Sample 2

 Fahmi Howaydy is one of the most famous thinkers of Muslim Brothers.

He usually attacks the U.S and the West and the Muslim free thinkers.
Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour has responded to some of his articles.
You find attached the English translation of two articles of Howaydy and two articles of Dr. Mansour rebutting him. Howaydy’s weekly articles are usually published in many famous Arabic newspapers, while Dr .Mansour’s articles are usually banned in many of the Arabic World. He has to publish his articles on line in these few Arabic websites:
http://www.arabtimes.com/

http://www.metransparent.com/authors/arabic/ahmad_sobhy_mansour.htm

http://www.rezgar.com/m.asp?i=627

http://www.ildp.net/
The translations of the four articles are published in Ahl Al Quran site under the title of ( Defending the US and its policy in the Middle East ):

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=107

The Campaign to Dismantle Islam
Fahmi Howaydy 
Al-Ahram, 29 March 2005.

When the “Islamic “Friday prayers were called at the Washington Church, the Sermon was delivered and the prayers led by one of the ladies, for the first time in the history of the Muslims. This was not a mere flight of fancy or an American idiosyncrasy, but was part of a wide-ranging campaign aimed at the dismantling of Islam under the guise of either modernizing it, or of fighting extremism and terrorism.

1 – On one of the visits during which I attended an Islamic conference in Chicago, an American Muslim directed the following question to one of the sages (ulema) taking part: "Is it possible to hold the Friday Prayer on Sunday?" He justified the question on the grounds that the hours of work do not permit him to attend the Friday prayers, whereas there is plenty of time on Sunday, the weekly holiday, for him to offer his prayers without a time constraint so that he can devote all the time needed for the prayer and more. The question, at first blush, seems funny, but the person asking the question was very serious indeed. He seemed disappointed when he was told that the Friday prayer should be offered on Friday, and if the Muslim is prevented from offering them due to the circumstances of his work, he is excused and no blame is upon him.

With regards to a not insubstantial number of American Muslims, the question was logical and natural. Whatever it may be difficult to accomplish on Friday, can surely be accomplished on Sunday without disturbing the order of the universe. This is just like the question that some of them posed, whether it is possible to enter Islam "in installments". Thus one might progressively offer the prayers, and then advance to fasting and on to the obligatory charity (zakah). It is because many of them deal extensively with installments in their daily lives from purchasing a refrigerator, to a car, to buying a house. They thus do not find it strange to suggest applying the installments system to the process of converting to Islam.

It is the same simplistic mentality that caused the American blacks to confuse their resentment of white American society with their faith they said that God was black and that the devil had whitwhite skin, green eyes and blond hair.

When one gets close to the mentality dominant in American society, one realizes that that simplistic thinking does not stem from the naivety innocence characteristic of a wide segment of people, but is also the connecting instrument with the culture of dealing with what they call ‘the new spirituality’, which stems from needs rather than from responsibilities and duties. It is one of the consequences of secularist thinking which sets up the human being as a god, for when the world of fate and the abstracts of the unknowable and unseeable (ghayb) is set aside and its role marginalized, the human being alone becomes the maker of his own fate and future. Consequently any teachings, even if they are of divine origin, are to him, not final, but are amenable to change, alteration, deletion and addition, such that each individual can tailor his religious responsibilities according to what he feels comfortable with.

The result of this confusion is that the United States swelled with religious beliefs. As the ‘Encyclopedia of Religions’ indicates that there are 1586 religious groupings in the United States of which 700 are non-traditional in the sense that it is difficult to classify them as sects of or factions within the historically known world religions.

2 – Beyond the realm of innocence, one would discern nefarious, destructive activities attributed to Islam. These activities move in two directions, one focuses on the political and cultural, and the second is concerned with values, ethics and morality. An exciting and dangerous observation regarding these destructive activities is that they arise on two basic elements and which are: a group of Muslims that has penetrated Islam or fanatics who subscribe to certain beliefs. Among the latter are some Jewish Americans who support Israel and who hate everything Arab or Islamic.

In an important article, carried by the International Press Service (on 7 April 2004), an American researcher called Jim Loeb shed some light on the activities focusing on politics. He revealed the efforts exerted by the extremist American writer Daniel Pipes - in his support of Israel and in his hatred of the Arabs, especially the Palestinians – to establish a progressive Islamic institute, to represent the voice of the Muslim liberals in the United States. This Pipes runs an organization called ‘Middle East Forum for Research’ based in the State of Philadelphia. He has written prolifically and taken well known stands ranging from promoting fear of the confluence of Islamic beliefs with armed Islam, to warning against the presence of Muslims in the United States and what they represent by way of danger to Jewish influence, to criticizing Sharon’s plan for withdrawing from Gaza.

Pipes’ project revealed the establishment of a progressive center called the (Islamic Pluralism Center). He declared that the intent was to encourage moderate Islam in the United States and the world and to combat the influence of armed Islam, and to thwart the efforts of the organizations with extremist Wahaabi orientation, through the media and in co-operation with American government organizations. A later article by the same author, published by the agency on 24 February 2005, contains other important information about the people responsible for the center and about the sources of its funding. Its director is an American Muslim called Stephen Schultz who was a communist extremist (a Trotskyite). He entered Islam through Sufism. He espoused extremism in his Sufism, and his struggle in life became the conduct of the struggle against terrorism. As for his assistant, he is Egyptian. He had been dismissed from Al-Azhar in the eighties for his denial of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (the Sunnah). He went to the United States for a time, then returned to Egypt to become one of the corner-stones of the Ibn Khaldoun Center. After the legal problems faced by the Center and its director in 2000, he disappeared from Egypt to reappear again in the United States and become one of those calling for moderate American Islam. Daniel Pipes gave his name, among others, in an article entitled ‘Defining Moderate Muslims’ published for him in the New York Sun on 24 November 2004.

As for the funding and support of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, it comes from many sources aside from the Research Center run by Pipes. There is the conglomeration of Shiites Americans and the mosques that were liberated from extremist thought. Most prominent among those supporting the project was the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz (the architect of the war on Iraq and one of the most prominent Jewish activists among the neo-conservatives), and James Woolsey, past director of Central Intelligence. There is no need to bring in other names; the significance of these two names is enough to tell us the tendency of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, and the nature of moderation and progressiveness in its activities and aims.

Mr. Daniel Pipes was not satisfied with promoting the project of the Center for Pluralism; he tried to set up another organization, the purpose of which was to counteract the activities of the Islamists in the United States. Its true purpose was to combat the efforts exerted by the American Islamic organizations that Pipes describes as being representative of ‘Radical Islam’.
On another plane, is a third organization by the name of ‘free Muslim coalition against terrorism’, set up in Washington by an American Muslim of Palestinian descent called Kamal Ni’waash . He had made many failed attempts to get involved in politics. He finally found what he was looking for in carrying the sign reading ‘Resisting Terrorism’ and in supporting the efforts of the American Administration in that direction.

(On the 5th of August 2004, the Zionist oriented Fox News, which is antagonistic Islam, all Muslims and Arabs ran an interview with him in which he said that 50% of the Muslims are extremists and fascists and accused the prominent Islamic organizations in America of bias in favor of Radical Islam).

3 – The article by Daniel Pipes, published by the New York Sun, is of special importance; it reveals the efforts exerted to rally in support of preaching American Islam through the dismantling of Islam and setting it aside. He considered this rallying to be good news as he gave his readers news of the involvement of some Muslims in a campaign against the activities of the Islamists,(He means the extremists and the radicals). He said that these raised their voices after the events of 9/11 and mentioned in this respect the names of seven people, including Dr. Subhy Mansour who was fired from Al-Azhar University and Dr. Bassaam Teebi; he is one of the more militant Syrian secularists.

He spoke also of the appearance of two new organizations, these are, ‘Free Muslim coalition against terrorism’, established by Kamal Ni’waash, mentioned earlier. Then there is ‘The American Islamic Forum for the Defense of Democracy’, it was established by a person called Zuhdi Jaassim. What also captivates one’s attention about the list that Pipes produced, is that he added to the glad news that memorandum prepared by three of the extreme secularist Arab supporters of Israel who antagonize the Islamic trend (one is Iraqi, the second, Jordanian and the third, Tunisian).

In it, they demanded setting up an international tribunal for those they call ‘the Sages of Terror’, and at the top of the list is Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradaawi. It is the very memorandum submitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations two weeks ago. It is said that four thousand Arab intellectuals signedthe memorandum (Pipes said 2500 from 23 Muslim countries).

No proof is needed that these individuals and those quarters are not alone active in the field of dismantling and distorting Islam. The United States indeed takes advantage of the likes of these examples (among them are some examples that are fair and respectable and are combated and their voice is unfortunately not heard), but what Pipes pointed to represents the new efforts made to promote American Islam through the use of prominent Islamic names and personages. It is also required that these personages gain legitimacy in order to replace the other Islamic organizations that have been in the United States for at least four decades.


4 – Within the scope of the second grouping, move certain groups carrying the banner of progressive Islam and calling for the easing – or more accurately – overlooking the system of ethics and morality and the traditions generally accepted in Muslim communities. A website on the Internet, called ‘The Muslim’s Awakening’ (Yakazat Al muslim), expresses this view.

The matter of sex takes up a great deal of attention from the people responsible for website who have dedicated a permanent page to sex and the nation. Among the most famous of the activists in that group is a lady – of Pakistani origin, it seems – who had a child out of wedlock and is conducting a campaign to change Islamic thinking on this matter, to admit the rightness of what she did or at least to accept it. This progressive group that comprises no more than tens of people is the very group that adopted the call for a woman to lead the Friday prayers and the Pakistani lady I just referred to was among the leaders of the procession at the Washington church to attract attention and announce presence.

Moving in tandem with these, is another, more liberated group led by a Muslim lady of Pakistani descent who is homosexual. She wrote a book on the subject, called ‘The Problem within Islam’; she is currently being marketed in the American media as a social reformer and a great Islamic intellectual leader trying to modernize Islam and get it moving forward.

5 – I hope that I am not wrong in having moved these efforts out f the orbit of innocence at least in regards to methods and intentions for it is one’s right to doubt them when one finds out that those who back moderation are among the most ardent enemies of Islam and the Muslims and the allies of Israel. It is also one’s right to raise many a question mark regarding the relationship between these activities and the intellectual war declared by the American Administration in the wake of 9/11, and the intent of which is the restructuring of the Muslim mind in tandem with the redrawing of the maps of the region along the lines of the ‘Greater Middle East’ plan.

It is equally one’s right to raise other question marks around the relationship of these activities and the proposals, put forward in the report of establishment of an American leader in research, to take Islam apart and put it back together again under the name of ‘Civil and Democratic Islam’, especially as some of these proposals have found translation into reality through the activities we have just reviewed, be it in their secularist perspectives or in substituting new personages and leaderships in place of the existing ones, or in the attack upon traditional, conservative Islam, or in encouraging the Sufi trend. It is also one’s right to wander about the effects of those activities that have spread lately in the Arab World, emanating from some secularist institutions and centers that have addressed Islam and have delved into the question of changing the religious dialog and amending the school curricula and attempting to create Islamic intellectual leaderships loyal to the secularist agenda.

(For information: One of those responsible for one of those centers in Cairo is, these days, exerting persistent efforts to market an intellectual project of that nature and visited one of the Gulf countries carrying with him his wares. He went seeking funding to set up a center for enlightenment that will cross-fertilize Islam with Secularism.)
Islam and the Muslims seem, in this scenario, to have become an open field for anyone and everyone. It is openness without limit, with none to impose punishment on whoever takes liberties with it. Its people are without dignity or honor. This brings us to one last question to add to the previous ones: Who is to blame for this? The ones who took liberties, or those who kept quiet and stood still and lay low?

Dr. Ahmad Subhy Mansour.
Dismantling Fahmi Howaydy

In reply to his article 'Dismantling Islam' published in Al Ahram and other newspapers on Tuesday, 31 March, 2005.

This is not the first time that Fahmi Howaydy attacks me, nor will it
be the last.
He accuses me of working with others to dismantle Islam, although the
Islam I believe in is not amenable to dismantling since it is the Holy Quran only, and it is preserved by God Almighty and immune to the falsification and the corruption of mankind.

It may be that he confuses Islam with the Muslims and accuses me of working towards dismantling the Muslims. However, the disintegration of the Muslims into sects has started two decades after the death of the prophet Mohammed, since the great civil war between the early Muslims; the Companions of Mohammed, then it has evolved and spread for ten centuries. Today the Muslims are divided into three major sects, the Sunna, the Shiites and the Sufis. Every one of these sects has, in turn, disintegrated internally into various schools of jurisprudence and factions.

The Sunna has disintegrated, in the Third Century of the Islam, into four schools of jurisprudence of which the most fanatic is the Hanbali School. That Hanbali School also immediately broke up into various factions of which
the most fundamentalist was Ibn Taymiyah in the Eighth Century of Islam.
And from the trend relating to Ibn Taymiyah, there sprouted,in the modern age, an undercurrent that was even more fundamentalist and violent, that is the Wahaabis, thus increasing the disintegration of the Sunna even further.

It is to Wahhabism that Fahmy Huweidi's loyalty goes. He deems it alone to be Islam, denying all the other Muslims and accusing anyone who even discusses Wahaabism of being anti-Islamic, or of working towards the dismantling of Islam and incites against him.
The terrorists consider his incitement a license to kill, and so the
thinker or the intellectual loses his life, as happened to Dr. Farag Foda, or he disappears without a trace as happened with the journalist Rida Hilal, or he is forced into exile as has happened with me and with Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, or he is made to scream, objecting in fear of the fate that awaits him, as happened with Dr. Saad ed Deen Ibrahim and others. The victims of Fahmi El Huweidi are indeed many, among is he who has met his fate and among them is he who is still waiting.

Let us read together what 'Dismantling Islam' says, that we might
become familiar, with that phenomenon that is called Fahmy Huweidi.
Huweidi spoke of, “The efforts exerted by the extremist American
writer, Daniel pipes, to establish a progressive institute to represent the voices of the liberal Muslims of the United States”. He says, “Pipes' project aims at the establishment of a progressive center under the name of 'The Center for Islamic Pluralism'. He declared that the object is the encouragement of moderate Islam in the United States and the world, as well as com-batting the influence of armed Islam, and neutralizing the efforts of the organizations that are oriented towards Wahaabi extremism, through the media and in co-operation with U.S. governmental organizations.” He also says, “In a later article, published by the agency, by the same author, on February 2005, is important information about the people responsible for the center and its sources of funding. Its director is an American Muslim called Stephen Schultz. As for his assistant, he is Egyptian. He had
been dismissed from Al-Azhar in the eighties for his rejection of the
traditions of the Prophet. He then went to the United States for a while, and then returned to Egypt to become one of the pillars of the Ibn Khaldoun Center. Then, after the legal problems faced by the Center and its director, in 2000, he disappeared from Egypt and reappeared in the U.S. to become one of the preachers of moderate American Islam. Daniel pipes cited his name, among others, in an article entitled 'Recognizing Moderate Muslims’ published in the 'New York Sun' on 24 November 2004.”He further says, “The article by Daniel Pipes, published in the 'New York Sun', is of particular importance for it discloses the concentrated efforts exerted to preach American Islam through disintegrating Islam and nullifying it. He considers that this concentration constitutes good news because it conveys to the readers the news of the involvement of some Muslims in the campaign against the activities of the Islamists (He means the extremists and the radicals). He said that these raised their voices after the events of September 11th. He mentioned, in this respect, the names of seven people including that of Dr. Subhy Mansour, the man dismissed from Al-Azhar University. Also Dr. Bassaam Teebee, who is one of the Syrian secularists most noted for their exaggerated views.” He goes on to say, “I do not believe that I am wrong in that I have removed the mantle of innocence from these efforts, at least as far as methods and aims are concerned. It is indeed one's right to doubt them when one finds that those who support Islamic moderation and renewal are among the veteran enemies of Islam and are Muslims allied to Israel. It is also one's right to raise numerous question marks concerning the relationship between these activities and the war of ideas declared by the American Administration in the wake of September 11th, the object of which is the re-engineering of the Muslim mind, in conjunction with the redrawing of the maps of the area in conformity with the 'Greater Middle East Project'. As it is also one's right to raise other question marks around the relationship between these activities and the suggestions put forward by the Rand Corporation in its report, on dismantling Islam and reconstituting it under the title of 'Civil
and Democratic Islam' especially as some of these suggestions have
found expression in the activities we have already seen, either in their secularist origins or the replacement of new personalities and
leadership in place of the existing ones, or in the attack on traditional, conservative Islam, or in encouraging the Sufi trend.
It is also one's right to question the consequences of the activities
that have appeared in the Arab World of late, in the form of some of the secularist centers and organizations which have addressed Islamic
matters and have delved into changing the content of the religious dialog, amending the educational curricula and the fabrication of a leadership of Islamic thought committed to the secularist agenda.”

We comment upon it, briefly:
Firstly: All of the information reported by Howaydy is published openly to the American Public. American society is open and thus imposes freedom of information and forbids its suppression. Thus the announcement of all these activities beforehand precludes any notion of conspiracy.
Secondly: The traditionalist trend that Howaydy belongs to is based on dividing the world into two camps, 1 – The Domain of Islam, in which
the Sunni sect monopolizes Islam unto itself and accuses the Shiites Muslims and the Sufis of apostasy and idol-worship and oppresses the politically.
As it also oppresses the original inhabitants of the land, People of the Book who have held on to the religion of the fathers and grandfathers.
2 – The Domain of war. That comprises the countries in the West.
They must be fought and forced to accept Islam. Their culture is considered an ideological invasion and explains the disasters that befall us as being caused by the conspiracies of the West against us. That is the background that gives rise to the articles of Huweidi and his ilk. His article 'Dismantling Islam’ is proof of that. Indeed the title, 'Dismantling Islam' indicates that he believes in monopolizing Islam, such that any other Muslim is not entitled to think or study outside of the boundaries that Huweidi knows, otherwise he becomes a 'dismantler of Islam'. The Americans who have entered Islam other than through the Sunni sect, are not entitled to choose a way of worship other than that of the traditionalists and what the traditionalists found their forefathers doing, otherwise they become 'dismantlers if Islam'. And as usual, Huweidi does not bother
to discuss the ideas of those who disagree with him, because he is not an expert in Islam and its study, and his knowledge of Islam does not go beyond my personal knowledge of the Island of Cuba; that is why he hastens to accuse us of conspiring against Islam.

Thirdly: Since 1977 I have been carrying on my shoulders the burden of
my project to reform the Muslims peacefully with the Quran. As a result I was subjected to a spectrum of persecution within Al-Azhar and outside of it, from dismissal from the Al-Azhar University, to prison to harassment by state security, to exile twice. The first time I fled to America in 1988, after I was released from prison, Fahmy Huweidi was the cause. He did not wish to attack me while I was in prison and unable to defend myself and while I was being attacked by tens of pens accusing me of rejecting the traditions of the Prophet. Huweidi waited till after I left prison terrified, to launch a vicious attack upon me under the title, 'The Traditions, between Fabrication and Disrespect.' He filled it with attacks upon my person, by name and description, confirming that I am no longer in the pale of Islam with all he could muster in the way of religious pronouncements. On the following day, I met, by accident, some old friends who are members of (Islamist) groups. I saw the fear in the face of one; he advised me, for the sake of our long friendship, to drop out of sight because Huweidi's article had put my life squarely in danger. Other warnings signs came from colleagues at Al-Azhar and traditionalists who are
honest.

I had sent Huweidi a response defending myself, with a copy to Al-Ahram, but the response was not published. I was thus forced to escape with my life to America, where I remained ten months until the effect of Huweidi's article subsided; then I returned.

My intellectual project confirms, by means of the Quran, that Islam is
the religion of justice, democracy, tolerance, peace, freedom of belief and human rights, and the God Almighty sent Muhammad as a mercy to mankind, not to fight them to force religion upon them and to split the world into two camps. He, may He be praised, created us brethren, of one mother and of one father, and that He made us peoples and tribes that we might know each other, not to fight, and that the most honored among us, at God, is the most righteous. This will be determined on the Day of Resurrection, not now, so that some of us do not feign righteousness to walk all over us in the name of religion. God Almighty decreed for us and for the People of the Book different laws that we might compete in good works, not to compete in prejudice and sin.
And based upon this type of thinking, I went to work, after my return to Egypt, with Farag Foda until he was killed by Fahmy Huweidi's pronouncements, then I worked with human rights organizations and participated with The Ibn Khaldoun Center in its struggle for enlightenment and its projects for reform, including the project to reform education in Egypt and other projects. In all this, Huweidi's articles kept hounding us inciting state security as well as the terrorists against us until the dictatorship in Egypt shut down the Ibn Khaldoun Center and arrested Dr. Saad ed Deen Ibrahim and imprisoned some of my friends who subscribe to the Quran alone. So once again I had to escape to America in October, right at the peak of the anti-Islamic wave that occurred after the attacks of September 11th.

My intellectual project addressed America, in English, in defense of
Islam, elucidating the contradiction between it and the type of extremist thinking that produced Bin Laden. And I always used to sent my research and my biography to be published on the Internet and to the intellectuals of America, all of which helped to stem the wave of animosity to Islam, and to redirect the accusation to Bin Laden's terrorist sect alone. Then then came to know what they began to call 'moderate Islam'. My research attracted the attention of Dr. Pipes whom they accuse of animosity to Islam and the Muslims though now he writes that which shows his respect for Islam and its civilization but he is against, like myself, armed extremism.
Indeed he is engaged in a debate with those who still accuse Islam as a religion, and do not differentiate between it and terrorism. Through
his intellectual influence and his constant efforts, he has caused many to change their views. Naturally, this will not cause the traditionalist, Wahaabist organizations to accept him unless and until he follows their religion, and that will never, by the Grace of God, happen.
Co-operation between us against extremism and its terrorist culture was necessary.
They want to defend their country, and I want to defend my religion.

Fourthly: America follows the Quranic rule that, “there shall be no compulsion in religion”. There are in America, by Huweidi's own admission, 1586 religious groupings, of which 700 are non-traditional. This means that everyone in America is free to believe in whatever he believes or whatever he believes not. The extremists, the followers of Bin Laden, are the first to take advantage of this American religious freedom. They expanded their activities, establishing new mosques, establishing control over existing ones, buying up churches and turning them into mosques.
They control about 80% of the mosques which number approximately 1200 on American soil. They curse America day and night in the name of Islam, in their sermons and their prayers and their publications taking exploiting American tolerance and American donations of the houses of worship.
There are tens of groups that indulge in these activities and defend them and blackmails American policy to the extent of declaring themselves sole legitimate representatives of the Islam and the Muslims in America, and enter the White House, invited as such. It is well known that there is not a single “Muslim” country whose sons, or a minority therein enjoy such liberty. But the freedom that his extremist brethren enjoy in their war on America, upon her soil, is not enough for Huweidi, for it upsets him that there are Muslims in America of the Shiites and Sufi persuasions that are not yet involved in Wahaabism.
Fifthly: America is waging a war declared after the aggression of September 11th. This shows who the conspirator is, who sends missionaries and soldiers to the “House of War” abusing American freedom and American openness. America discovered, after September 11th that extremism had wrested control of most mosques and “Islamic” schools as well as of the American Muslim community. She is thus not fighting only Bin Laden, but also his followers in the American heartland and the kind of thinking to which he adheres and which dominates the minds of millions of American Muslims. If America were to use the methods of the Arab leaders, she would close these mosques and execute their clergy and incarcerate their propagators and ban their thinking and confiscate their publications.
She would not have needed an emergency law since she is in a state of war with an invisible enemy who uses psychological warfare and converts the ordinary religious young man into a bomb walking on two legs, who destroys himself and others. There will be, on American soil, millions of candidates if Wahaabi incitement continues to wash the brains of the Muslim youth in the mosques and the schools in the name of Islam. If America were prejudiced against Islam, she would have chosen that solution and closed all the mosques accusing Islam of being the religion of terrorism basing itself on the Wahabi contention that they monopolize Islam and speak in its name.
American civility, however, chose the hard way; so President Bush affirmed the truism that Islam is indeed the religion of peace, and invited the heads of Wahabi “Islamic” organizations to the White House to try to get them to lean towards the right way. Thus instead of war against Islam itself and instead of resorting to violence, the solution was to be a peaceful one, to reform the Muslims, both in America and in the Arab Lands into what they perceive to be moderate Islam, or into true Islam, as I have been saying.

Huweidi resents America her religious freedom and her right to defend herself peaceably on her soil; he sees that as the dismantling of Islam
and a conspiracy necessitating , and says, inciting against us, at the end of the article, “It seems that Islam and the Muslims in this situation are as though they have become fair game for all and sundry to do with as they please without limit, restriction or constraint. With nothing to serve as deterrent to anyone who might take liberties with them or insults them, their people are without value or dignity. This compels us to add another question to what has already been asked, about who deserves the blame for all of this, those who offended and insulted, or those who kept quiet and lay low?”

Finally, I did escape with my life in fear of the incitement of Fahmy Huweidi, and I see that, until now, he is still pursuing me even in America; to where should I escape after America? I have one way left to protect my life, and that is to appeal to the United Nations for refuge.
I present this article as an open complaint to the United Nations,
Against the Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huweidi, the writer in Al-Ahram, the Egyptian news-paper, and against whoever publishes his writings that shall be deemed his accomplice in the crime of inciting against my life and the lives of those who call for reform.

The Philosophy of American Empowerment
Article by Fahmi Howaydy
Al- Ahram, 5 April 2005.

The dismantling of the nation precedes the dismantling of the faith. Those who are now assiduously trying to draft American Islam for us would never have dared do that or even think of it except after the success they scored in the subjugation of the region to American policies. All of this, it is to be noted, is a consequence of the revival of the philosophy of "empowerment" in the United States. This philosophy wants, for the region, only submission and obedience.

1 – An intelligence officer, with the rank of colonel, from an Arab country, used to operate under the cover of a businessman. Under that guise he left his country, in September 2002, and headed for a major Arab capital. After his departure he remained in daily touch with his family. Then abruptly the communication stopped and his fate remained unknown till April 2004 when his family received a message from him informing them that he id a prisoner at Guantanamo, the US Navy base in Cuba. This seemed a puzzle! The organization known as Human Rights Watch uncovered its secrets last week.

According to a report of the organization, the officer was abducted off a street of the Arab capital by agents of America intelligence, and then taken to Afghanistan. He was the taken to Guantanamo. Throughout his trip, our friend was not accused of anything, but was repeatedly interrogated about the Arab fighters who had been in Afghanistan then moved to Europe where some of them remained. He was questioned because his work as an intelligence officer operating among these Arabs gave him access to a great of information about them. The American investigators wanted to get at this information and to benefit by it.

It is true that the situation of this officer is better than that of that other officer who was suspected of loyalty to Al-Qaida and who disappeared in his own country but an American drone (pilotless aircraft) located and killed him with a missile that tore him to pieces on his own country's soil. However, the Human Rights Watch report mentioned several other similar cases in which Muslim young men were kidnapped from their own or other countries they might be in, through the intervention of agents of American intelligence or by the hands of the local security services who gift them to the Americans. These were then carried aboard long-range American aircraft, which serve as flying prisons, and were consigned to various prisons where they were tortured and forced to confess. They ended up in Guantanamo or were quietly released. One of them is an Egyptian carrying German citizenship; he was incarcerated in the prisons for a year after his abduction from Croatia, then he was released and returned to the very place he was kidnapped. There are now several rows raging between German and American intelligence because of him.

All these measures flout the law and flagrantly violate human rights. What Human Rights Watch mentioned is no more than a drop in a vast ocean replete with violations that have done away with all laws and conventions, let alone values and principles. This constitutes a shameful record which mars any society claiming to be civilized in any way at all.

2 – It is not accurate to claim that the United States undertook all these violations in the course of combating terrorism. American bullying and conceit predate the story of the war against terrorism. This is because the philosophy of empowerment in the United States revived and its stock rose after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties; that event demonstrated that the clearing of the stage was to the advantage of the singular pole. These circumstances mitigate in favor of expansionary thought and thoughts of world domination and talk of "The American Century", "The Clash of Civilizations" and "The End of History". All that the events of 9/11 did was to open the door wide to attempts to turn this philosophy into reality. The Middle East seemed the perfect laboratory not only because the perpetrators of 9/11 were from that region, but also because the inducements are unlimited (oil) and its frailty and weakness are also without limit. Also Israeli incitement against it is, in turn, without limit.

Just as a reminder, American conceit was behind Washington's rejection of the Treaty of Ottawa concerning anti-personnel mines. At that time, December 1997, all the countries of the world supported it, four full years before the events of 9/11. She also defied international will in 1998 and reneged on its agreement (previously obtained under the Clinton Administration) to the formation of the International Criminal Court insisting thereby on remaining above accountability and the law. This defiance was also behind her rejection of the Kyoto Protocol concerned with the prevention of emissions of Carbon Dioxide gas which was signed in 1997.

This conceit encouraged the United States to apply her domestic laws to various countries of the world, and to forbid even the European countries from investing in Iran, to tighten the embargo against her. It was also what permitted her to divide the world into good and evil nations so that it might assign to the evil corner whoever displeases her and classify as good whomever she pleases. That was also what permitted her to invade and occupy Iraq on the basis of a fabricated lie about WMDs.

The sum total of these circumstances did much to revive the philosophy of empowerment which was addressed by numerous research centers long known for their influence on American decision-making. The fact that most of these centers are sympathetic to Israel contributed to their revival in no small measure. Thus they brook no love lost for the Arabs and are concerned with only two matters: that the United States might become a great world power and that Israel might become a great regional power with no competitor or rival.

3 – I have in my hands a recent example of America's efforts in the philosophy of empowerment that answers the question, "How to chastise and discipline the Arab World in order to make it enter the 'American House of Obeisance' and never leave it?"

The person responsible for this effort is Dr. Robert Satloff, head of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs. He is among the most prominent of the minds influencing American Strategic thinking. His basic concern is focused on the subject of Arab-American-Israeli relations. (He is fluent in Arabic, French and Hebrew apart from English, his mother tongue.)

In the middle of last March, Dr. Satloff published, on the website of the Institute, a two part study dealing with American policy in the Middle East and his view of the strategy of Constructive Disturbance followed by President Bush in the region. It is designed to encourage violent quakes to shake the nations in the region to knock down their structures in order to rebuild them in accordance with new specifications conforming with American requirements and, by extension, with Israeli expectations.

The study encompasses numerous thoughts; I shall address their basic outlines presently, but the reader will notice that Mr. Satloff spoke of the region as though it were a worn out entity bereft of all strength, and all that concerns him is how to press submission to conform to American and Israeli expectations.

Thus in the first part of his study, (published on 15 March) he concentrated on the situation in Lebanon and Syria, and emphasized several matters, the most important of which are the following:

• The call to eradicate any Syrian influence in Lebanon after guaranteeing the eradication of the Syrian presence there. He said that international supervision over the elections should be most rigorous, such that the international team slated for that purpose (to be dispatched by the Carter Center) supervises not only the elections, but also the electoral campaign itself.

• Insisting upon disarming HisbUllah so that it ceases to represent a danger to Israel, and blocking the way to its getting any assistance or military aid from Iran and accepting it only as a party on the political scene. That is a basic condition for its removal from the black list of terrorist organizations.

• After guaranteeing the removal of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, the Baathist regime in Damascus itself should be tackled by means of concentrated intelligence activity to keep tabs on the internal situation – opening the democracy, the human rights and the rule of law in Syria dossiers Pressuring the regime there unless it agrees to two conditions. The first is a visit to Israel by President Bashshaar Al-Assad and his joining the procession of peace with her. The second is the expulsion of the terrorist resistance movements from Damascus and shutting down their offices there.

4 – Changing the situation in the Arab World is the focus of the second part of Robert Satloff's study. In it he called for the increased use of the policy of "Constructive Disturbance". He said that the Bush Administration considers that the process of redrawing the maps of the region will take up an entire generation, about ten years, and that that period is not definite in view of the rapid changes in the Arab World occasioned by the haste of the regimes in their desire to placate the United States by any and all means. In order to bring about this placation, he spoke of Arab nations that have endeavored to get closer to Israel and to clear the air with her; whereas others have tentatively taken some steps towards reform in response to American pressure. A third group has taken both paths; they showed some warmth in their relations with Israel and declared internal reforms.

In listing the symptoms of the Arab attempt to placate the American Administration and earn its goodwill, Dr Satloff said that some capitals raced to support the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. They also hastened to admonish Damascus to withdraw from Lebanon as soon as possible. Not only this, but some Arab nations hastened to inform Washington that the efforts they had exerted to convince President Asad to withdraw were the determining factor in his accepting and obeying the UN Resolution. In this respect, he pointed out that President Bush rewarded one of the nations for its stand in convincing Syria to withdraw by reducing his criticism of her in one of his speeches, and by turning a blind eye to her slowness in implementing internal reforms.

The most important thing our friend said in this part is that he called for Washington not to be satisfied with the encouragement of democracy in the Arab World but emphasized the necessity of supporting the democrats there both morally and materially. This will require betting on the Arab liberal secularists, who share American values and who consider the American political system an excellent example to be applied. In this respect he expressed his reservations about the opinion held by some in Washington, who favor dialog with the moderate Islamists considering this to be a gamble of uncertain results. Such dialog would, in the end, support the position of these Islamists and convey legitimacy upon them; whereas the liberals are closer to the Americans and their feelings towards the United States are more secure.

5 – Even the Security Council has become an instrument to empower America. The matter is no longer limited to The US Senate issuing a resolution bringing this country or that to account (as happened with Syria), but it is within the capacity of Washington to extract whatever coercive resolution it needs from the Security Council. This is what happened recently with Sudan when the Council approved, on 30 March, an American proposal practically putting Sudan under trusteeship. It imposed upon Sudan travel restrictions on, and freezing of funds of those responsible for the crimes committed against the civilians in Darfour, and those who violate the truce there. It also interdicted government flights over the district except with UN permission. And on a later day, the Council decided to refer 51 Sudanese officials to the International Criminal Court in Hague to charge them with responsibility for what happened in Darfour. This was the first case to be heard by the court, which Washington refused to recognize, as is well known, so that no American soldier or official can ever be brought to account before it. (For this reason France undertook to file the case). Thus does the logic of dismantling and restructuring according to American fancy punish Sudan and places her under trusteeship and bring some of her officials before international justice, while at the same time, it suspends responsibility when Russia pulverizes Muslims in Chechnya, or for Israel's crimes in Palestine and her continuing construction of the savage wall which has been condemned and pronounced illegal by the International Court of Justice. It is the same logic that raises a storm to stop the Iranian nuclear program in spite of assurances of its use for peaceful purposes. At the same time, the Israeli nuclear program is disregarded, which, every body knows, holds two hundred atomic bombs in its arsenal; moreover she continues to produce other weapons, chemical and biological.

