An Important Message that We Readily Answer

 Published in June 22, 2017

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Introduction:

1- This message has caused insomnia to us; we have decided to publish it partially here followed by our reply so that we can have some sleep.

2- Here is the message by a male sender: (... I will not reveal my name to you; you may remember me, as we met for the first time in a conference in Tripoli, Libya, in 1993, and we talked to each other; you have described myself as a distinguished Arab thinker, and you have given me a copy of your booklet titled "Will The Disobedient Muslim Be Removed from Hell to Enter into Paradise?!", and I have read it in one night, and the very next day, I met with you in the same hotel to tell you that I have some remarks about the book, but you did not seem keen on listening to me ... Years later, I read your articles in Egyptian newspapers and began to be convinced with your views ... Later on, I knew you've become a political asylee in the USA and later on an American citizen; I read all your articles in arabtimes.com, ahewar.org, middleeasttransparent.com, and later on within your own Quranism website ahl-alquran.com. In fact, I have read most, if not all, your archive of writings and books and watched all your YouTube videos  ... You are indeed a prolific writer of unprecedented innovative thought that I admire personally, esp. your ponderings on Quranic verses and refutations of the so-called hadiths and other Sunnite myths like death penalty for apostasy, torment of the grave, Naskh/replacement, and stoning penalty ... I like your proofs about Prophet Muhammad as the one who wrote the entire Quranic text with his hand; I like very much your books on pilgrimage, prayers, fasting, and zakat, as practices inherited from Prophet Muhammad and Abraham  ... at first, your books attacking the four pre-Umayyad caliphs and Arab civil wars and conquests of the so-called companions unsettled my mind, but later on after deep thought, I became convinced that you are absolutely right; I know totally and wholeheartedly agree with your views expressed in the book titled "Will The Disobedient Muslim Be Removed from Hell to Enter into Paradise?!", though I rejected them at first in the 1990s. I like the way you shock minds of readers with unprecedented innovative notions and findings of your researches; indeed, you have built a great pyramid like the Pyramid of Cheops of in Giza, Egypt ... Yet, allow me to give you a piece of advice; you are demolishing this great intellectual pyramid of yours step by step; your enemies and foes are so many people now, Dr. Mansour. Yet, the arch-enemy of yours is your own self. I assert this based on my admiration of you and your great works and on my care for you and your intellectual pyramid that has been  built for 40 years, since 1977.  Briefly, what you write in religion is being demolished by your political writings; it is true that you say you never impose your own political views on any of Quranists, but this is a ploy to make your political arguments infiltrate insidiously into minds of readers so that one day, they would be convinced with your political views ... Such ploy is fit for religious books and historical researches but not for your political articles ... It is not good that you mix politics with religion in your articles, though you are against theocracy and you are a secular writer who calls for separating religion and State ... It is very wrong of you to declare all Arab rulers as disbelievers who do nothing but evil and wrong steps; you never mention anything positive they do, though you have repeated that every human being contain elements of evil and goodness. People typically hold extremist views in politics and football, you know ... Even the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi whom you criticize and attack harshly is still loved and admired by millions of Egyptians, even if there are other millions who disagree with him in some of his policies ... It is hardly pardonable that while attacking Arab tyrants, you overpraise the USA, and the West countries, and Israel, which are to blame in many crises in the Middle East ... You have written about your persecution in Egypt ad infinitum, ad nauseam; how come that you've written that you feel that your Egyptian nationality is a disgrace ?! ... I lost all the sympathy I felt for you earlier; your political writings follow your own whims and you are never objective; you are taking revenge against Mubarak who arrested many of your family members; you are resenting the fact that your second son, Sherif, is sentenced to two years in prison in absentia in 2011 and is prevented from ever entering Egypt as a result ... This is hardly an excuse or a proper reason for attacking Al-Sisi ... You are wrong to mix personal affairs with political cases of Egypt; this makes you lose objectivity and neutrality expected from you in