil revenues of the KSA increased exponentially and allowed Saudis to sponsor and spread Wahabism (as though it were 'genuine' Islam) since the 1970s onwards in Egypt and worldwide, thus invading minds of youths by myths. Those in Egypt who tried to revive views of Abdou and Shaltout, spread in earlier decades in the 10^th century, to undermine Wahabism were persecuted as apostates and heretics who risked their lives as they might get killed! When we have emerged with Quranism as our call and trend since 1977, we are still in danger of being murdered and we live under threats, only because we demand openly and outspokenly the return to the Quran as the sole source of religion and the only criterion to judge anything, thus refuting Sunnite Wahabism and all hadiths of all types. Since our foes cannot declare their hating the Quran, abandoned by them, they have no other option left but to verbally abuse us, to launch virulent attacks against us, and to persecute and threaten us as much as they can. This is our own history since 1977 until now because of our vociferous non-compromising reformist call and reform endeavors to understand the Quran in the best way possible and to reject all fiqh and hadiths. We use the Quran as the sole criterion to refute the topic of the torment of the grave and all hadiths linked to it, hoping for guidance to ourselves and others, and even our slanderers and abusers whom we tolerate and pardon, knowing very well they verbally abuse us because they cannot refute our views.

 Why Muhammad never uttered any hadiths, especially linked to the realm of the future and the unknown? We deny all hadiths of course, and larger part of them are linked to future events: the Day of Resurrection, intercession, those promised with entering Paradise, the awaited second coming of Christ, emergence of the so-called Al-Mahdi, and the fear of the so-called Anti-Christ, etc. We are never to believe such nonsense, because the only source for the realm of the unknown and unseen is the Quran. Azharite scholars insist that 'authentic' hadiths are the ones with asserted series of narrators; we beg to differ. No single hadith is absolutely true as if  part of Quranic verses; the Quran is the only Absolute Truth. Even many Middle-Ages scholars of fiqh rejected the notion that some hadiths are 'authentic' or 100% 'true' based on 'verified' series of narrators, and these scholars include Al-Hazimy, Al-Shatbi, Abou Hayyan, Al-Nawawi, etc. and some of them made verified hadiths to be only one, three, or five, including the one about those who ascribe lies to Muhammad as entering Hell in case they never repent before their death. No hadith narrators ever described hadiths of the torment of the grave as 'authentic' or 'verified' but rather as doubted narratives, as per hadith scholars. We pose these questions: do we really need such thousands of hadiths filling countless books about the realm of the unseen, the unknown, and the future, which are based on mere guessing?! Is it not better to confine knowledge about the realm of the unseen, the unknown, and the future to the Quranic text?! Each group of Middle-Ages authors who would defend their invented myths about the realm of the unseen, the unknown, and the future would invent myriads of hadiths to support their views; contradictions abound in their books and discourse, and religion cannot be based on discrepancies made by mortals, right?!

 Let us focus on the Quran itself to answer this question: did Muhammad uttered any hadiths at all?! What about the so-called torment of the grave hadiths? Did Muhammad ever talked about the realm of the unseen, the unknown, and the future? We find definitive answers in the Quranic verses, as for true believers only, God says nothing but the Truth. God the Omniscient is the Only One knowing this realm; Muhammad, and all mortals, never knew about the realm of the unseen, the unknown, and the future; we assert this fact by the following Quranic verses: "With Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except He..." (6:59); "...Say, "The realm of the unseen belongs to God..." (10:20); "To God belongs the future of the heavens and the earth, and to Him all authority goes back..." (11:123); "To God belongs the unseen of the heavens and the earth..." (16:77); "Say, "No one in the heavens or on earth knows the future except God..." (27:65). Thus, such verses confine this real to God as part of the Divine Attributes never allowed to any mortals.