When this happens in matters of politics, the Arab response would be submission and obedience and a race to please Washington. Thus we should not be surprised or object when the door is opened wide to delving into religion, dismantling and restructuring as required.

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour
Empowering Fahmi Howaydy
Response to the article. “The Philosophy of American Empowerment” published in Al-Ahram, of Tuesday April 1, 2005.

1 – In the article “Dismantling Islam”, Fahmi Howaydy spoke of the American conspiracy that aims at dismembering Islam, and accused me of being involved in that plot. I replied to him in the article “Dismantling Fahmi Howaydy”. He is now continuing his campaign with the article, “The Philosophy of American Empowerment”, and I am continuing to reply to him.

2 – Howaydy began his article by stating that “The dismantling of the nation precedes the dismantling of the faith. Those who are assiduously trying to draft American Islam for us, would not have dared to do this or even think of it except after the success they scored with the subjugation of the region to American policies. It is well known that all this is the outcome of the revitalization of the philosophy of empowerment in the United States which does not want, for the region, horizons beyond submission and obedience”. Here he connects the former article with the latter, still considering America a cause in the dismantling of the nation and the faith.
The Muslims split up since the Great Muslim Civil War (Al- Fitna Al- Kubra ) that took place among the companions of the Prophet Muhammad shortly after his death That, of course, was long before America even existed, and, not surprisingly, their disintegration and fragmentation continues to this day. The latest events in Iraq demonstrate this fragmentation in blood, as when Sunni terrorists kill Shi'is during the latter's religious celebrations. But Howaydy sees that the United States is responsible for the dismantling of the nation and the dismantling of the Islamic faith in view of that being an American requirement for the empowerment of the Unites States.

3 – After this, Howaydy presents, as evidence, the “kidnapping” by America of some of those who have connections with Al-Qaida, and their interrogation to extract information concerning Al-Qaida, and uses that as justification for accusing America of human rights violations. He gets his information from those who defend the rights of those who were “kidnapped”, namely the American organization known as Human Rights Watch. He also forgets that America is in a declared war that is of a new kind, in which the terrorists use religion to turn innocent youth into mobile bombs that go off unexpectedly at any time and in any place. Also, being confronted with this unknown and invisible danger, she is forced to defend her internal security, especially that the extremists control more than a thousand mosques on American soil where they brainwash Muslim youth and turn them into “martyrists” (volunteers for martyrdom). Those who object to what America does are the Americans themselves, although what America does is perfectly legitimate in times of war, but what is not legitimate, is what is done by Arab dictatorship and extremism, by way of the oppression and the killing and kidnapping of the peaceable intellectuals who call for reform. Fahmy Howaydy stands, with his pen, against these reformers and jeopardizes them by inciting against these peaceable thinkers who possess neither power nor might.

4 – He then speaks of what he calls the building up and exercising of American strength which aims at world domination. It is not improper or wrong for any nation to seek to build up its strength, and seek empowerment, but what is improper is that any nation be in the extreme state of failure that we are in.
America today is the greatest power in the world and it is certainly not improper for her to seek to preserve her position. Indeed many have preceded her as the leading power in the world including the empires of the Pharaohs, the Persians, the Romans, the Arabs and the British, and no one has ever said that that building up of power is wrong in itself. We still take pride in the Arab power exercised in the time of the Ummawy, the Abbasy and the Ottoman empires. Impropriety arises when such strength is used to enslave others as happened with every one of the empires previous to America, including that of the Muslim Arabs.
America, when she became the greatest power in the world, did not do the things committed by the previous empires, such as colonization and enslavement. Prior to that America lived in isolation in accordance with the principles laid down in the Monroe Doctrine, well away from the internecine wars of Europe over colonies. She then entered the two world wars in defense of democracy, then she entered into a cold war with the Soviet Union also in defense of democracy and freedom.
Then Soviet Union collapsed and the traditionalist trend appeared as an enemy of freedom, inventing a new kind of destructive ideological warfare. This new warfare started by attacking America in the safety of her home thus forcing her into waging a war against a ubiquitous and invisible enemy that is difficult to spot or define. In the course of her defense of democracy, America backed the peoples under Nazi despotism (in Europe) and Japanese despotism (in East Asia), and those under Soviet or communist totalitarianism (Eastern Europe, South Korea, South Vietnam and Afghanistan). She liberated Kuwait from occupation by Saddam, then she went on to liberate the Iraqi people from him. Now she is calling upon the Arab dictators to effect political reforms and to institute democracy peacefully thus avoiding civil wars and foreign intervention. She officially declares that she will not impose democracy from the outside upon the Arabs. But Arab despotism refuses reform by peaceful means from the inside. We find Fahmi Howaydy resenting America this, her beneficial intervention for reform, and considers it one of the requirements for empowerment.

5 – It is natural that in America's wars of liberation excesses will occur. War is always the worst choice even if it is in the cause of liberation from colonialism and dictatorship. The democracy that came, paid for with American blood all the way from France and Europe to the Philippines, South Korea and Afghanistan and Iraq with the help of God Almighty, justifies any excess that might have occurred. Moreover, it is American Liberalism itself which stands up to any excesses Americans might fall into. It is this self same American Liberalism which aroused the American conscience to the problem of Vietnam. As a result, America was forced to withdraw from the region leaving the field open to the communist Khmer Rouge to kill millions of inhabitants in a communal extermination the like of which the Twentieth Century did not witness.

6 – Moreover, American Society is in no need of admonishment from a preacher of the type of Fahmy Howaydy or anyone else. Among America's most cherished values is the virtue of admitting error and apologizing publicly for it. Not only that, but they also teach it to their children, in the school curricula, that they might learn from the errors of their forefathers. American children live with a guilt complex towards the Blacks and the Native Americans, and all this while we still prohibit the discussion of The Great Civil War, which pitted the Companions of the Prophet against each other, so that the Companions might remain above the level of human beings and thus free of human error. Thus do Americans learn from their mistakes while we, on the other hand, blunder on in the dark depths of The Great Conspiracy to this day.

7 – Howaydy reports the plans, that some American specialists propose, for the restructuring of the Middle East on a democratic basis, considering them part of the conspiracy despite the fact that these are published and available to all. America is doing her best, openly, to convince the Arabs of this democratic, peaceful change. The Arab dictators, on the other hand, delay implementing democracy while, at the same time, trying to placate America in every way that, perchance, she might overlook the democratic choice.

8 – It is strange that Howaydy should consider America's efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East as among the basics for empowerment of America in the region. It is well known that it is easy for America to control the single, individual dictator; that is exactly what is happening right now with the twenty something individuals who rule the Arab World. It would be impossible for America to control a democratic nation, ruled by its citizens in a truly democratic fashion. How is she able to control all the Arab countries if they were democratic? America has chosen democracy to solve the problem of terrorism which threatens her on her soil. Totalitarianism goes hand in hand with corruption, and these two, together, produce a resentful, frustrated generation incapable of fighting dictatorship at home where suppression by the police is strongest. This frustrated generation then seeks migration to the West where they express their pent-up anger against the “Infidel West”. It is thus necessary to reform the Arabs in order that the West might live in peace and tranquility. But Brother Howaydy, who has dedicated his pen to the defense of dictatorship, extremism and fanaticism, resents America her efforts to bring about democratic reform, and considers them empowering America in the world.

9 – The fact is that Howaydy has acquired “empowerment” unto himself. Over the span of thirty years, writing every week, in the service of extremism and dictatorship and being referred to by some as an “Islamic thinker” even though he has never come up with a single new idea to add to the fund of Islamic or, for that matter, political thought. On the contrary, the Arabs, over the last thirty years, thanks to the likes of him, and to dictatorship, corruption and extremism, have reached rock bottom. Howaydy dedicated his pen to attacking America and the West, and to defending fanaticism and terrorism, while remaining silent on dictatorship, corruption and torture, and falsely directing anger, depression and hatred at the West and America, instead of at the real enemy who is the dictator and the purveyors of corruption all around him.

10 – Nasser suspended freedom, purportedly to realize social justice and make the state responsible for providing a decent life for the citizen; he promoted the slogan “No voice above that of the struggle”. Then came Sadat and made peace with Israel. There was thus no excuse to delay freedom and democracy, he then granted slivers of it then reneged and lost his life. Then Husni Mubaarak came along with the emergency law, the sequestration of freedom and social justice and the suspension of the individual's right to a job and a decent life. He monopolized power and wealth and drove Egypt to the lowest levels. Now he is trying to establish succession to guarantee immunity for himself and his descendants from accountability for what he embezzled of Egypt's wealth. Mubaarak is still in power for the following reasons:
(a) - He gave fundamentalism a chance to dominate the people's minds religiously and culturally thus rendering it the sole alternative to military rule. He then exploited this very fundamentalism to frighten the people, as though he says, “Who is preferable, the fundamentalists or me?” After peace with Israel and the demise of the excuse of the foreign Israeli enemy, or the foreign military front, Mubaarak started to cultivate the monster of fundamentalism up to a certain point where he can use it to scare others, but where it cannot jeopardize his military regime, and to turn Egypt into an internal military front that would permit him to rule autocratically with the emergency law.
(b) – Naturally, anger, resentment and frustration with him will increase; equally naturally, Mubaarak will try to deflect such resentment and anger and find release for them away from him. It was thus necessary to direct that resentment, anger and frustration at America and Israel in view of the latter being the major conspiratorial enemy of the Arabs and the Muslims although the true enemy of the people is the dictator and his supporters. By controlling the media and education, the Azhar and the mosques, he was able to brainwash the youth and redirect their hatred at America and Israel instead of it being directed at himself. That is the reason why hatred of America, in the streets of Egypt approaches hysterical levels, despite the fact that America granted Mubaarak over the last 24 years 96 billion dollars in “US Aid”. Would Howaydy dare discuss with Mubaarak where these funds and the proceeds of sale of the public sector went? (c) – Mubaarak used the systems of repression, the media and religion in his hounding of the reformers, assassinating their characters and defaming them in order to denude Egypt of honorable, truly democratic symbols, so that the only opposition left is a weak one subservient to the regime and incapable of confronting it.

One last question remains! Where does Howaydy stand with regards to this policy?
The answer, very briefly, is that he is the government's well placed agent writer who plays, for the benefit of the regime, in an area of extreme sensitivity, namely fundamentalist extremism. He plays for the benefit of the fundamentalists as long as that does not harm the regime. He plays for the benefit of both against reform, by relentlessly hounding the reformers. And as to corruption, dictatorship, fanaticism, torture, injustice, the illegal bequest of power, the unlawful extension of incumbency, embezzlement and theft, he looks the other way, conveniently forgetting the demonstrations calling for reform that move the streets. That is the reason for “empowering” Howaydy, in Al-Ahram, for more than thirty years. In order to preserve this empowerment, Howaydy is not disturbed by the hysterical screams of the victims of torture in the hell of Egyptian prisons. Among these victims are thousands of Muslim Brothers, or, his Muslim brothers.

Sample 3

Between President Obama and King Abdullah Aal Saud

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=5828

Originally published in Arabic on January 22 2009, by Ahmed Subhy Mansour

During the race for the white house between Barack Obama and John McCain, I used to say that John McCain is an American man, whereas Barack Obama is American made. The American made or the American culture won over the traditional man known as the (wasp) which is an abbreviation for (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). The era of the white Americans controlling everything ended, and the voice of the American Nazi and groups of white power and domination, which call for superiority of the white race, and oppose the non-white immigration to United States, their voice softened drastically. Many factors contributed to this change, including the Vietnam War and the American human rights movement led by Martin Luther King; with his famous quote (I Have a Dream), after 44 years his dream has materialized with Barack Obama taking over the presidency of the United States.

Those who struggled against the American war in Vietnam and demanded civil rights are now the elderly in America. They taught the new generation not to repeat their mistakes. All of them formed the current American culture that brought Obama to the White House. Standing opposite all this was George W. Bush, who became the worst American president, representing the former fading American style. The advantage of America is that they have high capacity to learn from their mistakes in an atmosphere of freedom and the ability of self-criticism, and that is the structure of its educational system which allowed them to progress in this century, and may be outpace it. But The Sunni Arab culture (salafiya) which is still living the past and trying to impose it on the present and the future, and still imposes the sanctification of historic leaders like Abu Bakr, Omar, Hussein and Ali, and  still differ on historic events like the civil wars between the early Muslims , the pledge of allegiance at Saqeefa, battle of Al-Jamal and Saffeen, and refuses to discuss objectively the Arab conquests and the major turmoil (between Ossmaan, the 3^rd caliph and his opponents)

This Salafiya culture gave us in our times, the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, vs. the renewable American culture that produced Barack Obama. Contradiction is clear and hilarious between President Obama and King Abdullah Al Saud. The difference in age is about forty years, but the cultural difference is about forty centuries. I have never seen a solid and good orator such as Obama, and I have never seen in my life a more miserable public speaker as King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, who almost did not know how to correctly read one line written for him in Arabic. Both are the result of their own culture and natural environment. Abdullah is the son of the family which monopolized wealth and power and gave the state its name:” Saudi Arabia”. Here is the state and here is Abdullah Al-Saud, in his extremely old age is forced to follow a young brown U.S. President Barack Obama. 

If we were to assume that Hussein Obama, the Kenyan man, have migrated to the Saudi Kingdom rather than America, got married and had a son Barak, his son would never have gotten the Saudi citizenship, where he was born, but he would have lived as a servant like his father and would be under the threat of deportation. Aliens in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are deprived from acquiring the citizenship of the country in which they were born, as long as their fathers have migrated to the country. There is even the be-doons (the withouts), genuine Arab tribes, deprived of the citizenship of the State to which they belong. Shortly before Al- Qaameshli uprising, the Kurds in Syria were not recognized as citizens and did not have identity documents or passports. This is the Arab culture if it is Sunni in the Gulf, or Alawite Shiite in Syria.

This is the racist unjust culture of Arab societies and its perception of the other and of the newcomer, even if he is a Muslim and or an Arab. While the American culture allows a young Kenyan immigrant Muslim to marry a white American, offers grants to his son, free and equal opportunities for education, excels in public life to become Senator to the state of Illinois, his presence adding enormous vitality to the U.S. Congress, causing a change in the traditional thinking pattern in Washington, which froze in its innovation at the level it reached in the era of Reagan the Republican ,and Clinton the democrat, then deteriorated more in the era of George W. Bush. The star of the young brown Sen. Barack Obama shone rapidly, and I remember the words uttered by a journalist at the Washington Post in 2003 (Look at this young man well, he will be the next President of America). Those words came true, even the words of Thomas Jefferson finally came true, one of the great founders of the State of America and the U.S. Constitution (we do not care what is your color, nor your religion, nor your language, but we care what you will give to this country). This is the culture of justice, equality and equal opportunities of America. It is a genuine Islamic value forgotten by the Arabs, and resurrected by the West.

The unjust racist Salafi Arabic culture is born by the majority of Arab and Muslim immigrants in America. According to the lottery system, America brings yearly thousands of Arabs and Muslims, gives them the residency green card, and after several years they acquire the American citizenship, but most of them still carry with them most of the Arab cultural genes. They live in America, yet feeling enmity towards America while enjoying all those things that they have been deprived off back home, like freedom and equal opportunities, they could even buy a church and convert it into a mosque, they can teach their children as they please, exercise their religious freedom as they please, yet his Arab cultural genes, reciprocate kindness with evil or worse. The prevailing belief is lawful looting. Wrongfully looting the entire Americans’ money becomes lawful, since they are heathens, and according to the Sunni religion, it is lawful to Loot their monies and to take advantage of their women. Legitimizing looting is very easy in the business environment of America, which depends on the confidence in dealing with, and the ratification of what the customer say, and to give the wrongdoer a second chance to remedy the situation ... some of those Arabs and Muslims took advantage of this American culture to obtain huge loans and then flee to their country of origin. Not to mention the allegations of poverty in order to receive aid unlawfully, while the American shies away (white in particular) from requesting such aid and consider it a disgrace. It is customary for the majority of Arabs and Muslims, to divert their income and savings to their country of origin to circumvent the non-payment of taxes in America. ..

One day I was out in a supermarket .I heard a woman of Sudanese Arabic origin saying: (America’s money goes back to its belly), had a shopping cart loaded with the procurement of various types of food, where the abundance and quality and cheap price, tempt immigrants to overbuy their needs, for they are accustomed where they came from in their country of origin, to stockpile food in anticipation of crises and price increase. And this lady, instead of thanking God for His blessings, for bringing her from the Sudan to America, instead of feeling grateful to the country in which she was welcomed and granted security from hunger and fear when she came here seeking refuge, leaving her people to their misery in Sudan, When I heard the cursing and swearing, I remembered a story of another Sudanese man, I met him through a bad coincidence, the meeting was set up to attack America. The owner of the house is a Sudanese who immigrated to America decades earlier and fulfilled all his dreams. I was waiting for him to say a good word in gratitude, to stop those ingrates who took refuge in this country, but was surprised to hear him say: (I used to think that there are no dirtier public toilets than in Khartoum, until I came to America and found the dirtiest). Enough is enough I said. I forgot that I was a guest in his house and quickly said to him, why you don’t go back to Khartoum and enjoy the public toilets there. And I left the place very angry.

I know an Egyptian immigrant who came to America as a student in the eighties of the last century. He stayed illegally and soon gained legitimacy by circumventing the system gaining residency and then citizenship. He represents the vast bulk of Arab Muslims I know who hate America, yet carry its citizenship. He bluffed his way until he received a huge loan and then fled back to Egypt and tried to invest it. He was surrounded by the powerful from police and the National Party, and became a victim of their conflict, was sent to prison and his fortune disappeared. He was sentenced to be jailed in the United States for stealing the loan and fleeing with the money. In the latest letter from his Egyptian prison, he said that once out of prison in Egypt, he will return to America and choose to enjoy life in a U.S. prison, which will be the Garden of Eden for him to atone for his errors he committed in America, which gave him security and prosperity, yet he betrayed

The same story was repeated with another Egyptian who used to send all his income to Egypt in the hope that someday he will go back to Egypt to invest his money he collected, legally and illegally in a project. I advised him not to be hasty, he rejected my advice. I told him not to venture all his money for investment in Egypt, and only a portion of the money to try his luck, and told him about the previous story. Indeed, he rented a cafeteria on the northern coast for the length of the summer. And soon returned indignantly telling us about the terrible tragedies he encountered, it was daily blackmail by all; he had to bribe tax officials, insurance people, local municipalities and police. Then the catastrophe hit when the police chose to arrest one of his employees in the cafeteria during a routine investigation. The officer told him that he needed to do that in order to prove that he was doing his job and performing his duty. The poor employee went through a routine torture procedure at the police department, was raped by other inmates, and then was sent by the officer to a full investigation. He was taken to all the police stations for verification of his innocence of any charge, and then was set free in the end, devastated. This is poor college student came from the countryside looking for work in the northern coast ,rejoiced that our friend gave him a job at the cafeteria, and was sleeping and working hard to save what he can to help himself in his studies, but a week later, they arrested him. My Friend lost everything in the cafeteria experiment so he closed it and returned to America, but kept his hatred for America even though he found a job with better and more revenue. The strange thing is that this friend was determined to send his American born daughters to study in Egypt; the girls did not like the Egyptian educational system with its corporal punishment and ignorance. The girls were determined to return to America where the rights of the student and the advantages of care beyond description. The experience of our friend with the cafeteria, made him return his daughters back to America where they excelled in their studies, and in the secondary level, they received in advance, grants for free university studies while keeping their Islamic dress code and chastity and their active participation in social and public life. In the election campaign, they volunteered for Obama’s campaign like most ambitious young people, and have achieved recognition from supervisors in Obama’s campaign in the state of Virginia, while Obama was hated by their parents, blind hatred to the point he had made a vow to donate a thousand dollars if Obama failed in the election. When Obama won, the father went through a real depression as if he was a real (red Neck) or white bigot.

Many Arabs of this sort in America carry this sentiment inside them, but there are lots who are honorable. I came to know a former senator in the Congress. He was a Lebanese Christian graduated from the American University in Cairo, emigrated to America, settled and worked in the state of Colorado, has gained the love and respect of its people, for his public work they elected him as a (senator) for the state, then as an American ambassador to Bahrain. He told me that he met with King Fahd, who found it odd that the U.S. ambassador is originally from Lebanon.

I really admired his loyalty to America and his sense of belonging to it. A true country is the one that provides you with security, justice, pride and dignity, guarantees you your livelihood, opens the doors wide-open for you to achieve your potentials. It is not a country that abuses your rights and insults you for the sake of a tyrant

This is the difference between the culture of Bedouins, the worst people in disbelief and hypocrisy, and the culture of America, the culture of ignorance produced Abdullah Al Saud and the American culture produced Barack Obama. Abdullah Al-Saud needs to learn nothing. His fate is to be a king because of descent, and is ranked in the state of Covenant between the siblings of Abdul Aziz, his father. He can, with the people he owns and governs, buy everything from professional dancers to professional policy to professional writing. Unfortunately, however, he must read his speeches, which are written for him, in the Arab summits, and there he shows his inability to read.

For Barack Obama, he must learn, educate himself and work hard to convince the American people that he is efficient at public service, and especially the presidency of the White House. The American people have learned recently that it does not matter what the color of skin is of the greatest servant of the people (i.e., the U.S. president), what is important is his ability to serve the American people after the failure of many white-skinned servants the worst of whom was George W. Bush. For this, Obama has become the idol for millions of young Americans of color, he has inspired each and every one of them that one day they might be president for America. I know of an Ethiopian American wife who recently gave birth to an American newborn, she announced that she is determined to prepare him to become a U.S. president in the future. It is possible that her son might succeed and achieve the American dream; America opens its arms to each successful one of its children in accordance with the standards of justice and equal opportunities. The dictators in the countries of Arabs and Muslims, they do not want one of their citizens or slaves they owned to be famous or recognized, because the tyrant is admired that he alone, holds all the applause, admiration and cheers. He wants efficient people to compete in, being hypocrite and eulogists, not to compete in science and innovation. He wants the trust of the hypocritical employees. The experienced, the efficient , and the innovator in this world has no time for cheering and dancing in processions of the tyrant, which is naturally not satisfied with that as well. This is why the Clappers, the Hypocrites, the Quacks Jugglers , Brokers and the White Slave, command media, culture, education, religious life, social life and the country’s military . Finally, a tribute sent to the late Hussein Obama, who immigrated to America where his son Barak is. The biggest tribute is to him, because he did not immigrate to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States or the rest of the Arab world.

Sample 4

Tears of the FBI agent

(This article was published in Arabic in 01 – 25 – 2009):

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=4801

 The FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation which includes the terms of reference for crimes and is the authority over the local police in each American state.
As a way to commit theft, a professional gang of African Americans in the city of Detroit in the state of Michigan, began to compile information on other criminal gangs. Disguised in FBI uniforms, they would then break into their homes, handcuff them and rob them of the stolen money or drugs; masked, they would then flee. The gang members affected of course could not complain to the authorities. Cloaked as the FBI, the gang’s activities were sometimes not limited to theft but would extend to murder and rape.
The news reached the FBI when the gang broke into the wrong address. When they entered the house they did not find anything of worth to steal; they raped a girl and killed her mother!!
I heard this story in the program (ID) which specializes in crime detection and analysis. The U.S. officer who was a witness to these events was invited to the program. As he recalled the crime he was in tears, recounting the events when the girl was raped by the perpetrators, the body of her mother by her side. The U.S. officer said that he was very sad that even though his duty as a police officer was to protect citizens, crimes were still happening
2- The education and training of this police officer specify that his main duty is to serve and protect the people (to serve and protect). This U.S. police officer is a permanent guest in children’s schools where he explains to them the mission of the police officers, assuring them that he is in the service of the people, that he is a friend of everyone and that his salary is paid by their taxes. He explains that his loyalty is to the people and everyone in that region and suggests that if any child is subjected to abuse that they should call 911 immediately and that they will receive an immediate response to help them.
Due to the training and education they receive, there is a culture of respect. This means that the U.S. officers have full respect for all citizens so that even if someone is a criminal he will refer to them as Mr. so and so. For example, when a police officer stops a citizen or puts someone under arrest, they always address him as “sir” out of respect.
In an arrest, there must be sufficient evidence against the accused so that the Attorney General (Chief Prosecutor) approves the arrest. The arrest includes the reading of the rights of the accused: the right to remain silent and not speak in his or her detriment, the right to call a lawyer, and, if he or she cannot afford a lawyer, then there is the right to have the state appoint a lawyer on his or her behalf. If there is any abuse of these rights then the accused is entitled to go to the police and to the Attorney General for compensation.
The Attorney General (Chief Prosecutor) acts on behalf of the community and reflects the rights of the community against the accused, pointing out any damage inflicted on the community and its members. The position of Attorney General is an elected one, the length of his term in office depends on his efficiency and integrity, and all eyes are watching him for a slip or a lapse.
The lawyer for the accused has the same rights of the prosecutor. If counsel falls short on his duty, the judge can kick him out of court. It is the judge’s responsibility to make sure all evidence is presented and that both the defense and prosecution have the opportunity to present their case to the jury so that the jury can then prepare their verdict.
The desire to achieve justice is the source of a democratic system itself. This means the independence of the judiciary in all levels of the executive and legislative branch. It also means the presence of freedom of information and a transparent process for any oppressed person so that he can speak out and be heard. Individuals, associations and organizations can then stand up for him.
Second
1-Egypt does not lack legal skills. It is a leading legal and legislative renaissance in Africa and the Arab and Muslim world. It is full of elders and law scholars of the highest integrity and purity.
The police force has officers, which include the sons of respectable families with good credibility. These officers have grown up with dignity and know that their duty is the same as the duty of the officers in the U.S., to serve and protect. There was an old slogan: (the police serve the people). This is still the duty in some divisions of the police and the service sectors such as fire and rescue, traffic control and immigration.
2- These positive features in the judiciary and the police were clear before the rule of the military in 1952.
The military gave the first blow to the Egyptian judiciary system in the attack on Alsanhoury Pasha (an greatest Egyptian law scholar and judge in the twentieth century). It also asked for a strike against the Constitution and established emergency law.
During the military rule of Nasser, the military prison opened its doors to civilians and torture, a task that was left by the military to the dirty police. A police state was created in Egypt to protect the military, led by the State Security Investigations and assisted by armed military (Central Security). The police (political) and the Central Security turned into a big prison and tightened the grip of the state on the people’s neck. The rest of the army stays away to monitor the situation closely, interfering only when the police are unable to. The situation has grown worse each day since the arrival of Mubarak to office in 1981.
3- The outcomes have been toxic. These are some of the most important ones:
*The continuing collapse in the level of efficiency and integrity, and the prevalence of corruption in the judiciary and police.
*The prevalence of a culture of torture perpetuated by the police. This has reduced the role of the police, meaning that policemen have missed a career in the investigation and detection of crime and have lost the duty to be in the protection of the citizens.
It is no longer the role of policemen to serve and protect people. Members of the public can be arrested and insulted by him, at any time and place. It is not required of the officer to put great effort to find the real criminal and search for criminal evidence, it is sufficient to arrest any person and torture him until he admits that he has killed Ceasar, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Kennedy and maybe Sadat too. The prosecution will then take care of him according to the circumstances.
It is dangerous for someone to go and complain to the police as they are in peril of being forced under torture that he was the one who killed raped, committed robbery and dealt drugs.

In any case, the officer will not bother to act for this citizen, the victim, when the police can torture the victim when and however he wants. The officer will act only if it is of interest and if this is the case it does not matter if the complainant is guilty or innocent. The police, therefore, are not there to serve the people but to torture and oppress the people. Their service is limited to rich people in power, not the poor. The oppressed, however, stay away form the police department and the fulfillment of justice. In secret they pray for protection from injustice and oppression.
4- The security of seventy million Egyptians has collapsed as security has taken on a political focus: the President and his followers. In order to protect the president, the army, intelligence members, and all the staff of state and government are carrying weapons. In order to protect the President the people have become naked of protection. The weapons of the army and the police are directed towards the people in order to keep the president in office, the eternal ruler.
If the chair of the president would have lasted longer for Sadat, this chair would have never reached Hosni Mubarak. Each day that passes brings him closer to his final rest and all the armies in the world cannot protect him from death. When Mubarak dies he will not find any sad tears shed for him. All the tears have been exhausted grieving for the victims of Hosni Mubarak. In every second Egyptian home there are one or more members who have been exposed to insult, beatings, looting, rape, theft and injustice by the police and Mubarak’s army and regime. The tears of the Egyptian families who have become victims under the rule of Mubarak and his regime have all dried up.
Mubarak has monopolized for himself and his followers all the security, all the wealth, and all the power, and kept it all to the last moments of his life. To protect his interest, he has let the armed forces and the police subjugate the people with humiliation, torture and rape. Not a single tear is left for him.
So thank God Almighty for what is left for Mubarak’s life which is much less than in the past, the Egyptian has reached the age of decline and everybody is waiting for his death, it does not matter to them what happens afterwards. This is the extent of the Egyptian people’s hate for him; he knows this and people know this too. They hold each other in sight, waiting to see who will die first, and death is the final say. There are more than seventy million Egyptians who live everyday with the hope of the arrival of Mubaraks’s death, so that they can start their demonstrations and chant (Long Live Death).
5- Most beautiful is death!
The biggest player in the lives of people who are unable to confront their tyrants is to wish for death. Dictators try to escape death but to no avail. Death is not a gray hair that can be removed by dying it black or wrinkles than can be hidden by makeup power.
6. All the oppressed Arab people stand in a queue waiting for death to resolve the problem of the tyrant controlling them with an iron fist. Sooner or later the moment of death will come for each and every one of the oppressors then there will be no escape, no excuses.

Sample 5

Brainwashing Egyptians against America by using the U.S Aid

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=6313

Every Tuesday evening, from January 2, 1996 to the end of June 2000, I conducted weekly seminars for the Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo. In a seminar in 1997 we discussed the subject of the determination of some of the Christian leaders in establishing a Coptic University in Egypt. I invited to the discussion the leaders of the Copts.

I did not like the project because it would make more division among Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Therefore, I proposed that the alternative is to reform the Egyptian education, especially of religious education, which is where the distinction between the sons of one homeland lies. Also, the reform of other materials such as history, which neglects the Coptic era of Egyptian history, and of reading materials which neglect the component of the Coptic Egyptian people. The proposal had a good response, so I published an article in the Egyptian magazine (Rose Al Yousef) calling for the reform of the curricula of religious education in Egyptian schools as a step in the reform of Al-Azhar itself.

The Ibn Khaldoun Center for Egyptian Education Reform was founded the following year, it worked for a whole year. We prepared alternative materials as proposals for history and reading materials, and religious education. I myself wrote proposals for religious education (three books for the education of elementary, middle and s the education of elementary, middle and secondary schools) with a book to guide the teacher to articles on religious education. I also wrote the scenario for the religious tolerance of the historical reality of what took place in Egypt in the Abbasid Age. I also wrote the scenario of a documentary on Egyptians celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Mostorod ( place east of Cairo), where the majority of the pioneers of the Muslims in reference to the existence of tolerance in the grass-roots Egypt develop it.

We sent what was written the films that were produced to Al-Azhar, the Church,the Ministry of Education, the media, and the People's Council, and invited the thinkers and intellectuals for discussion. Suddenly we were accused of being disbelievers. We did not weaken. The project still in practice, we hosted teachers to discuss the topic, then selected teachers to teach to a selected group of students in different stages during the middle school year holidays. The attacks on us intensified and ended with the arrest warrant against Dr. Saad and the closing down of the Centre. I fled to America, while the second wave of arrest targeted the Alqra’nyeen and who were sentenced to imprisonment for contempt of religion.

Why do I tell this here?
To cite what happened in our discussions with a group of teachers who accepted to discuss the proposals with us. We booked them in a luxury hotel in Al Ain Sukhna on the Suez Canal during the days of the conference. Each received the equivalent of about a month's salary. All their travel expenses were paid from the budget of the project. They also received gifts of books and other materials from the center.

They were required to read the proposals and then discuss it together with us to try and find an answer to the important question: Is it possible to actually teach these alternative proposals or not? And are they better than the textbooks that already exist?
Surprisingly, the discussion turned to questioning us in the same manner that as had been reported on the role of the Ibn Khaldoun Center, its objective and the financing of the project; and whether the project was a Western-American conspiracy against Islam and Muslims.

I repeatedly told them the following:
1- Funding of the project is not from America but from the Netherlands; it is not about the ambitions of the Netherlands.

2- Financing the project was in accordance with the formal agreements and the knowledge of the Egyptian government. Its accounts subject to the scrutiny of the state bodies so that if they wish to find any gap they can use it against the center and its employees.
3- Foreign funding is the policy of the Egyptian government. This is evident by the billions of dollars in American and non-American aid; funding which does not reach the billions of Egyptian people. The funding of the past ten years which has come to all the centers working in human rights, in the defense of the Egyptian people and the advancement of Egypt, is no more than a half percent of the subsidies received by the Egyptian government in one year. At a time when the rulers of looted billions of dollars, the cents which came to human rights organizations support thousands families who live on the salaried of researchers, activists and ordinary workers who work for a true fit for their community.

4- Then you are talking about Western funding, which is claimed to reform and is in the public financing. How about the Saudi funding to support mosques to spread terrorism and the culture of extremism and intolerance? This funding is from unknown sources and is uncontrolled. It has caused Egypt to go back 100 years, scattering discord between Egyptians and igniting sectarian sedition and terrorism. Producing armed movements, which reached a climax in the early nineties, and producing ignorance instead of science, all of which urges the center to treat and fix this problem by implementing this project of educational reform.

5- So, where is the conspiracy here? Conspiracy is usually in secret, and we do not ever work in secret because the reform is based on openness. We announced of project, sent copies of everything we have done to those responsible and the media, intellectuals and educators, university professors, Al-Azhar and the Church and the Ministry of Education; we asked the opinion of everybody and affirmed the need for discussion.
How can you say, you are plotting, and you yourselves are witnesses to yourselves? You have come of your own free will to us, and we have given you books written by us. And we ask you to hear your discussion, and everything you have read: you did not find anything showing western conspiracy. I am the author of the proposals for the religious education materials, which are derived from the Qur’an and show the greatness of Islam and its tolerance. So, do we have the West conspiring to prove that Islam is tolerance, peace and human rights? Then you finally will return home in peace and safety, and spend a happy time and a wonderful picnic and be well paid financially. If this is conspiracy, then what a best conspiracy!

