The Riding Ones and the Ridden Ones!

Published in January 2, 2008

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

 NOTE: We have received this email message and we publish its whole text while omitting the name of its Egyptian male sender; we will NOT comment on it. We leave the mission of writing comments to our readers this time.

The entire message:

 (Dear Dr. Mansour, I am ......, you would not be able to remember my name; I was one of your students at Al-Azhar University. You were my teacher at one point in time. Within my third year in the Azharite Faculty of Osol-Eddine (i.e., theological sciences), you taught us the subject called (History of Islamic Societies). At the time, I felt impressed by your Quranist line thought; I used to attend most of your lectures in other Azharite faculties. I never forget your lecture about refuting the Sunnite myth of the intercession of Prophet Muhammad on behalf of people on the Last Day. Your ideas changed me and shook me to the core at the time. After you left Al-Azhar University and got incarcerated and then released, I felt like visiting you at your house in Cairo, but people warned me that you were under probation and watched closely by the policemen who arrest all those who dared to visit you. Months later, I came across you in a bus, and I rushed toward you to hug you (you might recollect this incident, I suppose), and once I hugged you, I wept bitterly, and you were surprised and asked me about who I am. All people inside the bus watched the scene in amazement. I myself consider this moment as the happiest and purest one in my entire life. You must have remembered me now; you have invited me to your house and gave me as gift copies of your books. You are my favorite teacher; do you remember when I told you not to take too much upon yourself and stop your writings that incurred your persecution so as to avoid being imprisoned once more? I advised you at the time to write about other positive, harmless items instead of controversial issues that stir trouble and inflict persecution on your person and your family members and other Quranists. Your reply to me will never be erased from my memory especially that I failed the test of life and never applied your reply in situations of my life, until now. Your reply to me was that the cursed ones are those who know the Quranic Truth and remain silent about it and never preach it. You told me that such people remain cursed until they become vociferous and outspoken in preaching the Quranic Truth, and if they preach it, God will accept their repentance. I never saw you after this last time; I kept reading every single word of your articles in magazines and newspapers in Cairo, Egypt, and then on many websites and finally on your Quranism website. With the passage of time, I have changed to the worst! You are my teacher but I failed to apply what you have taught me! Let me tell the story from the very beginning when I was appointed upon graduation as a preacher in Egyptian prisons. At the time, when I was a young man filled with enthusiasm, a beardless preacher who did NOT wear the Azharite uniform, who was bent on spreading Qurnaism and all your views of True Islam, especially about negating the myth of intercession on behalf of sinners on the Last Day, a corrupt notion that caused Muslims to commit more sins, evil and immoral behavior, and many heinous crimes while assuming they would enter into Paradise anyway via the so-called intercession of Prophet Muhammad. I began to preach in prisons to reform prisoners; I talked to them at first about refuting the myth of intercession and conditions of the real, sincere repentance, while quoting your books titled "Prophets in the Quran" and "The Sinning Muslims: Would They Be Removed from Hell and Made to Enter Paradise?!". Few prisoners were convinced with my argument and Quranist views of yours that I preached; yet, the vast majority of prisoners rejected my preaching and protested vehemently. Soon enough, the administration of this prison rebuked me severely, and the bureau of inspection of Waqfs Ministry (i.e., the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments, responsible for appointing and inspecting preachers) sent for me to investigate the matter, and I debated with them and defended my stances and views (actually yours) by quoting Quranic verses. This 'debate' ended when I found myself being detained for one week in the detention chambers of The Egyptian State Security Apparatus. This was my week in hell; though I was never tortured, I witnessed the torture of some of the inmates inside the detention chamber, and I saw blood trickling from their weak bodies. I was intimidated and terrified; I was released out of detention and I found myself transformed into another person; I disobey God and obey State Security Apparatus men as if they were my gods! Upon their commands, I had to grow a beard and to wear the Azharite uniform of preachers. I had to preach sermons in mosques as per what will please the State Security Apparatus men who watched me closely to see that I tackled the topics they prefer from the Sunnite Wahabi religion. I obeyed their orders to the letter; I became one of their trusted servants/slaves. Soon enough, I settled as the preacher of one of the grand mosques in one governorate that caused troubles for security forces; I managed to apply plans of the State Security Apparatus men and made people there trust me and listen to my words. I am now a famous and rich preacher in the Waqfs Ministry; do you know why? Because I betrayed True Islam (taught to me by your books) by filling my sermons with lies and falsehoods; i.e., hadiths ascribed to God and to Prophet Muhammad as well as Sufi poems, anecdotes, proverbs, etc. as per command of those who watched over me. Of course, most preachers in most mosques do the same, but I copied in my sermons ideas from some of your books, only the type of the ideas that stirs no trouble for me, such as your articles about Quranic stories and historical narratives that make listeners draw moral lessons from lesser known historical facts. I copied so many ideas from your website; no one within the governorate where I work knows anything about PCs or internet; inwardly, I mock them when I see their awe and admiration regarding my deep knowledge. The more I screamed in my sermons