  Prophets and messengers never knew the realm of the unknown and unseen, except for what God has told them in the messages conveyed to them: "...Nor will God inform you of the future, but God elects from among His messengers whom He wills..." (3:179); "The Knower of the Invisible; He does not disclose His Invisible to anyone. Except to a Messenger of His choosing..." (72:26-27). For instance, God made Jesus and Joseph know some of the invisible to prove to their peoples that they are prophets of the Lord; other prophets had not had that gift from God, such as Noah and Muhammad. Noah said the following to his people: "I do not say to you that I possess the treasures of God, nor do I know the future nor do I say to you that I am an angel..." (11:31); likewise, Muhammad said the following to his people: "Say, "I do not say to you that I possess the treasuries of God, nor do I know the future, nor do I say to you that I am an angel. I only follow what is inspired to me."..." (6:50). God has commanded Muhammad to say to those questioners that he knows nothing about the timing of the Last Day, as God did not choose him among messengers who knew some facts about the realm of the future: "Say, "I do not know whether what you are promised is near, or whether my Lord will extend it for a period." The Knower of the Invisible; He does not disclose His Invisible to anyone. Except to a Messenger of His choosing..." (72:25-27); thus, Muhammad never knew the realm of the unseen and the future, unless things God chose to mention in the Quran, and God denies that Muhammad was omniscient: "They ask you about the Hour, "When will it come?" Say, "Knowledge of it rests with my Lord. None can reveal its coming except He. It weighs heavily on the heavens and the earth. It will not come upon you except suddenly." They ask you as if you are responsible for it. Say, "Knowledge of it rests with God," but most people do not know. Say, "I have no control over any benefit or harm to myself, except as God wills. Had I known the future, I would have acquired much good, and no harm would have touched me. I am only a warner, and a herald of good news to a people who believe."" (7:187-188). If Muhammad were omniscient, he would not have been deceived by hypocrites, who never feared God, seeking his judgment to defend criminals, as we infer from these verses: "We have revealed to you the Scripture, with the truth, so that you judge between people in accordance with what God has shown you. And do not be an advocate for the traitors. And ask God for forgiveness. God is Forgiver and Merciful. And do not argue on behalf of those who deceive themselves. God does not love the deceitful sinner. " (4:105-107); these verses apply to those hypocrites: "They hide from the people, but they cannot hide from God. He is with them, as they plot by night with words He does not approve. God comprehends what they do." (4:108); "They profess obedience, but when they leave your presence, some of them conspire something contrary to what you said. But God writes down what they conspire. So avoid them, and put your trust in God. God is Guardian enough." (4:81). Hence, Muhammad in daily life acted as per his human abilities in all events, occurrences, self-defense battles, etc. and God has responded to those who used to ask Muhammad about this invisible realm in this verse: "Say, "I am not different from the other messengers; and I do not know what will be done with me, or with you. I only follow what is inspired in me, and I am only a clear warner."" (46:9). Thus, Muhammad never uttered anything about the so-called torment of the grave since he had no knowledge of the realm of the invisible, and it is our duty to clear Muhammad's name of such a myth refuted in the Quran. All hadiths are false as the only pieces of information available to us about the invisible realm and the future (i.e., the Afterlife) are found exclusively in the Quranic text. Thus, thousands of hadiths about the so-called intercession and events of the Last Day in hadiths, events that are never mentioned in the Quran, as well as about torment in tombs are never true; those Muhammadans who adhere to these hadiths reject the Quran and disbelieve in it. To believe in the Quran is to reject and disbelieve in all hadiths, and Muhammadans of today could not solve their problem/discrepancy of combining the belief in the Quran and in their revered hadiths contradicting it except to verbally abuse the writer of these lines; it is OK, but this never solves their problem, of course?! One cannot combine the belief in one discourse and another ones contradicting it.

 We summarize the above in asserting the following points which we have concluded:

1- Real Sunna/method/way of Muhammad is adherence to the Quran and following it, and the Quranic verses assert Muhammad never knew the realm of the invisible or the future, and consequently never talked about it; we infer this from the Quran: Muhammad never talked about the notion of the torment of the grave.

2- Most verifiers and collectors of hadiths state in their books that no hadiths are 100 sure or true as authentic or exact words of the Prophet, and they allowed themselves to describe five hadiths only as 100 true, and this does not apply, to them, for the rest of the hundreds of thousands of hadiths, and the supposedly 'ascertained' five hadiths never include one about the notion of the torment of the grave. We, Quranists deny the veracity of all hadiths; not even a single one is deemed to be true. The Quran is the only source of Islam.

3- Since God tells us in the Quran that Muhammad never knew the realm of the invisible or the future, we deny all hadiths about the weird notion of the torment of the grave. Such hadiths include reciting the Quranic Chapter 67 to the dead to prevent their being tormented and those who are never tormented just because they died on a Friday(!) or because they died of a certain illness in the stomach(!). We thank the Almighty for saving us from the belief in such myths!

CHAPTER II

  The only pieces of information about the future in the Afterlife are found exclusively in the Quran, with details about creation of souls, their death, Barsakh, resurrection, judgment, etc. and we are to follow the Quranic verses in order to get to know all this for sure; the Quran never mentions anything about the mythical notion of the torment of the grave inflicted on the dead by a bald, hairless snake. Yet, some Sunnites, past and present, overlap Quranic facts about Barsakh and false hadiths about the notion of the torment of the grave. Let us research within the Quran the topic of the human soul and its relation to the human body, and what are the fates of both the soul and the body, in relation to Barsakh, resurrection and judgment on the Last Day.