6- Then this funding is money come here from the West for us work productively for the benefit of Egypt. Why do we not compare the people's money which been stolen by Egyptian rulers and smuggled it to the West? Who conspires here? Who are the thieves? Who is worthy of accountability and punishment?
7- In the end ... why would America conspire against us? America may conspire against its competitors or who fight them, but why would America be plotting against Egypt, which depends on their weapons and food? Without the need for any conspiracy, the Egyptian President is carrying out orders received by telephone from Washington.

Can the mayor of your village conspire on a laborer who works for him? If the mayor gives financial aid to one of the laborers, is he now a conspirator?
I am tired of the repetition of these words without any improvement.
Finally, I looked at them with sympathy. These teachers are themselves the victims of bad teaching and a falling culture.
This was in 1999.
Unfortunately, this culture continues to spread.

Chapter 2: Mission 2: Facing the terrorist bloody culture in order to terminate its danger

 Facing the radicals and their bloody culture is so easy if you are a sincere knowledgeable Muslim scholar having Islam with you against them. Their Sunni Salafi Wahhabi dogmas contradict Islam in its faith, Jurisprudence, values and morals. Reading the Quran according to its unique Arabic Language proves this contradiction between the religion of Islam and this human made doctrine of Wahhabism. In any open discussion in a free world those fanatics are usually defeated. As a matter of fact, they need a powerful dictator regime to impose their dogmas on people and secure it from open free discussion. This is the policy inside the Saudi kingdom, Pakistan, Sudan, Algeria and in Egypt in the time of Mubarak who protected the Salafi trends and for them he persecuted the Muslim Quranist scholars just because they are very successful in facing the Wahhabi dogmas from within Islam.

Because of their very limited resources, the Quranists have only the internet in waging war of ideas against terrorist culture. On the internet, the Quranists published more than thousand articles and researches and books in refuting the Wahhabi dogmas in many aspects.

Let’s give some samples.

 Sample one:

The false penalty of apostasy (killing the apostate)

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=3776

Killing the apostate in Sunni Shareeah contradicts Islam

Firstly:  
1 – What is funny about the penalty of apostasy in Muslim human made religion is that although it is the most notorious aspect of the human made Shari’a and it still a controversial issue with only two (Hadeethes: Sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammed ) to support it, it is applied more than any other punishment in the Shari’a. These two hadeethes are false as they were invented in the Abbasy Empire, about two centuries after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.
2 – Why this penalty of apostasy is famous although it lacks a fundamental religious support in Islam? The answer is one word: Politics. Explaining it needs some historic facts.
Secondly: The false penalty of apostasy in a brief historic account:
1 - In the time of the Prophet Mohamed there was no mention to such punishment. The Prophet Mohamed had established the real Islamic State in Al Madeina (622: 632) based on direct democracy and human rights and the unlimited freedom of belief and speech. (The details in my article: The contradiction Between the Islamic State and the Religious State):
http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=2929

 2-Serious changes had happened during the rule of the righteous Caliphates (632: 661) but Muslims in that time had maintained some aspects of democracy and full freedom of belief and speech. So, there was not any indication to the penalty of apostasy during the rule of the righteous Caliphates.
3 - The Omawy dynasty had taken over the Muslim Empire by its tribal military autocratic regime. They confiscated the human rights and democracy, but during their time (661: 750) they used to kill their enemies and oppositions without any religious justification. They did not need to invent what is known as the penalty of apostasy. (Details in my article: The Islamic History between Democracy and Despotism:
http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=2930

4 - This has happened in the Abbasy dynasty (750: 1258). The Abbasy Empire was a Theocratic autocratic regime, so it had to invent religious justification for its policy. That is why they killed their opposition by inventing the so–called penalty of apostasy. Ironically, the early Abbasy Caliphates had some atheists working for them enjoying prosperity and all the vanities of life like Hammad Ajrad . The penalty of apostasy never touched them while many people were killed by this penalty just because they were against the Abbasy politics or criticized its Caliphates like Ibn Al MoKaffa’a and Bashshar Ibn Bord.
5 - In the Mameluke dynasty (1248: 1517) the penalty of apostasy has dangerously developed by the fanatic Sunni famous scholar Ibn Taymeya (died in 1327). This dangerous development has been revived in our modern history and our recent time by the Wahabism which is restoring Ibn Taymeyah thoughts. Muslim Brotherhood has been planted in Egypt by the Saudi King, the founder of the third current Saudi State Abdel Aziz Ben Saud. So, the Muslim Brotherhood has the same dangerous development of Ibn Taymeya in the field of penalty of apostasy.
Thirdly: Understanding the penalty of apostasy
1 - The penalty of apostasy and the war with the apostates
It is commonly known that Abu Bakr has fought the apostates in the famous (war of apostasy) This has nothing to do with the penalty of apostasy, however. Those apostates in the time of Abu Bakr were rebels who attacked the Muslim state with the objective of destroying it politically and violently. Abu Bakr' had to stand against such rebellion and used force against force in order to protect the infant state. This is what came to be known in history as: "The War with the Apostates," which had nothing to do with the so-called penalty of apostasy.
The penalty of apostasy is supposed to deal with a peaceful person who does not raise a sword. A person who joined Islam, or who was born and lived as a Muslim, but he wanted to leave it and to apostatize, without resorting to violence or fighting the Muslims. The difference is far more significant between the war with the apostates and the penalty of apostasy. Besides, the war with the apostates occurred in the time of Abu Bakr, but the penalty of apostasy was invented much later.
When some Prophet-Companions argued with Abu Bakr concerning his position towards the apostates at the beginning of the crisis, he had never used the so-called Hadeeth which says:” You should kill whoever changes his religion" because it has not yet been invented up till that time!
2 -Two kinds of penalty of apostasy
When one Muslim converts from Islam to another religion, he/she will be given some days to repent and to be Muslim again. If he/she insists to refuse Islam, then he/she must be killed. This is the common meaning of the penalty of apostasy in the human made Sunni religion.
In this regard , Sheikh Sayyed Sabiq - the religious leader of Muslim Brother in the last century – in his book (Fikh Al sunna ) said that this apostate should be given a period of time to repent. If he/she changed his position and announced that he rejected every religion except Islam, then his/her repentance should be accepted, otherwise the "penalty of apostasy" should be carried out! [Fikh –Al Sunnah: part 2 page: 388].
Ibn Taymeyah and his fanatic Sunni school (Including Wahabism and Muslim Brotherhood) have added a new kind of apostasy, namely Al Zindeeq i.e. the heretic. They decided to apply the penalty of apostasy to the Zendeeq, , without giving him/her a chance for a fair trial. They say: It is a must to kill him once we get him/her, kill him/her even if he/she repents and without discussion. Thus he/she is deprived of the right to defend him/herself or to present his/her arguments. In other words, he/she is denied the right to "offer his/her repentance"!!
The reader may imagine that a Zendeeq is someone who is a blasphemous or a disbeliever or an atheist who does not believe in God, his Messengers, and his Books. No! Usually, he/she is a believer. He/she believes in God and His Messengers and His Books, but he/she is a thinker who has an independent opinion. His/her major mistake is that his/her views may differ with those of the Sunni scholars. So, he/she deserves to be killed even if he/she repented. And because he/she is a person of opinion, supported by an Islamic argument and proofs, then the Sunni religious Priesthood deprives such a person of the right to a fair trial which may be granted to a regular apostate who turns back to disbelief.
The real reason here is political one:
Sheikh Sayyed Sabiq says that the Zendeeq is a person who believes in Islam inwardly and outwardly. Thus he believes with his tongue and heart. How then he is considered to be a Zendeeq? The Sheikh says in explanation: "... but he may interpret some of what is necessarily known of religion in a different way from that which the Companions and those who came after them and all the Ummah (i.e. all the Muslims), have agreed upon."
In other words, one is considered to be a Zendeeq because one used one's mind, thought about some matters and came up with new opinions that may differ with what is commonly known by the Sunni human made religion.
3 – Politics again.
Sheikh Syyed Sabiq, in his book " Fikh –Al Sunnah " has provided some examples of that crimes of the Zindeeq such as: making accusations against the Holy Book and the Sunnah and leaves acting upon them preferring to follow the laws made by people, or throws the Holy Book in the dirt, or throws the books of Sunni traditions giving no importance to them or their value ...etc.' [Fikh –Al Sunnah: part 2 page: 384]
Such accusations were not mentioned in the writings of earlier scholars. The reason is that applying the (Wahhaby Sunni) Shariah was not a political issue during the Abbasyd or the Mamluks' eras. But it becomes the slogan of Muslim Brotherhood, So, they use the penalty of apostasy against their oppositions dealing with them as Zindeeq, demanding to kill them without a trail. There has been so many secular and Muslim reforming trends that took a stand regarding against the political agenda of the Sunni Wahabi movements under the flag of applying the Shariah. The so-called moderate Muslim scholars among The Muslim Brotherhood and the official Wahabi scholars usually issue fatwas accusing the reformer Muslims to be apostates to encourage the terrorists to assassin them. This is the cause of my suffering for 30 years as more than 100 fatwas were issued against my life. The most notorious fatwa was issued in June 1992 to punish me and my late friend Dr. Farag Fouda. We together announced the birth of new political party named (The Future party) to face the Muslim Brotherhood culturally and politically. Three days after this announcement, a fatwa against the two of us was issued by organization inside Al Azhar that belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood calling for killing us. After another three days Dr. Farag Fouda was assassinated in front of his office. Al Jama’ah Al Islameyya , head by the notorious leader Omar Abdel Rahman, declared that they killed Dr. Fouda according to this Fatwa. In the court Sheikh Al Ghazali defended the killers of Dr. Fouda saying that Dr. Fouda was apostate and should be killed accordingly. So, I attacked Sheikh Al Ghazaly in many articles proving that he contradicted his own writing. Then I wrote my book (The Penalty of apostasy) to prove that this false penalty contradicts Islam. This book has all the necessary details about this subject.
You can look at my book in Arabic and English here:
http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=523

Fourthly: Penalty of Apostasy contradicts Islam
1- It contradicts the meaning of Islam:
Peace is the origin of the understanding of Islam as a religion as well as in the Arabic language. It is the base of the relationship between Muslims and others. Peace is also the back-bone of the Jihad laws in the Quran. The inward meaning of Islam is to succumb and submit to God alone, pledging allegiance and obedience to Him and Him alone (6:161-163). People have had diversified faiths, even within the same religion or even within the same sect or school of thinking. The Quran confirms that people will be judged for the diversity of their faiths by God alone and only on Judgment day (as found in verses ( 2: 113 , 3: 55 , 10 : 93 , 16 : 124 , 5 : 48 , 39 : 3 , 7: 46 .Any one that claims this right to him/her is claiming divinity upon himself. This is the inward meaning of Islam in dealing with the Almighty God, the Creator, or the inner meaning of the faith that lies inside the heart which will be judged by God alone on the Last Day.
Islam, in dealing with people is (Peace). Any peaceful one is Muslim regardless of his/her faith and culture. God says: “O you who believe enter peace wholeheartedly” (2:208). Thus God ordered the believers to enter peaceful life. We remember here that the salutation of Islam is peace “Alsalamu alikum” or “Peace be upon you” and that peace is one of God’s wholly names, Al salam. All of this expresses the confirmation of peace in Islam and it confirms the fact that belief also means safety and security.
So, killing the peaceful human because of his religious choice is against the meaning of Islam.
2- It contradicts the highest value of Islam: Freedom of belief and freedom of speech
* The Holy Qur’an contains the practical proof supporting the absolute freedom to believe or to disbelieve. This is clearly mentioned in hundreds of the the Qur’anic verses. On the Day of Judgment they will be held accountable for such freedom. At such time they will be asked about the consequences of their choice. God says:” And say, `It is the truth from your Lord; wherefore let him who will believe, and let him, who will, disbelieve.”' (18:29). God also say about the Holy Quran : ( Say : Believe in it or not believe in it ) (17 : 107 )
* The general fundamental rule of jurisprudence stated in the Holy Qur’an is: "There is no compulsion in religion). (2:256 ) It clearly prohibits compulsion in joining any religion, in leaving it and in performing its rituals of worship.
What is important to understand is that the general fundamental rule in divine jurisprudence to prohibit compulsion in religion, i.e. in joining or leaving religion, is based on the freedom of humans granted to them by God to believe or to disbelieve, with the understanding that they are going to meet God on the Day of Judgment to give account of their actions.
3- It contradicts the real Shareah of Islam
* The Lord of Glory has mentioned this divine jurisprudence in the Torah. He said about the Children of Israel and the Torah: "And therein We prescribed for them: Life for life" (5:45) which means that there is no justification for killing a soul except when it had committed a murder, i.e. as requital. In Islamic jurisprudence, the penalty for murder has been commuted by introducing an alleviation by which the murderer may be saved from execution if the victim or his family agreed to accept the blood-money. (2:178) .
Thus there is an exception in the rule of: "life for life". Such exception is paying the blood-money. Accordingly, the murderer may not be killed in all cases.
* God the Exalted forbids aggression and made fighting lawful in defense of the state if an aggression was committed against it: "And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but do not transgress. Surely, Allah loves not the transgressors". (2:190) "So, whoso transgresses against you, punish him for his transgression to the extent to which he has transgressed against you. And fear Allah and know that Allah is with those who fear Him". (2:194). This means that God the Exalted forbids the Muslims to exceed the law of retaliation in their war with the aggressors. If the aggressor happened to kill ten persons from among the Muslims, then the Muslims are not allowed to kill more than ten persons. This is the law of retaliation in which there is life for Muslims and for all others as well.
This being the case in the legislation for fighting an enemy who committed an act of aggression, then what about dealing with a peaceful person who did not raise a sword?
It is the utmost and extreme injustice to issue a verdict to kill a soul for any other reason outside the law of retaliation, and then to ascribe such unjust verdicts to the religion of God the Exalted, while the religion of God is absolutely free of such horrible acts.
* In order to emphasize this rule, God has made it a fundamental legislative rule and repeated it three times in the Holy Qur’an so that every mindful person may benefit by it. God said in the Ten Commandments mentioned in Chapter 6 "Al-Ana' am": "... and that you slay not the soul the slaying of which Allah has forbidden, except in accordance with the demands of justice. That is what He has enjoined upon you, that you may understand". (6:151)
God said in Chapter 17: "And slay not the soul, the slaying of which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause”. (17:33). In Chapter 25, "Al-Furqan", God the Exalted says among many attributes of the true servants of the Gracious God: "And those who call not on any other god along with Allah, nor slay a person whose slaying Allah has forbidden except for a just cause". (25:68).
* The Holy Qur’an has specifically mentioned the subject of apostasy in four verses but never mentioned any penalty to be applied by the ruler to the apostate. The apostate is left to be dealt with by God Who can punish him in this world and in the world to come.
4 - It contradicts the real Sunna and real history of the Prophet Mohammed
* The true Sunnah, i.e. practice of the Messenger of God, is the practical application of the Qur’anic jurisprudence. Such practice never contradicted the Qur’an. This is what the Messenger' has applied in dealing with the apostates and the hypocrites and the like.
The Prophet' himself has never set up Inquisition Courts for the hypocrites in Medina when he lived in it as the sole and obeyed ruler. The hypocrites represented religious and political opposition. They used to plot against him in times of war and peace, which in any present democratic society, a government would have the right to put them on trial for committing crimes equivalent to high treason.
* The subject of apostasy has also been mentioned frequently in the Holy Qur’an during references about the hypocrites who disbelieved after declaring their faith.
The Holy Qur’an revealed and exposed their state and emphasized their disbelief and apostasy. In spite of this, the Qur’an directed the Prophet to turn aside from them. God says about some of them: "They swear by Allah that they said nothing, but they did certainly utter the word of disbelief, and disbelieved after they had embraced Islam. And they cherished enmity against believers only because Allah and His Messenger had enriched them out of His bounty. So if they repent, it will be better for them; but if they turn away, Allah will punish them with a grievous punishment in this world and the Hereafter". (9:74)
This means that those people have fallen into apostasy when they uttered the word of disbelief. They disbelieved after they have embraced Islam. They even cherished enmity against the believers but they were not successful in causing them any harm. Such was the testimony of God against those people. Did the Prophet set up Court of Inquisition to investigate their faith, or did he apply to them the alleged penalty of apostasy?
It is only God the Exalted Who will punish them if they persisted in their apostasy, and it is only He Who will accept their repentance if they repented: "So if they repent, it will be better for them; but if they turn away, Allah will punish them with a grievous punishment in this world and the Hereafter". (9:74)
Similarly, God the Exalted says about some of the hypocrites:
"Those who believe, then disbelieve, then again they believe, then disbelieve and then increase in disbelief, Allah will never forgive them nor will He guide them to the right way". (4:137).
This shows that some people used to join Islam then apostatize, then join again then apostatize, then at the end they chose to remain disbelievers, even they increased in disbelief. Yet, there is no mentioning of any penalty of apostasy. Their punishment is left to God Who said that He shall not grant them His forgiveness.
Some of them used to hasten to apostate and go back to disbelief which used to sadden the Messenger', but he did not have the right to put them on trial; nor to pass any judgment against them; nor to apply what is known now as `the penalty for apostasy'; nor to set up Inquisition Courts. All what he could do was to feel sad for such people. His Lord tells him in the Holy Qur’an: "O Messenger! let not those grieve thee who hasten to fall into disbelief - those who say with their mouths, `We believe,' but their hearts believe not". (5:41)
God assured him that those who hastened to apostatize and went back to disbelief will have no part in the blessings of the life to come. This would be enough as their punishment. Therefore there is no need to persecute or prosecute them in this life. God says: "And let not those who hasten to fall into disbelieve grieve thee; surely, they cannot harm Allah in any way. Allah desires not to assign them any portion in the life to come; and they shall have a severe punishment". (3:176)
5 - It contradicts the human made history of the Prophet Mohamed.
Thus it is an absolute Qur’anic fact which emphasizes that the Prophet did not know such a penalty for apostasy and never applied it to the hypocrites whom God has testified to their disbelief and exposed their conspiracies.
It is also an absolute historical fact in the biography of the Prophet which emphasizes that the Prophet did not know such a penalty for apostasy and never applied it to the hypocrites whom God has testified to their disbelief and exposed their conspiracies.
Some scholars felt obliged to admit this fact. In his book: "The Prophet's Sunnah between the Jurists and the Traditionists", Sheikh Mohammad Al-Ghazali said disproving the allegation: "When did the Prophet ever give any order to kill the hypocrites? This has never happened. On the contrary, he forbade it".
The conclusion of all this is that as long as the Prophet has prohibited killing the hypocrites, it should be taken as an evidence of the absolute prohibition of killing the hypocrites. And as long as God has testified that the hypocrites have apostatized out of Islam, then the prohibition is a prohibition to kill the apostates. Consequently, it is evidence on our side that the so-called penalty of apostasy is contradictory to Islamic Jurisprudence.
Fifthly: Penalty of Apostasy contradicts the rules of the human made Sunni religion itself.
The alleged penalty of apostasy is based upon only two Hadeethes attributed to the Prophet Mohamed, one of them is reported by Ikremah, the servant of Ibn Abbas. The other was mentioned by Al-Awzae'ee without any authority and without a chain of reporters. It was indeed a precarious situation. Soon after, Imam Muslim reported it in his book ( Sahih Muslim ) after giving it the chain of reporters.
Al-Awzae'ee in his inventing Hadeeth said : "The blood of a Muslim man should not be lawfully shed except in three situations: A life for a life, the married man who committed adultery, and the apostate who left his people".
The other Hadeeth made by Akramah says: "Whoever changes his religion kill him", which is applicable to everyone who changes his religion, including Muslims, Christians and Jews. In its general form, it can literally mean that whoever changes his religion from among the Christians and the Jews and became a Muslim, he/she should be killed.
Is it permissible to put people to death based upon two Hadeethes contradict the Holy Quran , and have been reported by one person?
However: Let us assume that the two Hadeethes defining a penalty for apostasy were true and not false traditions. Let us also assume that the Holy Qur’an does not contradict them both, but does not support them either. The question is: Is it permissible to depend on two Hadeethes to constitute a law in Islamic jurisprudence?
Is it permissible to create jurisprudence based only on two (Ahaad Hadeeth ) i.e. Hadeeth which, the end of the chain of reporters, mentioned only one person?
Is it permissible to put people to death branded as apostates based only upon two Hadeethes?
They have divided the Hadeethes into two categories:
(1) Ahaad, (i.e. those Hadeethes which at the end of the chain of reporters there is only one person who heard it from the Prophet) . However, some scholars consider all the Hadeethes in the written traditions are (Ahaad ). This includes these two hadeethes of the penalty of apostasy.
(2) Mutawatir, (i.e. the Hadeethes which at the end of the chain of reporters there are many persons who have heard the tradition directly from the Prophet) . This kind is not found, or a few only. However, they said that it is very difficult to find a Mutawatir Hadeeth .
Both Hadeethes mentioning apostasy are of the Ahaad traditions.  The question then is: Is it logical to take them as true? And can both be used to constitute jurisprudence?
In the famous Sunni book : "Jurisprudence According to the Four Schools", it is mentioned that the penalties of which the scholars of jurisprudence have agreed upon were three only (for stealing, adultery and accusing an innocent). This proves that the scholars of jurisprudence were not in agreement concerning what is called the penalty of apostasy, in other words, there is no complete consensus among the jurists concerning a penalty for apostasy.
Sheikh Muhammad Al-Ghazali, who was so enthusiastic about the penalty of apostasy, has mentioned what contradicted the penalty of apostasy in his book: "The Prophet's Sunnah between the Jurists and Traditionists". He said: "I counted more than two hundred verses in the Qur’an that emphasized freedom of faith, considering that true faith should be based upon personal conviction while compulsion should be rejected. It should be emphasized that inviting people to a religion should be done through clear conveyance of the message". Then he said: "Presenting Islam as if it were a provoking religion and as being thirsty for shedding blood is preposterous and mere fabrication of false charges against God and the Messengers. We have dealt with the subject thoroughly in many other books of ours, yet it is still necessary to speak on the subject again because the lies never end". Then he said: "In these ill-omen days, the differences have become so wide-spread in the Ummah. They killed one another to the degree that the number of those who were killed in internal afflictions has exceeded the number of those who were killed fighting the foreign occupation".
Based on what the Sheikh has said, the so-called penalty of apostasy contradicts all the verses of the Qur’an which emphasized freedom of faith and prohibited compulsion in religion. The sentences which we have quoted from his writings fit exactly those who defend the so-called penalty of apostasy and want to propagate its authenticity, those who have specialized in accusing others of disbelief and apostasy and who are thirsty to shed the blood of Muslims.
Sheikh Al-Ghazali also rejected the idea that the Prophet has ordered to kill anyone from among the hypocrites; and said: "When did it happen that the Messenger of God has directed to kill anyone of the hypocrites? It has never happened, but rather he has prohibited it". In other words, he was pointing out to the fact that the penalty of apostasy did not exist in the time of the Prophet, otherwise, the Prophet would have had applied it to the apostates from among the hypocrites. Also, Al-Ghazali said that a tradition should not be used as an argument if it has serious flaw or if it was odd. The two traditions relating to apostasy are odd and both have serious flaw as long as they contradict two hundred verses of the Qur’an, which were counted by Sheikh Al-Ghazali relating to freedom of faith, and as long as the Prophet himself, as has been mentioned by Al-Ghazali, has never killed anyone of the apostates.
In addition, Al-Ghazali also said that an Ahaad tradition, even if it were true, does not provide certainty. He said: "Claiming that it provides certainty as the Mutawatir traditions is an unaccepted risk".
It means that it is a risk to shed the blood of Muslims depending on a true but not certain tradition. What then if the tradition was not true but a false one?
Sheikh Al-Ghazali clarified the matter concerning the weak traditions which he might not reject on the outset if they were not related to matters of faith and jurisprudence. He said: "It may be the right of those who take interest in the weak traditions to use them outside the circle of beliefs and laws of jurisprudence, because the blood, the property, and the honour are more important and should not be dealt with based on rumors".
Therefore, both traditions of apostasy, which are nothing but "rumors" should not be used as a judicial justification for shedding blood unjustly.
Finally:
Regardless of the Islamic evidence we have, the penalty of apostasy will survive because it is a real political issue in the first place.

Sample two:

 Stoning myth :The Stoning Punishment Contradicts Qur’an Legislation and Islam:

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=2687

1. It is not in Qur’an to stone the adulterer. However, the concept of stoning and its derivatives in Qur’an came in the form of infidels’ threatening of believers and prophets (Hud 91, Miriam 46, Dukhan 20, Yassine 18, Kahf 20, Shua’ra 116). The stoning punishment was found in the contemporary Torah. The Moslems were affected by that and adopted this punishment for married adulterers. This is pure forging as far as Islam is concerned.
2. The punishment of adultery in Qur’an revealed as follows: The adulterers, in case they are caught, shall be flogged 100 lashes in front of crowd of people. The verse Al-Noor, The Light, started with this unique epilogue:” A verse, we revealed and enforced. We revealed in it clear and confirmed verses, so you may realize them”. Then Allah, almighty, immediately said:” The adulterers, male and female, shall be flogged one hundred lashes. Never feel mercy with them in the cause of Allah religion if you believe in Allah and the hereafter. Also, a flock of believers shall witness their punishment”.
It is very difficult to prove the case of adultery. Also, it is difficult to have a unanimous agreement on the occurrence of such act that results flogging. However, it is easy to label a woman that she has bad reputation. Observations might be increased on her bad reputation. Hence, there must be an appropriate punishment for it after proving such bad behavior through four witnesses despite not being caught. This punishment is not flogging. It is by preventing her from mixing with people till she dies or repents and marries. However, this is a negative punishment. God, almighty, says: “And those of your women commit the sin, have four witnesses to prove it. If they testified against them, hold those women in their houses till they die or God may find alternative path from them”. Nissa’a 15. Once she declares her repentance, she will be set free or marry. She will get rid of the characteristic of committing sin.
Also, details were mentioned in Qur’an in the case of an owned maid who commits the sin. If she commits the sin under the authority of her owner (master) and she was forced to do so, no punishment will be performed, as she has no choice. God, Almighty, says: “ Do not force your maids to perform prostitution if they decided to protect themselves so as to pursue the pleasures of this life. And whoever was forced to do so, God is mostly forgiving and compassionate” Al-Noor 33. If the owned maid gets married and frees herself from her master’s authority and commits adultery, her punishment shall be fifty lashes, i.e. half of the punishment of married free women if they commit the same sin. God says: “ If they get married, and commit the sin, their punishment shall be half of those free married women”. Nissa’a 25.
In all cases, the adulterous woman, that is the one who does not repent, is not allowed to marry a believer. This is an additional punishment. God, Almighty, says: “The male adulterer marries only a female adulterer or an infidel and vice versa. This marriage is not allowed for the believers”. Al-Noor 3.
Even Qur’an quotes a very remote example to individuals that might commit adultery and their exempted punishment. This remote case was the Prophet wives. In this case the punishment is two hundred (200) lashes. That’s to say, double of the punishment for free married women. In same token, they have double of the reward for good deeds of the others. God, Almighty, says: “ The women of the Prophet, if any of you commit a proven sin, she shall be punished as twice as the others, and that is surely easy for God to do. And those of you who fear God and do good deeds, We shall reward her as twice as the others, and surely we established for them an honorable reward”. Al-Ahzab 30,31. Since the punishment here has been doubled, the occurrence of the crime has to be proven, as the Quranic phrase “Whoever of you commit proven sin”. Here it is specific for the Prophet women and it is of a great importance and needs to be proven.
The Quranic legislation describes the adultery punishments as a torture or suffering. This means that the villain should stay alive. In other words, no place here fro stoning as it means death. Qur’an, when it mentioned the adultery punishment, did not specify the marital status of the sinner. It came as generic and the punishment was generic also. It says one hundred lashes (100) flogging. So flogging is the suffering.
In case of the owned maid that commits adultery after her marriage, her punishment shall be fifty lashes (50) as God, Almighty, said in Nissa’a 25. So, it was described as suffering. So, those who advocate the stoning of the married person are ignoring God’s saying of half the punishment. Is it possible to halve the stoning? Is there “half” death?
In case of the Prophet women, the Quranic legislation says:” If any one of you, the women of the Prophet, commits a proven sin, the punishment shall be as doubled”. It described the flogging as double the suffering. Is it possible to “double” the stoning? Does the person die twice? Can stoning twice kill the person?
If the man failed to prove that his wife committed adultery and failed to provide witnesses, he can swear before the judge by God four times that he is right. He also, swears for the fifth time that the wrath of God be upon him if he was a liar. In reciprocation, the wife can defend herself by swearing four times by God she is innocent. The fifth would be the wrath of God is upon her if her husband was truthful. This is called “curse” situation. This was revealed in Al-Noor 6-9. What’s important here that God described this punishment as “suffering” or “tormenting”. So, the punishment of the married adulterer is flogging and not stoning. Also, Qur’an legislations deal with an alive adulterer after executing the punishment. Qur’an prohibits the marriage from an adulterer who is addictive to adultery. Al-Noor verse 3 explains that fact. These legislations might not be there if the punishment was death. It also, applies for additional punishment on the divorced adulterer that prohibits her from leaving the house or re-marrying till she pays back some of her dowry.
Moreover, God, almighty, threatens the adulterers to multiply the punishment and stay in it for eternity in the Day of Resurrection if they died insisting on committing this sin. Of course, those who repent shall be exempted. Those God shall replace their sins with rewards. God said in this aspect: “ For those, the tormenting shall be multiplied in the Day of Resurrection and they will stay humbled in it for eternity. Those who repent and do good deeds, their sins shall be replaced with rewards. God is truly the most forgiving and compassionate”. Al-Forqan, 69-70. if the fate of the fate of the adulterer is stoning and hence death, there would not be any chance for repentance and doing good deeds to replace his/her sins. Also, the characterization of adulterer would be dropped to be replaced by the good repentant. God, Almighty, says: “Do not kill the soul that God made it sacred except with righteousness.” Ana’m 151, Isra’a 33. Also, in Forqan 68, God, Almighty, says: “And those who do not believe in any god but Allah, and do not kill the sacred soul but in righteousness and do not commit adultery, whoever does this will gain sins.” It is forbidden to kill the soul except in punishment and this is the Quranic right. The most sacred thing is the human soul and its right in life. In the same token, the biggest crime is killing this soul that created by God. The absolute crime is to devise a legislation that kills this pure soul and then attribute this to God, Almighty, and his Messenger.
The Lie of Stoning in Narrations (Hadith):
1. Although the stoning punishment was invented in Abbasid era, it was never unanimously approved. The contemporary Sunnah scholars admit that Al-Mu’tazala and Rejectionist (Khawarej) rejected the stoning. (Sayyed Sabiq, Sunnah Scholarship, 2/347, the Encyclopedia of Scholarship based on the four dogmas, 5/69 written by Abdel-Rahman Al-Jazzeeri).
2. The oldest narrations about stoning were mentioned in Nowata of Malik in a narration by Mohammad Ibn Hassan Sheibani. The narration started as: (Malik told us that Yahya Ibn Saeed heard Saeed Ibn Mossayyab said: When Omar Ibn Al-Khattab came from Mina …etc). That means the original narrator of this anecdote was Saeed Ibn Mossayyab. He claimed that Omar delivered an oration claiming the existence of the stoning verse in Qur’an, but it was omitted. However, Ibn Mossayyab was two years old when Omar was assassinated. How can a crawling baby telling stories about Omar. So, it is impossible for Ibn Mossayyab to be the narrator. Also, it is impossible for Omar to say something like that. It means that Omar accused the Qur’an of being forged and this is blasphemy. God, Almighty, said: “We revealed this Qur’an, and we are protecting it.” Al-Hijr 9. So, as far as the subject, this narration is false. In this narration, they attribute a verse to stoning that says:” The senile man and women shall be stoned if they commit adultery”. It is very well known the concept of senile does not indicate the marital status. One can reach this stage and stays single. Mohammad Ibn Hassan Sheibani felt this shortcoming in the meaning and realized by commenting on another narration about the Jewish adulterers (Narration no. 694):( Any Moslem man committed adultery with a woman and was married to a free Moslem woman and copulated with her, and then he shall be stoned. This is the “married” man. If he did not copulate with her or she was A Jewish or Christian, then he is not married and no stoning. He shall be flogged with hundred lashes. This is the saying of Abu Haneefah and the majority of scholars). Sheibani (a student to Abu Haneefah and one of the two scholars in the Hanafis) put a specific definition and a correction to the narration of stoning related to Omar that included adulterous “senile” people. In his definition, “senile” was no longer the criterion for stoning the married adulterer, but also, the Moslem who married a free Moslem woman. However, the one who married a Jew or a Christian, his marriage is not complete and no punishment for his adultery.
3. There is another anecdote in Mowata no. 692. This anecdote is completely false under all measures. Malik narrated this anecdote from Ibn Shehab (Al-Zuhry) who narrated this by himself. Al-Zuhry lived towards the end of the Umayyad era and was one of the followers who never met the Prophet, peace be upon him, or lived his time. Even though we read the following in Mowata: (Malik told us that Ibn Shehab told us that a man admitted committing adultery during the reign of the Prophet. The man testified against himself and was ordered to be stoned. Ibn Shehab said: For this, one can incriminate himself by self-confession.
4. The narrations were iterated after Malik. Shafi’e, Bukhari and Moslem wrote them. Sometimes these narrations claim that certain verses in Qur’an did exist and omitted. Bukhari, died yr 256 A.H., narrated from Omar Ibn Khattab, who died 200 years before him, about verses that were omitted from Qur’an and Omar declared them late. Some of these narrations claim that the stoning rite was stemmed from the monkey’s society before Islam. Bukhari narrated in his anecdote no. 3560:” Naeem Ibn Hmmad told us about Hasheem about Amr Ibn Meimoun saying: I saw before Islam a bunch of monkeys stoning an adulterous monkey, and I did the same with them. It seems that the monkeys’ society before Islam was ahead in applying the stoning. Anybody asked about this monkey’s marital status? Did the narrator discuss this issue with the Clergy of the monkeys and how to prove the occurrence of adultery? Did the monkeys use four witnesses? All of these narrations contradicting themselves.
5. Contradiction in narrations:
Contradiction is the main characteristic of Narrations. Two kinds of contradictory characters appear in narrations: partial contradiction in the details of the same story, and major contradiction among different stories. As an example of the latter, Bukhari produced a narration about a man came to the Prophet and admitted committing adultery. The prophet avoided him. The prayer time came and the man witnessed the prayer with the Prophet. He reiterated his confession to the Prophet and demanded to be punished. The prophet said to him: did you not pray with us? The man said: yes. The Prophet said: God forgave your sin. This means that prayer forgives the sins and negates the stoning. This is a stark contradiction with other narrations that are damped with the stoned victims’ blood.
While Bukhari, Shafi’e and Malik narrations emphasized that the punishment for the married adulterer is only stoning, we found that Moslem narrated repeated stories emphasizing in them that the Prophet said: The punishment of the single is 100 lashes and one year exile. The married punishment is 100 lashes then stoning. The danger in these narrations that it made the punishment for the married adulterer was 100 lashes before being killed stoning. This is another contradiction with other narrations.
These stories and anecdotes were written in the books of narrations to become major source of legislation for Moslems. Especially, when the scholars and the storytellers celebrated them and everyone re-iterated these narrations as “real” and “rites”. This was emphasized by the application of these narrations that sent many men and women victims to death based on legislation God never authorized.

