How Old Are You?!

Published in June 11, 2008

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly:

1- Years after our book titled "Al-Sayed Al-Badawi between Facts and Myths" was published, we have received an invitation from an enlightened male youth to come to his native village to deliver sermons about our book, as he intended to save the villagers from their 'hallowed' myths of the 'saint' named Al-Badawi whom they worship, revere, and honor and they visit his mausoleum in Tanta (a city in the Egyptian Nile Delta) so often. We delivered our sermon about our book in the spacious house of the mayor of the village, who was the father of the enlightened young man who invited us there, and this mayor listened to us attentively and in awe as we narrated and debunked myths about Al-Badawi, especially that his real history as a Shiite spy who hided within Sufi orders to conspire against  the Mamelukes to make Egypt return to its former Shiite era. We went on in our refutations of Sufism and how it contradict Islam; as the only Saint and Ally for the Quran-believing people is God/Allah, and that asking for aid from the so-called saints is sheer polytheism and disbelief, and trying to get benediction from mortals and items is against the Quranic teachings.     

2- Because most of the congregations were simple peasants, we simplified our style of sermonizing as much as possible to make them understand us. We felt pleased that their facial expressions showed they listened attentively in awe and in admiration, and the mayor and his son showed respect and admiration toward us. All of them eventually clapped their hands and heaped praise on us, and the mayor felt proud of us and he invited us to a banquet. When we insisted on our apology as we had to catch the next train back to Cairo, the mayor surprised us by saying that after our 'great' word about saint Al-Badawi, we must stay for the banquet, and he swore by the life of this saint in particular that we must stay for the banquet and for the dinner as well!   

3- We felt sad that our sermon was of no use at all; no one listened to us at all, despite our simplified style of speech as well as providing evidence from the Quran, from logic, and from history that there is no such a thing called 'sainthood' at all. We looked at the mayor and felt sorry for him; he was in his sixties but he talked to us as if he were a 9-year-old child!  

4- Indeed, there is a difference between the mental age and the age in terms of years for each human being; this mayor was so naïve that he was like 9-year-old kid though he was actually in this sixties and had a huge, tall body and a long white beard! His childish mentality convinced us that he never listened to any word of our sermon that he arranged in his own house! What a shame! 

5- This incident reminded us of another one; as we used to take the metro and pass by Al-Darassa Station, in the Cairene densely populated Al-Darassa District, we saw the daily stages of building a mosque with a mausoleum to a saint named Saleh Al-Jaffery. We noticed that the two-story mosque had two tombs/mausoleums for 'saint' Al-Jaffery in the ground floor and the second floor! Yet, all people knew he was buried under the one in the ground floor, but both mausoleums had equal number of visitors to worship at them reverently as people in this district sanctify and deify this dead man called Al-Jaffery!  We saw a worker who stood with his unclean, coarse, bare feet on the head of the mausoleum as he painted the roof of the mosque from inside, while putting a cassette player on top of the mausoleum to hear a pop song, in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, that was popular at the time, titled "Up and Down"! The worker listened, sang, and danced while working with the paint, and we burst out laughing as we watched him, thinking of the gullible masses who will fill this location soon to kiss and worship at this mausoleum that was once 'desecrated' by this worker who stood and danced on it with his feet! After having a good laugh, we remembered in awe this verse that convey to us words of Abraham: "..."Do you worship what you carve?" (37:95). We felt that this verse applies to those gullible ones who worship mausoleums.          

6- Of course, what we have expected occurred exactly; sooner than we thought, people flocked into the mausoleum, and at the front lines venerated, honored clergymen and scholars in their fifties who kept kissing and touching the mausoleum in devotion, though they have their PhD degrees and they were very eloquent preachers in high ranks who wore expensive clothes; yet, they have childish mentality of kids! How come they do not realize the silliness and illogicality of drawing benediction from stones and building materials?! One of them even kept kissing a lock at the rear of the mausoleums, as if he did not know that this lock has the inscription (MADE IN CHINA) on it! This is indeed the mentality and innocence of kids!      