about the Hereafter and Hell, the more people respect and fear me, and the more I issue extremist and erroneous fatwas, the more they hold me in high esteem and I enjoy high stature among them; most of the people there now blindly obey me! When I desired to control them more, I talk to them about the intercession of Prophet Muhammad, asserting this myth to them! I feel pangs of remorse and my conscience is killing me! You cannot imagine how people in the mosque would weep and express admiration loudly; they even compete for kissing my hands; as if I will intercede on their behalf on the Last Day! With the passage of time, I grew very famous and people flocked in herds to hear my sermons; even high-rank men of the State Security Apparatus began to respect me and talk reverently to me as if I were a holy man! I deliver lectures now on Fridays at noon and by night beside every Monday night. My office inside the mosque is filled on a daily basis with tens of people asking for my fatwas and that I interfere to solve their problems (marital, financial, social, and familial ones). You were my teacher once; I write this to ponder on the contrast of my being rewarded and respected for lies I spread, while you receive daily hate mail and verbal abuse because you are spreading the Quranic Truth. People now stand before me in awe, deep respect, and reverence as if I were a judge who can grant them life or sentence them to death with my fatwas! Typically in such situations, I would be sitting or lying on my side on a settee, talking to them disrespectfully and sometimes I shout at them to get out of my sight; yet, they admire me more for it, thinking as if I were a holy man! When I smile at them, even in mockery, they feel so satisfied as if the whole world smiles at them! They never feel the fact that my fatwas are all wrong and meaningless and contradict the Quran most of the time; I copy these fatwas easily from famous Salafist websites. I know that these fatwas are wrong when I compare them to yours that I read on your website. Frankly, I fear to copy your fatwas to them within the same topics so that they would not take me lightly and my stature and wealth be threatened. This is why I compare my state of misery to your state now; you were my teacher at one point in time, and I used to follow Quranism, but I rejected it because of my stature, wealth, and high rank, beside my fear of being persecuted by the State Security Apparatus men! My conscience is killing me! I feel the deepest sorrows. You are being verbally abused in hate mails because of your courage to spread the Quranic truth, while the likes of those who verbally abuse you beg me for fatwas that are wrong and follow their whims. I fear that if I have the courage one day to tell them the Quranic Truth and talk to them about Quranism, people will be my enemies and that the police might arrest and torture me in detention rooms, after being accused of denying Sunna and hadiths; I might be then incarcerated when accused of showing contempt of religion! I never forget the scenes of torture I saw in earlier years when I was detained for one week; I cannot think that this might occur to me one day! This will smash my image of an innocent young man who hugged you in the bus 20 years ago, who was your former student. You were my teacher once; I would have hugged you if I ever see you again in Egypt, but not out of sorrow for your being incarcerated in 1987, but to cry and weep over my despicable conditions; I despise myself very much. people think I enjoy the best things of life and its luxuries; I am very affluent now; I live in a luxurious villa and I am now building a grand bloc of apartments on a piece of land I bought with little money, using my high connections and authority. My ill-gotten money comes from my being a partner with some well-off people who established a company that stole lands of the Egyptian State and the Waqfs Ministry by buying them with cheap prices and re-selling them with exorbitant prices. My presence in the company as a clergyman, along with other Azharite sheikhs in uniform, gives the false impression that the company deals are being legally done! The well-off ones assume that their sins are forgiven and they are being absolved because of the myths of intercession and other hadiths I utter and propagate! Those sheikhs and myself receive little shares of the profits, while the other well-off partners take the larger part of the cake; we cannot protest so as to avoid being incarcerated with or without accusations; they might frame us to get rid of us if we pose a threat to them! You were my teacher once; please do not advise me of stepping back and leaving all this. How come that I leave all my power and authority     in the mosque and my high connections all over the State sectors?! How come that I cede my huge bank accounts?! How can I escape the wrath of the affluent ones and the State Security Apparatus men? How could I ever deprive my wife and children from luxuries to which they got used? My children are being taught in the best expensive schools. Some people advise me to nominate myself to be a member of the Egyptian Parliament to protect myself. I grow filthily rich also because of huge donations coming to the mosque and I confiscate them to myself! I am a thief! If I turned my back to all this now, I will be imprisoned and tortured! I cannot stand this! You were my teacher once; I feel ashamed of myself and I relieve and ease my conscience a little by confessing all this to you. I am very rich now and I have every luxury you can think of; yet, I lost my innocent soul of the young man who once hugged you in the bus. Please do not get angry with me; I desire to retrieve my lost innocence by confessing all to you. I abnormally fear being tortured, insulted, and imprisoned if I dare one day to be outspoken about the Quranic Truth; this is why I cannot repent and reform myself. I am not defending my stance; I know that I am a sinner and deserve God's punishment and curse. I remember your words about those cursed ones who stifle the Quranic Truth and never show it to people. Yet, the bigger curse must befall the unjust ones who control us within the military regime and police state; men of the regime intimidate and force preachers in mosques to praise Mubarak and his rule and to make people forget about their