Sample three

The False Alarm of Evangelism

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=4262

There is widespread panic from the Western groups of Evangelists that flares up the “Conspiracy Theory” and the winds of Democracy and freedom that has started bothering the tyrants and terrorists. As usual, they have taken refuge under the name of Islam to preserve their power and influence.

In the seventies, they used to scare us of the Western culture saying that it was intellectual invasion and obliteration of our identity. This claim is an implicit attack on our culture and mentality, and now we are awaiting another intellectual terrorist campaign that frightens us of the Evangelism coming with the winds of change and democracy. This attack is addressed, by political tyrants and extremists, to Islam accusing it of the inability to stand before other beliefs. These tyrants are not, in fact, concerned with Islam or Christianity, nor Eastern or Western cultures, but what concerns them is their remaining as a heavy burden on our shoulders, suppressing our breath and usurping our riches, dignity, our dreams and our children’s future. We, in their eyes, are easily lead, directed and frightened, or maybe in a better case scenario, idiots or minors that need their custody and will never mature or be up to responsibility.

The issue of Evangelism amongst Muslims deserves tackling from an Islamic point of view and making a decisive statement on it, and we must start with the religion itself:

1. Belief in Islam is submission to God Alone, to no other god but Him and advocating peace on earth. Thus was the message of all Monotheistic religions in order to establish justice and fairness in all dealings between fellow human beings as well as with God (Iron 25). Rituals and legislations are different in these religions but that is for the sake of excelling (The Feast 48).

2. God, Almighty, does not need our worship nor our struggle as He is the “Absolute” who does not need anybody but everybody needs Him, He is “in need of no one” and “ whoever strives, strives for their own good” Spider 6. “If you disbelieve, GOD does not need anyone. But He dislikes to see His servants make the wrong decision. If you decide to be appreciative, He is pleased for you” (The Throngs 7)

3. It is us that need faith and doing good in order to pass the test in this life. A test that is based on complete choice and freedom in either belief or heresy as each one of us will be solely responsible for his own deeds and choices before God in the Day of Judgment.
4. On this basis guidance is a personal choice; whoever is in the right path it is for his own benefit, and whoever goes astray it is to his disadvantage and bears the consequences in the Hereafter. This is a Quranic truth that was mentioned in several verses to confirm that the prophet himself could not guide anybody (even those he loved), and his duty was restricted to passing the message over and not to guide anybody. Therefore, it is not a human responsibility (whether in the form of government, clergy, ruler, society or religious institutions) to interfere into a person’s religious or intellectual choice. Everyone has complete freedom in what he chooses to believe in and to what he could invite other people to as long as there is no coercion involved. Religious preaching is an entirely free practice and the role of the state in Islam is the protection of people’s moral and material rights, first of which is their complete freedom to be believers or heretics without any prejudice against them. I.e. to guarantee the preservation of such a free environment and its continuity to be independent without any interference that will threaten the freedom of anybody and what he chooses for himself as a creed or religion. This way every individual’s responsibility is true over what he has chosen for himself knowingly or ignorantly.
This is with regards to religion and its principles or what ought to be so. Secondly; is the practice of religion:
Religious practice is the practical application of religion. Usually this practice starts off as ideally as possible but soon after is affected by change and adaptation according to political interests and benefits. Then the change assumes a false authority through the fabricated Hadiths and visions and as time passes by. Thus with these new practices in place the sublime truths of the religion are obliterated to be replaced with practices that are interests related and generally connected with political and economic manipulation which leads people, sometimes, to take an aggressive stance towards Islam altogether without making a distinction between religious facts and the abusive acts of those who manipulate religion in the service of despondency and corruption.

Here gain, let us clarify some points:
1- In the state of the prophet Muhammad p.b.u.h religious practice took its best form; hypocrites had complete freedom in advocating evil and prohibiting righteousness and the obedience of God’s messenger. In the same way, believers had the freedom to advocate righteousness, prayer, charity and the obedience of God and His messenger and forbid evil (Ultimatum 67-71). Righteousness in Quranic terminology is whatever is recognized as good, justice, peace, freedom, generosity, love, pity……while evil is whatever is associated with injustice, transgression, manipulation…..
2- Due to political interests, Islamic religious practices turned towards transgressing military campaigns against other nations in complete contradiction to the teachings of the Quran that limits war for self defense only. Muslims formed an Empire that fought against the Romans over the control of the world and thus the false division of the world into two different camps: that of Islam and that of War. Religious minorities within the Islamic Empire turned into second class citizens, if not worse, and the Romans applied the same principle in treating Muslims within their territories. This medieval logic prevailed until Europe emancipated but Muslims saw it live throughout the Ottoman Empire.
3- Muslims started emerging from the medieval cocoon with the reforms of Muhammad Ali in Egypt and Bay in Tunisia. The reform movement that followed the European example prospered although it stumbled against a number of obstacles the most important of which was the despotic military regimes and the Wahhabi tide that revived the worst cultures of extremism and backwardedness in Islam. Saudi Oil, in a way, has become the spokesman of Islam. It had created the movement of the Muslim Brothers and a number of secret and overt organizations that are trying hard to retune the minds of the Muslims according to medieval concepts; one of which is the division of the world into the camp of Islam and the Camp of war.

Military Despotism and religious extremism, together find their justification in terrifying people from the West. According to them, Western culture is an invasion to ours, and their religious dialect with us – to acknowledge peoples’ freedom in religious belief- is Evangelism. Islam, as previously mentioned, affirms complete freedom in belief and religious preaching through conviction and not coercion.
4- The West itself has opened its doors to Muslims and non-Muslims for religious preaching and spreading their beliefs amongst Western Christians in line with the prevailing civilized rights for religious freedom and practice. Extremists have abused this freedom for the call for Wahhabism (and not Islam), and are taking pride in being able to take over churches and convert them into mosques whilst the Copts in Egypt cannot repair a rest room in a Church without a permit from the Head of the state (as per the archaic Ottoman ruling that is still applied to date although the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist.)
5- As a result to the west opening its doors to Wahhabism, Wahhabi extremism spread in the West and inside America itself. The Wahhabis did not only abuse the great Western culture that acknowledges freedom of belief but they have also abused Islam that, in fact, stands against all their beliefs and convictions.
6- Justice determines that as long as the West opens its doors for us to preach our religious beliefs freely, the same should be met from our part. We should open our doors to them to freely preach the teachings of their religion amongst us. The West has associated religious preaching with Human rights; i.e. nobody can be forced to convert, but rather they attract people through aids, donations, building hospitals, providing education and other exemplary ways in order to win their conviction without coercion or force. This is completely different to the Wahhabi style of preaching that is based on deception and the spread of hatred of others even of those within their own boundaries.
7- Despite this, the call for Islam in the West is thriving due to the simplicity of the concept of theology in Islam. The conversion of Muslims into Christianity is so minor that it could not be converted into a percentage with relation to the billion and a half Muslims in the world. Yet, the fears of the extremists and tyrants grow against the tide of Evangelism not out of concern for Islam but out of political and religious authority. People are always the victims…..Aren’t they the “Shepherds” and the people the “Herd” according to them? What is a herd other than dumb animals? They worry if the number of herds they own and control decreases. Thus is their vision of their citizens and the reason of their fear of freedom, democracy and enlightenment is that they will turn the herd into the Human beings that God had honored.

Sample four

The False Conviction of The "Territory of Peace& & TerritoryofWar"

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=6315

The common belief in traditional Jurisprudence and amongst extremists is to divide the world into two conflicting camps: the camp of faith, peace and Islam called the "Territory of Islam” and its opponent the West, the camp of disbelief and is called the "Territory of War". In this division, non-Muslim minorities are treated with suspicion and prosecuted as they are regarded as traitors that belong with the outside camp of the enemy; the "Territory of War."

To be fair, this division was not limited to the Arabs and Muslims only, it was the culture of the Middle Ages in general in Europe as well as Muslim Countries. This culture emerged as a result of faith based on internal sectarian, fanatic beliefs and external religious wars with the opposing camp whose price was usually paid by the religious minorities here and there, as well as the defeated camp. As for example per the massacres the Spaniards carried out on the Arab Muslims after the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula. In the same manner Muslims treated the defeated Christians as a people of a lesser value and imposed taxes on them. The Spaniards went as far as to totally eradicate the Muslims and Jews from their country. The fact is, whenever someone is fanatic about his faith in this medieval manner, he becomes more abhorrent of others and seeks to eradicate them. The Spaniards were the most fanatical and the closest to Arabs and Muslims in this sense.

The religious basis for this categorization is the division of Muslims to the nation of "Muhammad" and the Christians to the "nation of Christ". Christians believe that Christ p.b.u.h is their savor, and the majority of Christians glorify him. During the Crusades, the discoveries of new worlds, the mass executions of native nations were all committed in the name of Christ. Generally, the occupation of the Muslim world and the rest of the world took place in modern times by fleets that carried the cross and chanted the teachings of Christianity that are based on love and forgiveness.

Christian tolerance that endorses patience and sacrifice is more clearly visible in the history of our Egyptian Coptic ancestors instead. Egyptian Christianity is different in this respect to Western European Christianity, especially the Spanish one.

Most Muslims in their actual worship glorify Muhammad, believe in his eternal life in his grave, make pilgrimage to him, offer him prayers and believe that he will intercede for them in the Day of Judgment and give them access to Heaven.

Although the Muslim attestation of faith is one: "There is no God except God" as God addresses His prophets saying: " You shall know that: There is no other god beside GOD, and ask forgiveness of your sins", Muslims have made the attestation of two parts instead of one: No god but God and Muhammad is His Messenger. They never say one without the other and in doing so is a disobedience to what God has ordained in the Quran four times to not distinguish between all His prophets.

What is directly implied when one attests that "There is no god but God" is the belief in all God's Messengers that came to confirm this fact: There is no god but God", and one would have believed in all prophets of God without distinguishing between either of them because each one of them struggled, strived and sacrificed for his cause.

God ordained Muhammad to affirm that he is not a unique prophet nor different to the other prophets. He did not know the unknown like other prophets did, he was a mere follower to the revelations and a Warner (The Dunes 9).

Muslims, however, elevate him to the position of deity; in mosques one finds his name at an equal foothold to that of God. In the call to prayer, the testimony of prophecy is made to him alone as well as in all prayers. If one mentions the “prophet” only Muhammad comes to the mind and heart overlooking all other prophets except when he is praised as superior to them.

According to Muslims; Muhammad is the “best of all messengers” the most important, he is the “most honorable”, the “best of all of Adam’s offspring”, was preferred to all other prophets for seven reasons, God created him from light, he’s God’s first creation, was created before Adam, he was already a  prophet when Adam was still mud and water, or perhaps was neither mud nor water as the Sufi Hadiths and fables claim in what is known as the “Muhammadan Truths”. In prayers they make recitations in his glorification instead of the attestation as per God’s saying: “GOD bears witness that there is no god except He, and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge. Truthfully and equitably, He is the absolute god; there is no god but He, the Almighty, Most Wise.” The Amramites, 18

Eventually, they are lead to believe that they are the Ummah (nation) of Muhammad and consider themselves privileged and lucky for this reason.

All this preference to Muhammad over his predecessors of prophets and messengers conflicts with Islam and the faith for which he struggled all his life. This excessive glorification and distinguishing of Muhammad over other prophets is in fact a treachery to his message and a stark contradiction to the greatness of Islam that allowed no room for the glorification of any man or stone.

Nevertheless, this glorification of Muhammad is what made Muslims different to other nations and somewhat superior to them.  It is in fact the basis that divided the world into two camps: that of Muhammad – the Camp of Peace- and that of disobedience and heresy or the Camp of War.

But does the concept of the “nation of Muhammad” conform to the teachings of Quran?

It surely conforms to the fabricated Hadiths, especially the Hadiths of intercession where, for instance, the prophet Muhammad calls on to God in the Day of Judgment:  “my nation, my nation” and Almighty responds in the same manner and rhythm: “my mercy, my mercy”. Evidently God sides up with the nation of Muhammad in this false, fabricated Hadith that is contradictive to Islam.

The concept of “the nation of Muhammad” is contradictive to Islam in the sense that it makes Islam the faith of a group of people or a camp against another camp, in the same way it contradicts the attestation of Unity “there is no god except God”, and contradicts the Quran that has spoken of previous prophets more than it has spoken of Muhammad. In fact it ordained the prophet to follow the path of the previous prophets and made Islam a follower to the faith of Abraham (p.b.u.h). It also confirmed that all its rituals of prayer, fasting, alms and pilgrimage are a continuation of the faith of Abraham and Muhammad has come to mend the distortion that had occurred in this faith.

The term “Ummah” appears in the Quran with different meanings that refer to different things. It could refer to a number of years (Hood 8, Joseph 45), or to good qualities (The Bee 120), or to established atheistic practices and customs (Ornamentation 22, 23), or to a group of people in a specific time or place (Heifer 128, 134). Unfortunately there is no room to tackle all these subjects in detail, but with regards to the meaning established here,  the Quran has used the term “Ummah” to refer to the message of all prophets at all times. God talks about His revelation to all prophets and times: “Such is your nation - one nation- and I am your Lord; you shall reverence Me.” (The Believers 52). Thus, all prophets are one nation and worship one God. This is how things were meant to be but what happened is the interference of politics, conflict and worldly ambitions with faith and so followers split up into different parties, sects, camps and cults. This is the historical summary of every religion before Muhammad. God Almighty says: “Your nation is but one nation, and I alone am your Lord; you shall worship Me alone. However, they divided themselves into disputing religions. All of them will come back to us (for judgment” The Prophets 92. These verses are found in the chapter of the Prophets, after God had related the stories of many of them he concluded that all those prophets are one nation that has One God worthy of worship alone. But what happened was division and difference in convictions which God shall judge on in the Day of Judgment when all shall return to Him.

The true religion of all prophets is Islam; in the sense of peaceful dealing with fellow humans, obedience and submission to God alone and His glorification alone. Every prophet was sent to preach in his people’s tongue: “We did not send any messenger except (to preach) in the tongue of his people, in order to clarify things for them. GOD then sends astray whomever He wills, and guides whomever He wills. He is the Almighty, the Most Wise.” Abraham 4.  This, therefore, means that each prophet conveyed Islam in the tongue of his people, and each one of them reaffirmed that there was no god except God: “We did not send any messenger before you except with the message: "There is no god except Me; you shall worship Me alone." (Prophets 25). The nation of Islam is therefore but a set of principles and ideals focused around faith and the belief in the Unity of God and observing Him in our behaviors, in doing what is good and abstaining from what is bad, sinful, wrong and immoral. These principles were initially adapted by Noah and eventually by Muhammad peace be upon them all.

What reaffirms this theory further is the term “Ummah” addressed to the father of all prophets Abraham p.b.u.h when God praised him in a way that he did not praise any other prophet saying that Abraham was an Ummah: “Abraham was indeed an exemplary vanguard in his submission to GOD, a monotheist who never worshipped idols.” The Bee 120 i.e. he was an Ummah of good qualities. Abraham p.b.u.h is a major figure in the religion of Islam (The Heifer 127 to 137) and whatever values, behaviors and monotheistic religious faith he upheld were upheld by all other prophets peace be upon them all.

At the opposite end of this is the established atheistic beliefs that glorify the predecessors and their common practices and whatever “the Ummah agrees on”. This is also referred to in the Quran as “Ummah”. But in this context it means a legacy of values defended by the ruling elite with the help of the clergy and intellectuals who have an interest to see things remain as they are. God says confirming a social fact: “The fact is that: they said, "We found our parents carrying on certain practices, and we are following in their footsteps." Ornaments 22

The “Nation of Islam” is the values of peace in belief and behavior and these values are open to all to embrace regardless of time, place , tongue, culture, race, sex, social or economic standing. In brief, these are global, human values descended by God to all humans through all monotheistic revelations; they were preached by all prophets, hoped for by all social reformers, followed by all righteous people at all times and places along the presence of a majority that disagrees and conflicts in religion dividing it into sects and cults. The seal message was descended to people in order not to forget the old source of these high values and clarify the same message to all humans. God addresses all human beings with these values as the narrative in the Quran is not addressed to Arabs or Quraysh alone or to the time of the prophet, it is a narrative that addresses all people saying : “O people…”, “O children of Adam….” and when He addresses a sect or a group of people He liberates them from the temporality of time and place and says: “O those who…”.

God is the Lord of all, the creator of all and to Him alone is the return on the Day of Judgment when we shall all be judged. The prophets will be the first to be judged as they are the custodians of the great values of Islam: “The day will come when GOD will summon the messengers and ask them, "How was the response to you?" They will say, "We have no knowledge. You are the Knower of all secrets." The Feast 109, “Then the earth will shine with the light of its Lord. The record will be proclaimed, and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought forth. Everyone will then be judged equitably, without the least injustice.” The Throngs 69

For this reason God tells all people from the very beginning: “O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The best among you in the sight of GOD is the most righteous. GOD is Omniscient, Cognizant.” The Walls 13 i.e. He created them all from the same father and mother, they are all brothers and sisters and has made them different peoples and clans not to conflict and fight one another but to recognize one another. This recognition can only be achieved through peaceful conduct, civilized interaction, acceptance of others, and appreciation of their human experience, cultural heritage, opening over their culture and being tolerant of their difference out of conviction that variety is needed for the prosperity of human civilization. As to the matter of faith; those who are most righteous are the worthier to God, and not those with more wealth, intelligence, knowledge, best family ties, beauty, health or youth. Righteousness is the basis of God’s judgment in the Hereafter. Those that praise themselves disobey God who said: “Do not exalt yourselves; He is fully aware of the righteous” The Stars 32

One question remains; does Islam not make any reference to two different Camps? A slogan often raised by the extremists and their partisans. What about the Other Camp in the light of what has been said in the Quran about disbelievers and atheists and fighting them?

The Other in Islam is every transgressor and terrorist that kills innocent and peaceful people. Once again, we reiterate that the meaning of Islam in terms of behavior is peaceful dealing on earth, and in terms of faith is the submission to God alone. A Muslim by faith is one who submits his heart and face and senses to God.

This is the meaning of Islam from a “faith” point of view on which the judgment is to God alone as He alone knows what lays in peoples’ hearts and no other creature could. A Muslim is everyone who does not wrong anybody nor shed innocent blood. These are the only boundaries within which we can judge people: every individual that is peaceful in his conduct and behavior is a Muslim regardless of his faith, sect, orientation, culture or religion.

The meanings of atheism and idolatry in Quran are associated with belief and behavior, and they are both contradictive to the belief and behavior of Islam. Atheism or idolatry mean belief in other than God and the actual practice of people- and Muslims in particular- is full of glorification of people and stones with their habitual attestation of faith that “there is no god except God”.  Moreover, people are at constant conflict between one another that only they are right and others are wrong, and God alone shall judge on these differences in the Day of Judgment as he’s the ultimate judge and only Him can play this role whilst we can advice and guide one another in seeking righteousness. 

Idolatry and atheism in their practical sense refer to wrong doing, disobedience, transgression and crime. These terms were all used in the Quran in the description of idolaters and atheists. The judgment is not passed on their hearts or faith, but on their acts and criminal deeds, on their murder, rape, corruption, theft and wrongdoing to innocent people. These people were deemed bad because of their actions, and we unfortunately, judge by the opposite standard. Whoever utters the declaration of faith is made a Muslim regardless of how many crimes he commits, and social reformers who do good and belong to Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or secularism are considered disbelievers and idolaters although they are practically Muslims in conduct. We had rather revised ourselves and amended our beliefs and practices that are more involved in the glorification of tombs and saints than other faiths are.

On the basis of faith alone, all advocates of peace inside and outside the United Nations would be the greatest Muslims even if they have never uttered the attestation of faith. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and all western advocates of human rights are true Muslims from the perspective of conduct. Equally, according to judgment by conduct alone, the worst disbelievers, war criminals and transgressors would not only be Stalin and Hitler, but also Saddam Hussein, Ben Laden, Dawahiri and all the blood thirsty warlords that have turned Iraq to a human abattoir. The list is long and there is no need to mention all the names as some of them are enjoying praise and glorification although they have wronged other people, occupied their land and subordinated their people for the mere fact that they cannot defend themselves.

There is no division of the world to two camps, nor is the transgression on other people and taking their land just like the Qurayshis did in the era of the guided Caliphs and the non guided ones is acceptable. Quraysh was the tribe addressed in the description of disbelief and idolatry when the Quran descended. They had practiced idolatrous and atheistic faith in the worship of saints and idols, and practiced idolatrous and atheistic conduct in the prosecution and mistreatment of defenseless Muslims in forcing them to abandon their religion until they fled to Ethiopia twice and eventually migrated to Medina.

Quraysh still did not leave them alone and waged war at them at a time when Muslims were patient as usual as they were ordered not to fight back. After they were ordained to fight these transgressions back the situation changed gradually until it became in favor of Muslims from power and faith perspectives. Quraysh became alienated as Islam spread and the masses of Arabs realized the idiocy of worshipping idols and tombs. Quraysh eventually recognized that their interest lay in joining the new religion and so they converted after a long history of animosity to Muslims. They had only converted shortly before the death of the prophet, and after his death they regained control over power seizing the circumstances of Riddah (the wars waged against the apostates after the death of the prophet) turning the victory over these people into invasions against others in the Roman Empire (in the Levant), the Persians and thus followed what had come to be known as “Islamic Conquests” which is a concept that is totally against Islam. For the same reason the companions fought one another, and religious difference resulted from political disagreement dividing Muslims to different sects overlooking God’s warning against religious division as its evidence of idolatrous belief and conduct: “This is My path - a straight one. You shall follow it, and do not follow any other paths, lest they divert you from His path. These are His commandments to you, that you may be saved” “Those who divide themselves into sects do not belong with you. Their judgment rests with GOD, then He will inform them of everything they had done. Livestock 153-159, “You shall submit to Him, reverence Him, observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), and - whatever you do - do not ever fall into idol worship.  (Do not fall in idol worship,) like those who divide their religion into sects; each party rejoicing with what they have.” The Romans 31-32

In order to justify their invasions and carry them out in the name of Islam, the following Hadith was fabricated and attributed the prophet: “I was ordained to fight people until they say there is no god but God and Muhammad is His prophet” and so transgression against other innocent people became a form of Jihad.

When Muslims invaded the Romans, war erupted between the two empires that apparently had different faiths, but practically the same practices of despotism, oppression, coercion and the abuse of religion to transgress against innocent people and spread corruption on land. Thus was the notion of religion in the Middle Ages due to which the blood of millions was shed from both parties whilst each of them believed firmly that they were in the right, doing good and accused the other camp of heresy.

Europe raised and liberated itself from the shackles of the Church and the clergy and set off on the path of rational secular and scientific reform. Egypt tried following on these footsteps with the beginning of the 19^th century and had indeed realized some positive achievements if it were not for the return of the medieval legislations and fables of Wahhabism that represent the worst culture ever produced by Muslims in the Middle Ages. Thanks to oil resources this ideology was spread under the name of Islam in a scam that was the biggest of its kind in the history of Islam. This scam has embraced all aspects of religious extremism and legislated whatever is contradictive to our faith like killing apostates and Jihad against the camp of unbelievers. Thus is the historical basis of the false conception of The “Camp of Islam” and the “Camp of War”.

Sample five

 They ask you about the veil

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=5892

 (1)

It was told that a man living in a society that ascribes to the tradition of the veil for women,  had a shady relationship with one of them. Once while coveting with her at his residence, her husband, who happened to be his friend, showed up unexpectedly for a visit. The man was beside himself not knowing how to handle the situation. The experienced wife calmed him down, donned the veil on, served tea for them both. Her husband did not recognize her, and our friend pulled through another one unscathed. In this story, the hero was the veil, pretending to be virtuous and chaste, hiding within,  was depravity and hypocrisy. That was the function of the veil in Egypt during Memwas the function of the veil in Egypt during Memluk period, when adhering to superficial aspects of religion was the norm, without paying any attention to the genuine meaning of religion and its moral principles built on fear of God.

(2)

Ibn Al-Haaj, the great Moroccan jurist (d.737 Hijri), visited Egypt during the Memluk rule. While there, he wrote his best jurisprudence book (Al-Medkhel—The introduction) , in three volumes. He followed a style, I named as “The preaching Jurisprudence”. Meaning the jurist does not follow the lines of imaginative methodology or conceptualizing method, like (whoever does this, its ruling is this), but utilizes the practical approach. Where the jurist studies the case as it happened, elaborates, pointing out where it deviated away from religious law, using the language of sermonizing and guidance. This type of preaching jurisprudence, recorded plenty of the secrets of the social life, commonly ignored by specialized historians. That is why this book-Al-Medkhel, contained within its pages, valuable historical information about the social, religious and economical life during Memluk Egypt. He wrote abundantly about the conditions of women that time, pointed out host of moral deprivation that took place,  under and because of the veil, the official and popular costume for women during the Memluk period, inside Egypt and outside.

For example, Ibn Al-Haaj the jurist, wrote that a Memluk Cairene woman had the privilege of leaving her home six out of the seven days, and that she used to leave her home veiled, until she was a little distance away, there goes the veil, she would keep and meet up with men, where nobody knows of her; upon her return and as she gets closer to home, the veil goes up again.

And I venture to say, due to this unique behavior, the old Egyptian phrase about loose women was coined (She is moving about with her hair unkempt), for as long as she was recognizable within a defined perimeter, she would have the veil on, and as soon as she crosses that perimeter, her veil would come off, looking for a prey, loosening her hair at the request of the first to ask. That was the case of most women that Ibn Al-Haaj and his contemporaries talked about. Women went out veiled, to festivals, to weddings and to graveyards, and to musical religious parties, where Sufi remembrance sessions are mixed with dance, joyful singing, indulging in hashish consumption and committing fornication; the regular and the deviant ones. Those were the terms of Memluk social life, its external religiosity symptoms exemplified by sponsoring religious festivals, meetings to extol and glorify Allah, visiting the living saints, the graves of the dead ones and their sacred tombs. Its hidden inner symptoms, moral degradation, throughout this frivolous performance the star, was the veil, declaring virtue and concealing depravity. The superficial appearance here is the veil. Likewise, is the exalted slogan of the Memluk period: Application of Sharee’a. Under that slogan, the worst forms of oppression, torture, injustice and corruption took place. In the shadow of all those crimes, the Memluk constructed the most magnificent of buildings to adorn Cairo, most of which still exist today like mosques, hostels, travelers resting stops and chapels. They built it all using slave labor, tyranny, injustice, unlawful confiscated monies. Alongside this superficial external piety, moral decadence and depravity spread throughout, savored by the veil.

(3)

Abdurrahman Ibn Kheldoun, the scholar, was surprised by the manifestations of varying degrees of decadence in the streets of Cairo, without objection from learned religious figures; he described Cairo astounded “No one disavowed displaying wine paraphernalia or musical instruments or made-up harlots or similar stuff which would be frowned upon in the Maghreb (Western regions of Muslim lands). The strict Sunni Hanbali School was the prevailing one in North Africa where Ibn Kheldoun lived before moving to Egypt, and because of that extreme Sunni dominance in Maghreb and North Africa, it was abominable to openly display indulging in wine consumption, partaking in musical events and the presence of women of ill repute in the streets. When he came to the Memluk Cairo, he found all this rampant due to the Sufi dominance and its doctrine of “No Interference”. But the common factor between Egypt and North Africa was the VEIL.

The Egyptian woman in those days had the freedom to do anything as long as she wore the veil and no one could recognize her.

Al-Meqreezi in his famous book “Al-Khutat”, described the Egyptians in those times “Some of their characters, is total absorption in their desires, total immersion in their debauchery and utter carelessness. Our respected Sheikh Abdurrahman Ibn Kheldoun told me that the people of Egypt as if they were done with the Day of Reckoning” Meaning they behave as if Paradise is guaranteed for them, abandoning any and all moral or religious obligations. Obviously, Al-Meqreezi here is influenced by his mentor, Ibn Kheldoun. In his book, he told of bizarre incidents of moral disintegration, when the veil was the religiously mandated code of dress for women, when she could not possibly leave home without it, and because of social mandatory requirement for it, a woman’s open obscenity was tolerated as long as no one could recognize her. Al-Meqreezi relates in his book, Al-Khutat “We heard of some folks who would follow a man or a woman, taking a stroll between the two castles, after Isha’ prayer, copulates (have sex with the woman, or deviate sex with the man), until they reach their satisfaction while walking, with no one paying them any mind because of sever congested crowds and everyone being busy with his own pleasures.

(4)

Depravation reached places of worship, so Memluk authorities had to intervene to clean it up of those debauchees as it happened with Al-Azher mosque in 818 Hijri and with Al-Hakim mosque in 822 Hijri.

Some Sufi institutions became notorious for such behavior, to the extent that endowment documents for such institutions required appointing guards to chase away seekers of forbidden pleasures out of them.

Moral disintegration flourished during religious festivities, and it still does, until Sultan Juqmuq cancelled El-Badawi festival in 851 Hijri, because of the scandalous deeds that tooke place during its celebration. Another festival was arranged nearby at El-Mehalla El-Kubra to let the steam of debauchery escape as it was expected. It was customary for a woman to attend those religious occasions wearing the veil as usual. The Memluk state which became professional at religious piety and enforcing the Sharee’a used to tax the harlots, calling it, “Al- Meghan security”. Those prostitutes had a special costume, described by Al-Meqreezi in his book: Al-Khutat”.That profession was linked to the elderly Madam, and the donkey-driver, who the veiled prostitute, would ride his donkeys in the utmost form of decorum. Some times the Memluk authorities would ban women from going out at night, to cut down on immorality. Some of those in authority went a little extra harsh in punishing those women who ventured to go outside at night, enduring their scorn, their ridicule, their derision. Prince Dewlet Khuja, in 835 Hijri, did not escape their ridicule. They coined a phrase lamenting the time of Omer, the second caliph, who used to roam the streets of Medina at night, looking for any issues that needed remedy. The phrase went like this, “The state of Omer went away, and the state of Khuja came our way”.

In 835 Hijri, Women made fun of Prince Mengeli Bagha, Prince of Hisba, who used to administer two hundred lashes to any woman caught out at night. They wrote a ditty, fit to dance to, in it they sing:

 Do not touch my behind

  Mengeli is behind

His punishment is worth two hundred

Rarely does he forgive.

They used to dance to it wearing the veil.

(5)

And we say to our believing chaste sisters:

Veil is an innovation that was not known during the messenger time (PBUH), for a woman’s face was uncovered and recognizable. Almighty Allah tells the messenger in chapter AL-AHZAB (THE CLANS, THE COALITION,THE COMBINED FORCES)

(033.052 : It is not allowed to you to take women afterwards, nor that you should change them for other wives, though their beauty be pleasing to you, except what your right hand possesses and Allah is Watchful over all things). The expression “their beauty” is usually in the face.

Almighty Allah describes the Madeena society during the prophet’s time (PBUH), in Chapter AL-TAWBA (REPENTANCE, DISPENSATION)

(009.071 : The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise. ). Here we have social dynamics live and well, founded on belief in a doctrine, piety, enjoining what is good, and forbidding what is evil and mutual consultation. We do not believe it could happen in the society of veil and hypocrisy.

There is a connection between veil and hypocrisy, because the veil is a message addressed to people, by the one who hides behind it saying: Look here people, I am a believing, clean, pious woman. Whereas it would have been better for the human essence, soul, self, call it what you may, it would have been better for it to turn to Almighty Allah alone with piety, chastity, reverence, submissiveness in secrecy and seclusion before openly and in public.

There is also a connection between the veil and feeling superior, not only because it is a message from the veiled to the others that she is distinct, separate, special but also because she gives herself the right to invade their space through her eyes without affording the others the same, not even knowing her identity or who she is. Worse off is that the veil could be construed as superior to Almighty Allah, His laws and His religion.

In donning the veil, there is excess above and beyond what Almighty Allah has decreed. He prohibited anyone from outdoing, outpacing, exceeding his law or code that He established. In Chapter (  49.001 :  O you who believe! be not forward in the presence of Allah and His Messenger, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing.)

Almighty Allah did not forbid women to show their faces, so how can a human being make what is lawful a forbidden matter? Does he accuse Almighty Allah of shortsightedness in matters of legislations? Does he accuse Almighty Allah of promoting vulgarity on the premise that a woman’s face is shameful and needs to be covered? And her unveiling is promiscuity? Does he know more than Almighty Allah about religion and people? Did not Almighty Allah say:   (067.014 : : Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtile, the Aware. )

Does he know the creation more than the Creator Glory to Him?  Is he the master of religion and its code of laws or is it Almighty Allah? Did not He, Glory be to Him, say about Himself : ( 016.052:

  To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and on earth,  and religion is His for ever. Will you then fear any other than Allah? )

Which means He, Glory be to Him, is the sole Owner of religion and the sole Owner of Judgment Day and the sole rightful Owner of codes of religion, and it is not up to anyone to legitimize what He had prohibited , or prohibit what He had legitimized.

Those who prohibit what He had legitimized, transgress upon His Realm in setting laws. Allah says : ( 005.087 : O you who believe! do not forbid (yourselves) the good things which Allah has made lawful for you and do not exceed the limits; surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits )

And they would be included within the ranks of those whom Almighty Allah described in Chapter: (  042.021: : What! have they partners (in godhead), who have established for them some religion without the permission of Allah? Had it not been for the Decree of Judgment, the matter would have been decided between them (at once). But verily the Wrong-doers will have a grievous Penalty. )

 To load the woman behind the veil does not only degrade her human dignity, wipes out her individual personality, defined by her face by which she is recognized, moreover it leads to forfeiture of establishing true genuine Islamic Sharee’a (legal code) which is founded on the concept of ; The Perpetrator, The Victim and The Witness. If the woman was any of the previous three, it would be hard to identify if she was wearing the veil.