 Creation, death, Barsakh, and resurrection: we know from the Quran that God created all human souls at once in the same time: "O people! Fear your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and created from it its mate, and propagated from them many men and women..." (4:1); from this one soul, all souls are sprung, and souls get from Barsakh to the earth to wear a body for a certain duration, and then when we die, souls return to Barsakh in state of timelessness and slumber until resurrection; souls of those yet unborn are still in Barsakh waiting for their being tested in life: "And it is He who produced you from a single person, then a repository, then a depository..." (6:98). Souls before getting into fetuses in wombs are in deep slumber of timelessness inside Barsakh, and souls dominate and control the body as long as one is alive on Earth, until the predetermined timing of one's death, thus ending the test of life that lasted for some duration, and souls return after death to Barsakh, its original place, feeling the timelessness again in deep slumber waiting for resurrection, judgment, and eternal life (either in Hell or Paradise). This means all humanity were dead souls inside Barsakh before being born: death is like the state we felt before being born: nothingness, timelessness, and senselessness, but after resurrection on the Last Day, eternal life is expected (either in Hell or Paradise). God says in the Quran: "How can you deny God, when you were dead and He gave you life, then He will put you to death, then He will bring you to life, then to Him you will be returned?" (2:28); Hell dwellers will realize this fact as they will say: "They will say, "Our Lord, you made us die twice, and twice you gave us life. Now we acknowledge our sins. Is there any way out?"" (40:11). Thus, souls are dead in Barsakh, then live on earth wearing bodies, then die, then live eternally; thus, these are two lives and two deaths. Thus, in Barsakh, our soul was there, along with other souls of people yet to be born, including our grandchildren, and souls of the dead among our ancestors, and when we die one day, our body turns to dust and our soul return to Barsakh. It is impossible that the soul of our dead father would get to know the soul of our yet unborn grandchildren; the reason: Barsakh is a state of timelessness, senselessness, and deep slumber of unconsciousness and lifelessness. God asserts that no one, including Muhammad, can reach the dead souls and make the dead bodies in tombs hear anything: "Nor are equal the living and the dead. God causes whomever He wills to hear, but you cannot make those in the graves hear." (35:22); "If you pray to them, they cannot hear your prayer. And even if they heard, they would not answer you. And on the Day of Resurrection, they will reject your polytheism..." (35:14), and God tells us that it is no use to worship entombed dead saints in mausoleums: "They are dead, not alive; and they do not know when they will be resurrected." (16:21). Thus, dead bodies are mere dust and cannot hear or feel anything, and souls in Barsakh never meet or talk to one another at all, unlike what we read in Sunnite, Shiite, and Sufi myths.

 Death, Barsakh, and sleep: the souls never stand to linger in the body-prison for long times, they return to Barsakh during our sleep, but remain linked to the bodies in an ethereal manner we cannot imagine; thus, sleep is temporary death as per this Quranic verse: "God takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that have not died during their sleep. He retains those for which He has decreed death, and He releases the others until a predetermined time..." (39:42). Thus, the myth of the torment of the grave is refuted; dead bodies turn to dust, and real self is the soul of the dead persons return to Barsakh, locked in this unknown place between life and Afterlife, until resurrection on the Last Day. Death is of two types: temporary repeated one (during sleep) and the one when souls never return to bodies after leaving them. The sensations of souls outside bodies during sleep are called dreams, and during sleep, we never fell the passage of time; time is the fourth side of the physical matter. Thus, upon resurrection, souls feel they have slept for a day or part of day:  timelessness and unconsciousness of Barsakh are felt during sleep and also during death: "Or like him who passed by a town collapsed on its foundations. He said, "How can God revive this after its demise?" Thereupon God caused him to die for a hundred years, and then resurrected him. He said, "For how long have you tarried?" He said, "I have tarried for a day, or part of a day." He said, "No. You have tarried for a hundred years..." (2:259). Even people of the cave, in the story in the Quranic Chapter 18, had remembered events occurred to them before their slumber that lasted for 309 years and felt as if they slept for a day: "...A speaker among them said, "How long have you stayed?" They said, "We have stayed a day, or part of a day."....."If they discover you, they will stone you, or force you back into their religion; then you will never be saved."" (18:19-20). They never knew at this moment that their people died long ago! All people, including sinners, will feel upon resurrection that they died a day ago: "On the Day when they witness it-as though they only stayed an evening, or its morning." (79:46); "Murmuring among themselves: "You have lingered only for ten." We are fully aware of what they say, when the most exemplary of them in conduct will say, "You have lingered only a day."" (20:103-104). This means that sinners never experience torment in the grave; otherwise, they would have felt time very acutely for centuries, passing very slowly, but in fact, they will feel upon resurrection as if the slept for a short while: "On the Day when the Hour takes place, the sinners will swear they had stayed but an hour. Thus they were deluded. But those endowed with knowledge and faith will say, "You remained in God's Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know."" (30:55-56). The word 'hour' here does NOT mean 60 minutes, of course, but rather a short duration. This means they sinners were not tormented in their tombs at all, as the supposed torment will make minutes feel like centuries for them. Thus, souls in Barsakh are senseless and feel nothing nor are they aware of the passage of time, and those with deep faith will respond to them in the manner we read in 30:56.