7- Someone might defend the stance of mausoleums worshippers by asserting that they do not venerate the materials by which mausoleums are built (cement, stones, glass, sand, etc.), but they honor and worship the saints entered under them. They forget that all entered dead bodies decompose and turn eventually into dust and ashes. Even the sight of the people of the cave mentioned in the Quranic Chapter 18 as "...They were youths who believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance." (18:13) when they slept for more than 300 years inside the cave became very frightening: "...Had you looked at them, you would have turned away from them in flight, and been filled with fear of them." (18:18), though they were living persons who slept for centuries, let alone the sight of a corpse turned into ashes, dust, and defragmented bones.

8- Someone might claim that a certain hadith 'asserts' that bodies of 'saints', prophets, and good people are never decomposed! If we to believe in such a myth, what would the worshippers of saints so when the so-called saints get out of their mausoleums and open arms to embrace and offer benediction to their worshippers?! The people would scream and run away in fear no doubt, as per this verse that will apply to them: "...Had you looked at them, you would have turned away from them in flight, and been filled with fear of them." (18:18). One may ask then: what is the motive and reason for worshiping and sanctifying stones and tombs?! Such naivety expresses childish mentality of those whose minds never grow up at all as adults! 

9- In Baghdad, in the 3^rd century A.H., a poet was eating at a market in public, and eating in public was indecorous and against etiquette at the time, and when a friend of his warned him against provoking people by breaching their rules, the poet asserted to his friends that they are not people; they are a mere herd of cattle! Within a bet between the poet and his friend, the poet's mission was to prove them to be cattle and not reasonable human beings; he stood in the middle of the market as an orator and preacher to deliver a sermon to them, and he invented and concocted strange hadiths to them, ascribed to Prophet Muhammad, covering many related topics till he got their full attention and positive feelings, until he told them a final hadith that a series of narrators said that Muhammad peace be upon his souls said that the ones whose tips of their tongues could reach their noses are certainly destined to enter into Paradise in the Hereafter! The poet and his friend so that all of the gathered people, men and women, held out their tongues to see of the tips would reach their noses. The poet won the bet, asserting to his surprised friend that those people are merely a herd of cattle!    

10- Within one conference we attended in Egypt to deliver a speech, seeing the elite attendees who are cultured and would presumably understand our words, we asserted to them that we must make sure of anything we hear as hadiths ascribed to Muhammad, as all hadiths must be rejected, and we narrated to them the above-mentioned story; yet, those members of the literati and the cultural elite let out their tongues to attempt to reach their noses with the tips of their tongues! As if we did not say anything in our speech, as they did not understand anything from what we have said! We said to ourselves that they were indeed a bunch of kids!

11- Islam is the religion of reasoning minds; the Quranic text repeats these expressions: (do not they understand?), (do not they ponder?), (do not they reflect?), (do not they discern?), and (do not they contemplate?). The Quran was revealed in Arabic for Arabs to reflect upon its verses, but they have not done that, yet: "We have revealed it an Arabic Quran, so that you may understand." (12:2); "We made it an Arabic Quran, so that you may understand." (43:3). The Arab mind is still in its infancy stage, though Arab men may grow long beards and moustaches, with strong and huge bodies, but their childish mindsets appear once they open their mouths to talk! This phenomenon compellingly remind us of this Quranic verse: "When you see them, their appearance impresses you. And when they speak, you listen to what they say. They are like propped-up timber..." (63:4).

12- Arabs have refused UN resolutions since 1947 onwards, though they do not have the power to restore their lost rights; eventually, they realized this fact that made their loss greater after they have actually lost everything and every chance. This is the same childish mentality in politics, similar to the one in religiosity and indeed all the religious life of Arabs. 

13- By the way, we pose this questions to our readers who are now reading this article: How old are you?!