It is the right of every individual to wear whatever pleases them within the framework of accepted legal code. It is within the woman’s right to wear a veil if she so chooses, but if she wants to associate that with Islam and portrays it as a symbol of religion of Allah Almighty, then she falls in a state of enmity with Allah Almighty, because His religion is not a political or jurisprudence maneuvering arena, it is not a place for costumes’ competition, be it gowns, veils, or whatnot.

Islamic Taqwa (God fearing, God consciousness, piety) is a private interaction between the individual and his Creator, Glory be to Him, Who knows the split-second vision and what the bosoms hide too. The one who fears Allah and minds Him without seeing Him, does not need to show it off publicly.

The Memluk period was the period of religious hypocrisy, when deprivation and debauchery was rampant, sanctifying saints, worshipping them, indulging in immoral activities under the guise of the veil and in the protection of saints and their alleged ability to intercede was widespread. It remained as is until the social revival led by Qaasim Ameen, to be decimated by the Salafi onslaught which threatens to bring back the darkness of medieval ages.

(6)

It is imperative on us to enrich our knowledge of Islam and of history of Muslims…of medieval ages…and to start to remove the physical and mental veil.  

Sample six

Mosque of mischief and harm in New York:f Mischief and Harm in New York

 Ideological and Historical Roots for the Mosque Project at Ground Zero in New York.

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=7113

Introduction:

• During the Islamic State at the time of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the Hypocrites enjoyed freedom of opposition to an extent not matched by modern Western political systems. That included the freedom to erect a mosque to be used as a den to conspire against Muslims. The Prophet (PBUH) used to attend that mosque not knowing what transpired of schemes against his fledging community. Quranic revelation came down telling the prophet the truth about that mosque, instructing him not to attend it. The mosque stayed put, without demolition as confirmed in the Quran

And those who built a masjid to cause harm and for unbelief and to cause disunion among the believers and an ambush to him who made war against Allah and His Messenger before; and they will certainly swear: We did not desire aught but good; and Allah bears witness that they are most surely liars 09-107

Never stand in it; certainly a masjid founded on piety from the very first day is more deserving that you should stand in it; in it are men who love that they should be purified; and Allah loves those who purify themselves 09-108

Is he, therefore, better who lays his foundation on fear of Allah and (His) good pleasure, or he who lays his foundation on the edge of a cracking hollowed bank, so it broke down with him into the fire of hell; and Allah does not guide the unjust people 09-109

The building which they have built will ever continue to be a source of disquiet in their hearts, except that their hearts get cut into pieces; and Allah is Knowing, Wise 09-110

   2-This incident which occurred more than 14 centuries ago and was recorded in the Quran, is partially being repeated in some features in this New York mosque project at the site of the attacks of September 2001.

   3- The project of building the mosque has triggered massive waves of Christian fanaticism, burning the Quran was one of them, which the I.Q.C. had previously condemned, and though Pastor Terry Jones has retracted, news were reported that another pastor was planning a Quran burning event, and another fanatic from Spain, opening a night club naming it Mecca. In other words, Islam is footing the bill for Sunni fanaticism, which found no other place, as wide and as big as America is, except to build it at the same location where “Manhattan Raid” took place, as if commemorating their triumph over America when they attacked the twin towers at the World Trade Centers nine years ago. This insistence is not a mere political move intended to agitate the wrath of the (Christian Americans) for, if it was a political act, it would’ve been a very callous and idiotic act. One would wonder how a sensible person can agitate this chauvinistic fanaticism by insisting on that location knowing well in advance the price politically and publicity wise?

 This is not your average ordinary political act, because in its simplest forms, politics is the art of garnering benefits. With those man-made Sunni religion followers, it is a matter of basic essential belief, which requires a brief fundamental and historical analysis:

First:

• For the Wahhabi Sunnite, their fundamental creed states that the World is divided into two camps, the camp of belief and peace, and the camp of disbelief and war. They also believe in the inevitability of military confrontation between the two camps, when the Muslim camp will vanquish the disbelief camp, exterminate Jews and Christians, until a rock would say, O Muslim, behind me is a Jew, come and slay him, according to a false narration attributed to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) claiming that he knows the unseen, which they believe in, and which contradicts the Glorious Quran.

• Based on their belief in dividing the world into two camps, their unified strategy is two pronged: a)- The unification of all Muslims in a single state to re-establish the Khilafa that was abolished with the demise of the Ottoman Rule, which means the overthrow of all currently reigning regimes in Muslim lands. b)- Taking over the enemy camp by creating fifth columns made up of immigrant Muslim

Communities in the West

Second: This requires a fast analysis.

1-The Umayyads, leaders of Qureish in trade and war, opposed Islam, persecuted Muslims and forced them to migrate to Medina, thereby indirectly allowing Muslims to establish their first and last state under the leadership of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). In Medina, permission was given to defend themselves and their Islamic state against Qureish’s attacks.

That first and only Islamic state was founded on the principles of justice, absolute freedom of religion, thought, political activity, tolerance, and peace. This is what we deduce from reading the Quran relying on its own lexicon and terminology. According to the Quran, Muslims in that state, during the time of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) were at varying degrees of adhering to the tenets of the new religion. Some of them were labeled as hypocrites by the Quran and were opposed to Islam religiously and politically. They engaged in conspiring against the Prophet and the Muslims, taking advantage of climate of absolute freedom of conscience, freedom of political involvement and freedom of expression. They were many factions, hundreds of Quranic verses mentioned and talked about them. Others were believers who committed good and bad deeds; many verses came down blaming and warning them. Then there were the minority by comparison, who by their genuine faith and good deeds garnered a higher rank with God Almighty.

This classification falls in line with the historical events at the time of the Quranic revelation, and at the time of the Seal of all messengers, upon him and all of them let there be peace. In general, the dominant culture throughout the world was that of tyranny, injustice, corruption and the misuse of man-made religions to serve all those negative values. This same classification is also in agreement with the normal Arab Bedouin lifestyle, which is founded on armed conflict, the burying of newly born females, enslaving others, captivating them, allegiance to tribe rather than higher Islamic values of justice, freedom, peace and tolerance, in addition to sincerity of belief in God Almighty, with no sanctification of Man, Stone, Shrines, Tombs or Idols. So, there were three factions who embraced Islam; the one saturated with prevalent mores, was forced to coexist with Muslims to protect its interests. A second faction, which experienced an internal struggle between the new Islamic moral code and value system, against what he was brought up believing in, fluctuating back and forth, mixing a good deed with a bad one. Then a third faction, who purified itself and abandoned all pre Islamic values and customs, replacing it with Islamic values and principles. At any rate, their living Islam, their accompaniment of the Prophet (PBUH) for few years, was hardly enough to erase years and generations of deeply rooted habits and customs.

Then there were the Umayyads, who led the persecution of Muslim until they migrated to Medina, then continued their wars against them after the migration, to protect their economical interests. Finally, the Umayyads concluded it is in their best interests, economical and political; to embrace Islam after most Arab tribes had done so, and started to threaten Qureish’s Eastern trade routes, from India to Europe and Byzantium through Syria and the Yemen.

2-After a long history of enmity and wars with Islam and Muslims, the Umayyads embraced Islam a short time before the prophet’s departure. What concerns us here is the fact that the Umayyads unified their efforts with already Muslim Qureishites, forming a united Qureishite front. After the prophet’s passing, the Umayyads took the Muslim Arabs and others, including the world history to a new phase of exploiting Islam in invading and colonizing most of the known world at that time, thereby committing aggression against people that, not only were they non-antagonistic towards the Muslim Arabs; moreover they never heard of them before. With that military aggression, the schism between Islamic teachings and the actions of the companions of the Prophet, the rightly guided caliphs and the Umayyads, after the passing of the Seal of all prophets widened, necessitating justification and vindication on religious grounds.

Whereas the Persian Empire was totally annihilated, the Easterly conquests reached even the frontiers of India and China. Yet the Western World power represented in Byzantium, preserved its capital Constantinople intact facing, along with the rest of Europe, the Arabs’ aggression under the banner of Islam, even though Islam is innocent of and contradictory in nature to the actions of those Arabs.

3-The conflict between Muslims and Byzantines lasted for centuries, leading in essence to the formation of two camps, like it was between the Persians and the Byzantines, and since religion was exploited by both sides according to the culture of Medieval Times, this military conflict carried religious overtones, where each camp regards himself as being righteous and on the right path, hence the Sunnite division of the world into the camp of faith and peace, versus the camp of disbelief and war.

Naturally, since application preceded codification and establishment of rules and regulations, and since the Muslims founded a vast awesome empire facing Europe and the West, and since those actions contradicted the teachings of the Quran, it was imperative to fabricate legislations attributing it to Islam justifying all that transpired. They found their prize in all those narrations and sayings falsely and slanderously attributed to Prophet Mohammad more than two centuries after his passing, and by distorting Quranic legislations through various methods that we have covered in other writings. The Sunnite religion accomplished that in defense of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Memluk and the Ottomans.

4-The Empire of the Muslims reached its zenith under the Umayyads, stretching from the frontiers of India and China in the East, to Andalusia and southern France in the West. The Muslims became the Eastern Power in the face of the West. Europe paid the price when the Muslims occupied many islands in the Mediterranean and southern Italy, monopolized Eastern trade with India. The Byzantine Empire suffered the most, for along with its prestige, it lost most of its territories in Asia Minor. The Umayyads even tried to conquer its capital Constantinople twice, both attempts failed.

5-In the first attempt to invade Constantinople, a springboard to launch an attack was established in the camp of faith and peace against the war camp. They called it inlets, ports or seaports, harbor or bay. It is derived from Arabic (thaghr), which essentially means mouth or front of the mouth, and it is always located at or nearby the frontiers of the two warring states. The encampments at such places were referred to as (Land of mooring, where frontline garrisons are stationed for defensive purposes). In that first attempt to invade Constantinople in 670 A.D. during Mu’aaweya’s reign, the first Umayyad Caliph, the invading army was forced to retreat; among them was The Companion Abu Ayyoub Al-Ansary who died there. Before his death, he asked that he be buried at the closest point to the enemy encampment, the camp of war, and for his grave to be used as the launching pad, the springboard for future wars. Sure enough, his grave became the spiritual landmark for Jihad, Sunni style in the East, as Muslim Cordoba became the inspiring point in the West for jihad against the camp of war and disbelief.

6- During the Abbasids’ reign, victory and defeat was mutual with the Byzantines, especially at the frontiers area. There were many jurists and religious scholars volunteers in the Abbasid’s armies. When certain regions exchanged hands between the warring combatants, a new doctrine evolved within the Muslims, who regarded Muslims’ graveyards in the hands of the enemy as sacred shrines and symbols of Islamic presence, to be preserved and visited and hence, reclaimed back to Islam. Eventually the Abbasids were weakened, and the Byzantines advanced deeper into their territories until Aleppo and other regions of Syria. The Byzantines in turn became weaker and the Europeans took the helm in what later was known as the Crusade wars, establishing many small kingdoms between Jerusalem and Asia Minor. The Memluk exterminated the Crusades presence by regaining their last stronghold, Acre in the year 690 Hijri.

7- After the Crusades presence was abolished, the Ottomans appeared in Asia Minor coinciding with Byzantines’ and local Muslims’ states weaknesses. The Ottomans worked at expanding their realm westerly at the expense of the Byzantines who were reduced to a mere capital and some small neighboring regions, rendering them like a head without a body. Thus the Ottomans came to represent the camp of (Islam) against the camp of war. The Ottomans discovered the tomb of Companion Abu Ayyoub Al-Ansary, inspiring Sultan Mohammad the Conqueror to capture Constantinople. He renovated the tomb, built a huge mosque and a shrine at the same location, and in it, he promised to capture what is left of the Byzantine Empire., thereby igniting his soldiers’ zeal culminating in capturing Constantinople on May 29^th1453, converting its church Aya Sofia into a mosque, and then renamed the city Atanbul or Islambul. The Ottomans continued their conquest reaching the gates of Vienna in Austria. In all this, Abu Ayyoub Al-Ansary’s mosque was the absolute incentive and inspiration, for the Ottomans had converted it to an official religious center, where the coronation of Sultan takes place to learn from the beginning the principles of (Sunni Jihad) against Europe, the camp of war. Not long after that, the Ottoman Empire itself became weak, prompting Europe to name it, The Sick Man, alerting Russia to get ready to devour it from the East, and Europe from the West, signaling the start of colonialism in our modern times.

8-Two things became apparent as a consequence to the wars between Muslims and the West:

a)- It was Sunni Muslims who started the war, thereby tainting( Sunni Jihad) with features of aggression, contrary to genuine Islamic Jihad, which is defensive in nature, and after exhausting all possible peaceful means.

b)-The debris and ruins of this world is at the core of this conflict. It evolved and revolved around the Eastern Trade between India and Europe, monopolized by Qureish, led by the Umayyads before Islam, and because of it, they fought Islam, and because of it, they embraced Islam. One of the principal motives behind the Crusade wars and Geographic discoveries was finding a route to India averting and avoiding Muslim lands, also to strike an allegiance with Christian Ethiopia. Due to geographic discoveries, the modern colonial movement colonized most of Muslim lands and led to the collapse and demise of the Ottoman Caliphate.

9- As a reaction to the European Colonial wave against Muslim lands, Wahhabism and Saudi state called for the return to Abbasids predecessor’s methods, and to enforce it by the sword, in the face of Western secular European modernization which Egypt held its helm. The Saudi state was established three times and had fallen twice. The current Saudi state managed, thru oil and its allegiance with America, to propagate Sunni Wahhabism among Muslims as true Islam. The Salafi jurisprudence and its derivatives spread at the expense of secularism, part of that doctrine is the concept of two warring camps.

Saudi Arabia exploited the religious freedom in the West, the Muslims’ migration to Europe and America, the need of the West and America to ally themselves with Saudi Arabia against communism and the Soviet Union, so both, America and Europe opened their doors wide open for Saudi Arabia to establish Wahhabi mosques and schools as Islamic Institutions.

10-With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the retreat of communism, nothing was left of (The Western Camp) except Europe and America. This sudden and rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states caused a change in Wahhabi tactics while the strategy remained intact. This unified strategy is the establishment of a united Sunni state that will regain the glories of the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans. In tandem with that, expanding influence within (The camp of disbelief) by exploiting Muslim communities and espousing Wahhabism as Islam, by agitating Muslims in America and Europe, by brainwashing them into a fifth column or a Taliban style brigades in the West, increasing their folds thereby taking it over from within, pursuing a double faced policy of camouflage and deceit, laying in wait for the appropriate moment no matter how long it takes.

With the fall of the Soviet Union and Communism the tactics were altered. Now we have Al-Qaeda, representing a younger hasty generation that could not tolerate the long winded approach adopted by the Saudi regime, an approach established by Abdul Aziz Al Saud himself, founder of the current third Saudi State. Following this long winded approach, The Muslim Brotherhood operates in Egypt, a group founded and funded by Abdul Aziz’s agent.

The hasty younger generation in Egypt exited the tent of the Muslim Brotherhood, and followed the two paths at the same time:

 a) - Toppling existing regimes as a prelude to establishing a United Sunni Islamic State.

b) - Battling the West.

Haste means resorting to violence and to terror acts, as a short cut to achieve objectives. This is what Al-jama’a Al-Islamiyya and jama’t Al-jihad had done. Then Al-Qaeda was formed as an alliance between Saudi Bin Laden and Az-zawahry the Egyptian, with a stated goal, combating Jews and Christians. They carried out the attacks on both embassies in Kenya and Uganda, then the two towers at the World Trade Center in New York.

11- Then came the New York Mosque Project near ground zero of September 11, bringing the advocates of both tactics together, in the service of a unified strategy, turning the proposed mosque into a symbol of inspiration and inducement, a gathering place for Wahhabi Sunnites inside America to fulfill the promised hope within the American soil itself. As much as the mosque and tomb of Abu Ayyoub Al-Ansary represented in the faceoff with Byzantium in the East, and as much as old Cordoba symbolized jihad in the West, and as much as new Cordoba represent for Wahhabi Sunnite in regaining Andalusia, Arabic and Islamic.

It is not strange that they plan to name the proposed mosque Cordoba, as it is not strange for Sunni mosques in Switzerland to spread misinformation that every Muslim cemetery in any hamlet within Switzerland is considered a sacred place, since it contains an Islamic landmark in the (abode of disbelief), according to widespread belief in Asia Minor during the Abbasid era.

Third:

We wonder…

• Why the insistence on building that Sunni mosque precisely at that location? Did the American soil become so scarce that they could not build it any place else? Do the American Muslims suffer due to scarcity of mosques? Is it wise or prudent to erect a mosque there to rekindle the pains for Americans? Wouldn’t be more wise and prudent for American Muslims to apologize for the crimes of September 11^th, to erect a memorial for the victims, to share in their sorrows, and to condemn Bin Laden and his comrades?
• Let us imagine; some western fanatic Christians attacked the palaces of the royal Saudi family wiping them out, attacked the Ministry of Defense in Riyadh demolishing it , then the Westerners rejoicing over those acts, even the Christians within Saudi Arabia, assuming they were still alive ,enjoying their full religious freedom, intend to build a church at the sites of destruction and ruin…let us imagine to the extent of being totally insane, that the king of Saudi Arabia came out in full support of building such a church, praising and commending Christianity, wooing Christians within and at large, would that ever happen in our wildest dreams?...This is the difference between American tolerance and Wahhabi criminality.
• 
  We wonder…assuming the existence of the abode of faith and peace, and the abode of disbelief and war, where do the values of justice, freedom and tolerance practically exist? In the West or in the lands of Muslims? Where do injustice, tyranny, enslavement, corruption, torture, subjugation of man to his fellow man, genocide, civil wars, explosions that annihilate thousands, mosques that are transformed into military barracks, or become targets for armed attacks, where do all of the aforementioned exist?  Do the Christians of the West commit all of the above, or do the Sunnite and the Shiites of Afghanistan and Iraq, and before them of Algiers and Egypt commit it all? And now, the Sunnites in America and Europe are doing the same harvesting the souls of innocents.

• We wonder…If Islam in dealing with others is the height of civilized advancement and the height of noble values, in perseverance, in justice, in benevolence, in peace, in freedom of conscience, of thought, of belief, in sacrifice, in preference of others, in compassion and in mercy even with animals, and if Almighty God had sent the Seal of all messengers as a mercy to mankind, then which of the two camps is closer in implementing the tenets of the true Islamic doctrine? Is it the lands of the Muslims or the lands of the West? Where is the camp of evil? And where is the abode of war and bloodbaths?
• Finally….where is the redness of shame?    

Sample seven

Refuting Ben Laden

Overview of Bin Laden’s Latest Statement

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=6302

The statement was published on the Aljazeera web site on April 23, 2006.

 We shall review and comment on sections of it.

Section 1

According to Aljazeera, Bin Laden started his statement by commenting on the cartoons deemed offensive to the prophet Mohammed, stating:  “To all the Muslims, peace be upon you, my speech to you is for you to keep working to defend our prophet and to punish those crusading journalists and apostates who made the awful crime of insulting the Master of earlier and later [people to come], the prophet Mohamed best prayers be upon him”.
Comment 1
What Bin Laden has just said resembles a polytheistic belief: he has made the Prophet Mohamed the master of earlier and later ‘people to come’), while in traditional Islam there is no such master other than Allah. He believes that the prophet Mohamed is a master of all prophets and messengers, which contradicts the Islamic belief that states that ‘there is no god but Allah’, and also confirms that Mohammed, the seal of the prophets, was a follower of the sect of Abraham and ordered to hold on to it. Furthermore we as Muslims are also ordered to follow the sect of Abraham (Albakara 130-135, Al Omram 95, Alnesa 125, Alanam 161, Alnahl 123, Alhajm 78) the right guidance of the earlier prophets (Alanam 90) in a similar fashion as the prophet Mohammed did.

This statement makes Bin Laden a contradictory to Allah, who has forbidden us from prejudicing against the prophets – god has called such individuals ‘infidels’ ( Albakara 136 185 , Al Omran 84 , Alnesaa 150:152 ). In addition,  god has also ordered the Prophet Mohamed to say that he is not distinguished (beda’an) of the prophets and that he is not even aware of what is going to happen for him; he is just a warning for those who follow the Koran (Ahkaf 9).

The comparison between the prophets is the sole right of Allah alone (Albakara 353, Alesraa 55). Allah is the only one who knows how many there are, the ways of their jihad, and how much good is in their deed. He who puts himself in a place to judge and choose the best prophet, has put himself in a rank higher than the prophets themselves and one equal to that of Allah. Such an individual will then be out of line with the Islamic beliefs, especially the one that confirms there is no god but Allah, and Bin Laden himself has broken that crucial rule.

 Section 2

Aljazeera further reports that “He spoke about the prestige of the prophet in the verses and ahadeeth (‘the holy verses’)” and that the holy ahadeeth came to show that the prophet is entitled to our love, our honoring, and following and glorification. Allah has forbidden any harming or insulting of the prophet, something Allah has specifically stated in the holy Koran: “those who harm Allah and the prophet are cursed by Allah in life and the afterlife, and Allah has prepared a despicable torture for them”. Furthermore, Allah has also said, “oh you believers do not raise your voice over the voice of the prophet, and do not talk with him in the way which you speak to each other or your good deeds will be gone while you do not know of it”. It is said in the Sahih Bokhary that the Prophet said “I swear by Allah that he holds my soul in his hands, that to believe in god you will have to love me more than your parents, your sons and the whole people”.

Comment 2
Here Bin Laden cites the verse, “those who harm Allah and the prophet are cursed by Allah in life and the afterlife, and Allah has prepared a despicable torture for them”. Bin Laden falls in that category by the things he says and does, thus harming Allah and his Prophet. To explain, we state that “the people harming the prophet the most are the ones who say things that contradict the Koran to the prophet himself, and fabricate lies that contradict the Islamic religion: that he is equal to the god Allah, although the Prophet himself spent his entire life’s work just to confirm that there is no god but Allah. Imagine spending all of your life fighting corruption only to have other people accuse you of being a gangster, spreading corruption through false acts attributed to you. Can there be any bigger harm? Harming Allah and the Prophet in this way also means the denial of the holy verses of the Koran, which confirm that there is no more injustice to Allah than fabricating lies to Allah (Alanam 21 93 144 157 , Alaaraf 37 , Yones 17 , Hood 18 , Alankabot 68, Alzomor 32); and he who claims that these straying ahadeeth are revelation by Allah are fabricating lies about Allah.
Those who support such claims are harming Allah as well, and that applies to Bin Laden. The funny thing is that they wrong these ahadeeth by attributing them to the prophet through people who have died long before they knew anything about what was said. The sad thing is that they have made these ahadeeth a part of the Islam, thus accusing the Prophet Mohamed that he didn’t complete his mission. They have made it seem that he left part of it to be completed by other people in the second Abbasian era, meaning that Islam has been incomplete until the second Abbasian era and after the later eras of injustices, corruption, dissolution, political tyranny and social injustice.
It is also sad that, in doing so, they attempt disprove the verse which states “today I have completed your religion and concluded my grace upon you and am satisfied with Islam being your religion (Almaeda 3). Islam was finished developing after the completion of the holy Koran, therefore everything that Muslims write is not a part of the Islam, rather it is a part of a human ideology that shows how much the Muslims can be close to or far away from the Islam, and in the end they will answer to Allah in judgment day for fabricating lies to Allah and his prophet, the greatest harm.

Statement 3

Bin Laden continues, “the whole Islamic nation has agreed upon the apostasy and killing of anyone who insults or offends the prophet”. The Sheikh of Islam Ben Taymeyamay god have mercy on his soul: ‘insulting and denying the prophets is the source of all infidelity and the summation of all straying and every infidelity originates from that’. The judge Eyad states that ‘he who assimilates the prophet to insult, contempt him, lower his rank or offend him, is cursing him and should be judged as cursing the prophet’. And the Emam Ahmed may god have mercy on his soul said that ‘he who cursed the prophet should be killed whether if he was a Muslim or infidel’”.

Comment 3

Bin Laden lies when he says that “the Ummah has agreed upon the apostasy and killing he who insults the prophet” because there is no consensus in the ideological belief history of Muslims; they were divided in the origins into Shiites , Sunnis, Sophists, each with different beliefs. Within these, there are even many other sects such as the Moataza, Morgea, Khawareg. In these sects, Abo Alhassan Alashary wrote his book Articles of Muslims and Variation of Those Who Pray, Ibn Hazm wrote Sects and Creeds, Alshohrestani wrote Sects and Beliefs, Malti wrote Altaneeh Walrad, amongst many others. Furthermore, the internal disagreements and differences within in any sect are numerous. In Sunna for example, there are four sub-sects, and in each sub-sect there are further sub-sects. Even in some pages of the same book, you find the author disagrees with the writings of others. In such a diverse climate, it is humorously wrong to say that the Ummah is agreed upon, because this Ummah is only similar in its diversity and disagreement; they have been so since the great sedition (Alfetna Alkobra), and still are. It is even more hilarious that Bin Laden, who became a mufti (a Sheikh who gives fatwas) in that ugly time and speaks of things of which he has no knowledge. He attempts to cite Ben Hanbal, although Ben Hanbal himself has denied the consensus by saying “He who claimed consensus in a thing has lied; how would he know that people had disagreed?” So here even Ben Hanbal has called Bin Laden a liar in his claims that Ummah has reached consensus or has agreed upon killing the apostate. Bin Laden has read some of the ancestral jurisprudence and interpreted it as the consensus of the Ummah, ignoring the fact that the expression Ummah includes all different sects of Muslims dating from the era of the Prophet until the present day - the current radicals are just a very small drop in the large ocean of Islam. He is even ignoring that inside the current Sunni sects certain sheikhs have denied the killing of the apostate. Bin Laden should read the current fatwas that Alazhar has announced after 10 years of the publishing the book Had Elredda, ‘Penality of Apostasy’, that proves there is such thing called Penalty of Apostasy in Islam.

Lastly, Bin Laden accuses all but himself with infidelity, including some of the Sunni radicals, Shiites, sophists, and all Muslims (except for the terrorists of course), even after he speaks on the nature of the Ummah in the whole world. So how does he rightfully speak on behalf of the entirety of the Islam nation when he claims that ninety-nine percent of them are infidels?

Section 4

Returning to Aljazeera, we see that it states further that “He [Bin Laden] also attacked all those who tried to offend the prophet, saying ‘Infidels and atheist are denying the religion and insulting our beloved prophet; their case is clear now. The Emam Ben Alkayem ‘may god have mercy on his soul’: when he said that the crime of being an atheist is the worst of crimes and the harm caused by his [the atheist’s] existence among Muslims is the worst of harm, and that he should be killed and his renounce will not be accepted. If you tolerate his renouncement you will be allowing him to stay atheist and as an infidel, as he will pretend to be a Muslim only when he needs to , and will return to the atheism as soon as he can, specially when he knows that he is safe from being killed when he shows his renouncement. He will not fear announcing atheism and denying his religion and offending Allah and his prophet. He already fought Allah and his prophet, and will continue working to spread corruption on the earth. His penalty is to be killed’”.

Comment 4
Here Bin Laden reaffirms the extremist in their radical jurisprudence of killing those who conflict with their opinions, even if the was a Muslim Sunni and believes in ahadeeth, as long as he had an opinion that contradicted with the sheikhs of ancestral radicals. They refer to him as a ‘zendeek’ atheist and give him a status worse than that of the apostate; they say to kill him without a trial or renouncement, and even if he renounces they refuse to accept it. So even though Allah forgives, they do not; Allah accepts renouncements, yet they do not. As Allah states to the prophet regarding forgiveness, “you have nothing to do with it” (Al Omran 128). The extremists’ contradiction demonstrates that they have given themselves numerous rights and thus declared themselves above the prophets.

In discussing the killing of the apostates and what it means, I have said in my book, Penalty of Apostasy: “The reader might think that the ‘zendeek’ is an infidel who doesn’t believe in Allah, his messengers, No, he is a believer in Allah, his messengers and his book; he is a thinker who has an opinion, and his greatest mistake is that his opinions contradict those of big jurists. It contradicts what they think is ‘necessarily known to be part of Islam’, so he deserves to die even if he has renounced; and because he is a thinker with a proofs, the jurists will not allow him to go to a trial that an ordinary apostate should have. The reason is that the ordinary apostate has no proof that jurists will fear. Unlike the ‘zendeek’, he has proofs; they cannot face him and in trial, so there is no need to put him in trial. The best way is to kill him quickly. Sheikh Sayed Sabek says ‘the zendeek is the one who admits and believes in Islam in appearance and deep within’; he is a Muslim by his heart and tongue. Sabek continues by stating that ‘he interprets some of the necessarily known to be part of the religion in a way that contradicts with interpretations of the Sahaba and what the Ummah has agreed upon’. He is a zendeek because he had a new, independent opinion that contradicts with our ancestry. It does not matter if he has proofs, what matters is that his proofs contradict. Sabek also states that ‘as the Islamic law has placed killing as a penalty for apostates in order to restrain them, it has also put the killing as a means of restraining the zendeek and saving the religion from a corrupt opinion that should not be promoted toeveryone who denies seeing Allah in judgment day, grave torture, Naker wa Nakeer questioning, or denies the Serat and judgment.

Sheikh Al Ikhwan, who is known to be more moderate than most, has said, if it was moderate to kill anyone who disagrees with some of your opinions without even discussing them and kill him even if he has renounced, then what defines extremism? It is obvious that Bin Laden walks on the same road as the Ikhwan brothers, but he is much more frank and clear. We fear the time in which Ikhwan would rule Egypt. It has millions who believe in sepulcher, millions who curse religion as a habit of misbehave, and millions who make jokes of sheikhs, and according to Sabek they are all considered either zendeek or apostates. By applying the Sabek ruling, the mass population of Egypt will no longer suffer, whereas Bin Laden and his followers will kill people in the streets without even a trial. The truly awful thing here is that establishing a fatwa which promotes the killing an innocent soul goes far beyond killing itself, because it is a mass order to kill all of the people. These poisoning fatwas will instill a renewed movement to kill innocents everywhere, creating victims in the present as well as the future. It is one of the virtues of the ancestral jurisprudence. What is left now is to ensure that the Ikhwan make the purpose and goal their jihad to establish their state and apply these rulings with our blood or the blood or our children.

Section 5

“Bin Laden discussed Alsahaba and urges to act like them saying, “’I remind youof the deeds of the pure first soldiers of Islam, the dignified Sahaba, to follow their path in stand up for religion, It is right to follow the righteous people. The earlier people have told of the incidence of the poetry of Kaab Ben Alashraf who offended the prophet, and the Prophet said ‘who would get me Kaab ben Alashraf, he harmed Allah and his prophet’ and then Mohamed ben Moslema said ‘me, Prophet, you want me to kill him’, the Prophet said yes. Oh Allah Akbar, how fast they responded to aid Allah and his prophet; Allaho Akabr, how great is their faith, how much knowledge and jurisprudence. The prophet has known that the penalty of anyone who harms Allah and his prophet is killing without hesitation.”

 Comment 5

Here Bin Laden harms the Prophet by telling these fabricated lies mentioned in theSira, which was written two centuries after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, in which they depict the Prophet in accordance with the common image in their era with all the features of conspiracy, betrayal and assassination. Among such lies was the assassination of Kaab ben Alashraf, which the terrorists celebrate and use as a legitimate excuse to assassinate numerous innocents. Bin Laden now enters our era to announce this harm to the prophet and to give the chance for the enemies of Islam to call the seal of the prophets with terrorism and killing of people. Allah has ordered to the seal of the prophets ‘peace be upon them all’ to deal frankly and clearly even with traitors and those who violate agreements, because in Islamic legislation there is no space for making conspiracies even against those who conspire against you (Alanfal 58). Allah ordered the Prophet to go for peace and put his faith in Allah, and even if they were deceiving the prophet with peace, he should not act similar to them and rely on Allah (Alanfal 61,62). So was it truly his legislation to send a gang to assassinate a man, as that lie so boldly states?

Section 6

“Bin Laden has compared between Al-sahaba and the ones he called ‘today the beaten Sheikhs who went to the crusaders, not to fight, but to to discuss with them, dissolve the religion. Be aware of them. Yes, their religion contradicts with righteous methodology of the Prophet who thought it was necessary to kill Kaab ben Alashraf, and that everyone who had harmed Allah and his prophet must be killed as well. Yes. killing these people is a thing that Allah likes and so does his prophet. Allah has commanded it and urges the Prophet to do so. Allah said ‘If they violate their pledges after they have sworn to them, and they have denied the religion, fight the Imams of infidelity, and have no faith, might they be stopped’. So by fighting them they cease in assaulting the religion, Ben Elkayem - ‘may god have mercy on his soul’ - said about this verse: ‘everyone who assaults our religion is an imam of infidelity’. Bin Laden continued,  ‘Now let us go to complete this story. Mohamed Ben Mosallama took some of the Sahaba, and proceeded to kill the enemy of Allah, Kaab ben Alashraf. At that time, the Jewish population and the polytheists became fearful, so they came to the Prophet and said ‘Our friend was killed tonight, and he is one of the lords; he was killed for no crime that we know he did’, so the prophet simply replied stating that he had assaulted us with poetry, and anyone who does it again shall deal with our sword’”.

Comment 6

Here Bin Laden tells us his favorite lie about the assassination of Kaab ben Alashraf, promoting it as a legitimate reason for terrorism. He falsely cites the verse “If they violate their pledges after they’ve sworn, and denied the religion, fight the Imams of infidelity, have no faith, might they be stopped.” This is the verse number 12 in Altawba. The verses before it specify the behavior which defines ‘polytheism’ in the terminology of the Koran – we advise the reader to first read these verses of Altawba to know the meaning of ‘polytheism’ according to behavior. We summarize the Koranic facts below:

The meaning of infidelity and polytheism is the same; Allah addressed both of these groups in the same manner (verses 1-6 , 12).

The main behavior for polytheism and infidelity is aggression (verse 10), and therefore violation of the peaceful agreement and leads to the declaration war on those who made the peace agreement (8:10).

The reason that Altwaba came is to give the aggressor a time limit to renounce and cease the aggression, this inviolable time limit is four months (1-5).