your political writings ... I shall never understand your deep-seated hatred toward the KSA and the Saudi royal family members; you claim without proofs that they incited Mubarak to persecute you and other Quranists in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s; yet, you claim you are 'tolerant' and pardons your enemies and foes ... It is a shame that you defend Israel, the Zionist entity, just because some Jewish Americans helped you inside the USA; and you defend the USA stances in all foreign policies without thinking because it protects you ... You claim that Arabs must get rid of the conspiracy theory leading them to hate the USA and Israel, though both countries are tyrannical and caused the murder of thousands of Arabs; you claim that Arab tyrannical rulers spread this conspiracy theory to distract Arab nations to make them vent their frustration and fury elsewhere; this might be true, but this is not the whole picture ... Besides, if this conspiracy theory is deep-rooted for decades since 1940s, why are you provoking the anger of Arab and Egyptian readers and provide your intellectual foes with a pretext to attack you and label you as pro-Zionism?! This might make many Quranists reject you and your website; Arab and Egyptian media are more influential on your readers, you know; I am one of your admirers who feel ashamed of your political articles ... You have indeed infuriated me with your recent articles about mosques of $ billions; why you declare those who build grand mosques as disbelievers?! Your feel quite envious of them, I'm sure, because you cannot build a Quranist mosque in VA, USA. You feel resentful because you have no financial means to upgrade your website and you cannot reach out to millions of viewers within YouTube! Your being impecunious leads you to envy those who spend millions to build grand mosques worldwide ... You have forgotten these facts: 1) thousands of families of workers who maintain these mosques are benefiting from their jobs there, 2) tourists admire such mosques and appreciate Islam more, and 3) money is not wasted in building such grand mosques; they are a joy forever as things of aesthetic beauty that are frequented by thousands of Muslims. You are a history specialist; you know that Egypt take pride in its centuries-old mosques in Cairo, built during the Fatimid and the Mameluke eras, as you have asserted in your book about the Mameluke Era in Egypt. Other Arab countries take pride in its centuries-old mosques in Iraq, Damascus, etc. Likewise, Arab rulers will be gone and their grand mosques will go on as things of beauty and grandeur; this is NOT a waste of money! ... Indeed, I agree with you on the fact that Egypt needs no more mosques and such money is to be used for housing the poor and the homeless, but I cannot agree on your attacking the Abu Dhabi grand mosque of Sheikh Zayed; his country is so rich and there are no poor, homeless people in the UAE, and its rulers helped Egypt financially a lot, you know. If Egyptian rulers stole money of the citizens, as you claim, this does NOT apply to the Gulf monarchies rulers; they use oil revenues to build mosques in their countries, in Egypt, in the USA, and worldwide to serve Islam; they use their own money, not tax-payers' money ... As for your harsh attacks on the Saudi royal family members, you overlook and ignore their endeavors to widen and enlarge the Kaaba Sacred Mosque in Mecca to increase its capacity to receive millions of pilgrims ... You have accused the Saudi royal family members of following the footsteps of the Qorayish disbelievers and polytheists, while forgetting that they have spent $ billions to serve pilgrims in Mecca ... I advise you sincerely to stop writing in politics and confine your time and efforts to history and Quranist writings; attacking rulers will avail you nothing at all. Why do not you make use of the lessons drawn from the careers of those who came after you: Gamal Al-Banna, M. Shahrour, Adnan Al-Rifaai, Adnan Ibrahim, Eslam Al-Beheiry, and Ahmad Abdou Maher?! All of these thinker did not reject hadiths and Sunna entirely and they did not attack rulers, and thus, their ideas spread quickly more than yours, and they have more followers and influence that you have, though you are more knowledgeable than they are. No rulers would use your trend as you are not flexible enough; those thinkers believe in gradual change, not in shocking readers as you do. The UAE is supporting Shahrour and the KSA Adnan Al-Rifaai, while you, Dr. Mansour, is suffering from marginalization and media blackout as well as lack of financial means. You have to realize that Israel will never help you and the USA will never trust or adopt your school of thought. I fear that eventually, your fellow Quranists might desert you and your intellectual pyramid of articles and books. Your stubbornness will destroy the Quranist trend; I apologize for my harsh way, but I really care for you ...).