citizenship rights and real justice. Thus, the Mubarak regime men ride clergymen and clergymen in their turn ride ordinary people in Egypt! All clergymen utter nothing but lies; they never talk about rights and the Truth! My dearest teacher, the expression of the riding ones (thieves and tyrants) and the ridden ones (like donkeys) is not of my own phrases; this is the expression fashioned by my senior and supervisor in the Waqfs Ministry, who is a funny man who jokes all the time. By the way, this man is married to two women who never stop fighting each other and who are not very pretty women; to get rid of his problems with the pair of them, he secretly married a third and younger woman in niqab, about whom he says she is like a belly dancer and a 'pro' in bed! This supervisor takes Viagra pills to cope with her insatiable sexual desire; he once took the black-seed to increase his sexual ability (as per silly Sunnite hadiths) but it caused him to have diarrhea during ejaculation while having sex!  This man tells me, and tells other preachers, a lot of blue jokes and tales about sexual adventures. This man was your colleague in the secondary school; he told us that you used to mock and ridicule hadiths and Abou Hurayrah and how you refuted views of Azharite teachers and how they could not refute your views. He told us about the silly hadith you invented and ascribed to head of Al-Azhar: "The Head of Al-Azhar was asked about his favorite type of Egyptian women, he said Cairene women, then Alexandria women, and then women of Tanta, and he was reclining on a settee, and he sat solemnly and said reverently, but the best of them all are women of Al-Mansoura! And he ejaculated at once, without touching himself, by merely mentioning this!” This funny many talked a lot to me about you, Dr. Mansour, and he swore to me that Quranism is the True Religion of God, and that your views are right; there is no thing in Islam called hadiths at all. This man asserted to me that most clergymen know this fact but they never talk about it to preserve their high-rank posts and because they fear being persecuted, incarcerated, and tortured; and they fear to suffer the persecutions in inflicted on you in the 1980s and the 1990s. This funny man told me once that all wealth of all clergymen will double no doubt if the MB group would rule Egypt instead of Mubarak, because the Wahabi MB members will need more clergy that will ride citizens so that the MB would ride clergymen and Al-Azhar to control the whole of Egypt. This man hoped that Mubarak would be ousted one day so that the MB would rule Egypt! He told me to join the 'winners' and be among the riding ones instead of the ridden ones among ordinary citizens! From that day one, he and I joke constantly about the ridden ones and the riders! You were my teacher at one point in time; I know you agree with me that the real criminals are the unjust cronies of the Mubarak  regime who terrorize and intimidate all citizens and they ride both citizens and clergymen. Every clergymen who would step back and reject riches and high-rank posts for the sake of the Quranic Truth and to retrieve his self-respect and dignity was either tortured to death or tortured and persecuted till he would come back to his 'senses' and regain his title and rank under the control of the State Security Apparatus men! Thus, these tortured clergymen serve as examples to terrorize all the rest of us! I am to choose between two things: either to get incarcerated, tortured, persecuted, fired, insulted, and humiliated, or to blindly obey these oppressors who ride all clergymen, willingly or unwillingly. Please do not tell me to seek immigration; the West does no need to the scum of the earth like me; the Arab countries suffer worse conditions of oppression and persecution of citizens (for religious reasons) more than the case in Egypt. I have no existed from this hellish existence and my pangs of conscience are killing me still! I have no option but to stay in Egypt to be ridden by those in authority and in my turn, I ride thousands of citizens. I suffer insomnia now; even if I sleep for a while, I see terrifying nightmares; I fear I will enter into Hell in the Hereafter if I do not repent as soon as possible! I read your article about the inevitability of God's tormenting the likes of me (sinners and disobedient ones who repel people away from the Quran) in this life before their being tormented in the Hereafter in Hell forever. I am extremely worried and terrified that this may be my fate. The torment of this life to me is now in nightmares of my being put to death, dying in a car accident, my being paralyzed because of a car accident, suffering cancer or tumors, hepatitis, or AIDS or being terminally ill by any other ailment. My nightmares include that I see my children gone astray and lost forever and I cannot help them as much as I need their help while I suffer in silence in a wheel-chair! These hellish nightmares are torturing me! What is to become of me?! Other nightmares I see include the affluent well-off men in authority sacrificing me to cover their crimes and violations of the law, and I find myself imprisoned for life! Or that the regime men take their flight out of Egypt, while leaving us to the wrath of revolting citizens who tear up my body to death! All the affluent ones among the regime cronies practice money laundry and smuggle their $ billions abroad, while all my bank accounts are here in Egypt. I fear that I might be incarcerated if Gamal Mubarak is not appointed president to succeed his father! I fear that a bleak future lies ahead of me, in this would and in the next. I cannot step back and take flight! I fear that the coming president, Gamal Mubarak, might sacrifice corrupt clergymen like myself and imprison them to beautify his image! I live tortured now by constant worry about the present and the future. My pangs of conscience are still killing me! I know that I have betrayed Quranism (God's True Religion) and I feel that I have betrayed everything you taught me; you were my teacher once. Fear and worried make me suffer insomnia and nightmares; this is why I write this letter to you as confession might make me feel a little better. Please do not scold me or even reply to this message! I only seek some temporary relief from my pains by writing this confession to you.)