 Since it is infidelity or behavior polytheism at the source of unjust military aggression against peaceful Muslims, if such individuals renounce and pray and paid zakat, they are no longer aggressors, they now become brothers for peaceful Muslims. Because one who is ‘peaceful’ to Muslims is considered peaceful according to his apparent behaviors, and the polytheism or infidel in the apparent behavior is the aggression (5, 11) and, on the other hand, the terms ‘keep prayers’ and ‘give zakat’ define the straightness in behavior, non-aggression, and stopping injustice as a result of keeping prayers and submissiveness in prayers, since prayer forbids injustice, fornication, etc. (Alonkabot 45). Furthermore, if they kept the peace agreement, you have to respect it in fear of god (7) and, in case of the aggressive war, if the enemy has stopped fighting, you have to save and return him safely to his home once he listens to the words of god in hope that he will find the righteous path (6).

If they continue to assault and aggress against the peaceful Muslims and keep violating their agreements, then it is an assault and violation of Islam as the religion of peace. There is no way other than to fight back so that they end their aggression, and if they do, then there no need to fight them. This is the meaning of what Allah said in verse 12 of Altawba: ‘If they violate their pledges after they have sworn, and they have denied the religion, fight the Imams of infidelity, have no faith, might they be stopped’, a notion which is confirmed by many other verses in the ruling of defense (Albakara 190-194 , Alanfal 38-39, Alhag 38-40). So does that Koranic context correlate with what Bin Laden has said in the assassination of peaceful children and civilians, both Muslim and non-Muslim? While contradicting Islam, he attributes this utter and absolute nonsense to Islam and speaks by its name. This is clearly a offense to Allah and the prophet; it is very clear that Bin Laden repeats what these aggressors had been doing to the peaceful Muslims in the age of the Prophet.

Section 7

In the review, Bin Laden states ‘It is the ruling of our prophet against anyone who assaults him and derides the religion. Oh you youth of Islam!, follow the command of Allah and the prophet. Kill; do as Mohamed Ben Mosallama and his Sahaba. I swear being in a grave under the land is better than being above the land; these apostates deride and mock our religion and our prophet, so fear god and be grateful and consult anyone of killing these apostates. Keep it low”.

Comment 7

The goal that Bin Laden desires is to kill all of the thinkers who oppose him after the injust accusation of being zendeeks and ‘apostates’, and to keep his war against the West and Judaism alive in all parts of the world, meaning death for all randomly and without prejudice. It is a war that he has created, and deemed it as a jihad attributed to Islam, although Islam is quite distant from such an injustice. He issued his ruling upon us and distributed the statement to all of his devils, both the shown and hidden ones. What he has said here, a list of his devils, was put forth previously by his followers in a statement that specified thirty person by name, and I was honored  that he put me along with my sons and wife on the top of that list. The miserable statement said “We are the defenders of the prophet of Allah, after our discussion and consultation with our brothers and leaders of other Islamic groups in the land of Islam, and after they saw what we have found in the shura council to judge the heads of sedition, apostasy, denial of religion, denial of sunna, etc. After they have strayed from the righteous path and sunna of our prophet, announce their infidelity and their missionary work, left the group of Muslims, stray from the religion to publicly support the Imams of infidelity and those Copts who worship the cross, and attend their conferences and support them against our Sheikhs and scholars, the miserable statement gave us a mere three days to renounce and apologize publicly. They added some human rights, liberal, and democratic activists to the list as well. Since the time limit has ended and none of us have renounced, Bin Laden issued a recommendation to his devils to ‘keep it low’; if the previous statement stated that they had consulted about us, then this one strictly opposes such a notion: “Do not consult anyone about killing these ‘zendeeks’ apostates”.

Later, he spoke of fighting the West, the Jewish population, and Christianity according to a belief that divided the world into two categories: an ‘Islam Category’ under his command, and an ‘infidelity category’ or the land of war ‘under America and the United Nation’s command’. He states that “we will start talking about those who assault the religion, the original infidels. The people of the Islamic Ummah from east to west have condemned this major crime; may god reward those who condemned it as we ask god to accept those who died as martyrs, and we promise Allah to take their revenge against the governments that took their lives”.

One simple comment left:

If Bin Laden attributes himself to another religion and not Islam, we would not need to discuss him and his actions. Unfortunately, he attributes himself to Islam, so we have to return to the holy Koran:

As a matter of Islamic belief, infidelity or polytheism is the classification of anyone other than Allah, and thus Bin Laden epitomizes polytheism when he equated the prophet to the god Allah, and he also has put himself in a position to judge among the prophets, a matter we have already discussed. Our accusation of his infidelity in accordance with what he himself has said, and that accusation is correlated to what he had said, in that there is not a fatwa to kill, a lie which they call the penalty of apostasy.

As a behavior, in which infidelity signals aggression and injustice, and there is no aggression worse that killing the innocent people, then that is what criminals do. The worst criminals are the ones who commit these crimes against innocents and claim that it is his jihad in the name of Allah. Here, he assaults Allah and his Prophet while he assaults the innocent people as well.

Bin Laden has fallen into the crime of terrorism, and he has admitted it proudly; he now announces his intentions to kill more innocent people. If the polytheism and infidelity belief is a crime that has no penalty in life, because only Allah can judge and decide on judgment day, but infidelity as a behavior of terrorism is a crime that violates the right to live, and such rights have penalty in Islam. As the crime of Haraba, according to what Allah said, “the penalty of those who fight Allah and his messenger and do corruption in the land is to be killed or crucified, and cut their legs and hands, or be exiled from the land. It is a shame for them in life, and in the afterlife they will have a great torture, but those who renounce before they are powerless know that Allah is merciful (Almaeda 33-34).

As a pure personal opinion, I do not like Bin Laden. He served the Americans and fought against communists, and he now retraces to fight the Americans in a low way. He used the open doors of America for extremists and their mosques, their sheikhs and organizations. He used these open doors to let his agents in, and uses the available facilities in American society to prepare for a sudden attack. Bin Laden did not attack a camp or soldiers, he attacked using civilian airplanes with thousands of peaceful innocents on board, killing thousands randomly. In such deed there is no heroism, it is just pure shame. That shame properly defines Bin Laden and all those like him, because he is only capable of killing women, children, old people and un-armed civilians. He cannot fight professional soldiers; and when he did have to fight true soldiers, he ran like a rat into the caves to hide ! What a shame. Furthermore, since he feels no such shame, he sent a message from his hideout threatening to kill us, and his miserable threat reminds me of when Garir said “Alfarazdak claimed to kill Morabaa, kill Morabaa, you will have a long life”.

I said in the reply to the previous threat, “It was not that he first threat to me and my family and Koranic brothers, and it won’t be the last. I consider it proof of our success and proof of their failure, astray, cowardice, and low morals. They hide in their holes and then try to threaten the brave guys. They couldn’t refute our proofs by other proofs, so they hide behind veils like women, and send naïve threats. My pen will always be painful to you, you dirty rats, even after I die. My death has been determined by Allah long ago before I was born, and no human power can change that date to force me to die before or after the time I was meant to die. I’m the one who demands your renouncement and apology, or else if you die in your astray, you will end in hell – and what a horrible destiny that is.” That is the answer I give to Bin Laden with my greatest contempt.

This article was published in Arabic in these web sites:

.http://www.arabtimes.com/ /http://www.metransparent.com/texts/ahmed_sobhi_mansour_reform_of_egypt_constitution.htmhttp://www.rezgar.com/debat/show.art.asp?aid=33305http://www.geocities.com/egyptian_civilization_party_ecp/index.htm
http://www.elaph.com/ /

Chapter 3 : Mission 3: Reform Muslims

It means reforming Muslim communities in the West and the US, and reform Muslim World, and Muslims in the Middle East in particular. Here we have two key words: Islam and the silent Muslim majority.

As there is a contradiction between Islam and the Salafi Wahhabi dogmas, it become a must to have Islam in our side against the radicals. This needs sincere Muslim scholars who have good expertise in the different Islamic and different Muslim fields and who have also religious commitments to hand this mission as their own peaceful Jihad to reform peacefully their own Muslim peoples.

Actually, the fanatic trends and movements are minorities in the entire Muslim World. Those fanatic leaders and followers – are just few millions. It is nothing in Muslim population which is about one billion and half billion people. The problem is those minorities are very active and highly equipped by tools , money and influence. The most dangerous weapons they have is their claim to have Islam exclusively in their side. Because of their propaganda they are called (Islamists) while they are the real enemy to the religion of Islam. Proving the contradiction between them and Islam will dismantle them and help in undeceive the silent Muslim majority.

Let’s look at some samples.

Sample 1:

Reform the Wahaby culture from inside Islam to confirm and to conform to the Human  Rights Culture and the Islamic Values   

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=7475

 For more than two decades, the writer has struggled to discuss the untouchable side of Muslim tradition in order to reform it to conform to the real Islamic values of peace, justice, tolerance and freedom of speech andbelief. This angers the hardest hard-line Sunni Muslims, known as Wahabis. The writer’s efforts so enraged the fanatics that he had to escape to the U.S. in order to disseminate his message.
 Coming to the U.S he finds the Islamic Sunni schools – as he expected – are influenced by the Wahabi fanatical culture. The writer saw similar influences at the religious courses in Egypt.  When he tried to reform these courses, a project sponsored by the Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo, Wahabists forced the cancellation of the project. It is worrisome to the writer to see the same fanaticism at work in the Islamic schools here in the midst of the world’s most open society.
The main purpose of this proposal is to offer alternative Islamic teachings which confirm and conform to the Human Rights culture to the Saudi State to reform its Wahabi Salafi culture which is tarnishing the name of Islam and victimizing the Saudi State and all the Muslims around the world, and to encourage Muslim scholars to discuss this issue and to undertake reform themselves. AS this reform has become the real responsibility of all the intellectuals in Muslim and Arab World, they are invited to discuss this proposal and other insights to pave the way of reform.
Ahmed Subhy Mansour
June 16, 2004
 The Saudi State and its Wahabi faith at a quick Historical glance
1-The first Saudi State and its Wahabi faith
The first Saudi state was established by the agreement in 1745 between Ibn Abdel Wahab, the zealot Sunni scholar who revolted against the Sufi and Shiite Muslims in the 18^th century, and Ibn Saud, the prince of Al Dare’iah in Najd, north of the Arabian Peninsula. Under this accord, the Saudi Prince received from Ibn Abdel Wahab the religious justification to conquer his neighbors and occupy their lands under the banner of Jihad. Creating Wahabi dogma from the most extreme of  Sunni tradition, the first Saudi State used the name of Islam and Jihad to occupy most of the Arabian Peninsula and to invade and massacre Shiites and Sufi Muslims in Iraq and Syria. In response, the helpless Ottoman Empire asked the Egyptian strongman Mohammed Ali to defeat the Saudi menace. After seven years of fierce battle, Mohammed Ali destroyed the first Saudi State and its capital in 1818.
2- The military defeat strengthens the Wahabi cult
The defeat of 1818 destroyed the first Saudi State, but also strengthened the zeal of the Wahabists.  In the Arab world, military action against an ideology only adds to public support.  The Wahabists set about helping the house of Saud to establish a second state in Najd for a short time in the last decades of the 19^thcentury.  Even though the second Saudi state collapsed quickly under internal conflicts, Wahabism grew.  Wahabi scholars insulted other Muslim Sects, accusing them of being idolaters; the other sects were unprepared to defend themselves rhetorically from the Wahabists.  Seeing that the others lacked a strong counter-argument, hundreds of thousands of Muslims switched their support to Wahabism.
3-Al Ikhwan built the third Saudi State for Abdel Aziz, then revolted against him
Abdel Aziz, son of Abdel Rahman [Ibn Saud], founded the third Saudi State – which exists to this day -- with the help of fanatic guerrilla soldiers known as Al Ikhwan, or “The Brothers”.  For more than 20 years the Ikhwan fought for Abdel Aziz to reestablishing the Saudi State, [1905 – 1925].  It was ultimately named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.  The Ikhwan, who were lawless, tough Bedouins, were steeped in Wahabi dogma, believing it to be the real forgotten Islam, to be enforced with swords and Jihad.
After adding the Hejaz and the Muslim Sacred Mosques to their conquered territory, the Ikhwan wanted to continue their jihad by invading Iraq and Syria where they had committed many massacres.  This was a threat to the mighty British Empire and its allies. Abdel Aziz saw this and made a strategic decision to distance himself from the Ikhwan, thereby keeping his kingdom secure by avoiding conflict with the British.
This was the first time the Saudi political authority and its religious authority were at odds. Al Ikhwan, who believed in a continuous Jihad, condemned Abdel Aziz.  They accused him of being an accomplice of idolaters [the Egyptians] and the infidels [the British].  Abdel Aziz tried to eliminate this dissension but the Ikhwan used their Wahabi teachings to bolster their condemnation of Abdel Aziz, calling on statements made by Wahabism’s founder and the oldest imams, Ibn Taymeya and Ibn Hanbal.
4- Abdel Aziz’s policy: Protect the state rather than reform Wahabi faith;and the result of his policy
It was clear even in the early 1900s that Wahabi doctrine needed reforming, but the helpless Saudi scholars were incompetent at doing so. There was a peaceful attempt to reunite Abdel Aziz and his Ikhwan in Riyadh conferences in 1927 and 1928; but it failed to head off a brewing conflict. Abdel Aziz realized he had to fight his own brothers [Ikhwan], and defeated them in 1929. But he could not defeat their dogma, nor could he reform it. So the problem was left unsolved for decades, until the present day.  This is how it has become a danger to the Saudi State, the Muslim World and the Western World as well.
Abdel Aziz lefted reformation for another day, and chose instead to protect his new state from its internal and external enemies.  Shiite Muslims stood at the borders in Iran, Iraq, and Syria and in Yemen; they also were inside the Kingdom, in the Eastern region and in Al Hejaz. The King’s plan was to focus on non-Shiites:  He wanted to persuade all Sufis to convert to Wahabism, especially in Egypt and India, home to the biggest oppressed Sunni and Sufi populations.  He would then use Wahabi doctrine as a religious motive to revolt against their Christian oppressor, the British Empire. Once Abdel Aziz took control of Al Hejaz and the Sacred Mosques 1925, he had the perfect opportunity to recruit his converts and spread the Wahabi faith.
By 1928 the Muslim Brotherhood [Al Ikhwam Al Muslemeen] was created in Egypt by Hassan El Banna and his spiritual master Rasheed Reda, Abdel Aziz’s agent in Egypt. From 1928-1948, Hassan El Banna established fifty thousand branches of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout Egypt, while creating an international organization and a secret military organization. The Muslim Brotherhood partnered in fomenting the Egyptian Revolution, which changed the history of Middle East.  After the Revolution they came into conflict with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of the Revolution.  Most escaped to Saudi Arabia, and waited till Anwar Al Sadat was in power to return to Egypt.  Sadat gave them the authority to control Egypt’s education and culture, which they used to create public and secret organizations.   Their plan was to take over Egypt, which involved a member of one of their secret organizations assassinating Sadat.  The Muslim Brotherhood produced two infamous leaders, Sheikh Omer Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric currently in a U.S. prison, and Ayman Al Zawahiri, the right hand man of Usama Bin Laden.  Another Brother was Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the September 11 attacks.
Returning to the early 20^thcentury, Abdel Aziz found it easy to recruit Indian Muslims to his plan.  They hated the British and the majority of their fellow Indians; and they found in the Wahabism the justification to revolt and divide India into two countries.  Thus Pakistan was created as one of the greatest mistakes of the 20^thcentury.  Pakistan, with the help of the Saudi State and its [Madaris] or Islamic schools created the Taliban, which later took over Afghanistan.
 Instead of modernizing Wahabism after his clash with his Saudi [Ikhwan], Abdel Aziz preferred to export Wahabi teachings in their original medieval form to the rest of the Muslim world; this created bloody religious turmoil from Algeria to Indonesia and from Sudan to Russia, and finally to the West and the U.S.
5- The Saudi State keeps its founder’s policy
Following Abdel Aziz, his sons, King Saud, Faisal, Khaled and Fahd have maintained Wahabism in their kingdom; spurred by new oil wealth, they aspired to make their owned family-state the leader of the intire Muslim World.  Because of political and economic interests, the West -- especially the U.S. – accommodated this Saudi policy. Moreover, facilities were given to the Saudis to create Islamic Centers in the West to spread Wahabi dogma as the real religion of Islam.  This gave Wahabis the opportunity to influence Muslim communities in the West.
Many new Islamic schools and centers were opened with Saudi money and were controlled by Wahabists.  They controlled ancient Muslim centers, schools and mosques with Saudi funding; they introduced Wahabi books and cultural resources as the “pure” Islamic teachings, publishing them in both Arabic and English.
This campaign began as early as 1970. After ten years I became an active reformist inside Sunni groups in Egypt; I was persuaded by the Saudi propaganda that America would completely convert to Islam by the 21^stcentury.  One might argue that, upon failing to reach this grandiose goal, their response was September 11.
Oil wealth gave the Saudis the ability to modernize the material life of their people while their religious, social and cultural life remained controlled by backward Wahabi dogma. This created a huge contradiction, exacerbated by a strategic decision by the house of Saudi to ally itself with the infidel Western countries instead of waging Holy War on them.

6- The Saudi State becomes victim of its policy
Failing to modernize Wahabi teachings has resulted in the Saudi State becoming a victim to its religious ideology. On the first day of the 15^thcentury of the Muslim calendar [November 22, 1979], some fanatical groups led by Johayman Al Otayby occupied the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, declaring the Saudi State to be the enemy of Islam and the ally of the infidel west.  In his preaching Johayman used the teachings of Ibn Abdel Wahab and the oldest scholars of fanatical Muslims to bolster his claim that the Saudi State was anti-Islam. As was its custom, the Saudi monarchy used military power to remove and eliminate Johayman and his group, while the official government Wahabi scholars were - and still are - unable to rebut Johayman’s arguments.  The only way the Saudi State could respond was by banning and confiscating Johayman’s books and messages.
Johayman was just a simple religious Wahabi scholar; the current Wahabi opposition, born after the Gulf War of 1990, is very different.  It includes many different intellectuals of varied backgrounds.  Most of them have graduated from Western universities and some still live in the West, but they are ardent enemies of the West and its culture. From the membership of this opposition came the Saudi men who volunteered for Usama Bin Laden’s terror attacks.
This irony requires some explanation.  The fanatics who comprise the current Wahabi cult did not become extremists because of their Western educations.  sRather, most of them belong to ancient tribes shamefully defeated by Abdel Aziz.  While studying in the West, they came to realize the extent to which the Saudi royal family suppresses their human, social and political rights. Upon returning to their homeland, they were reminded of their humiliating lower status. They wanted to oppose the regime, but could not do so with help from the West.  So their only hope the Wahabi faith, which offered them the platform for challenge:  That is, to destroy the Saudi state by declaring it to have no religious legitimacy.
The first Saudi state was destroyed after 73 years by a foreign military action; the second Saudi state was destroyed after decades by internal Saudi conflicts.  Now it is clear that the third Saudi State will be destroyed by the Wahabi faith fostered by its own royal family, unless the house of Saudi chooses to reform the faith from inside Islam to make it conform to the values of a human rights culture.  This is the real Islam as it is stated in the Holy Quran and the real history of the prophet Mohammed.
7- The Wahabi faith spreads the culture of dictatorship in the Arab Muslim World
The Wahabi faith gives the Muslim ruler unlimited political authority, which is why the Saudi royal family maintains it as the official religion:  it keeps those demanding democracy at bay.  But there is also a contradiction:  while Wahabism supports absolute authority by the Muslim ruler [or Caliph], Wahabis condemn the current Saudi government as the enemy of Islam.

Other Wahabists elsewhere in the Muslim World -- or so-called Islamists -- have the same schizophrenic feeling toward despotic military regimes. They too condemn them as allies of the infidel west, seeking to overthrow them. So while the political activists in other parts of the globe oppose tyranny by demanding democracy, human rights and freedom of speech and belief, the Wahabists oppose the Infidel  West and its democratic culture.  The despotic regimes in the Muslim world support the Wahabi opposition to some degree, to scare the non-fanatical intellectual opponents of tyranny, along with the masses.  In doing so they send the message:  Which is worse, us or them?
In the Muslim world, the only mighty power that can truly oppose tyranny is the Wahabists who use Islam to overthrow these regimes. There is a bloody history of this in Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, and even inside Saudi Arabia itself.   Confronted with violent examples in history, intellectuals are forced with a distasteful choice: the corrupted despotic military regimes or the terrorist religious regime. The despotic regimes are terrible, but the fanatic terrorist regime is even worse.  These fanatics are victimizing innocent people along with some courageous peaceful writers and intellectuals. In many cases the military regime is using the fanatics to intimidate and even silence peaceful reformers.
As a result, the wave of democracy is bypassing the Muslim world while sweeping through other regions that lack similar levels of sophistication and culture.

8- Why the “Muslim Street” is hostile to the U.S and the West

These two oppressive forces [the Arab regimes and the Wahabi opposition] have hatched endless corruption and chaos in the Muslim World. To distract the masses, the regimes and the Wahabi oppositions convince them that the Infidel west, as the ardent enemy of Islam, is to keep Muslims lagging behind all other peoples. This conspiracy paranoia is the driving obsession of the Wahabis.  It divides the entire world into two warring camps, the believers and the infidel.  It is their rationalization for holding on to their medieval Wahabi culture (and their Jihad as the only way to deal with the West.) 

Under the banner of battling the West, the fanatical Wahabis throughout the Muslim world are rallying the masses. Their central aim is to create one united Islamic Nation [Ommah] to be governed by one ruler, the Khalifa, who will confront the West by Holy War or Jihad. To achieve this aim, they are working to take over Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; these three states, once overtaken, would be the foundation on which to build the One Islamic United Nation to defeat the Christians and Jews. 

9- Should we let the Saudi State collapse or help it survive?

In the Wahabist political literature (banned by the Saudi government), the Wahabis envision that, after they destroy the Saudi state and topple the royal family, they will  establish their Islamic Ommah with its capital in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Hejaz, and Islam’s holiest shrine. They call this “the Base”, or “Al Qa’eda”.  Usama Bin Laden has borrowed this term for his terror network.  Knowing that this is the plan of the Wahabis, one can see the need to defend the Saudi State and help it survive.

Furthermore, there is longstanding enmity between peoples of the Najd and Al Hijaz regions.  These are Saudi Arabia’s two biggest provinces, rife with various restive, angry religious sects and tribes. If the Saudi monarchy were to collapse, the Arabian Peninsula – the religious heart of Muslim World and the resource of the world’s oil industry - would become a fireball of war and chaos. It’s the interest of the civilized world to keep the Saudi monarchy stable and to save it by pushing for it to reform its religious problem. It’s also imperative for the United States to push for this reform, because it will lead to the reform of Islamic schools in the U.S. 

 10- September 11 is the product of uncontrolled Wahabism and a harbinger of a potential third world war.

I would argue that September 11^thwas the beginning of the Third World War. Unlike the prior two world wars, military action alone will not win the day.  Perversely, it will strengthen the fanatics and increase the number of innocent victims. This should instead be a peaceful intellectual war against terrorism – waged by Muslims.  To save the Saudi State, the Muslim world, the West and millions of innocent people, the Saudi State has to reform Wahabism from inside Islam.  

How to reform  

1-The new kind of the Wahabi War

According to the Wahabist religious vedicts [Fatwas], Al Jihad means to hate and to fight the enemy of Islam. The “enemy” includes all Christians, Jews, non-Muslims and Muslims who are not Wahabis. It’s permissible in their wars to kill not only soldiers, but children, women and even pets.  The killer [Al Mujahed], should he die in the process, is said to go straight to paradise, where he will see God and have a special rank before Him on the Day of Judgment. This rank allows him to intercede for his family and friends. It’s easy to prove this from their history and tradition, but the current suicide bombers are the manifest proves of their kind of Jihad.   Mohammed Ben Abdel Wahab, the sacred Imam of the Wahabis, wrote in several of his books advocating this kind of Jihad. He distorted interpretations of the Quran and used false quotes from the Hadeeth, or Sayings of the prophet Mohammed.  He directed Sunni scholars to establish this as official Wahabi dogma.  A careful reading of the true Quran and Hadeeth shows that Abdel Wahab writings are in conflict with true Islam. 

2-Some facts on how to reform

To save the world from the danger of Wahabist extremism and reform Islam from the inside, it is useful to consider the following:

2-1-Wahabist doctrine springs from the minds of Muslim scholars based on their circumstances and culture of their lives during the middle Ages.  It was an era of Crusade and Holy Wars and religious persecution.  The Wahabist reaction to these circumstances was wrong and contradicts the core of any pure religion. But the times were what they were:  People used religion to serve their political aims. The great values of peace, tolerance, freedom and justice, which form the core of all religions, were ignored.  People chose war and oppression, and abused the name of the religion in order to commit heinous crimes.

2-2- The Wahabis, to preserve the preeminence of their ideology, always ban the freedom of speech and belief and confiscate the books of any other faith.  Any   Muslim intellectual who tries to discuss their teachings is doomed as an apostate; it is declared that he should be killed under the banner of Islamic Jurisprudence.  These are the laws of a medieval culture -- a hangover from a dark period of the world.

2-3- Wahabism does not represent all Muslims.  There are three main sects: Sunnis, Shiites and Sufis.  Among the Sunnis are four sub-sects. Hanabelah are the hardest line of the Sunni; Ibn Taymeyah and his people are the hardest line among the Hanabelah; then Wahabis are the hardest line among the followers of Ibn Taymeyah.

The number of Wahabists is relatively small. Minute sect becomes by the Saudi State, the representative of the religion of Islam. Today there are more than a billion

Muslims in the world, most of them Sunni and Sunni Sufi, followed by Shiites. Generally, most Muslims are peaceful people who believe in superstitions and the miracles of the Imams and the sacred tombs. The Wahabi cult is definitely a minority in terms of followers; but it’s the biggest cult in terms of organizations, leaders, strength and activists. Wahabis are ardent activists in spreading their faith and plotting the takeover of secular regimes in the Muslim World.  There are roughly a few million followers of Wahabism, meaning about 3% of Muslims.  But this 3% is hijacking Islam for their own selfish designs. At times they were supported by the U.S. government, though no longer; however, their culture is still supported by the Saudi state and most regimes in the Muslim world. The real problem, then, is not the number of followers: it’s the Wahabist culture and its influence.

2-4- One could easily argue the fallacies of Wahabi dogma, and Wahabi leaders know this. That’s why they use their power to ban and confiscate any writings that contradict them, and persecute anyone who dares to discuss their doctrine.

The writer of this proposal has more than two decades’ experience discussing this fanatic culture and the untouchable side of Muslim tradition. He has the knowledge and commitment to continue, but the fanatics forced him to flee to the U.S to save his life and be able to exercise his freedom of speech and belief.  Now he is offering up his knowledge to help reform the Wahabi faith from inside Islam.

The key question, though, is this: Is the Saudi State willing to save itself -- or not? 

3-The Role of the Saudi State

U.S.government support for reform is not enough.  The commitment and knowledge of this writer and other Muslim thinkers and reformers is not enough -- unless the Saudis themselves willingly support this proposal and activate it in practical steps. The Saudis have spent billions of dollars to spread Wahabi dogma; as a result, the entire worlds – and the institution of Islam – are in peril.  Now it’s the Saudis’ religious duty and their obligation to the international community to neutralize this danger in a peaceful manner.

The Saudis spent billions of dollars to spread Wahabi dogma using tens of TV channels and newspapers, along with hundreds of institutes, schools and centers. Now they need to spend a few million dollars and devote a few TV channels, newspapers and centers to eliminating the poisonous tree they have planted.  They certainly have the rhetorical weapon they need: Islamic facts are very clear in the Quran, and Wahabi dogma is so weak that it would wither under the glaring light of discussion.  It’s in the interest of the Saudi government to undertake this, if only for their own survival.  These days they now face a stark choice: Wahabi dogma or their state and lives. Should they embark on reform, they can use the explanation that Wahabism is no longer suitable for this day and age. The intellectual efforts and writings in the cause of reform are already available, but it must be remembered that the Saudi State used its influence inside Egypt and other Muslim countries to confiscate and to ban all this and persecute the free thinkers.  This persecution scared the peaceful intellectuals who want merely to live in safety. There are many such intellectuals in numbers in Egypt and other Muslim and Arab countries. From 1995 to 2000, many came to the writer’s weekly forum at the Ibn Khaldoun center in Cairo. The writer received a wealth of commentary from Quranic scholars outside Egypt as well.  But then the media outlets of the fanatics threatened them, accusing the Ibn Khaldoun center of being a den of enemies of Sunna and the prophet Mohammed. This campaign led to a wave of arrests in Egypt. Many of the writer’s staffers were arrested and the writer himself eventually fled All of those free thinkers who once were actively involved with the Ibn Khaldoun center are now so scared that they are trying to deny their faith. The Saudis also have bribed other intellectuals to get them to defend Wahabism and attack their former colleagues. The Saudi crown family, therefore, must undertake a dramatic change in the way it does business. It must: 1- Uphold the first Islamic value, the freedom of speech and freedom of belief, giving unlimited freedom of thought and belief to all people in the kingdom. This will allow Shiites and Sufis to practice their beliefs and discuss Wahabi dogma. 2- Give equal opportunities to all Muslims in mass media and other public platforms in religious, cultural and social life. 3- Continue a genuine but gradual reform in the political, economic and social spheres. 4- Encourage free thinkers throughout the Muslim World to participate in this reform.

This is not a call to ban Wahabi doctrine, but to establish equality among all Muslim cults, and to give freedom of belief and speech for all of them, and to make all doctrines open to public examination.  This kind of climate will create a competition of sorts, in which the people will choose for themselves which Islamic faith is best for them.

4- The Practical Steps of this proposal

As mentioned earlier, the writings of reform are available, as is the commitment of silenced intellectuals throughout the Muslim World; they are eager to support this project but they are scared. The real problem is to the financial support for establishing an international organization to implement the project, and protect the safety of the intellectuals involved. It needs a formal arrangement with the U.S., Saudi, Egyptian and allied governments.  The writer knows personally from experience at the Ibn Khaldoun center that any reform needs official support, directly or indirectly. There are many official American efforts to reform the Muslim culture in the realm of education and religion. We –of course - welcome these efforts, but we need to reform our religious problems by ourselves.  What we need is American support. American support will reform the American image in the Muslim World.

American policy is usually distorted by the Muslim media and misunderstood by the Muslim masses. The dictators of this region direct the anger of the masses toward America and explain their own failures as a product of the “Western Conspiracy against Islam and Muslims”. But with this project, the fanatics will be forced to spend their time not fighting the U.S. but defending themselves and their dogma.  The dictators will be forced to enact some reforms as a compromise to stay in power. The Muslim masses will finally get a chance to hear more than one opinion and several points of views.  They will finally discover that their real enemy is the fanatics and the dictators, not the U.S. and the West.  It will not be easy to achieve this; it will be a painful struggle.  But it is worth it to save Islam and save millions of lives in wars and terrorist actions. This is the true peaceful intellectual Jihad as The Almighty God mentioned in the Holy Quran:[25:52]                             

 Finally
To pursue this mission, the writer of this proposal hopes to find an American entity that can help establish a company specializing in media to publish books and produce, stage and television programs in English, Arabic, and other Islamic languages.  These would be disseminated throughout the Muslim World and the Muslim communities in the U.S. and the European Union. The writer and his colleagues know how to attract and impress the Muslim masses. The writer had to struggle alone for more than ten years against the Egyptian regime and Muslim fanatics; through this struggle he has established a new trend, the Quranic trend: the intellectuals who believe in Islam as the religion of peace, tolerance, justice, human rights, and freedom of expression. This is a trend of people who believe that their real enemy is not the West or the U.S. but the fanatics and the dictators of Muslim World.  If the Quranic people throughout the Muslim world find a home in this U.S.-sponsored entity, it will be lead to greater security for the U.S. and the rest of the civilized world.

The American Constitution protects the freedom of speech, so the only way to reform the Islamic schools in the U.S. is to give American Muslims an alternative ideology and let them choose which they prefer. With the books and broadcasts of this sponsored entity, Muslims will have the materials to discuss Wahabi teachings and see the contradictions between Wahabism and the true interpretations of the Quran.  They will have access to other Islamic teachings which confirm and conform to American values and the Human Rights culture. Members of the American Muslim community and students at Islamic schools in the U.S. will be able to compare ideologies, then think and choose for themselves.

This is an essential way to prevent the formation of an American Taliban.     

Sample 2

THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY IN ISLAM

Presentation by

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour
On
Monday, December 16, 2002

National Endowment for Democracy

My thanks go to the National Endowment for Democracy for giving me this opportunity to practice my freedom of speech here without feeling fear, as I used to feel in Egypt. In Egypt, I was prejudiced by two main trends: the fanatics and the secularists. The fanatics accused me of being the enemy of the prophet Mohammed and the rejecter of his teachings, which they call Sunna. The secularists refused any discourse emanating from inside Islam, even if this discourse was against the fanatics, calling for justice, peace, human rights, religious tolerance, freedom and democracy. Now, thanks to the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, I can talk about democracy in Islam, without fear or shame. I will outline my presentation, the roots of democracy in Islam, in some pages to have enough time for discussion.

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=4145

 Between Islam and Muslims

In any language, any time, and any place, Islam means submission to the One God, the creator and peacefulness in dealing with people. To submit yourself to your God, this is your freedom of choice, and you will be responsible for this before God alone on the Day of Judgment. No one in this life has the authority to judge your faith.
To be peaceful in dealing with people—that is the meaning of Islam. If you are peaceful, you are Muslim, whatever your faith. To be an aggressor, a terrorist or a criminal is not to be a true Muslim. This is the core of Islam, which was revealed to all the prophets in all the divine holy messages, and finally revealed in Arabic language in the Quran, confirming previous holy revelations.
In his life, both as a prophet and as ruler of the Islamic state, Prophet Mohammed embodied and applied the Quranic values of peace, justice, freedom of belief and expression, and democracy. After his death, however, his powerful Arab tribe, the Quraysh, used the name of Islam to establish a mighty empire in Asia, Africa, and Europe that lasted more than six centuries.
In the Middle Ages, the Islamic concept of al-Shura, or consultation, which relates to modern conceptions of democracy, was abandoned, and Muslims adopted their own traditions. The strictest interpretation of Islam was revived in our time by the Al Wahabi doctrine, which established the fanatic trend in the Muslim world and gave Islam a notorious name. The Wahabis are against democracy, accusing it to be the rule of Satan. However, when we read the Quran, its code and idioms, we find out that democracy is very much a part of the Islamic faith, commandments, values, culture, and society.