3- We give our reply below so that we can have some restful sleep.

Firstly:

1- We are not a stubborn person; stubborn ones never develop their own ideas. We were at first a moderate Sunnite man, and  we have authored tens of articles and few books while assuming that some hadiths are OK and agree with the Quran, and we used to quote such hadiths in our sermons and writings. Later on, deeper pondering on the Quran helped us to debunk this myth. We have discovered that there is no such a thing called hadiths in Islam; the Quran is enough. Likewise, we used to sing the praises of Arab conquests while we worked at Al-Azhar University, but years later, we have discovered through deep Quranist ponderings that Arab conquests are heinous crimes and violation of the Quranic teachings. Likewise, we have derived from the Quranic text that the testimony of Islam is (There is no God but Allah), without any other words containing names of (prophets and non-prophets) mortals. Thus, within each stage in our life, we have corrected many tenets assumed earlier to be true. We are still outspoken and vociferous in declaring our faith and all notions we embrace. This way, our intellectual development in our career has witnessed many stages after so long intellectual and scientific endeavors and research; we are still correcting and rectifying our ideas using the Quran alone. A thinker who does this cannot be described as stubborn; we never fear the blame of blamers in all our intellectual stances and regarding our perception of the Quranic Truth.          

2- We are not stubborn regarding our political views; the only unchanging stance of ours is to be against injustices and the unjust ones worldwide; we are supporting human rights and defend the weak ones on earth, regardless of their location, era, color, race, tongue, etc. Hence, we stand against all tyrants in all eras and in the present: Arab tyrants of today and tyrannical rulers/caliphs like the Pre-Umayyads, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamelukes, and the Ottomans. While we lived in Egypt, we never flattered Mubarak, but attacked him in public in many articles and in forums and conferences; we used to suffer persecution, intimidation, and threat by the Mubarak regime; his State Security Apparatus me were ready to arrest and incarcerate us any time; this occurred three times. They told us in their claims that we pose a threat to the Egyptian national security; we never ate our words and our stances remain the same and we went on attacking Mubarak. When we settled in the USA, we realized the rights of which we have been deprived while living in Egypt. We have realized that the real arch-enemies are the Arab tyrants who destroy themselves, their nations, and their countries. This is why we call for peaceful reform on all levels; the religious reform is the basis of political one. Typically, Arab tyrants depend on clergy to ride them who in their turn ride citizens. Look at the photos of the people swearing fealty to M. Ibn Salman in Riyadh while Wahabi clergy are surrounding him! We do NOT call for destroying clergy of Wahabi Sunnites, Sufis, and Shiites by arms or weapons, but peacefully by intellectual endeavors to raise awareness of people using the Quran and our Quranist trend; we do this by spreading long-forgotten Quranic facts via cyberspace so that people would be convinced to uphold justice, the higher and supreme Quranic value as per this verse: "We sent Our messengers with the clear proofs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance, that humanity may uphold justice. And We sent down iron, in which is violent force, and benefits for humanity. That God may know who supports Him and His messengers without seeing them. God is Strong and Powerful." (57:25).        

3- In such cases, no compromises are allowed in terms of practice, thought, or in terms of the Quran itself; no gradual processes of change are required; the reason: God commands us to be outspoken and vociferous when we tell the Quranic truth, while keeping away and avoiding the polytheists/disbelievers afterwards; see 15:94. This is what we do now, and what is left of our lifetime is not long; we will not waste our days in making compromises with Arab tyrants or clergy of the Muhammadans. God never blesses the deeds of corrupt tyrants; see 10:81. It is impossible to guide corrupt clergy to repent, as they misguide and mislead people on purpose for the sake of money; see 16:37. It is impossible for those who spent their lifetimes in misguiding people to achieve fame, stature, and wealth to assert in public that they have been on the wrong all these years. It is no use to hope for such even to occur one day; this has not occurred in the past and will never occur in the present and the future. It is of no use to try and reform clergy at all. Free reformist thinkers like ourselves cannot make compromises with clergy to hide the Quranic Truth. God has said to Muhammad: "They would like you to compromise, so they would compromise." (68:9). When Muhammad tried to get nearer to powerful ones among Meccan polytheists to win them over to his side, they were about to mislead him, if it had not been for God's protection of him: "They almost lured you away from what We have revealed to you, so that you would invent something else in Our name. In that case, they would have taken you for a friend. Had We not given you stability, you might have inclined towards them a little. Then We would have made you taste double in life, and double at death; then you would have found for yourself no helper against Us." (17:73-75). Our enemies and foes in religion and in political stances follow the footsteps of the Qorayish disbelievers; in contrast, we as a thinker adhere only to the Quranic facts and the Quranic methodology of preaching and proselytization; we have written a lot on that topic.       

