Was published in Arabic in August 6, 2006

Translated by Ahmed Fathy

 Firstly: divine revelation is the decisive factor to differentiate between a celestial religion and the man-made, fabricated creeds fashioned by mortals.

1- A celestial creed holds the divine revelation as its sole source, i.e. the divine book, such as the Quran. After the completion of the revelation of Quranic verses, the divine revelation has stopped forever, by the completion of the last celestial message to human beings, i.e., the Quran. However, the satanic revelation to human beings never ceases. That is why the Quran warns us of the continuity of the diabolical revelation of the devil, i.e. Satan or Iblis and his followers. The human beings who believe in such diabolical revelation simultaneously deny God's Quranic verses, as one cannot possibly believe in two contradictory ways of thinking. Usually, the diabolical revelation results in the rise of fabricated, man-made religions that struggle against one another for power and authority. Let us remember that the Quran is preserved by God until the Day of Resurrection, as the eternal evidence to prove the sheer falsehood of the diabolical revelation and its man-made, fabricated creeds that claim to be "real" Islam.

2- Through this above-mentioned satanic revelation, fabricated creeds grow to be so many within the umbrella term "Islam", whereas real Islam according to Quranists is sole the Quranic text, and each of these creeds hold its own sanctified imams and saints who have their own deputies, followers, myths, legends, falsehoods, rites, holy tomes for constant perusal and study, holy shrines, verses, supplications, incantations, prayers methods, readings to be learnt by heart, and eventually their own literature and heritage. The ruling force behind and after all these features is that people "in charge of" such creeds have their own material and venal interests, worldly ambitions, and hunger for power, wealth, prevalence, and authority, by means of their man-made creeds. Hence, no one among such people would readily declare the truth that their creeds do not belong to God and His Quran. Such a declaration will surely undermine their status and benefits. Their main activity is to assert that their methodology and doctrines are based on divine revelation to ''holy'' inspired men, falsehoods attributed to Prophet Muhammad, or the so-called imams/saints and any false prophets. Accordingly, their route to wealth, power, and authority is paved by lying to Almighty God and deceiving simple people to convert them as adherents and followers.

3- As the number of such doctrines and creeds that claim to be Islam increases by the passage of time, their completion grow fierce in the aspects of getting more followers, more money, and more power. The struggle eventually exasperates due to conflict of interests, and survival is for the strongest financially and power-wise, not for the intellectually viable. The Sunnite creed, with its ramified sub-creeds, is still the strongest among the falsehoods attributed to Islam by force, as it still persecutes other different creeds and doctrines imposed on Islam, as well as other creeds of non-Muslims. The Sunnite religion has countless victims with the passage of centuries in the history of the last 1300 years until now. Baha'is in Egypt have been persecutes by Sunnite Egyptians just as many others non-Sunnite Egyptian Muslims.

  Secondly: in the divinely-revealed religion, i.e., the Quran, religion is a matter wholly related to God only. This means there should not be any kind of mediators between Man and God. As for creeds fashioned by mortals, they are owned by mortals such as religious leaders of any kind who claim to be in charge of such creeds.

1- The divine creed comprises no clergy of any sort or even any so-called religious institutions of any kind. No mediators are allowed between human beings and God. Human authority should never interfere in such God-people relation, be it 'negative' or 'positive', existent or nonexistent. There is no theological State in Islam. The real ''Islamic'' State is the secular regime that separates politics and religions, and its sole mission is to ensure liberty of cult and religious freedom in both practicing one's creed and preaching it, as well as asserting values like justice, citizenship rights, and human rights. In fabricated creeds, there are plenty of clergymen and political and financial beneficiaries, hence the thriving of gaining wealth through creeds that continue to multiply and split. All people involved in such ''trade'' of falsehoods lie to God and his prophets, and create countless ''holy'' persons, shrines, imams, revelations, and deified mortals, as long as there are gullible people who would believe in such nonsense. Such market of lies and myths opens the field for fraudulent activities, and the struggle leads eventually to the sorry fate that the strong would annihilate the weak. Such false creeds owned by clergy and leaders might be strong or weak in terms of finance, power, authority, and the influence of its institutions. The strongest creed hopes dearly to monopolize the arena by confiscating the right of other creeds to exist and/or by trying to persecute other creeds' followers as much as possible.