 Between Barsakh and the moment of dying: because Barsakh is a state of timelessness, senselessness, and lifelessness, the Quran links directly the sensation of the dying persons and their sensation since they are resurrected: "The daze of death has come in truth: "This is what you tried to evade." And the Trumpet is blown: "This is the Promised Day."" (50:19-20). If the resurrected person is among the losers, it is in vain to demand a second chance of life, and angels of death strike such a soul: "Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back. That I may do right in what I have neglected." By no means! It is just a word that he utters. And behind them is a barrier, until the Day they are resurrected." (23:99-100); "How about when the angels take them at death, beating their faces and their backs?" (47:27); "If only you could see, as the angels take away those who disbelieve, striking their faces and their backs: "Taste the agony of the Burning."" (8:50). Thus, angels of death tell sinners about torment waiting for them in Hell for eternity and bring glad tidings to good souls when they receive them from the dead bodies, and both types of souls will be resurrected feeling as if they were asleep for a day or part of a day. Among losers who will feel the moment of dying in panic are those ascribing lies and falsehoods to God and Muhammad, such as intercession and other myths, and angles of death rebuke them severely: "Who does greater wrong than someone who invents falsehood against God, or says, "It was revealed to me," when nothing was revealed to him, or says, "I will reveal the like of what God revealed"? If only you could see the wrongdoers in the floods of death, as the angels with arms outstretched: "Give up your souls. Today you are being repaid with the torment of shame for having said about God other than the truth, and for being too proud to accept His revelations." "You have come to Us individually, just as We created you the first time, leaving behind you everything We gave you. We do not see with you your intercessors-those you claimed were your partners. The link between you is cut, and what you had asserted has failed you."" (6:93-94). Angels of death rebuke such sinners in that way in these two verses, and Barsakh between death and resurrection is a state of timelessness and deep slumber, and upon resurrection, all human beings will feel they slept for a short while, as we read in the verses we have quoted above; this is why the Quranic text in some verses move from describing feelings of the dying ones to their feelings once resurrected. This means there is no torment or bliss in tombs or graves, and certainly no bald snakes to torture any dead bodies. This is the Quranic rule, but there are exceptions of those who feel every single moment of Barsakh: the souls of those killed while striving for God's sake are enjoying a type of Barsakh Paradise, and the souls of the people of Moses' Pharaoh and the people of Noah are being tormented in Barsakh as well. These groups certainly feel the passage of time in Barsakh; this entails some explanation below, based of course on the Quran.   

  Those killed while striving for God's sake: these are not to be mistaken for witnesses who testify for/against their peoples as preachers of the Truth: "Who does greater wrong than he who fabricates lies about God? These will be presented before their Lord, and the witnesses will say, "These are they who lied about their Lord." Indeed, the curse of God is upon the wrongdoers." (11:18); "On the Day when We raise in every community a witness against them, from among them, and bring you as a witness against these. We have revealed to you the Book, as an explanation of all things, and guidance, and mercy and good news for those who submit." (16:89); "And the earth will shine with the Light of its Lord; and the Book will be put in place; and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought in; and Judgment will be passed among them equitably, and they will not be wronged." (39:69). As for those killed while striving for God's sake, they might or might not include preachers of the Truth, and God tells us that they are alive in Barsakh and not dead: "And do not say of those who are killed in the cause of God, "Dead." Rather, they are alive, but you do not perceive." (2:154). They are alive because they dedicated their lives to God, for His cause, and thus, He rewards them with eternal bliss in Barsakh, in a level that cannot be imagined at all with our minds and senses; but those blessed souls feel those on earth, as we read in this verse: " Do not consider those killed in the cause of God as dead. In fact, they are alive, at their Lord, well provided for. Delighting in what God has given them out of His grace, and happy for those who have not yet joined them; that they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." (3:169-170). This applies to this believing man mentioned in the Quranic Chapter 36: "It was said, "Enter Paradise." He said, "If only my people knew. How my Lord has forgiven me, and made me one of the honored."" (36:26-27). This may be the Barsakh Paradise where Adam and his wife used to be, or the Paradise mentioned in 53:15, we are not sure, but we are 100% certain that entombed dead bodies never feel a thing, never tormented or delighting in bliss. Souls of those killed for God's cause are blessed in this Barsakh Paradise in  way/level we cannot imagine. It is a shame that ignoramuses quote the above verses to prove myths of the torment of the grave or paradise in tombs for bodies turned to dust, for such notions are never mentioned in the Quran at all.