4- As for mosques, we remind you that the mosque established by Muhammad in the Yathreb city state is described in these verses: "...A mosque founded upon piety from the first day is worthier of your standing in it. In it are men who love to be purified. God loves those who purify themselves.Is he who founds his structure upon piety and acceptance from God better, or he who founds his structure on the brink of a cliff that is about to tumble, so it tumbles with him into the Fire of Hell? God does not guide the unjust people." (9:108-109). Thus, it was a mosque based on piety, not decorations and designs that cost $ billions. You are talking of oil-revenues as if they were owned by Arab tyrants! They are actually owned by people/citizens; the Arab tyrants in the Gulf monarchies are confiscating all revenues to live luxuriously using money that is no legally their own. West media talks constantly about such affluence of Arab tyrants in palaces, yachts, planes, bathrooms of gold, and $ millions spent in gambling and in fornication. Oil-revenues are actually owned by people living in the land where oil is extracted; e.g., inside the KSA, the oil-revenues of Al-Ahsa region are legally owned by Shiites who live there and were conquered and invaded by Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, as we have written in our book titled "The Wahabi Opposition Movements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Twentieth Century". oil-revenues are legally owned by other generations to come, not by rulers who confiscate oil-revenues to themselves, as the case with the Saudi royal family members. This is repeated in other oil-rich countries like Iraq, Iran, Algeria, and Venezuela. If you have read our book on Sufism and the Mameluke Era, you should have known by now that mosques of that era were built by forced unpaid labor (la corvée) and by injustices, looting, torture, and ill-gotten money. Thus, every stone in such grand mosques is filled with blood, sweat, tears, and pains of the weak ones we defend in our writings as history never praises or tackles them. We belong to the weak ones on earth in all eras. History tells us only of unjust rulers who built such mosques by flogging unpaid forced laborers who were threatened to be impaled, tortured, burned, or quartered in case they did not obey!        

5- We do not care at all about what you deem as intellectual pyramid, whether it will be destroyed or made to thrive after our death. We tend to think that Quranism will never die out, because it matches the modern-age culture of human rights, peace, freedom, justice, democracy, and charity. Even if we are in the wrong in some of our ideas, this is not important; God the Omniscient knows our soul and mind and inner recesses of our heart and how we seek to please Him with our peaceful intellectual jihad/endeavors. We never care to please and gratify people; no one can satisfy all people; besides, we are no political leader who has any ambitions or covets any worldly transient possessions, wealth, power, authority, or stature and has to please people to achieve certain personal aims. Preachers within the earthly religions of the Muhammadans seek to obsequiously please people to get more money and authority, while we are as a Quranist preacher spread real Islam (the Quran alone) and we seek no money out of this; we seek to please God with our peaceful intellectual endeavors (jihad with our time, efforts, and money) for the sake of His True Religion, while bearing patiently with our foes until God the Wise and Just Judge will settle our differences on the Last Day.      