2- Hence the contrast between the Quranist stance and the Sunnite stance as far as Baha'ism is concerned. The Sunnite creed is dangerously powerful, influential, exclusionist and extremist in its ardent endeavor to deny and wipe out other creeds. On the contrary, Quranists respect the basic human right to freely choose and express one's opinions and creeds (including atheism). If a Muslim chooses to convert to Christianity, Quranists respect the right of choosing for oneself one's creed, as one is responsible for one's life and choices in this world and the next. Whereas in creeds fabricated by imams that claim to be under the term '''Islam'', the clergymen tarnish the tenets of Quranic Islam by their behavior and notions and persecute Baha'is. Quranists endeavor to remind and warn Sunnites by the Quranic verses, not for the sake of slandering and verbally abusing Sunnites. Quranist do not slander or verbally abuse Baha'is, and call for their religious freedom and rights and denounce their persecution which is based on their creed choice. Religion is God's concern is one of the major Quranic tenets; it means that God is the sole Judge of differences in creeds in the Day of Judgment. That is why God gave us the liberty of choice. A believer, Quranist or not, should respect other people choice of creed or even atheism. Quranists do not ''own'' their creed or their Quran. This is God's religion, and He is the One to judge people, not people judging one another due to doctrinal differences. This is the true demeanor of Prophet Muhammad according to his personality revealed in the Quran; he could not harm or guide others to the righteous path at will. His sole mission was to spread the message of God, the Quran, by reciting it to people. As for Sunnite sheikhs and clergy, they own their creeds that carry their features and mentalities. Trying to refute Sunnite creed using the Quran is akin to undermining the power of such clergy, and poses a threat to their existing authority and political ambition. That is why they readily abuse verbally, kill, persecute, prosecute, slander, and tarnish the reputation of anyone who dares to oppose their creeds. Within this perspective, we can see how and why Sunnite clergy persecute virulently Baha'ism among other creeds.

3- We will give in the next few lines a living, recent example of deadly persecution. In 1992, Egyptian newspapers announced the creation of a new political party, the Future Party, whose aim was to defend citizenship rights against Sunnite extremism and covert and overt movements of bloodshed. Al-Azhar scholars issued a fatwa against the party and claimed that its founders were apostates. Its list of founders included no. 2, our late friend Farag Fouda, and no. 6 in the list was our name (A. S. Mansour). The fatwa called frankly for the killing of all people in the list. The fatwa was published in Al-Nour newspaper (of Salafist trend) and within one week, Farag Fouda was assassinated in front of his office. The Gamaa'a Islameyaa terrorist group announced in the BBC Radio that it killed him according to the Azharite fatwa. The trial of his killers turned into a trial of Fouda and his ideas. Azharite Imam, and MB member, Al-Ghazaly, issued a fatwa that the killers are innocent as they applied sharia law by killing an apostate (!) and their only crime was to overlook the role of the state that should have hanged Fouda (!)

 We, A. S. Mansour, faced such death threats with our only weapon: my pen.  We wrote a series of articles against Al-Ghazaly and a book about the heretic notion of killing those who renounce Islam. I refuted through the Quranic verses and using Azharite methodology the claim that such a notion exists in Islam. I wrote in one article about the excellent traits of the personality of Fouda, and that his only ''crime'' was to believe in God alone, not alongside with ''holy'' mortals and imams. That is why he has been killed; he did not believe in them (the sheikhs) and did not follow them. He even refuted their claims in the 1992 Cairo International Book Fair forum. He made them look stupid and lacking in good reasoning. God pardons the sins of man, while these mortal Sunnite ''gods'' never pardons anyone who would discuss their faulty notions. Such mortal gods claim to control this life and the next. Let us remember that Prophet Muhammad, according to the Quran held no control over his contemporaries.

 This explains the Sunnite violent hatred for Baha'is; they renounce the Sunnite mortal gods and have chosen another creed with other mortal gods. Hence, they should be persecuted and slandered in accordance with Sunnite centuries-old habit of coercion and compulsion. The same MB member Azharite scholar formed a group of scholars to persecute Baha'is and instigating the Mubarak regime against them.

Thirdly: conflict and struggle do not exist in heavenly-reveled religion, i.e., the Quran, but exist in creeds fabricated by men.