 People of Moses' Pharaoh and people of Noah: they lived their earthly life fighting and persecuting the prophets sent to them until they died by being smitten by the Lord; the former were drowned in the Red Sea and the latter in the deluge/flood. Of course, other smitten peoples disbelieved in the messages of God conveyed by their prophets, but God mentions people of Moses' Pharaoh and people of Noah in particular as being tormented in Barsakh; other sinners and criminals are not, as they will feel upon resurrection that they slept for a day or part of a day as a general rule, and this means that their Barsakh is a slumber of senselessness and timelessness. Thus, people of Moses' Pharaoh and people of Noah are the two exceptions to this rule; the latter are mentioned as tormented with fire in Barsakh once after their death in this Quranic verse: "Because of their wrongs, they were drowned, and were hurled into a Fire. They did not find apart from God any helpers." (71:25), and we should bear in mind that their disobedience lasted for 950 years, the period of the ministry of Noah, as per the Quran, until Noah said in despair: "Noah said, "My Lord, do not leave of the unbelievers a single dweller on earth. If You leave them, they will mislead your servants, and will breed only wicked unbelievers." (71:26-27). "And it was revealed to Noah: "None of your people will believe, except those who have already believed, so do not grieve over what they do." "And build the Ark, under Our eyes, and with Our inspiration, and do not address Me regarding those who did wrong; they are to be drowned." As he was building the ark, whenever some of his people passed by him, they ridiculed him. He said, "If you ridicule us, we will ridicule you, just as you ridicule." "You will surely know upon whom will come a torment that will abase him, and upon whom will fall a lasting torment."" (11:36-39). This means a lasting torment in Barsakh and then in Hell for eternity, and this story has been told by other prophets for other generations to serve as a warning, and the story of the deluge is found and echoed in all ancient civilizations on earth. The people of Noah were the first people smitten by God, in the deluge/flood, and the last people to be smitten by God, Moses' Pharaoh and his people, were also drowned, in the Red Sea, as they imitate the evil ways of the people of Noah; they rejected all Signs of God given to Moses and Aaron, and the corrupt Moses' Pharaoh declared his self-deification and refused adamantly to allow the Israelites to leave the land to avoid his tyranny. Thus, Moses' Pharaoh dedicated his life in persecuting peaceful weak ones, and the last moments of his life were spent in trying to crush them for leaving the land without his permission, thus, he dedicated his life to Satan and so did his people, and God makes him and them as imams of all disbelievers, like Noah's people, to the next generations: "And We made them leaders calling to the Fire. And on Resurrection Day..." (28:41); "Like the behavior of Pharaoh's people and those before them. They rejected Our Signs, so God seized them for their sins. God is Strict in retribution." (3:11); "Such was the case with the people of Pharaoh, and those before them. They denied the signs of their Lord, so We annihilated them for their wrongs, and We drowned the people of Pharaoh-they were all evildoers." (8:54). This means that polytheists coming after the era of Moses' Pharaoh are like him in Hell, but this Pharaoh and his people are tormented in Barsakh before entering Hell after the Day of Resurrection: "...while a terrible torment besieged Pharaoh's people; the Fire. They will be exposed to it morning and evening. And on the Day the Hour takes place: "Admit the clan of Pharaoh to the most intense agony."" (40:45-46). This means Barsakh torment for them was lesser than the one waiting for them in Hell for eternity, and the lesser on is not in tombs, but in Barsakh for the souls. We imagine that Moses' Pharaoh suffers in Barsakh while seeing the weak Israelites living in bliss in the land in peace and security, as we infer from these verses: "Pharaoh exalted himself in the land, and divided its people into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons, while sparing their daughters. He was truly a corrupter. But We desired to favor those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders, and to make them the inheritors. And to establish them in the land; and to show Pharaoh, Haman, and their troops, the very thing they feared." (28:46); "So We took vengeance on them, and drowned them in the sea-because they rejected Our signs, and paid no heed to them. And We made the oppressed people inherit the eastern and western parts of the land, which We had blessed. Thus the fair promise of your Lord to the Children of Israel was fulfilled, because of their endurance. And We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people had built, and what they had harvested." (7:136-137). That Moses' Pharaoh saw the Israelites in bliss occurred while his soul is being tormented in Barsakh, this is going on until the Last Day, when he and his people will enter into Hell as per 40:46. Thus, this torment is never in tomb or occurring to body of Pharaoh, but in Barsakh in a special way that cannot be fully imagined by us, while his body is left behind: "Today We will preserve your body, so that you become a sign for those after you..." (10:92). Thus, there is no bald snake biting the body of Moses' Pharaoh, as Sunnites claim in their myths, and he will be made an imam/leader to his people upon entering into Hell for eternity: "He will precede his people on the Day of Resurrection, and will lead them into the Fire. Miserable is the place he placed them in. They were followed by a curse in this, and on the Day of Resurrection. Miserable is the path they followed." (11:98-99). Thus, Moses' Pharaoh and his people were leaders/imams of disbelief and misguidance and they are tormented in Barsakh like Noah's people, unlike those who dedicated their lives for God's sake and got killed, who live in bliss of the Barsakh Paradise until entering the eternal Paradise after the Last Day; we know nothing about Barsakh Paradise except the few words about it in the Quran; thus, we are to believe in its existence without posing any questions about the realm of the unknown. Imagining any additional details would be mythology, and it is better to pose questions and research scientifically the physical world instead: "Have they not seen how God originates the creation, and then reproduces it? This is easy for God. Say, "Roam the earth, and observe how He originated the creation." Then God will bring about the next existence. God has power over all things."" (29:19-20); " How many a sign in the heavens and the earth do they pass by, paying no attention to them? " (12:105). Should our ancestors have applied and pondered upon these verses, they would have made scientific advancement like the West, but instead, they were busy with the bald snake and other myths!               

