FOREWORD:

The story of writing this research:

1- During the period 1977:1980 A.D., we were within an ongoing struggle against sheikhs and clergymen of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. They demandingly and adamantly wanted us to radically change our PhD thesis because it reveals facts they never desired to show to the whole world. We have insisted on showing and underlining these facts, of course, to discuss what is being silenced and hushed for centuries, in order to launch comprehensive religious reform. Among the points that incurred the wrath of Azharite sheikhs was a chapter in our thesis tackling the religious fanaticism against Egyptian Copts within the Mameluke Era, a type of bigotry and extremism influenced and propagated by the high-rank Sufi sheikhs. After long struggle and quarrels, Azharite sheikhs and ourselves reached an agreement during the summer of 1980; two thirds of our PhD thesis was omitted. The omitted parts were two large parts about the negative influence of Sufism on religion and morals. The parts spared from omission were about the negative influence of Sufism on the social, political, scientific aspects, among other aspects. As per this agreement, the chapter on the religious fanaticism was omitted because it was positioned within the omitted part on the negative influence of Sufism on religious life in the Mameluke Era in Egypt; yet, by means of tricking and resorting to ruse, we have kept this chapter by rearranging the chapter on the negative influence of Sufism on political life during the Mameluke Era in Egypt so as to include the chapter on the religious fanaticism at that era and how the Egyptian Copts were persecuted as a direct result on the political relations between Sufi sheikhs and Mameluke sultans. Thus, we managed to fool and trick the ignorant sheikhs who never read, and when they read, of course on very rare occasions, they never understand.            

2- Within the very first book authored by us and published in 1982, titled "Al-Sayed Al-Badawi between Truth and Myth", we have included some non-omitted parts of our PhD thesis, especially about the conspiracy of Al-Ahmadiyya Sufi order sheikhs to burn down all Egyptian churches simultaneously on one day. We were the very first researcher to unveil this historical atrocity and to research it thoroughly at the History Department, Al-Azhar University. Our research results yielded another astounding result; we were the first researcher to find out the plotter and conspirer who planned such atrocity, who was never unknown to the Mameluke authorities at the time. This criminal was the head of a secret Shiite organization which was bent on reaching power in Egypt and toppling the Mameluke caliphate to restore the Fatimid rule. This criminal was Al-Sayed Al-Badawi himself, the famous-until-now Sufi saint/deity worshipped at his mausoleum/tomb within a mosque carrying his name in the Delta city of Tanta, Egypt. When many plans to topple Mameluke sultanate failed, the followers of Al-Sayed Al-Badawi of Al-Ahmadiyya Sufi order tried one last plan to take revenge by trying to set fire to all Egyptian churches in all cities at the same time to make the Egyptian State collapse internally from within by turmoil and upheaval. However, this devilish plot was unsuccessful.               

3- In 1984, we have decided to teach to our students at Al-Azhar University several books that we have authored; chief among them was our book titled "The Characteristics of Egypt after the Arab  Conquest". Within this book, a chapter is on the persecution of Egyptian Copts after the Arab conquest of Egypt and how Islam is innocent of such crime. This book was one of a kind; the very first and last book to be taught at Al-Azhar University presenting hushed facts rarely tackled before, showing how persecution is a rime contradicting real Islam (i.e., the Quran alone).    

4- At the time when we have written this book, we have not met yet any Coptic Egyptian before; we used to meet only Azharite and rural friends and acquaintances. Thus, we have remained away for years from Copts while defending their citizenship rights, even after we tendered our resignation to leave our post as an Assistant Professor at Al-Azhar University, until we met and befriended the late great thinker Dr. Farag Fouda (who was assassinated later on by Wahabi terrorists in the early 1990s in Cairo, Egypt) who introduced us to many Copts; many of them are still dear friends until now, and some were fanatics we wished we never met with, but we felt that their fanaticism was because of persecution and discrimination they suffered in Egypt, and we pitied them from the bottom of our hearts.  