1- Celestial religion is based on peace, doing good deeds, forgiveness, brotherly love, tolerance, patience, and forbearance. God is with the patient people; a Quranic notion that has been turned into a local proverb in Egypt. Patience is one of the common traits called for in the Quran. Patience is rewarded in Heaven without limits: "Indeed, the patient will be given their reward without account" (Al-Zomor 10).  Hence, in celestial religion, there is never any room for injustice and aggression. Dealing unjustly to people in the Quran is often associated with polytheism and renouncing God. Injustice to people is linked to injustice toward God by worshiping other gods of mortals that urinate, defecate, become ill, and die or inanimate things. This polytheism is committing injustice to God. Another injustice is aggression of human beings against one another especially in matters of creeds.

2- Yet, the worst type of injustice toward God is attributing one' unjust acts to God and His religion. This applies to fabricated creeds that tier owners attribute forcibly to Islam. This is the link between terrorism and their false ''Islam'', not the real Quranic Islam. Waging wars in Islam is done only in cases of defending oneself against aggression, after trying to flee aggression by firstly being patient and then by trying to immigrate and establish peace by as many ways as possible. God tells us in the Quran that He does not like aggressors, and that He defends those who believe in him. The worst injustice is to be aggressive with peaceful people who never harmed you and to conquer their lands and to enslave them, and pretend that this is divine law, such as the case with a false hadith attributed to Prophet Muhammad that he was to fight every nation to convert them to Islam (!) this what happened when people of Arabia conquered Persia, Iraq, the Levant, Egypt,…etc.

Fourthly: the Sunnite creed reflects the greed for money and authority and tyranny

1- The Sunnite creed started off by conquering nations by military force under the pretext of spreading Islam. These nations did not commit aggression against Arabs. To justify such horror, Arabs created hadiths/sayings and attributed them to Prophet Muhammad after his death, as well as sayings attributed to God apart from the Quran.

2- The aggressive Arab conquerors are disliked by God according to (Al-Baqara 190), and within the Sunnite creed, such Arabs have been turned into infallible mortal gods who are never wrong, although they waged civil wars and internecine battles for the sake of power and wealth. Sunnite scholars admonish against discussing such wars so as to protect their warring gods. Many hadiths have been fabricated to prohibit tackling the taboo of these warring mortal gods and discussing their demeanor and attitudes. Sunnite scholars insist on the justice and unlikelihood of fault of these warring gods (!), and in order to spread these false hadiths and notions, they ignored and overlooked hundreds of Quranic verses that assert the fact that some Arabs in the time of Prophet Muhammad were hypocrites. Sunnite creed forbids people to judge the Arab history in accordance with the Quran, as if they were infallible gods. They lied to God by claiming that hadiths attributed falsely to the Prophet are part of the divine revelation. Any Sunnite who reads this opinion would feel extreme fear; as such contradiction to this Sunnite notion will certainly undermine the Sunnite creed altogether and prove it to be un-Islamic.

3- Against the Sunnite creed of the rulers rose the fiercest opposition movement under the name of Shiite creed, who in turn created its own tomes of hadiths and falsehoods attributed unjustly to divine revelation. Shiite rulers ruled for some time in history over Egypt, North Africa, and Persia, and they persecuted their Sunnite subjects and created their own notions forced upon Islam. Later on, revolting people have created their own doctrines and sub-creeds including countless hadiths, whose fabrication has been a powerful political weapon. Other sub-creeds rose out of non-political reasons. Some heathen and pagan notions have been revived within Sufi creeds under an Islamic guise and terminology for the sake of asserting national identity and other social reasons, and sometimes for the purpose of serving sexual desires and gratification without violence or controlling others. Some of these sub-creeds held no political ambition until after the increase of its followers and the aim of some of them to become political leaders. Several tomes tell us such historical accounts in detail.

4- the Sunnite creed remain the most dangerously powerful creed among other creeds attributed unjustly to Islam, as it has been created in the form of oral traditions in the Umayyad caliphate that have been written down in ever-increasing tomes since the Abbasside and Ottoman caliphates until our present era. The Sunnite creed has been re-christened as Wahabism/Salafism in the KSA, and spread by the power and influence of oil-gained billions of dollars in the KSA through all tyrannical secular and national Arab and Middle Eastern countries.

5- Within such totalitarian, tyrannical, and oppressive regimes now and before, the Sunnite creed has kept its features of tyranny, authoritativeness, oppression, and compulsion. The victims of Sunnite creed among all followers of other creeds are beyond measure. Baha'is are just among the recent victims.