CHAPTER III

 It is natural that children, and later on philosophers, would pose questions about their existence: the reason why they are born, the universe is created, etc. but grownups who are busy with the transient world pleasures, glories, ambitions, and desires of the flesh forget these pivotal questions, and to weep for and lament over the loss of youth as they grow old and weak. Most people are losers in the Afterlife because they forgot that bodies are merely things that souls wear on earth; bodies are not the center/aim of existence. Bodies turn to dust from which it was created and souls return to Barsakh, waiting for resurrection. It is rare that people would be thinking of the deceased ones away from entombed bodies; superficial people thing that the dead body of the deceased people are the essence of them; this is utterly wrong. The dead bodies are just decaying corpses like old, torn, worn-out clothes, as the dead person is really in Barsakh as a soul. Sadly, human experiences are centered on bodies, while forgetting that the real persons are the souls that dominated and controlled these bodies, like a driver driving a car. The bodies the medium by which souls receive pleasure, pain, etc. through the brain. Some people feel their souls float when they are under anesthetics to undergo a surgical operation, and souls are the first and last factor feeling carnal pleasure/pain when a husband and his wife have sex or make love, but people focus on the bodies and forget the souls. This is very wrong. Is this linked to the myth of the torment of the grave?! Certainly; focusing on the body and disregarding the soul makes most people misunderstand death and believe any ancient myths linked to it, while fearing death and the sight of a dying person. The only facts of death are found exclusively in the Quran; death is a deep slumber or fainting state, and thus, there is no room for pain after death before resurrection in Barsakh. Yet, folklore ideas make death appear as if it were painful; no dead person ever returned to speak about this experience. Thus, people fear death for no reason but some myths. It is better to learn facts of death mentioned in the Quran, asserted by the way in some scientific experiments. Yet, myths and tales prevail on the collective memory of the masses; if they reject such mythology, they will be relieved of the nightmares and extreme worries about the false tales of the torment of the grave inflicted by the so-called bald snake. We must NOT focus on bodies, but on souls, and dead people never sleep in tombs; the bodies are like worn-out clothes decomposed gradually to turn to dust, without the soul feeling anything, as the real persons are souls in Barsakh in a state of senselessness and timelessness. Yet, the masses believe the myth that dead bodies feel confined in dark tombs and so on, and folk tales are filled with such myths and literature. Sunnite myths include a dragon with seven heads biting and stinging the dead bodies of the disbelievers, beside striking their heads with massive iron hammers so strong that they might turn mountains to dust, and piercing nipples of women and biting their lips, besides being thrown in a lake of fire and the bald snake would bite them eternally etc. Such silly tales show how Sunnites focus on the body as they worship it, and people afraid of the Hereafter, about which they know little, would be ready to believe in such mythology. Gullible masses believe blindly such silly tales, out of fear, once ignoramuses ascribe them to Muhammad in the form of hadiths as part of the Sunnite religion. As a result, Sunnite imams and saints use such myths as material to control and intimidate their followers, and taking money from the gullible masses so that they turn their tombs from pits of fire with bald snakes into five-star hotels! Hadith narrators were employed by the Umayyads to tell these tales, among other narratives and hadiths, to people all over mosques to distract them away from revolting against caliphs; orators would increase suspense to their tales to attract wider audiences and they used to ascribe such myths and narratives typically to Muhammad. Such oral traditions spread during the Umayyad Era had the chance to be jot down during the Abbasid Era, with much additions and distortions by many authors, including the Persian author follower of Mazdakism, whose first name was Ibn Berzaweih surnamed Al-Bokhary, who died in 256 A.H. Indeed, tales and hadiths if the torment of the grave were popular among narrators during the Umayyad Era, and a clergymen/scholar named Al-Awzaay, who served both the Umayyads and Abbasids, was a popular narrator of hadiths and his tales about torment of the grave were supported by their Pharaonic roots that people knew for thousands of years for many generations. Some Muhammadan cattle and ignoramuses assume that Satan has tendered a resignation once the Quran was conveyed fully and Muhammad died; this cannot be true, and that all conquered nations accepted Islam willingly without doubts or any influence of former civilizations and myths, again another grave error in history. Another fallacy is that the Muhammadans assume that their faith is spotless, perfect, and immaculate as 100% monotheism (!) and they assume another myth that they imitate Muhammad and his application of Islam (!). This is why they hate any Quranist preachers who are outspoken and vociferous in their call for religious reform among all Muhammadans worldwide, and instead, they proselytize Wahabism in remote areas worldwide in deserts, forests, North and South Poles, and at the Equator. Other sly foxes desire to reach power and establish theocracy to make all Muhammadans submit to them blindly as representative of God's religion! They aim to conquer the world like Arabs of the Middle Ages! Such foxes and cattle among the Muhammadans desire to control the awareness of the nations by making them engrossed in Sunnite, Wahabi mythology as opium, and especially hadiths of the so-called torment of the grave, so as to stop them from criticizing and questioning Wahabism, and they are ready to accuse Quranist reformers of being heretics and apostates for their denying Sunna and hadiths. Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by the motto (no one is allowed to produce ijtihad to understand the texts), as if their 'holy' texts of hadiths and fiqh have one definite meaning! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people to prevent them from thinking critically and to control minds of people to the authority of clergy ho steal their money, and they would control the masses to allow theocrats to reach power and to make the masses turn into suicide bombers and fierce fighters whenever needed! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by making them afraid of the bald snaking waiting in tombs to devour those who dare disobey or question clergymen. Thus, Salafist books are filled with details of the so-called torment of the grave and not the other myth of bliss/paradise inside tombs! This is intellectual and moral terrorism that destroys human dignity and mind; Salafists makes people forget that God provided human beings with dignity and made them rule over earth as successors. Hence, Salafists and Wahabis make the gullible masses turn unawares into polytheists who lose both this world and the next, while Satan is glad for their efforts, as they assume that Satan has tendered a resignation to seek a work contract on Mars instead of earth controlled by the bald snake and its clergy!                     