6- Political and religious reform entails an example to follow, which is found in Israel, the USA, and the West countries in general. The contradiction is clear between rights of citizens there and Arab citizens deprived of their basic rights. In fact, Arab countries is like North Korea in tyranny. No one can deny such facts; Muhammadans seek all the time to immigrate to democracies and flock into their embassies for that reason. We never heard that Arab immigrants to the West seek to return to their original countries, or Israeli Arabs seeking to return to Gaza Strip and the West Bank. People seek what is better for themselves and their families; the West countries serve as excellent examples for good application of political and religious freedom as well as higher Quranic values: freedom, dignity, justice, charity, etc. and all laws apply to all citizens without discrimination. To quote examples of such West countries annoys policies of Arab tyrants who seek to spread the culture of conspiracy theories; as if the West, esp. the USA and Israel, conspire against Arabs and Muhammadans. This way, tyrants make Arab citizens vent their fury and frustrations against the West and not against Arab tyrants and their cronies, while all reform projects get postponed until conspiracies are thwarted and foiled! This way, tyranny is maintained and reformists are accused of being paid agents of the West, esp. the USA and Israel. For instance, as a reformist thinker in Egypt in the 1980s, we were on the brink of hunger for many years; yet, our foes wrote articles in newspapers accusing us of receiving $ millions from the USA while I had not any bank accounts! At the same time, Azharite sheikhs confiscated our financial dues and interrogations in 1987 proved we were impecunious and suffered abject poverty. Even a late Azharite sheikh named Abdel-Galeel Shalaby wrote an article saying we have not 'yet' received $ millions from foes of Islam! Shame on him! how come you desire that we compromise with such hypocritical and corrupt clergy? Would we please them and incur the wrath of Almighty God?!          

7- This means that we are not stubborn and we never follow our whims and desires in our religious or political writings. Those who follow their whims write falsehoods to please those who grant them money. What we write in our political articles can be checked from all news websites and newspapers of the West and of the Middle East. As for our history and Quranism researches, they are based on the Quran and on authoritative history books revered by Sunnite Wahabis, Shiites, and Sufis. Those who hate our writings in religious reform and denying hadiths repeat the same silly questions: how do Quranists know about prayers since they deny Sunna hadiths?! We have answered such question in our fatwas and articles ad infinitum, ad nauseam, and yet, they never tire of repeating the same question as they do not have any sense of shame left!  

8- If you really have watched our YouTube opening video of our program (Quranic Moments), subtitled into English and found on this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwJZYZZBZEs), you would not have written to us about declaring others as disbelievers; we advise you to watch this video in particular. You will know then that the notion of declaring rejecters of any faith/religion as disbelievers is an essential part of all religions worldwide, the man-made ones and the celestial one of God. The only difference is that this notion within Islam (i.e., Quranism) is not for persons but for acts, deeds, stances, descriptions, and words that are considered by the Quran as part of the qualities pertaining to disbelief, with the general, essential aim of preaching, warning, and reform. Declaring others as disbelievers in the Sunnite earthly man-made religion (esp. in its current Wahabi version) means to put the 'heretics 'infidels' or 'apostates' to death! This is NEVER a valid notion within Quranism (i.e., real Islam: the Quran alone). Quranist preachers cannot possibly preach without quoting the Quranic verses about the qualities/descriptions pertaining to disbelief/polytheism that apply to certain people's deeds, words, and stances in all eras and countries, in the past, present, and future. Quranists quote these verses to advise, warn, and preach those who desire to be guided by the Quran. Quranists never impose themselves or their views on others; they declare their faith outspokenly and vociferously and then respect everyone's choices to (dis)believe and to be (mis)guided. Quranist preachers never ask for money from anyone; Quranists know quite well that what they preach and practice provoke the fury of most people. Typically, Muhammadans donate money for preachers who talk/write about things/myths they love and desire; such as indulgences to enter into Paradise through the so-called intercession of saints and prophets. We are never one of those inveterate liars, thank God.                

Lastly:

1- Thank you for your piece of advice which will never be applied by us; we will not lose our future in the Hereafter, when all humanity stand before our Lord God for judgment on the Last Day, by pleasing the tyrants and the unjust ones. You can obsequiously please them as much as you like; those who ally themselves to the unjust ones and tyrants and join their camp of cronies are like them. We would like you to remember that God does NOT love the unjust ones, the aggressors, the transgressors, the immoral ones, the sinners, the tyrannical, the polytheists, nor the disbelievers. You can go ahead and ask the weak ones on earth about those categories, if you do not know to whom we are referring.  

2- We can sleep now to our heart's content!