The Islamic Society of Democracy

Islamic values refer to the high values of peace, human rights, freedom of speech and belief, justice and equality, and democracy. Any society that upholds and practices these values is an Islamic society. Because democracy is only one aspect of this society, we have to mention briefly the other aspects:

1. Equality between races and cultures:

God said in the Quran, “O people, we created all of you from the same male and female, and we made you into nations and tribes to recognize each other. The best among you is the most righteous. God is omniscient cognizant” [49:13]. So we are brothers and sisters from the same parents. God made us into different races and cultures to recognize each other, not to fight each other, to benefit from this plurality in this life. In this life God ordered us not to exalt ourselves, not to use the religion as a means of living and power. [53:32] [16:90 to 95].
2. Equality between men and women:
The Quran confirms this equality in creation and in responsibility in this life and in the hereafter [3:195] [4:124] [16:97] [40:40]. In the realm of marriage, the Quran states justice beside equality.

3. Equality between the different religions:
This is confirmed by two other Islamic values;: freedom of speech and belief, and peace. Accordingly, everyone has the right to believe or to disbelieve, to advocate his belief in a peaceful way without insulting anyone else’s belief or personality.

4. Human rights, and the balance between the society and the individual

The Quran mentions five rights, and makes a unique balance between the society and the individual in this regard.

a) Justice:
Everyone has an absolute right to justice. Justice is the mission of the holy divine messages from God [57:25] and the mission of the Islamic state [4:58], [42 :15], [2:282], [65: 2], [16:90]. Any society or state that upholds and practices justice in any time, place, or language is doing so in the true spirit of Islam.

b) Freedom of belief and speech:
Everyone has an absolute right to believe or not to believe [17:107], [18:29], [41: 40] and to advocate what he believes without insulting the others [6:108], [23:3], [28:55], [29: 46]. On the Day of Judgment, everyone will be questioned before God alone, according to his or her freedom of belief. The Islamic state has nothing to do in guiding people to the right path; it is a personal choice and responsibility [28:56], [10:108], [17:15], [27:92], [39:41], [3:20], [6:104].

c) Wealth:
Individuals are entitled to wealth so long as they are not minors or fools who may squander their wealth. In such cases, society must appoint a guardian to manage the wealth on behalf of those incapable of doing so themselves. Society must also look after such persons, give them a good life from his income, and supervise theguardians charged with looking after the wealth [4:5-6].
Society is expected to look after its poor. The poor are entitled to charity and to alms, collected by the state or given directly to the needy [9:60], [2:215], [17:26], [30: 38], [6:141], [51:19], [70:24].
At the same time, the Quran forbids the concentration of a society’s wealth in the hands of a few people [59:7] because it makes them control the power and the state. Such a concentration of wealth and power results in a class division pitting the hungry majority against the affluent few. The Quran considers this a sign of a society’s eventual self-destruction [17:16], [23:33], [21:13], [11 :116], [34:34], [34:23], [56:45], [23:64], [2:195].
d) Security:
Individuals have an absolute right to security. Society has to defend itself from external enemies and to protect its people. An Islamic state is a strong, peaceful state; it prepares its army to prevent enemies from attacking its borders; and it has to be strong in maintaining peace. At the same time, it has to punish any criminal who violates the peace.

e) The right of power:
Shura, or democracy, means assuming power. According to Islam, it is the society as a whole—not one person, like the Egyptian pharaoh in the time of Moses—that owns and exercises power. [43:51 to 54], [40:37], [28:38], [79: 24].
The fanatics, according to their concept of ‘Al Hakemiyah,’ or the governance, believe that the ruler in Islam obtains his political authority from God and that he will be responsible before God alone on the Day of Judgment.
Did Prophet Mohammed have the same authority from God when he was the ruler of the Islamic state of Al Madina? If so, we may say: He was the final prophet revealed by God, and no one has the privilege the final prophet had. But the fact is that Prophet Mohammed, as a leader, got his power and the authority not from God but from the people or the society, as is the case today in any democratic society.
The people around him gave him shelter after years of persecution in Mecca, and established a state for him to help him against his mighty tribe of Quraysh.
That is why God said to him: “And because of the mercy of God, you treated them with compassion. Had you been harsh and hardhearted, they would have broken away from you. Therefore, you shall pardon them, ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the matter. Once you reach a decision, then carry it out, putting your trust in God. God loves those who trust in Him” [3:159]. God made his Messenger deal with them gently in order to obtain their loyalty. If Prophet Mohammed had not acted with compassion, his people would have abandoned him and he would have become homeless and helpless in front of his enemies. Because they were his source of power and authority, God made him gentle in dealing with them, ordered him to forgive them if they insulted him and to consult them in affairs of state.
Al-Shura, or consultation, is the Quranic expression of democracy. A religious commandment, it refers to the discussions and deliberation that take place at meetings (or Majalis). In these meetings, Prophet Mohammed taught the early Muslims the culture of democracy in Islam.

The Roots of Democratic Culture in Islam: The Culture of Power and Justice
A strong society is the one that maintains its power and rules itself by itself, through rulers that are servants of the people, accountable before them. This is the essence of a democratic society. A weak, helpless society, on the other hand, tends to produce dictators, because the people are passive, lazy, and inactive. The difference between a strong society and a weak society lies in culture: the culture of strength and struggle versus the culture of weakness and passivity. It may be difficult to make the weak society strong and democratic, because the necessary changes in culture may take a long time and bloody struggle to occur, as happened in the West. But Islam offers a peaceful path to democratic change. This peaceful path has three aspects:
1. Belief in the Day of Judgment
2. Belief in the divine predestination

3. Freedom of choice

God created me and predestined for me four things: my birth (date, family, and shape), my death (date and place), his providential sustenance for me, and the crises that will take place in my life. In the hereafter, God will not question me concerning these four things.



In this life, no one can harm me or benefit me beyond these four inevitable predestinations. Beyond them, I have the freedom of choice to believe or not to believe, the freedom to be active in acts of good or evil, or the freedom to be inactive. It is up to me to be active or inactive. I will be responsible for my freedom of choice before God at the Day of Judgment, at which time I will placed either in hell or in heaven, according to my deeds in life. So I have to answer the eternal questions: Why am I here? What should I do to win the test of this life? According to Islam, the winner is one who believes in God and the Day of Judgment; who is active in good deeds; who upholds the high values of peace, justice, and freedom of choice; who fears God alone; and who submits to God alone, and not to any human being. This is the culture of strength, which is available to anyone and any society to uphold. This the culture that changed Muslims in the time of Prophet Mohammed and that created a strong democratic state among them.
Roots of Democracy in the Islamic Faith

Islam states that there is no god but One God, the creator of the universe. Democracy is an aspect of Islam, while dictatorship contradicts it. The tyrant acts like God, making the people submit to him and punishing them if they do not. The tyrant is never accountable to his people. The Muslim tyrant puts himself higher than the prophet Mohammed, who was democratic in his dealings with others. In this way, the Muslim tyrant indirectly claims the status of a god beside the One God. Moreover, dictatorship is also opposed to justice, which is the basic aim of all the divine messages of God. Justice is the basic foundation of Islamic laws. This means that democracy, taken as an aspect of justice, is a central part of the Islamic faith and should be considered one of Islam’s ritual commandments.

Democracy in Islamic Ritual: Commandments
In a sura, or chapter, named Al-Shura, or democracy, the Quran describes Muslim society as one in which individuals respond to their Lord, observe their prayers, whose affairs are by consultation among them, and from whose provisions they donate (42:38).
In this verse, the commandment of shura, or consultation, appears between the two famous commandments of prayer and charity (salat and zakat). Like every ritual commandment in Islam, shura is a personal duty, which no one can perform on behalf of another. Put another way, no one can represent anyone but himself. Shura represents the kind of direct democracy in which all the people participate in the meetings held to discuss community affairs. In addition, Muslims are urged to practice shura in their work and family lives, much like they are exhorted to pray five times a day.
The chapter on shura was revealed in Mecca, where Muslims were persecuted by the Quraysh tribe but continued to hold secret meetings in the home of Al Arkam in the spirit of shura. And they continued to practice it publicly in their new state of Al Madina.
Yet the tradition of attending open meetings with the prophet and discussing their affairs was a new one for the inhabitants of Al Madina. Some of them left the meetings with or without excuse. Because it is a ritual commandment in Islam, God strongly warned Muslims that He would punish them in this life and in the hereafter if they abandoned their meetings.[24:62-to 64]

The Difficulties of Applying Democracy in the Time of Prophet Mohammed

Some Muslims in the democratic meetings crossed the line by insulting the Prophet (33:69-70), outmatching him, raising their voices over his voice, speaking loudly in his face (49:1-2), entering his house without his permission, and making no difference between the mosque where the meetings were held and the house of the prophet (33:53). God blamed them and told them that they were in need of discipline because democracy did not mean that kind of disorder.

The hypocrites were the elders of Al Madina and its richest people before the coming of Islam. They had to accept Islam in order to protect their wealth and prestige and in order to conspire against the new state that gave them absolute freedom of belief and speech. The democratic meetings were their means to plot. The hypocrites controlled the meetings and directed them toward their own interests. Because the Muslim masses obeyed the Quran and attended the meetings, the hypocrites became the minority. Finally, the hypocrites lost their respect because they refused to defend Al Madina. They even tried to help the enemy, but the defenders of the faith had more influence than they did. Those defenders practiced democracy even in times of war.
Democracy in time of War
1. Battle of Badr

After persecution and continuous attacks from the Quraysh, Muslims were given permission to defend themselves and to retaliate. The Quraysh confiscated their assets and stocks of trade caravans. So the prophet and his small army marched to attack the trade caravan of Quraysh in order to regain some of the Muslim money. The caravan changed its route and a large number of Quraysh troops came to attack the Muslims. The prophet held a meeting in which a few men refused to face the larger Quraysh army. They argued with the prophet, but the majority decided to fight on. The minority accepted this decision. The Quran said, “And verily, a party among the believers dislike it. Disputing with you in the truth after it was made manifested, as if they were driven to death, while they were looking.” (8:5-6).
 Battle of Ohod
The next year, the Quraysh came to destroy Al Madina, and the Muslims held a meeting to discuss the situation. The majority decided to march out of the city to fight the enemy near the mountain of Ohod. The hypocrites, however, preferred to stay back and face the enemy from within the city. The Muslims were defeated in this battle. In their meeting, the hypocrites blamed the prophet, saying, “Did we have any part in the affair?” “ If we had had any say in the matter, none of us would have been killed.” And, “If only they had obeyed us, they would not have been killed” (3:154–68). The hypocrites had refused to fight, but they also had the right to participate in meetings and voice their opposition to the strategies of those who had fought and suffered defeat.
3. Battle of Allies
After that, the Quraysh gathered the biggest army of the time to destroy Al Medina. At their meeting, the Muslims decided to dig a trench around Al Madina to protect it. Everyone present vowed in the name of God never to flee. But at the time of the siege, the hypocrites fled the battle (33:9–25). In fact, they joined forces with the enemy (59:11–24) (4:141) and conspired to put an end to the democratic meetings (58:5–8) (33:9–25). Ultimately, however, they lost their influence and prestige. The hypocrites used democracy to destroy it, but in the end, democracy brought about their own ruin by exposing their acts and deeds.

The Process of Democracy in Islam

Islamic democracy is a ritual commandment. Direct democracy, in which every person represents himself or herself, involves decisions made by the majority and applied by all Muslims. So long as it is peaceful in its dealings, the opposition has total freedom of belief and expression. The accountability is another aspect. The prophet used to be insulted as a leader, and the Quran blamed those insulting him when they exceeded their limits.

Democracy also means accountability. A true Islamic society rules itself by itself through executives who are accountable to their society. The Quran calls these executives “Olo Al Amr,” meaning “those of the affairs.” They are mentioned twice in the Quran:

1) In 4:58-59, God orders Muslims to obey the executives in their capacity as God’s messengers. This means that the ultimate obedience is to God and to His message, which is one of peace, freedom, justice, and human rights. If a ruler abandons these values, no one should obey him or her.
2) In 4:83, the Quran clearly identifies “those of the affairs.” They were people who were experts in their fields. Some of them were experts in the field of security and were by the side of the prophet in times of war. This means that they were not presidents, but rather, experts who helped the prophet.

Prophet Mohammed was the leader of that Islamic state and wanted to teach the people how to govern themselves. That is why he did not appoint anyone to be the leader or ruler after him. But after his death, the Quraysh changed everything step by step. Eventually, the democratic Islamic state became an empire ruled by a dictator under the sons of the elder of Qurasyh, the previous enemy of Islam.

Sample 3

The contradiction between Islamic State and the religious State

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=2929

Introduction:
It is a common fact for Muslims that Islam had its own religious state, although seculars reject the Religious State under any circumstances and they call for the separation between religion and politics. And both Seculars and religious people are the biggest fighting trends in our Islamic world.
I stand in the middle between both of them, I believe that Islam is not only a religion, but it is a state. And here I agree with the religious trend, but I disagree with them in the nature of this state, I believe that the Islamic State is a Civilian State that contradicts with the common controlling ideas of the religious states. And I also disagree with seculars who disconnect religion of the State; ignoring the fact that Islam had already initiated its own Civilian Global State before.
In fact the prophet Mohammed has established a Civilian State, and the fundamentals of this state remains in the Holly Koran, while the Holy Koran narrates about the prophet's life and the establishing of the Islamic State in the Arabian peninsula. It is the state that changed the universal history.

But this Civilian State turned to a political despotism and a tribal rule after the great sedition and the establishment of the Ommawyan State. Then this tribal despotic rule turned into a religious political despotic rule in the Abbasyan caliphate. And this system remains in control till the collapse of the Othmanic State under the name of "Khelafa" (caliphate).

Historians agreed to name the Islamic State after the death of the prophet "right guidance caliphate", while they remove the Words "right guidance" from the titles of the following Islamic States. And this is a great significance of the great change of the Islamic system that Muslims paid its expanses till now. And the recording of the Islamic literature was happened during those "wrong guidance" caliphates, so the facts of real Islamic state during the prophet's era were ignored.
We will now discuss the contradiction between the Islamic State during the prophet and the right guidance caliphate's era and during the sequent religious states afterwards.
The base of Contradiction between the two States: Islamic and religious:
The great Muslims social scientist "Ibn-Khaldoun" wrote in his introduction "Al-Mokaddema" about what we know as "the secular State" under the address of (( the meaning of Khelafa (caliphate and Imamah (Immamat) saying " the royal rule is divided into two main kinds: the first one is "the natural rule" – h; the state that rules with inclinations and Desires- and he (Ibn Khaldoun) thought that it was immoral and unjust. And the second one is "the political rule"- the state that rules with logic to obtain benefits and to eliminate harms. – And he thinks it is dispraised because it judges without the God's light. And finally he thinks that the caliphate system is the best, because it includes forcing the people to judge their worldly and otherworldly matters with God's low. "It is a succession to God to protect his religion and to rule the world with it," he added.
Shortly Ibn –Khaldoun thinks that the base of the Religious State is to force people enter paradise and committing them to God's low. But the aim of the Non-Religious States – if it is reasonable- is to obtain benefits and to eliminate harms of its people. And considering the fact the Ibn-Khaldoun was a religious judge, so it is expected that he will be prejudiced for the country that he lives under its wing.
And I disagree with him along with others.
Because entering people the Paradise and making them believe in God, is not the basis of an Islamic State, because belief is a personal responsibility for every human. The holly Koran says (whomever he believes, it is for his own benefit, and whomever disbelieves, it is his own harm. No blame for anyone for other's mistake :Al-Esra 15) even making people believe is not the mission of the prophet when he was a ruler, the holly God ordered him ( it is not your mission to make them believe :Al-Bakara 272) and ( you don't make those you love believe, but God make them believe if they wanted to :Al-Kasas 56) and he ordered him ( there is no Force in religion : Al-Bakara 256) and ( you shouldn't force people to believe : Younis 99).

But the Base of establishing an Islamic State is the administration of justice among people, or with Jurists words " the consideration of people's rights, or Human rights with our words.

The enlightened jurists confirmed that the God's rights ( Belief and worship) is a personal responsibility dues to God's judgment, but the people's rights is the nation's responsibility in this world. The holly God says "I have sent prophets with lots of evidences along with the Book and the balance to make people administrate justice: Al-Hadid 25", so the main target from sending prophets and holly Books is to make people administrate justice among them.

The justice has two kinds, the first is "being just to God" by worshiping him and him alone, the holly God said (polytheism is a great sin : Lokman 13), and this subject can only judged by God at the day of Resurrection. The holly God said (say: the God is the Creator of Heavens and Earth, the fully known of the seen and unseen things, you judge between your people in their differences: Al-Zomor 46). And the second kind is "being just to people" which requires a ruling system, and the more successful this system to administrate justice the more Islamic it can be. And that is the meaning of the Verse "to make people administrate justice". So the punishments legislation in the holly Koran is aiming to reserve people rights including right of living, money and honor. And administrating justice only can achieve the missing system that can reserve the individuals and the society's rights and achieve the balance between justice and freedom.
But it is different in the Religious State.
Because every Religious state adopts its own religious ideology and forces the people to accept it and it uses it to strengthen its sultan. And then the ruler monopolizes power, wealth and religion, and appoints himself as an intermediary between people and God, if any one criticizes him he would be a disbeliever (of course he will have support from a certain jurists and army leaders). And while the regular political despotic ruler is contented with killing his opposed people, the religious political despotic ruler confiscates the worldly and otherworldly rights of his opposed people under the name of preserving religion. And this is a great injustice to God and his religion. And this is the abstract of the real history of religious States in the east and the west in all ages. 


The contradiction in Human rights between the two States:

1) the Islamic State:

Administrating justice among people in the Islamic State achieves the balance between the individuals and the society's rights, And the balance between freedom and justice. But in the religious States we won't need this overlap, were one man enjoys every rights for himself. We will offer some details:
In the Islamic State, The individual have the absolute right in two things: Justice and freedom of belief and thinking. And the society has the absolute right in three things: power, Wealth and Security. And the individuals have a quotient right in these three things.

(A) The absolute right of justice to individuals:
We won't stop with the great number of the Koranic verses that obligates Muslims to administrate justice with enemies or friends (the God commands you to be just and charitable : Al-Nahl 90) ( if you are going to judge among people, you should be just :Al-Nesaa 58) ( if you are going to judge, be just even if they were relative :Al-Ana'am 195) ( Oh you who believe be just and witness to God. Even if it will hurt you or your relatives, if they were poor or rich the God is worthier to them, and don't follow your desires: Al-Nesaa 135).
We will only here to affirm one Koranic fact, which is that the real meaning of the word "hakam" is the judge among people and administrating justice, not ruling. Then it means.

(B) The absolute right of thinking and belief freedom to individuals:
Mohammed al-Ghazaly the famous Islamic scholar said once he counted two hundred Koranic verse affirming the thinking and belief freedom. But I can claim that they are more than five hundred Koranic verse affirming the freedom of religion and thinking, and the freedom of express practice belief and disbelief, and the affirmation that the judgment of the belief matters -including the prophet himself- dues to God only at the day of resurrection.

We will be contented with the following verses (if you disbelief, the God can dispense without you and he denies disbelief for his people. But if you believe he will approve it to you and don't blame a person for other's mistakes, you will return to God , them he will tell you what have you been doing, he is the Omniscient of your chests : Al-Zomor 7). So it is an absolute freedom in belief and disbelief.
Even the holly God affirms the atheistic action in his Book, and he postpones the penalty of that to the day of resurrection, he said (those who atheists in our Book aren't invisible to me, are those who will be thrown to hill better than those who will come in peace at the resurrection day?. Do whatever you want, he is fully aware of what you do: Fossilat 40)
At the resurrection day the people will be classified according to their imagination to God into two main fighting trends, one of them goes to hill, and the other goes to paradise. The holly God said "those trends who are fighting about their God, the disbelivers of them shall have a great pain…. : Al-Hag 19) the catching thing here is that the holly Koran equalizes between the two trends in the litigation, and it didn't gave anyone of them the privilege to be a litigant and a judge in the same time, even if one litigant of them is the believers. Even the prophet himself is going to be a litigant against Abo-Gahl and Abi-Lahab and the rest of the famous disbeliveers. The holly God said to his prophet (you are dead, so they are, then you will come at the resurrection day as litigants: Al-Zomor 30-31).
So the individuals have the absolute right in justice and religion and belief religion in the Islamic State as long as it doesn't contradicts with the other's personal rights, or it will be under the legislation of defamation.

(C) The absolute right of political authority to the society:(the consultation)

The holly God is the only one who is unquestionable, but anyone else is questionable (Al-Anbeya 23), so the despotic person when he rises himself above the people's right to question him is actually reclaiming Godhood. And It is the immortal story of the Egyptian Pharaoh who reaches Godhood through despotism. And this is the place of the Consultation "Al-Shora" in the Islamic religion.
The prophet Mohamed himself was ordered to apply consultation in the verse ( consult them in any matter : Al-Omran 159), so it is logical that anyone who disdains to consult his people , rises himself above the prophet , so he will fall in the Godhood-Reclaiming swamp.
The holly verse "Consult them in any matter" founded the society's absolute right is authority, with our words "The Nation is the source of all authorities". The holly God said to his prophet (because of the mercy that god supplies you, you became soft with them, and if you were harsh and rough they would leave you alone. So forgive them and ask God's forgiveness for them and consult them" and the quotation here is "and if you was harsh and rough they would leave you alone". The holly God says that he supplies his prophet with mercy and he didn't make him harsh or rough, because if he was so , they would leave him alone. And if that happened he will lose his sultan and his state. So what gives him the sultan and the state is their gathering and union around him, and before when he was in Mecca he was persecuted, and if they leave him he would be persecuted again. Then their gathering and union around him is the source of his sultan, and not from a divine authorization. And the wholly God made him soft with them to make them gather and union around him. And he worn him of being rough or they would leave him. So he ordered him to forgive them and ask God's forgiveness for them and consult them, because they are his partners in ruling , and they are the source of his sultan and state. And the wholly God reminds his prophet this favor in other verse saying he is the reason of making him soft with them, and that is why they gathered and union around him, and that is something he couldn't buy with all the Earth's fortune. Al-Anfal 62-63.
And the Islamic State agrees with the secular state that "the nation is the source of all authorities" and they both disagree with the Religious State about this principle. Meantime the Islamic State disagrees with the secular state in the application of this principle. The secular State uses the social contract theory in the its application to this principle. This means that the nation gives some of its sovereignty to a ruler of a group of people to rule on behalf of the rest of the people, and by elections the nation can select a group of people to form an assembly council who can rule or make lows. And this is a point of disagreement between the Islamic State and the secular state.

The political and legislative speech in the holly Koran doesn't addressed for the Muslim ruler, but for the whole nation who rules itself according to the legislation of direct democracy (Consultation) were the ruler is a regular employee for his people for a certain period. And when his contract ends he becomes an ordinary man "eats and walks in the markets".

And to make the nation practice its absolute right in power, the holly Koran turned this right into an obligatory imposition and it joined it with other obligatory impositions like alms and prayers. And that was mentioned in the "shora" sura before the Muslims establish their Islamic state in Medina, the verse says (those who respond to their God and perform their prayers, consult with each other, and they pay the alms: Al-Shora 38). So the Consultation (the direct Democracy) came between prayers and alms, that means it is an obligatory imposition and it also means that the performance of consultation happens in Mosque like prayers and as the representative actions doesn't count in prayers so consolation must be personally performed. And this way only the Koranic speech to the nation can be affirmed. We can also notice that the Koranic speech in Moses's pharaoh was addressed for the despotic pharaoh as the ruler of the people and the state. But in the Islamic legislation for the Islamic State the speech always addressed for the whole society. Like (and you should prepare what you can from the power means: AL-Anfal 60) (O you who believe the retaliation was written on you: Al-Bakara 178) (if you afraid of disunity between them, you send a referee from his people and a referee from her people: Al-Nesa 35) ( don't give spendthrifts your money: Al-Nesa 5-6).
When Muslims moved to Medina and they establish their first Civilian State, the consultation's councils were held at the Mosque when someone calls "it is time to gather for prayers". And when some people of Al-Ansar were sluggish to attend some of these councils, even if some of them apologize for the prophet and others even sneak out of it. The God ordered all Muslims to attend these councils so as not to make some people who attend this councils monopolize the power into their hand. And they would waste the society's rights by turning themselves into a silent majority. Then the last three verses of Al-Nour Sura said revealed to confirm the necessity of attending these councils by all Muslim individuals. So the Muslims were committed to attend all the consultations councils afterwards (Al-Mogadalah :7-13).

Most of the Muslim great men were graduated in these councils, then they astonished the whole world and change the History. So the prdidn't appoint another ruler after him, because he left the nation with a full ability to rule itself. When Ali Abdel-Razek (the Muslim scholar) talked about this matter, he misunderstood this action as a separation between the Islamic religion and the State by leaning on the fact that the Koranic speech were addressed for the whole society, not for a ruler. And we agree with him that the Islam doesn't admit the presidential or the theocratic State. But it calls for a state that can be ruled by people using the direct democracy (consultation) like some European countries (Switzerland). It is a State were its strength counted with the strength of every individual by practicing direct democracy to obtain power.

(4) The absolute right of Wealth to the Society:
Basically God owns wealth, and he made it an absolute right to the society and a quotient right for individuals according to their work, Good utilization and investment. And it a right for the inheritors not just for being realtives but also includes good utilization, as if the inheritors kept squandering the wealth, the society has the right to restrain them, and meantime they should be well-treated (don't give squanderers your money which the God gave you to observe. And you should spend on them from the money and treat them well, as for orphans you should test them when they become adults and if you felt they are wise enough you should pay them their money: Al-Nesa 6).
Then the Money is an absolute right for the society, so the Islamic speech was addressed for the society to supervise on wealth "don't give squanderers your money" and the whole society is responsible of developing the wealth "which the God gave you to observe". And if the individual utilizes the money well enough, , so he is worthy of it"then pay them their money" and we can notice the difference between "their money" and "his money" in the Koranic verse.
And those who can't earn their living, they should have a certain right in the nation's wealth. The holly Koran confirms the right of mendicant, indigent, poor, and wayfarer people in the individual and official charities, like (those who count the mendicants and indigents right in their money: Al-Maareg 24-25) (give your relative, the poor, and the wayfarer their right :Al-Esraa 26).

(5) The absolute right of the Society in Security:
The main missions of the Islamic State towards its people is administrating justice and providing the inner and the outer Security. And the inner security for society means that the society should have a powerful army that can deter its enemies and prevent them from trespasses (you should prepare every mean of power to deter your enemies and your God's enemies: Al-Anfal 60). And this preparation makes the enemy reconsiders ever making an aggression. And that leads to the prevention of bloodshed.
And this legislation goes along with justice and the fighting legislation in the holly Koran, which commands to fight only in self-defense situations and making the reply for aggression equals to the aggression. (Fight in God's way those who fight with you, and don't trespass, the God don't like aggressor…. Those who trespass on you, you should equally trespass on them: Al-Bakara 190-194). Then the final aim of fighting should be "stopping persecution in religion" the holly Koran said "fight them to prevent persecution, and to make the whole religion for God: Al-Bakarah 193) (fight them to prevent persecution, and to make the whole religion for God: Al-Anfal 39). And the meaning of "make the whole religion for God" is preventing the priesthood, and making people free to choose whatever they wish, so they can't advance any pleas to God at the resurrection day.
So, justice and freedom are the basis of relationship to the outer enemies by establishing a powerful state by the strengths of its people and its army to provide the absolute right of Security for the society. And it is the right of individuals to live in security on the basis of equality in rights and duties, not by giving one man the biggest amounts of protections on the account of other people. The history tells us how was the second Islamic caliphate Omar sleeps under the tree, and how the prophet didn't have any guards to protect him to make a real proof of the equality in security rights for all Muslims.

{2} The Religious State:

All the previous principles were politically lost in the Ommoyan caliphate, and the Abbasyan caliphate legitimate this violation over God's legislation by:

1- Creating fake narrates of the prophet contradicts with the holly Koran.

2- Cancellation some Islamic legislation when it doesn't go with their allegations under the name of "abrogation"-Naskh-, even though the word "Nasakh" in the holly Koran means "wrote and firmed" not "abrogate or cancel"

3- The most important thing is that the Abbasyan State ignored the recording of the real Sunna of the Prophet in preparing his nation and education of its people although the holly Koran mentioned some of these deeds: purifying and educating his people. And these deeds were applied by two ways, the first one was during the Gommaa prayer every week (he made more than 500 unrecorded speech during these prayers), and the other way was during the consultation councils( Al-Nour and Al-Mugadalah sura showed us some aspects of these councils).
Actually the Amowyan caliphate wasn't established on a religious propaganda. It only used the low of Force. So it didn't have to religiously justify its crimes against the prophet's family and Medina and Meka. But the Abbasyan caliphate was established on a religious propaganda (getting contentment from Mohammed's family by appointing one of his grandsons as a caliphate for the Islamic State).

Once, AbdelMalik Ibn Marawan's made a speech at 75 a.h. In Medina, he said "then, I am not the weekend caliphate (means Othman) and I am not the flatterer caliphate (means Moawya) .. So if anyone told me to fear God, I will break his neck".
But the Abbasyan caliphate was established on a religious propaganda (getting contentment from Mohammed's family by appointing one of his grandsons as a caliphate for the Islamic State) but after they established their state they persecuted all others including Ali's son, the Grandchildren of the prophet, with a slight difference. The caliphate had to get a religious justification from his jurists. So it is a low nation. But the low always comes from the caliphate's jurists. Once, the caliphate Abo-Gafar almansor made a speech at Arafa day. He said "O, you people I am the God's sultan in his land. I rule you with his guidance and he made me the keeper of his money, I give or prevent according to his will" so this Abbasyan caliphate ruled with the logic of the Middle Ages where the principle of "the divine right of Kings" were a common fact. And it is the same logic of "Al-Raee wal Raeya" (the shepherd and his sheep) which means that the ruler is a shepherd who owns and leads his sheep, and he is only responsible to God about them. So it is vainly to ask about justice and freedom of belief in this religious States.
The contradiction between citizenship rights in the two states:

If the previous situation is being applied for Muslims in the religious state, so what is the situation of the Non-Muslims?

{1} In the Islamic State:

We will refer first to the concept of (belief) "Eman" in Arabic. The word (belief) in Arabic has two meanings if it came concerning the relation between humans it means "security and peace". So, those who live peacefully and secure are actually "believers" according to the Islamic religion, no matter was their religion as long as they don't rise weapons on each other. And then everybody will come to God at the day of resurrection to judge their differences. And till that day comes, everybody must live in justice, peace and equality, share the same duties and enjoy the same rights. The holly Koran talk in Al-Hag sura about fighting legislation, it mentioned the motives of giving the permission of approving fighting, then it concluded with the legitimate purpose of fighting, which is protecting the worshiphouses of all religions were the name of God is mentioned. (Al-Hag 40)
Then the holly Koran defined the citizenship's concept (Pharaoh has was arrogant in earth, and he divided its people into sects and he persecuted one of them: Al-Kasas 4) the persecuted sect were Israel's sons. And the holly Koran considered them Egyptians even with their different religion and race. So, the Koranic legitimate makes the homeland for all individuals, Meantime the religion is to God only. So the famous saying "Religion for God, and home for all" is an Koranic legislation.
But this Islamic legislation was profaned by the Omoyan state when it prejudged against Non-Arabs (Al-Mawaly) and Gypts , then the Abasyan state prejudged against No-Muslims (Jews and Christians) and prejudged against Non-Sunni Muslims (Shea' and Sofi),they considered the Non Muslins to be a second-class citizens under the name of "Ahl-Alzemma" and they justify this wrong situation.
Finally:
We can shorten this few facts:
1- the Islamic State is not a fancy utopia. It established as state out of nothing during the prophet's era, and its collapse happened after a long struggle and wars till it was able to defeat the Omoyan State in its youth. But the Abasian state came afterwards deceiving Muslims with the slogan of "obtaining satisfaction from Mohammed's people" and re-establishing the Islamic state. But it did not take long before they established their religious state based on distorted religious facts.
2- Although that this distorted fact ruled over most of the Islamic history, but the real Islamic fact still keeps the basis of the Islamic state, and contradicting with the known religious state in West and East.
3- The modern secular states are more close to the Islamic state, but the closest system to the Islamic system is the direct democracy systems in the Switzerland union.


4- The Punishment system in Islam needs a private research in the framework of the Koranic legislation and its differences with the legislation and heritage of the religious states.

Sample 4

The right of women in Islam to work and to be active in the society

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=7118

Qur’an is not the main source of Islamic law for most Muslims.

Muslims are divided into three main sects: Sunni, Shiites and Sufis. The Sunni man made Sharee’a is more prevalent because it is upheld by the two main sects ( Sunni and Sufis )

In the middle ages, Muslim Clerics did the following to manipulate the real Islamic Quranic law:

1. 
   To add something that might contradict the Quran, they fabricated sayings, or (Hadith) and attributed them to Prophet Mohammed, more than two centuries after his death. Those books of Hadith were written in the Abbasside era,( 750- 1258 ) and still the main source of  Sunni Sharee’a until now. For example: ( Book of Malik : Al Mowatta’), ( Book of Al Shafe’ee : Al-UMM), ( Book of Al Bukhari ) and ( Book of Muslim )
2. 
   To abrogate the pure Islamic Quranic laws in the Quranic verses, they claimed they were (Mensoukh) or abrogated.
3. 
   To change the Quranic meanings and terms, they used (Tefseer) and (Ta’weel). As the Quran is preserved and kept pure by Allah, they could not change its written words. So, they changed their meanings and terminology.
4. 
   Justice is the main value in Islam and all the Holy messages came from Allah, including the final message : The Quran: (We sent aforetime our messengers with Clear Signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance (of Right and Wrong), that men may stand forth in justice; ) (57 : 25  ) . Allah says in the Quran: (Surely Allah enjoins doing justice and doing good (to others), the giving*of charity) to kindred, and He forbids indecency, evil and rebellion; He admonishes you that you may be mindful) (16: 90). Prophet Mohamed was ordered to say: ("I believe in the Book which Allah has sent down; and I am commanded to judge justly between you) (42: 15). So, in light of justice, it is a  must to understand all the details of the Quranic Sharee’a.
5. 
   In different forms of man made Muslims’ Sharee’a, you will find many aspects of injustice , including the rights of woman.