CHAPTER IV

  The Egyptian civilization is the most ancient one on the surface of the earth, and its influence on many generations of human beings worldwide for millennia is undeniable; Selim Hassan, the famous Egyptian historian and Egyptologist, assert in his books that religious life and rituals of Ancient Egyptians is the source of the myth of the torment of the grave, with the Pharaonic focus on bodies of their dead ones, by mummification, as the myth of Isis and Osiris made them feel that bodies were to be preserved to return to life later on to be resurrected before Osiris, god of the dead, to be judged. Adolph Erman in his book about the Ancient Egyptian religion asserts that the Pharaonic myths include the dead person being brought back to life body and soul, and until now in rural villages in Egypt, the masses think that the entombed dead ones hear and see everything. In the 125^th chapter of the Book of the Dead, we read about the god Osiris judging the dead people and beside him Anubis and Horus, and how the dead ones are resurrected body and soul to be judged, with the wicked ones being tortured in the grave by a mythical creature made of a serpent, crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. The court headed by the god Osiris had 42 judges representing 42 provinces of Egypt, with the god Thoth recording everything, and the dead person would glorify Osiris and defend himself/herself before him, and winners enter a paradise and losers would remain to be tortured and eaten by the mythical creature and feeling eternal hunger and thirst, with a huge snake biting them everywhere in their bodies, and their bodies are formed again to be eaten again, for eternity. Thus, this Pharaonic myth were distorted and passed to next generations, and Osiris is renamed Azrael the angel of death as per Sunnite myths, with two angels judging the dead person in his/her grave. Pharaonic influence in that respect spread in Levantine and European myths, as per Erman in his book, and its heavy influence is seen until now in creeds of Jews and Christians, as per H. G. Wells in his book titled "A Short History of the World" and Charles Guignebert in his book about history of Christianity. It is noteworthy that before them mentioned the fact that though the Israelites suffered severe persecution by Egyptians and Moses' Pharaoh, they felt affinity to the Ancient Egyptian religion. Proof: we know from the Quran that when the Lord saved the Israelites from Moses' Pharaoh during the exodus by a great miracle, they forgot all about this and yearned and felt nostalgic to the Ancient Egyptian religion gods and asked Moses to make gods for them to worship: "And We delivered the Israelites across the sea. And when they came upon a people who were devoted to their statues of idols, they said, "O Moses, make for us a god, as they have gods." He said, "You are truly an ignorant people."" (7:138). Once Moses left them temporarily, the Israelites committed the sin of making a golden calf statue and worshipped it, which was similar to Apis, the Ancient Egyptian religion bull-god, and this shows that they used to worship Egyptians gods before the call of Moses. "In his absence, the people of Moses adopted a calf made from their ornaments....They took it for worship. They were in the wrong." (7:148). See also 20:86-96 for more details of this story. More over the Quran mentioned that some Jews at one time worshipped Osir or Osiris as a son of God, imitating the polytheism of ancient ones: "The Jews said, "Osir is the son of God," and the Christians said, "The Messiah is the son of God." These are their statements, out of their mouths. They emulate the statements of those who disbelieved before..." (9:30). Thus, Osiris was turned into Osir and Muhammadans turned Osir into Azrael, the angel of death in Sunnite mythology. This means that Pharaonic myths remained alive for a long time, influencing Egyptians, Levantine areas, Mesopotamia, etc., despite the existence of prophets among the Israelites. The Quran never gives a name to the angels of death, though it gives some names to other angels like Gabriel and Michael. Thus, the Umayyads revived Pharaonic myths of torment of the grave by their narrators of hadiths, especially that the Isis mythology was spread in Arabia before Islam, as the goddess Isis was worshipped by the Arabs in the name Uzza; see 53:19.                           