Secondly:

  This article above was first published in (the independent weekly) Al-Ahrar newspaper on 3^rd of February, 1992, and at the time in Cairo, Egypt, our Azharite foes and sheikhs were over-60-year-old kids. This article has been published more than 16 years ago; yet, the same Azharite clergymen and sheikhs are still kids with childish mentality of infants though they reached their senile age! The problem is not confined to such sheikhs; the Azharite curricula and educational system are radically unsound and they cause physically grand persons with birdbrains to graduate as ignoramuses who in their turn teach their ignorance to other generations. Thus, childish mentality dominates religious life in Egypt (and other cultural, social, and political aspects). In fact Islamic rituals and rites are turned into means of amusement and idle play, just like the case of children in playgrounds or kindergarten! The examples are so many to be mentioned here; but let us quote a few. Any sheikh/singer would mound the pulpit inside a mosque and chant the praises of Muhammad by saying (O red-cheeked! O Kohl-eyed beauty!), as if Muhammad were a pretty woman! If this sheikh/singer would say the same thing about his own biological father, the latter would feel insulted and beat him! if he would utter the same thing about his wife, in public, his own biological mother would be infuriated as she hates her daughter-in-law. It is a shame that such singers/sheikhs do not realize that mosques are houses of worship that must be dedicated ONLY to God, and not to worship, deify, or sanctify mortals/prophets, let alone describing Muhammad in a sexual manner as if he were a pretty woman! Is there a silly thing that surpass the silliness? Certainly; when this sheikh/singer reach another higher level of madness and say that Muhammad is the Light of God's Throne! It is as if without Muhammad, God's Throne would remain in the darkness! This is utter nonsense and polytheism, and yet, no one ever dares to question such practices and words, as if they were parts of basic human rights, or rather rights of kids, within the societies of the Muhammadans. Another item to exemplify this utter folly is that Muhammadans all over the Middle East – Sunnites, Shiites, and Sufis – deify and sanctify mausoleums of Al-Hussein, their 'saint' who was supposedly grandson of Muhammad and son of Fatima, Muhammad's daughter,  in Egypt and in the Levant and elsewhere, and they claim that the severed head of Al-Hussein is entered in such mausoleums; had Al-Hussein sever heads then?! would this severed head be made holy and be beseeched to aid its devoted worshipers?! Why this 'holy' head failed to stop the sword from cutting its neck centuries ago?! Why most Muhammadans assume that such a head in the Al-Hussein mosque in Cairo is still alive?! Could a head be filled with life without its body for centuries?! This is laughable indeed and no reasonable person would believe such myths, and yet, when Quranists refute such myths, the Muhammadan kids get so furious and verbally abuse Quranists and accuse them of being atheists! The childish mentality of the Muhammadans is still there! They cannot in their 'innocence' and lack of reasoning minds understand Quranist refutations of such myths and they prefer idle play, amusements, and jests in moulids/feasts of quasi-religious celebrations in honor of entombed 'saints' in their mausoleums! This is their own religion, which has nothing to do with real Islam (i.e., the Quran). Such Sufi festivals of saints are filled with playgrounds, games, see-saws, and cirque shows, magicians shows, Punch and Judy, etc. for kids, while supposedly grown-up men (big in bodies and age-groups, not in terms of mental faculties) dance with all their might and seriousness led by Sufi sheikhs, as if they were engaged in congregational acts of worship! Such mentality of infants in religious life extends to all worldly life matters and issues; e.g., millions of Egyptians take to the streets to celebrate victory within a football match, while demonstrations of the hungry ones never exceed tens of hundreds of people, as the rest of millions of impoverished citizens remain at home, fearing the ire of tyrants! They are like their children who fear goblins and phantoms of night! Thus, tyrannical rulers are lucky enough to rule over nations of kids, or rather grown-ups whose mentality are like 9-year-old children! Grown-ups with reasonable, mature minds could never be deceived by mean, opportunist tyrants, rulers, politicians, clergymen, or charlatans. This is why it is impossible for tyrants to reform education; they desire to go on deceiving and riding citizens, and not to allow citizens to check and impeach them. Typically in democracies, governments fear their citizens and seek to please them; citizens there know and practice all their rights fully. As for citizens with the childish mentality, tyrannical rulers can easily use their power and cudgels to disperse and frighten them. Free citizens in democracies control their rulers, presidents, and ministers as their taxes pay their salaries. In contrast, citizens/kids in the Arab world submit fully to tyrants in fear and in humiliation, enjoying being ridden by powerful ones and they sing praises of the tyrants. But once any tyrant falls, they disperse from around him, just as typical of all kids anytime anywhere!