Equality under the law of the Quran

1. 
   Shiites and Sunnis have different versions of Sharee’a. Under Shiite Sharee’a, women get more rights than under the Sunni Sharee’a, like in divorce. The Shiites idolize Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and for this reason they give women more rights than Sunni clerks do.
2. 
   The Sunni Sharee’a represents the mighty power of Muslim Empires (Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottoman empires) and their medieval culture , even towards women’s rights.. Under the mighty Muslim rule of Caliphs, women at that time were treated as second class citizens.
3. 
   As example, Sahih Al Bukhari – most sacred text of Hadith for Sunni and Sufi Muslims - attributes – falsely –to Prophet Mohammad the Hadith saying “Women lack mind and religious attitude.” 
4. 
   Accordingly a woman should be( sponsored, supported, protected) by a man – father, husband, brother, even her son – for travels, and has to get his permission to work. Generally, she is prohibited in many ways to work.  Some women whose husbands allow them to work do not allow them to have control over money. Some give a working woman wages less than a man who is doing the same work. Some prejudge the woman her right to supervise men, if she is qualified for promotion. This contradicts Qur’an and its real Islamic laws and its values of equality and justice.
5. 
   Qur’an is gender-neutral. According to the Qur’an, however, women and men are equally included in many terms in the Quranic terminology, like:
6. 
    “You who believe,” (O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) to be God fearing) (2: 183) ( O ye who believe! When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday (the Day of Assembly), hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business (and traffic): That is best for you if ye but knew) ( 62 : 9  )
7. 
     “People,”( O ye people! Adore your Guardian-Lord, who created you and those who came before you, that ye may have the chance to learn righteousness  ) (2 : 21 ) 
8. 
   Parents”( but if he has no child and (only) his two parents inherit him, then his mother shall have the third;) ( 4 : 11) 
9. 
   Children of Adam(O Children of Adam! wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer: eat and drink: But waste not by excess, for Allah loves not the wasters) (7 : 31 )
10. 
     Servants of Almighty Allah (And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, "Peace) ( 25 : 63  ) .
11. 
    Moreover, the Arabic word (Zawjah) means wife, while the Arabic (Zawj) means husband. But in the Quranic term, it is only one word for husband and wife: (Zawj). So, according to the holy Quran: Zawj is for wife in this verse :( And if ye wish to exchange one wife (Zawj) for another and ye have given unto one of them a sum of money (however great), take nothing from it. Would ye take it by the way of calumny and open wrong?) ( 4 : 20 )( In what your wives (Azwaj ) leave, your share is a half, if they leave no child) ( 4 : 12 ).
12. 
    ( Zawj ) is used for husband as well in this verse :( So if a husband ( Zawj) divorces his wife (irrevocably), He cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and he(The second husband) has divorced her)  (2 : 230 ).
13. 
    Sometimes, Zawj means female and male , husband and wife together : (And one of His signs is that He created mates ( Azwajen ) for you from yourselves that you may find rest in them, and He put between you love and compassion; most surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect) ( 30 : 21)
14. 
     There is no word (Zawjah) for wife, in the Quran at all.
15. 
    There are many examples in the verses that include laws/jurisprudence. Total equality between man and woman.
16. 
    Generally , about equality ,Allah says in the Quran : (O people! be careful of (your duty to) your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same (kind) and spread from these two, many men and women  ) (4 : 1 ).
17. 
    About the orphan, male or female, He says (And test the orphans until they attain puberty; then if you find in them maturity of intellect, deliver to them their property, and do not consume it extravagantly and hastily, lest they attain full age; and whoever is rich, let him abstain altogether, and whoever is poor, let him eat reasonably; then when you deliver to them their property, call witnesses in their presence; and Allah is enough as a Reckoner).
18. 
     About the same equal right He says : (Men shall have a portion of what the parents and the near relatives leave, and women shall have a portion of what the parents and the near relatives leave, whether there is little or much of it; a stated portion) (4 : 7 ) . All of this in one chapter.
19. 
    About the same duties and obligations Allah says : (So their Lord accepted their prayer: That I will not waste the work of a worker among you, whether male or female, the one of you being from the other; they, therefore, who fled and were turned out of their homes and persecuted in My cause and who fought and were slain, I will most certainly cover their evil deeds, and I will most certainly make them enter gardens beneath which rivers flow; a reward from Allah, and with Allah is yet better reward.  ) (3 : 195) .
20. 
    About the equality among all humans regardless of gender, ethnicity, color … Allah says: (O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).  ) ( 49 : 13 )
21.  

Rules of inheritance:

Difference between justice and equality:

Suppose that I have ten thousand dollars and I entered a classroom, and divided the money among all the students equally – there is equality but not justice. Qur’an balances equality and justice.

Man has to pay dowry:

(And give women their dowries as a free gift) (4: 4), He has to provide all her needs as a wife, and after divorce (O Prophet! when you divorce women, divorce them for~ their prescribed time, and calculate the number of the days prescribed, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, your Lord. Do not drive them out of their houses, nor should they themselves go forth, unless they commit an open indecency; and these are the limits of Allah, and whoever goes beyond the limits of Allah, he indeed does injustice to his own self. You do not know what Allah may after that bring about .  So when they have reached their prescribed time, then retain them with kindness or separate from them with kindness, and call to witness two just men from amongst you, and give upright testimony for Allah. With that is admonished, he who believes in Allah and the latter day; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah, He will make for him a way out, Lodge them where you lodge according to your means, and do not injure them in order that you may cause them harm; and if they are pregnant, spend on them until they lay down their burden; then if they suckle(your offspring) for you, give them their recompense and enjoin one another among you to do good; and if you disagree, another (woman) shall suckle for him.  ) (65: 1- 2 - 6).

So, sons get double of inheritance share that daughters get. This is the only case that there is a difference between a son and a daughter. Suppose a son dies and his parents inherit him, father and mother are equal: (Allah enjoins you concerning your children: The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females; then if they are more than two females, they shall have two-thirds of what the deceased has left, and if there is one, she shall have the half; and as for his parents, each of them shall have the sixth of what he has left if he has a child, but if he has no child and (only) his two parents inherit him, then his mother shall have the third; but if he has brothers, then his mother shall have the sixth after (the payment of) a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt;) (4: 11)   

However, every Muslim has to make a will saying that daughter (for example) should inherit more than son, etc., with society as a monitor of justice. (It is prescribed, when death approaches any of you, if he leave any goods that he make a bequest to parents and next of kin, according to reasonable usage; this is due from the Allah-fearing.  Whoever then alters it after he has heard it, the sin of it then is only upon those who alter it; surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing But he who fears an inclination to a wrong course or an act of disobedience on the part of the testator, and effects an agreement between the parties, there is no blame on him. Surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.) (2 : 180 – 182 ).

Right of divorce

Right of man to divorce his wife – Qur’an says it is very complicated. Divorce isn’t the end of marriage – it is the last step of conciliation that will be done under testimony of two witnesses: ((O Prophet! when you divorce women, divorce them for~ their prescribed time, and calculate the number of the days prescribed, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, your Lord. Do not drive them out of their houses, nor should they themselves go forth, unless they commit an open indecency; and these are the limits of Allah, and whoever goes beyond the limits of Allah, he indeed does injustice to his own self. You do not know what Allah may after that bring about.  So when they have reached their prescribed time, then retain them with kindness or separate from them with kindness, and call to witness two just men from amongst you, and give upright testimony for Allah. With that is admonished he who believes in Allah and the latter day; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah, He will make for him a way out.  ) (research about this in Cairo, appears on our Arabic website:

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=59

 A Sunni man has the right to divorce his wife by only uttering the words “You are divorced”. BUT in Shiite law there must be two witnesses present for divorce to hold true, more merciful than Sunni.

Qur’an talks about right of woman to divorce her husband by giving him back he gave her in dowry, under monitoring of society : (Divorce may be (pronounced) twice, then keep (them) in good fellowship or let (them) go with kindness; and it is not lawful for you to take any part of what you have given them, unless both fear that they cannot keep within the limits of Allah; then if you fear that they cannot keep within the limits of Allah, there is no blame on them for what she gives up to become free thereby. These are the limits of Allah, so do not exceed them and whoever exceeds the limits of Allah those are the unjust   ) (2: 229).

In Egypt, they tried to make this a law, but the Sunni Muslim brotherhood rejected the right of a woman to divorce her husband.

Women as witness

Woman is equal to man as witness in everything, but not in the oral testimony in the contracting debts. It has nothing to do with the written testimony:

Allah says :( O you who believe! when you deal with each other in contracting a debt for a fixed time, then write it down; and let a scribe write it down between you in fairness; and the scribe should not refuse to write as Allah has taught him, so he should write; and let him who owes the debt dictate, and he should be careful of (his duty to) Allah, his Lord, and not diminish anything from it; but if he who owes the debt is unsound in understanding, or weak, or (if) he is not able to dictate himself, let his guardian dictate with fairness; and call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the second of the two may remind the other; ) ( 2 : 282 )

Right of women to work / choose work / equal compensation

Right to travel–

Qur’an talks about right to travel and seeking means of living for all humans, men and woman on basis of equality and opportunities for all the seekers and searchers. Allah says about this earth: (And He placed in it mountains above its surface and He blessed it therein and made therein its foods, in four periods: alike for the seekers.  ) (41: 10).

Allah orders all human , male and female to walk the earth looking for means of living : (He it is Who made the earth smooth for you, therefore go about in the spacious sides thereof, and eat of His sustenance, and to Him is the return after death.) (67: 15)

More over, the woman in Islam is ordered to immigrate like man in the cause of God to avoid religious persecution. If it is hard to travel, permission was given to shorten prayer if there is a real danger ( 4 : 101 ). So, the woman who is able to immigrate and refuses will be put in hell fire:  (Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their selves, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah's earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So to those, their abode is hell, and it is an evil resort . Except those who are (really) weak and oppressed - men, women, and children - who have no means in their power, nor (a guide-post) to their way.So those, it may be, that Allah will pardon them, and Allah is oft Pardoning, oft Forgiving) ( 4 : 97 : 99 ).

Early Muslims in Mecca were persecuted, so many of them men and women had to escape to Ethiopia twice, and then the third one was to Al Medina. Some Muslim women immigrated leaving behind their infidel husbands, some girls immigrated independently for the cause. So, they were educated to be activists from the beginning. They established with men the first (and the last) real Islamic state with Prophet Mohammed. Islamic state consists of a deal/contract among individuals who agree to form or create states – women have a role.

Sura ( 60 : 10 : 12 ) gives more details : (O you who believe! when believing women come to you flying, then examine them; Allah knows best their faith; then if you find them to be believing women, do not send them back to the unbelievers, neither are these (women) lawful for them, nor are those (men) lawful for them, and give them what they have spent; and no blame attaches to you in marrying them when you give them their dowries; and hold not to the ties of marriage of unbelieving women, and ask for what you have spent, and let them ask for what they have spent. That is Allah's judgment; He judges between you, and Allah is All Knowing, Wise. And if anything (out of the dowries) of your wives has passed away from you to the unbelievers, then your turn comes, give to those whose wives have gone away the like of what they have spent, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah in Whom you believe. O Prophet! when believing women come to you giving you a pledge that they will not associate none with Allah, and will not steal, and will not commit fornication, and will not kill their children, and will not bring a calumny which they have forged of themselves, and will not disobey you in what is good, accept their pledge, and ask forgiveness for them from Allah; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.)

 Two centuries after Mohammad’s death, they mentioned a woman who immigrated alone twice, without husband or parents, independently from Mecca to Ethiopia (Al Habashah) and to Al Medina. Women immigrated alongside men, to escape persecution, to their own Islamic state in the time of Prophet Mohammed, it was unlimited freedom of speech, belief and political opposition.

The ardent opposition in that time was named hypocrites. The hypocritical men and women used to compete with the believer women and men in the streets of Al Medina, playing different discourse; the believers advocated good and advised against evil, while the hypocrites advocated evil and forbade good. : (The hypocritical men and the hypocritical women are all alike; they enjoin evil and forbid good and withhold their hands; they have forsaken Allah, so He has forsaken them; surely the hypocrites are the transgressors.  )( And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship and they pay the poor-due, and they obey Allah and His messenger.     ) (9: 67 & 71)

Sura 9 – Qur’an talks about Al Medina in the time of Mohammad – how the hypocritical women and men are very active in the field of evil – ordering the evils and prohibiting the good things. At the same time, believer men and women were active against that, ordering the good things and rejecting evil, advising others to do good and not to do bad. In the time of Mohammad there was unlimited freedom of speech and belief. Believing women and Non-believing women enjoyed freedom of speech as they wanted, good or bad.

Worship: Controversy between Qur’an, Sharee’a and Fiqh.

Women actually were ordered to join the public Friday prayers just like men. Even in early writings and tradition there is talk of women sharing the mosque in the time of Prophet Muhammad. In the Quran, there is an indication that woman used to retreat ( E’tekaf ) in the night of Ramadan, but not to have  sexual intercourse in this case : (but do not have sex  contact with your wives while you are in retreat in the mosques )( 2 : More details

 Every kind of work is available for earning means of living or to work for God. It is all the same because it is all in the name of God.

Woman is included in every kind of work, in worship and in means of living.

For more details:

Immigration is suffering and hardship : (And whoever migrate in Allah's way, he will find in the earth many hardships and abundant resources, and whoever goes forth from his house migrating to Allah and His Messenger, and then death overtakes him, his reward is indeed with Allah and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful) ( 4 :100 )

In Immigration is rewards: (  And those who migrate for Allah's sake after they are oppressed, We will most certainly give them a good abode in the world, and the reward of the hereafter is certainly much greater, did they but know . : Those who are patient and on their Lord do they rely.) ( 16 : 41 : 42  )

In immigration: is punishment :(Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their selves, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah's earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So those it is, whose abode is hell, and it is an evil resort . Except the weak from among the men and the children who have not, in their power, the means nor can they find a way (to escape); As for such, it may be that Allah will pardon them. Allah is ever Clement, Forgiving.  : So those, it may be, Allah will pardon them, and Allah is Pardoning, Forgiving.  )( 4 : 97 : 99)

In Fighting in the cause of Allah;

General orders for all men and women :

(And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you, and do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits) (2: 190)

General excuses :(No blame is there on the blind, nor is there blame on the lame, nor on one ill (if he joins not the war): But he that obeys Allah and his Messenger,- (Allah) will admit him to Gardens beneath which rivers flow; and he who turns back, (Allah) will punish him with a grievous Penalty  ) (48 : 17 )

General rules for men and women according to their deeds and behavior generally:

For the bad deeds and behavior :(whoever does evil, he shall be requited with it) (4: 123)

For the good deeds and behavior : (:And whoever does good deeds whether male or female and he (or she) is a believer-- these shall enter the garden, and they shall not be dealt with a jot unjustly  ) ( 4 : 124 ) .

For more details that confirm equality between male and female:

(So their Lord accepted their prayer: That I will not waste the work of a worker among you, whether male or female, the one of you being from the other; they, therefore, who fled and were turned out of their homes and persecuted in My way and who fought and were slain, I will most certainly cover their evil deeds, and I will most certainly make them enter gardens beneath which rivers flow; a reward from Allah, and with Allah is yet better reward. )(3.195)

 (Whoever does good whether male or female and is a believer, We will most certainly make him live a happy life, and We will most certainly give them their reward for the best of what they did.  ) (16 : 97 )

(Whoever does an evil, he shall not be recompensed (with aught) but the like of it, and whoever does good, whether male or female, and he is a believer, these shall enter the garden, in which they shall be given sustenance without measure) (40 : 40 )

People misunderstand – virgins of paradise. According to Qur’an when people are re-created they are re-created according to their own deeds. All the “winners” on Day of Judgment will be one gender and will be rewarded in the same way – virgins – according to their good deeds.

So, it is about the deeds and the behavior and the work, not about gender.

Right to equal compensation –

Coming to work itself is the issue regardless of who is the one working. When you do some work you are paid for the work itself.

No restrictions at all on the exercise of these rights.

Accordingly, the good example for good people is woman, and bad example for people is also woman:

(Allah sets forth an example to those who disbelieve the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot: they were both under two of Our righteous servants, but they acted treacherously towards them so they availed them naught against Allah, and it was said: Enter both the fire with those who enter. And Allah sets forth an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh when she said: My Lord! Build for me a house with Thee in the garden and deliver me from Pharaoh and his doing, and deliver me from the unjust people And Mary, daughter of 'Imran, whose body was chaste, therefore We breathed therein something of Our Spirit. And she put faith in the words of her Lord and His scriptures, and was of the obedient) ( 66 : 10 - 12 )

Here, you find two women who were supposed to be good because they were wives of two messengers of God (Wife of Noah and wife of Lot) but they acted independently against their husbands, so, they became a bad example for all disbelievers.

On the other side, there was Pharaoh of Moses, the worst tyrant, but his wife chose to be a good believer, so she becomes an example for all believers along with Mary the mother of Jesus Christ. Two good women from different background, but they chose the right path and become an example of the good people to mankind.

About Mary (Meryem daughter of Imran and the mother of Jesus, Allah said: (And when the angels said: O Meryem! surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worldO Meryem! keep obedient to your Lord and humble yourself, and bow down with those who bow)(3: 42: 43).

Working woman in Quranic stories:

Story of Moses:

In the first part of the Quranic story of Moses as a child, women played the primary part. The first part is for the mother and sister and Pharaoh’s wife: (When We revealed to your mother what was revealed Saying: Put him into a chest, then cast it down into the river, then the river shall throw him on the shore; there shall take him up one who is an enemy to Me and enemy to him, and I cast down upon you compassion from Me, and that you might be brought up before My eyes. When your sister went and said: Shall I direct you to one who will take charge of him? So We brought you back to your mother, that her eye might be delighted and she should not grieve) (20: 38 – 40)

For more details: (And We revealed to Musa's mothers, saying: suckle him, then when you fear for him, cast him into the river and do not fear nor grieve; surely We will bring him back to you and make him one of the messengers. : Then the people of Pharaoh picked him up (from the river): (It was intended) that (Moses) should be to them an adversary and a cause of sorrow: for Pharaoh and Haman and (all) their hosts were men of sin. And Pharaoh’s wife said: A joy of the eye, for me and for you; do not slay him; maybe he will be useful for us, or we may take him for a son; and they did not perceive. And the heart of Musa's mother was void (from anxiety), she would have almost disclosed it, had We not strengthened her heart so that she might be of the believers. And she said to his sister: Follow him up. So she watched him from a distance while they did not perceive. And we ordained that he refused suckle at first, until (His sister came up and) said: "Shall I point out to you the people of a house that will nourish and bring him up for you and be sincerely attached to him?".. : So We gave him back to his mother that her eye might be delighted, and that she might no grieve, and that she might know that the promise of Allah is true, but most of them do not know.) (82 : 7 -13  ).

Here, we find some hidden observations:

• There is no indication as to the father of Moses, while he was alive. All the rules are for women.
• 
  Women here were working their nature work towards the child, except his sister who followed her child brother risking and endangering her life.
• 
  There was reference to the women who tried to suckle the child.

In the second part, when he became an adult, women played the main part also when he escaped to Medyan :

(And when he turned his face towards Medyan, he said: Maybe my Lord will guide me on the right path. : And when he came to the water of Medyan, he found there a group of men watering their flocks, and he found besides them two women keeping back (their flocks). He said: What is the matter with you? They said: We cannot water until the shepherds take away (their sheep) from the water, and our father is a very old man. : So he watered (their sheep) for them, then went back to the shade and said: My Lord! surely I stand in need of whatever good Thou send down to me.Then one of the two women came to him walking bashfully. She said: My father invites you that he may give you the reward of your having watered for us. So when he came to him and gave to him the account, he said: Fear not, you are secure from the unjust people. Said one of them: O my father! employ him, surely the best of those that you can employ is the strong man, the faithful one. : He said: I desire to marry one of these two daughters of mine to you on condition that you should serve me for eight years; but if you complete ten, it will be of your own free will, and I do not wish to be hard to you; if Allah please, you will find me one of the good. He said: This shall be (an agreement) between me and you; whichever of the two terms I fulfill, there shall be no wrongdoing to me; and Allah is a witness of what we say.) (28: 22 - 28).

Here, we find some indications:

1 – Women do the hard work of men to help the old father.

2 –One Woman has a strong personality and character to give piece of advice to her father to hire Moses and also has a good understanding of that strange man ( Moses ).

The wife of Moses accompanied him in his journey back to Egypt, and In Sinai Moses was chosen by Allah to be  messenger of Allah to Pharaoh, to save the children of Israel: (So when Musa had fulfilled the term, and he journeyed with his family, he perceived on this side of the mountain a fire. He said to his family: Wait, I have seen a fire, maybe I will bring to you from it some news or a swath of fire, so that you may warm yourselves.) ( 28 : 29 ). (And has the story of Musa come to you? When he saw a fire, he said to his family: Stop, for surely I see a fire, haply I may bring to you there-from a live coal or find guidance at the fire). (20:9 - 10).

Because of the greatness of his mother, Aaron  used to call his brother Moses ( Son of my mother.: (He said: O son of my mother! seize me not by my beard nor by my head; surely I was afraid lest you should say: You have caused a division among the children of Israel and not waited for my word. )(20: 94).

Comparing Pharaoh and Queen of Sheba:

 The Quran does not object to the fact that a woman was a ruler. She was provided every requisite and had a great throne. But the objection was that she and her people worshiped the sun. For that reason king Solomon sent her a message inviting her to embrace Islam. He directed the message to her because she represented her people. That also shows that her reign was considered lawful. From the descriptions in the Quran she was well revered by her chiefs as she was asking their advice in the matter of this message. They were all waiting for her decision believing in her and telling her that they would obey any decision she takes. She was wise enough not to answer Solomon’s letter by waging war or by making it a personal matter but she thought of the well being of her people and how they would suffer from such a war. She was wise to say "if kings enter a town they spoil it and humiliate the most respected ones in it." True because lands have only been spoiled but by tyrant mindless rulers that we still see around us. They would bow to stronger powers and oppress their own people. The queen of Sheba proved her intelligence by sending Solomon a present just to buy herself more time to decide what to do. At the end she proves more intelligent when she embraced Islam and saved herself and her people in this life and in the hereafter and she said "O my Lord I have indeed wronged my soul: I do (now) submit (in Islam), with Solomon, to the Lord of the Worlds".

Look at details in the Quran: (27: 23 - 44).

So, in the Quranic stories we find two major examples of tyrant rulers; one is a man that is Pharaoh and the other is a woman that is the queen of Sheba. And even though the story of Pharaoh was repeated several times the story of the queen of Sheba is only mentioned once. Similarities between Pharaoh and the queen of Sheba They were both tyrant who enjoyed total power. When Pharaoh had total control over Egypt’s wealth and army he made a clear statement saying "O my people! Does not the dominion of Egypt belong to me, (witness) these streams flowing underneath me, what see ye not then?" (43:51). The Pharaohs’ history confirms that the pharaohs had complete power over politics, wealth and military forces especially after they controlled the feudal lords along the riverbanks. They established a central power that would not function without the orders of the "president"!! Similarly the queen of Sheba was the autocratic holder of wealth and power. In the Quran it says "I found (there) a woman ruling over them and provided with every requisite; and she has a magnificent throne." (27:23), and her chiefs confirm her autonomous power by saying "we are endued with strength, and given to vehement war: but the command is with thee; so consider what thou wilt command." (27:33).

 God considers Pharaoh to be representing the Egyptians just as the Queen of Sheba was representing her people. Pharaoh was sent two prophets from God, Moses and his brother Aaron, they were asked to "speak to him mildly; perchance he may take warning or fear (Allah)" (20:44) and in a similar way the queen of Sheba was sent a message from the prophet Solomon since she represented her people. Although there are great similarities between these two rulers yet their reactions were completely different, and so were the destinies of their people. Moses and Aaron’s main mission was to deliver the people of Israel from the Pharaonic persecution and to take Pharaoh Permission to them out of Egypt. They were ordered to say "verily we are messengers sent by thy Lord; send forth, therefore, the Children of Israel with us, and afflict them not."(20:47) God had asked his prophet to ask in a gentle and peaceful fashion as they said "with a sign, indeed, have we come from thy Lord! And peace to all who follow guidance!" (20:47) And Moses was endowed with miracles to convince Pharaoh that he was a true prophet. Pharaoh was perfectly capable of granting Moses’ wish and allowing the Hebrews whom he hated, to leave. He had nothing to fear. On the one hand his army was far too great to consider the Israelites a threat, and on the other hand the persecution had weakened the Israelites to the extent that it took them after that forty years to gather to build up strength in order to enter Palestine. Pharaoh’s pride got in the way and he refused to let those weakened people go with the two prophets. As a result Pharaoh and his army drowned in the sea, sent to punishment until judgment day. The reason for that was the tyranny that leads rulers to assume divinity as he said "I but point out to you that which I see (myself); Nor do I guide you but to the path of right" (40:29) And because of that tyranny the destruction reached Pharaoh’s historical signature "And we leveled to the ground the Great Works and fine buildings which pharaoh and his people erected (with such pride). We took the Children of Israel (with safety) across the sea."(7:137,138).

 The queen of Sheba’s situation with the prophet Solomon was different. For Solomon was a prophet king appointed by God. And from this position he sent her a message inviting her to embrace Islam- and Islam is devoting your heart and soul to God and living in peace with others, and this is the meaning in all God’s messages- and Solomon’s message to the queen could have hurt her pride, but when she read the message she turned to her chiefs saying " Ye chiefs! Here is delivered to me a letter worthy of respect. It is from Solomon, and it is (as follows): ‘in the name of Allah, Most Gracious Most Merciful: Be ye not arrogant against me, but come to me in submission (to the true religion).’ “(27:30, 31) so even though she has full authority, she discussed the matter openly with her chiefs and read the message to them and described it as ‘a letter worthy of respect.’ That was a clear sign from her so that they would not respond negatively and vote for retaliation. And with the same calm politics she was able to reach a happy ending while Pharaoh and his people were resting at the bottom of the sea with their illusory politics. Here is the difference between a tyrant man and a tyrant woman. There is no doubt that a tyrant woman has less animosity and belligerence than a tyrant man.

Muslim woman in real life in the Medieval Age after the death of Mohammed

In the first century, even after Prophet Mohammad – women were very active on both sides –the side of Muslims and the side of other worshippers. Ayesha, the widow of Prophet Mohammed was involved in the political life to the extent that she was a leader of a Muslim army against another one. This has happened when Muslims – in contradiction to the Quran – invaded other countries and the result was civil war between Muslims. Muslim Women were part of those movements. Even in civil wars, women were part of battles.   This confirms that teachings of the Qur’an were applied at the time of Mohammad, but after his death, this dynamic movement went the wrong way.

 These concepts were ignored and abrogated – why?

  Muslims failed because of dictatorship that was the culture of the Middle Ages.The Qur’an is against dictatorship. Details are in my book (Democratic Islam and Muslim tyranny :

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=1846

Placing women in a second degree position was also main aspect of this middle aged culture, so  Muslims in that time responded to that culture of their time and ignored the real Islam. More over, they treated this contradiction between their actual life and the Quran by creating their new human made religion, like Sunnah, Shiite and Sufism.

Why didn’t women at that time protest that their rights were being taken away?

In the second half of the first century Arab Muslims established their empire from the borders of China to the south of Spain. They were at their peak. Women coming from all over – India, Central Europe, North Africa – as slaves. Men at that time had wives, and a great number of slave women who were more beautiful than Arab and free women (In the eyes of Arab men). So, women at that time and for many centuries were of two kinds  1)- The very beautiful : were slaves, served as second class citizens, mastered songs and dancing, 2)- free women, Arabic women, struggled to keep their husband’s attention, struggle was not for political agenda but for personal agenda. Women were competing against each other. However, Muslim woman in that time enjoyed more rights than women in the West. More details in Adam Metz book about the Islamic civilization in the fourth Hijri century.

Finally

Wahhabism has revived and restored the most fanatic Sunni sect in Muslim Medieval Age history and brought it to our modern times in the name of Islam. So, Islam becomes accused wrongly of persecuting women.

Sample 5

Reform the Islamic Schools in the U.S. to confirm and to conform to the American values and the Human Rights culture

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=7473

   Reform the Roots:

It is useless to try to reform the Islamic schools here without reforming their Islamic roots in the Middle East, the Wahabi faith of the Saudi State, and Al Azhar, the most powerful seminary in the Muslim world.

The deep roots of contradiction between Islam as a religion and Muslims as a people, who have their own human-made history, culture and political agenda, began after the Prophet Mohammed’s death. His mighty tribe, Quraysh, used the name of Islam to invade and occupy most of the known world in the seventh and the eighth centuries. To establish their empire, they distorted the Islamic Jihad, a word which originally meant to fig fight just to defend your country, and altered its meaning through the transgression of their actions against peaceful people. In the Quran, God said, “And fight in the cause of God those who are fighting you, and do not transgress the limit, for God love not the transgressors.”(2:190)

They attributed– falsely –a saying of the prophet Mohammed after his death: “I was commanded to fight the peoples until they say there is no God but one God and I am his messenger.” The fanatic Muslims, until now, believed in this Saying [Hadeeth] because it established the roots of terrorist religious culture. In favor of this Hadeeth they ignore more than 500 Quranic verses, which establish the unlimited right of freedom of speech and belief, and more than 70 Quranic verses that advocate peace as the real face of Islam.

In disobeying the real Islamic values of peace, tolerance, justice and freedom, the old Muslims fought each other for the vanity of this life in their famous great civil war, just three decades after Mohammed’s death.

After becoming different military parties, each party tried to justify its way by distorting the Quranic meanings and attributing false sayings to the prophet Mohammed. Thus, the political military parties became religious cults and sects, as each one of them had its own tradition. All of them were in harmony with their culture of the Middle Ages and its values of holy war, religious persecution and theocracy.

The Muslims are still enslaved by their Middle Aged culture, while the West has established a new secular culture. Al Azhar and the Wahabi Saudi cult, with their influence inside the Muslim World, have made it nearly impossible to reform the different aspects of Muslim religious life from inside Islam.

After September11, it has become imperative to reform Al Azhar and the Wahabi faith, not only to reform the Islamic schools in the U.S. but also to save the Saudi State itself, Egypt, Middle East and world peace.

How to reform the roots

It’s easy to reform Islam from inside the religion because Muslims believe in the Quran, as the Holy God’s final preserved Scripture. If we read the Quran according to its terminology and codes, it will be very easy to understand Islam as a religion of peace, tolerance, freedom, justice and human rights. It will be easy, then, to prove this contradiction between Islam and the religious terrorist culture of certain Muslims, proving their real enmity to Islam, exposing them as criminals. This has been my argument in the Middle East for 25 years. It did work in spite of persecution. That persecution itself proves that they have only power, and lack of the real Islamic argument. Their power and influence defend only their lack of Islamic evidence.

 It’s not a problem to face them intellectually from inside Islam, providing the forgotten Islamic values which are the same as many American and Human Rights values.  The challenge will be to find whom it may concern, and respond in the U.S. and the West.  In the first section of this research, after a brief historic glance, I present two proposals to reform the Wahabi faith and Al Azhar.

The Saudi crown familyhas to reform its Wahabi dogma to survive in this century, as it must to choose either its Wahabi faith or its Saudi State. In this respect, the Saudi family has to: 1- Uphold the first Islamic value, the freedom of speech and freedom of belief, giving the unlimited freedom of thought and belief for all people in the Saudi kingdom. This will be a golden opportunity for the Shiites and the Sufis and the Quranic scholars to practice of their beliefs, and to discuss the Wahabi dogma. 2- Give equal opportunities for all the different Muslim cults and other intellectuals inside the kingdom in the media and in all different aspects of religious, cultural and social life. 3- To maintain a real, but graduated reform in the political, economic and social fields. 4- To encourage and help free thinkers and intellectuals in the entire Muslim World to participate in this reform through their writings and insights.

The Egyptian regimehas to complete the reform of the 1030 years old Al Azhar. Instead of being a religious Vatican, Al Azhar must become a real Muslim civil establishment, as there are no religious authorities or any religious foundation in Islam. It needs to reform the Egyptian legislation to eliminate all the rules which give Al Azhar the authority to control the cultural and religious life of Muslims, and to open its university and education for all Egyptians equally. Mainly, this would include providing the same opportunity for Egyptian Christians as all other non-Muslims to attend its free education. While Al Azhar gives free education for Muslims only, its funds come from all Egyptian tax payers, including Christians.

The main reform would be to terminate Al Azhar curriculums and courses that belong to the advocating of superstitions and terrorism of the Middle Ages, and substitute them with  real Islamic curriculums that come directly from the Holy Quran. These new curricula would be written by free Muslim thinkers. In light of the Quran and its terminology and codes, these new curricula will discuss the contradiction between Muslim traditions and the religion of Islam. In this way, al Azhar will present itself as an updated Islamic seminary, serving Islam and the real interest of Muslims in this century and the next.

The Reform of Al Azhar should be accompanied by the reform of the Egyptian regime, politically and economically. By reforming Al Azhar and the Wahabi Saudi cult, the Islamic schools in the U.S. and in the West can also be reformed.

Reform The Islamic Schools in the U.S.

These schools reflect the dominant Muslim Wahabi culture, not only by concentrating on hating non- Muslims, but by retaining the values of the culture of the Middle Ages. As a result, these schools are ignoring the great values of Islam, which are the same values of Western Civilization. It’s useless to reform their curriculum; the only way towards reform is to present to them alternative Islamic subjects, the neglected Islamic values of Peace, tolerance, justice, freedom and democracy. This section of research has these subjects as available materials for these schools, calling on the schools to reconsider this in their teaching.

After incorporating this into the research proposal, the next step is to present these written subjects to the Islamic schools and discuss the real need to change their courses accordingly. If they refuse, then it will be a unique opportunity to discuss this issue in the public eye of the media.  A public debate may disclose some absent facts concerning the secret relationship between some Islamic schools and other fanatic organizations in the Muslim World.

In such a debate, they will be faced with these important questions: If you really believe that Islam is the religion of great values, why do you ignore this in your courses? If you claim you did not have the ability to write it in your courses, and information to this end has now become available, why do you continue to refuse to uphold it in your courses? If you are against the fanatic culture, why do you keep it in your courses?

The final goal of this research is to make these Islamic schools serving Islam compatible with the United States nation in its war against terrorism. However, it’s not enough to reform the Islamic schools here. Islamic mosques in the U.S must be reformed to serve Islam and not the fanatics who continue to hijack Islam and American freedom of speech. This, however, is another important proposal.