Narrators of hadiths and distracting tales in mosques: such people were employed by the Umayyads to deliver speeches to people after prayers, and at first, preachers among companions of the Prophet Muhammad worked in the pre-Umayyad era for free to preach people to adhere to piety after the death of Muhammad, but the Umayyads employed their own orators for political reasons: they desired to distract people so as not to allow them to revolt as the Umayyads were despots and never applied justice, the higher Quranic value. Thus, people had to be distracted by oral traditions, distracting tales, hadiths, and false biographical stories of Muhammad, so as to prevent them from pondering on the Quran. those preachers worked as propagandists to support Umayyads by fabricating hadiths serving their purposes; e.g., to spread myths supporting submissiveness to Umayyads as predestined fate and to hate Ali Ibn Abou Talib, whom Mu'aweiya fought for years. Narrators of hadiths received many money gifts and had salaries like judges, and they had to attract audiences with strange stories filled with myths and supernatural things, mixed with the political messages intended by the Umayyads; narrators spread in Egypt, Iraq, the Levant, and North Africa, and religious ales of fear were used to subjugate people by intimidating them with the myth of the torment of the grave with much details to terrify people so as not to allow them to revolt against the Umayyad rule, as frightened people were easily influenced to accept the Umayyad political propaganda and any messages desired to be spread by the Umayyads. Of course, narrators had some never-ending sources to derive their material from: Jewish myths that were in their turn influenced by ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology, and the two Arab Jews, feigning conversion to Islam, Abdullah Ibn Sallam and Kaab Al-Ahbar, were hadiths-producing machines and Abou Hurayrah were taught by them as well, and the influence of such men on hadiths, fiqh, and Quranic interpretations is so big and cannot be ignored. Thus, Pharaonic myths were rephrased in the form of hadiths ascribed falsely to Muhammad, as per what we read in the book titled "The Dawn of Islam" by the Egyptian historian Ahmed Ameen. Those in later eras who claimed to sift through hadiths to verify them had actually retained most of them, and rivalry and intellectual wars among imams and authors in the Abbasid Era led to the creation and inventions of thousands of more hadiths, and all of them tolerated the hundreds of hadiths about the torment of the grave myth, in order to terrorize the gullible masses and control them afterwards. Hence, in the 1970s onwards in Egypt, Salafists and Wahabis repeat the same myths so as to control the terrified people and make them accept theocracy one day in Egypt and in the Arab world. Thus, the gullible Muhammadans blindly follow Sunnite Wahabi imams to Hell, as they forget to ponder the Quran as they have abandoned it.

Conclusion:

 The famous imam Abou Al-Hassan Al-Ashaary who died in 330 A.H. wrote a book about differences in sects, philosophies, and doctrines of the Muhammadans, and he asserts in his book titled "Discourses of Muslims Sects and Differences of Performers of Prayers" that the topic of the torment of the grave drew hot debates for three centuries among all scholars and imams and narrators of hadiths, and some denied it and some added details to is, but the more intellectual ones who loved Greek philosophy, like Al-Mu'tazala group, denied such a myth categorically. Sadly, the extremist Sunnite doctrines retained and cherished this myth for political reasons to make clergy hold authority over peoples and masses in general in all eras, and such myth is still being taught in books of the Cairo-based Al-Azhar University, sponsored by the Wahabi KSA money, from oil revenues, that has revived the Wahabi creed all over the Arab world, a creed based on the extremist Sunnite Ibn Hanbal doctrine. Meanwhile, the Quran is never consulted to judge this myth of the torment of the grave, and when Quranist and intellectuals deny this myth, they are accused of being heretics, apostates, and deniers of Sunna hadiths! We must face the 21th century while armed with science and the Quran, not Middle-Ages myths of bald snakes (as if some other reptiles are hairy or hirsute!) and worship of bodies, and such myths cause Arabs to be backward as colonial powers in the West desire to control Arabs and their oil and other natural resources in the next century, and such myths will certainly make Arabs lose the Eternal Life, in case of not repenting and returning to the Quran alone as the only source of Islam. Islam is Quranism. We leave this issue now to the conscience of our readers. All comments are welcome, and we pardon in advance those who verbally abuse us.