5- When the devilish bigots of terrorist Wahabi extremism committed many crimes of murdering Copts in Upper Egypt and elsewhere all over Egypt in the early 1990s within terrorist crimes, we have joined a group of noble Egyptians who formed what came to be known as The Popular Front to Combat Terrorism. We were this group's intellectual consultant on matters of religion. This front had exerted some measure of influence at the time, and the Egyptian State enlisted its help to face extremism of fanatic bigots in rural areas, Cairo slums and poorer districts, and villages in Upper Egypt. Hence, members of this front, including ourselves, used to visit hotbeds of Wahabi terrorist extremism in such areas in Egypt to visit victims in hospitals and houses and to denounce the criminals in open meetings and conferences with villagers and city dwellers. In contrast, at the time, civil servants and journalists of the government remained behind in their air-conditioned offices in fear, refusing to join us. Even some of such journalists began to write articles to flatter Wahabis (i.e., terrorist MB members + Salafists): the supposedly coming rulers of Egypt! Such hypocrites wanted to keep their high-rank posts! Shame on them! When the tyrant Mubarak felt he could later on manage matters alone without help of the front, he rejected our voluntary work and stopped us from going on with it; when the front demanded to be allowed to go on to nip fanaticism and extremism in the bud, after many terrorist attacks occurred, the tyrant Mubarak bared his fangs to terrorize us and the front was dissolved, as its members feared to be incarcerated, and many of them got a taste before of incarceration. As for ourselves, we continued our peaceful intellectual enlightenment project within the Egyptian Society of Enlightenment and later on within the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldoun Center, within its weekly forum, as well as within monthly and weekly articles in many Egyptian newspapers.               

6- Later on, an idea has occurred to us about forming an inter-Egyptian Islamic conference to discuss openly the issue of the persecution of Copts within Islamic/Quranic point of view within the premises of Ibn Khaldoun Center or the premises of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization. We have written a research covering that topic and proposed the idea to a famous Coptic journalist who was a friend of mine; yet, he stole our idea and ascribed it to himself! This 'friend' held a conference and gathered so many rich and affluent Coptic citizens to deliver their speeches, and invited us as the only Muslim attendee; he did not invite any other Muslim enlightened thinkers at all! The only research paper read aloud within such 'conference' was ours, but they never discussed it; rather, each speaker talked about other things, and they ignored our research paper totally and it never got published at the time, though it was the basis of such conference never heard of by the press. The only 'winner' within such masquerade was the Coptic journalist who gathered a lot of donation money from all attendees and this much-hoped-for 'call-for-reform conference' was sadly turned into a mere gathering for chitchat and idle talk.           

7- Once at home, we analyzed all night long what just happened at such masquerade; our only hope was to raise awareness of the vital need for reform from within real and only source of Islam (i.e., the Quran), because the problem lies within the terrorist Wahabi/Salafist thought that raise falsely the banner of 'Islam' to commit heinous crimes, as we have proved in our research paper. This paper provides a basis to discuss many topics on that subject by Muslim thinkers who sometime ignore and overlook many facts; indeed, they are to stress such facts, this would have allowed Egypt to crush and defeat religious terrorism and to stop the persecution of Copts by fanatic bigots. We kept asking ourselves that night: why people ignore and discard our endeavors for peaceful reform?! At the time, we have been almost the only thinker defending Copts without turning such intellectual, peaceful jihad into a means to get money; we have defended Copts before we knew many of them and earned the animosity of Azharite friends who antagonized us because of it; and sadly, no Coptic citizen helped us at the time. 

8- Eventually, the truth has dawned upon us; unwittingly, our research paper and our articles on the subject of persecution of Copts have been based on our defending our religion (i.e., Quranism) first and foremost. This has made all parties concerned ignore and overlook us on purpose; we have attacked Wahabi and Coptic extremists and bigots to defend both real Islam and Coptic victims, and most people do not like it. First of all, Coptic fanatics hated us because we would talk using the Quran and criticizing Muslims traditions while proving their contradiction with the Quran, whereas those Coptic fanatics desire to make Islam accused of terror; they hated us for drawing a line or a barrier between Islam and aggressive behavior of Wahabis and between enlightened Muslims and extremists. Thus, those Coptic fanatics are no different from the Wahabi terrorist extremists in their animosity and deep-seated hatred of Quranism and our person. Second of all, Wahabi fanatics wished to silence us forever and the KSA authorities urged Mubarak to persecute and incarcerate our person. Hence, we have understood that those who make history in real life are the non-extremists and non-fanatics. In our modern age, there is no room any longer for fanaticism, bigotry, and extremism. We understand the existence of Coptic fanaticism and animosity toward what they think of as 'Islam', and let us stress here that there are many noble Copts who know that Islam has nothing to do with persecution and oppression of Copts, and they are so many that we cannot mention all their names here, and their memory remain inside our heart as we live now in the West, away from Egypt. We apologize for readers for this long foreword to this research paper that we have written more than two decades ago, but it is still highly readable and very true and contemporary.      

Signature:

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour

May 2005, Springfield, VA, USA