The Interview of Dr. A. S. Mansour with "Egypt Post One" Website
Published in October 15, 2017
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
(The link of this interview in Arabic: http://www.egyptpost1.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1493953699-342x180.png)
An interview by: Nisreen Halas, Washington, on Friday, the 13th of October, 2017.
Dr. A. S. Mansour is known for his frankness as he never fears to be blamed for saying his views outspokenly; he resists tyranny with his pen with which he has authored many books and articles, and he always repeats the phrase that he fears no one but Allah. In fact, he was persecuted and attacked by almost all religious trends and political powers in the area: by the military regime and the State Security Apparatus in Egypt, Islamophobic secular thinkers and communists in many countries, and Wahabi clergymen inside the KSA. He was fired from his post as a professor at the Cairo-based Al-Azhar University because of his reformist stances rejected by Azharite extremists. After years of persecution, his life was in danger as Wahabi Salafists threatened to assassinate him for being vociferous in rejecting Sunna hadiths, and he was about to be incarcerated by the Mubarak regime, and he had to seek political asylum in the USA. The Quran-based methodology adopted by Dr. Mansour to judge all issues in political, cultural, and religious life is moderate and never extremist; he never violates Quranic sharia laws of Islam. Dr. Mansour defends the wronged (Muslim or non-Muslim) parties against the unjust, tyrannical parties, even if the aggressive tyrants claim overtly that they are 'Muslims'. We interview below Dr. Mansour, the head of the VA-based International Quranic Center in the USA, to get to know how moderate views can be useful to fight tyranny in the Middle East.
QUESTION: Your views are various and so many, but they make you hated and rejected by all political powers and religious trends that exist now in the arena in the Arab world. Inside Egypt, you have been persecuted by the military regime, the State Security Apparatus, and Al-Azhar itself, and many clergymen declared you as an 'infidel' and as an 'apostate' who 'betrayed' Islam. How do you view all this and how all such powers were united against you?
ANSWER: Because we are against both political tyranny and all clergymen of any type, and we support the weak, oppressed ones on Earth, past and present. For instance, we are against the tyranny of the four pre-Umayyad caliphs and those caliphs that followed them. We write also against the tyranny of theocracies, of the military regimes, of monarchies, and of secular communist regimes as well. Religious tyranny of theocracies is exemplified by Iran and the KSA. The tyranny of the military regimes is exemplified by Egypt, Sudan, and Algeria. The tyranny of monarchies is exemplified by Jordan and Morocco. Tyranny is a grave, major injustice and Quran-believing people must be against all forms of injustice. As a Quranist, we must be a person who opposes and writes against all types of injustices. Tyrants differ in their types but they agree on hating Quranism (i.e., real Islam) and our person. Some of those who call themselves Quranists do not take tyrants as enemies and never criticize them; this is why some tyrants cooperate with them. Tyrannical rulers never dispose of clergymen for their support, as the case in Egypt and the KSA. Clergymen rule a given country themselves in theocracies as the case in Iran. Being a Quranist, we defend the persecuted Sunnite minority in Iran, and the persecuted Shiite minorities in the KSA and Egypt. A true Quranist must adhere to the Quranic notion of absolute religious freedom for all people and must be against all types of religious persecution and all violations of human rights in the West and in the Middle East, and anywhere else on Earth. Our sorrow because of the persecution inflicted on Burmese Muslims is exactly lie our sorrow because of the persecution inflicted on Iraqi Christians and Egyptian Christian Copts.
QUESTION: Why is Al-Azhar institution against your person and your views despite the fact that you are an Azharite scholar?
ANSWER: Al-Azhar institution was established in 972 A.D. in Cairo by the Fatimids as the formal institution to spread the Shiite religion. It was closed down by Saladin, but it was reopened during the Mameluke Era to spread Sunnite Sufism, among other institutions that died out for the lack of religious endowments for them during the dark ages of Ottoman Era. Because of the never-ending religious endowments for it, Al-Azhar continued to exist within the obscurantist Ottoman Era; some Azharite sheikhs led the revolt of Cairo and the Cairene people against the French occupation led by Napoléon during the French Expedition in Egypt. This created a political role for Al-Azhar, and Azharites and laymen chose the governor Muhammad Ali Pacha to be the king of Egypt and the founder of a dynasty. Muhammad Ali Pacha failed in his attempts to reform Al-Azhar that remained in obscurantism maintained by ignoramuses. Instead, this king sent Egyptian youths to France to be educated within various fields. This resulted in the renaissance era in Egypt and the emergence of political liberalism since the days of Khedive Ismail. Within such climate of social and political changes, the head of Al-Azhar, M. Abdou who died in 1905 A.D., tried in vain to reform Al-Azhar; he was among the chief political leaders and the Grand Mufti of Egypt. Yet, M. Abdou was harmed and persecuted by sheikhs of Al-Azhar until he died while cursing them. Al-Azhar was never reformed except partially when President Abdul-Nasser made Al-Azhar University as part of the State sectors in order to make use of it to support his leadership of all Arabs. Nasser introduced faculties in Al-Azhar University to teach pharmacy, medicine, engineering, etc. and issued Al-Azhar Law No. 103. Yet, Nasser failed to modernize and sift theological studies and books of Al-Azhar like fiqh, hadith, interpretation of the Quran, etc. That Al-Azhar has been under the control of the State gave Nasser more power and authority, as Al-Azhar served him. this went on with dire consequences in the 1970s under Sadat, who allied himself to the Devil: the KSA and its Wahabism. This asserted further the alliance between political tyranny of a military regime and Wahabi Azharite clergymen. Al-Azhar has played more political roles since the 1970s, and this has increased during the Mubarak 3-decade rule, as the KSA controlled many aspects in Egypt (religious life, cultural life, education, media, etc.). In the late 1970s, when Sadat was alive, we attacked and refuted in our writings and PhD thesis the Sunnite Sufism while the head of Al-Azhar was a Sufi magnate, named Abdel-Haleem Mahmoud. This made our persecution begin. When we attacked and refuted Sunnite Wahabism, persecution was severer, but it reached a life-threatening level when we began to attack and oppose Mubarak and his tyranny. Clergymen of Al-Azhar in all eras typically dance in the processions of tyrants and sing their praises; Azharite sheikhs hate our person because we never do that and we surpass them in knowledge while they are a group of high-rank ignoramuses with stature, titles, and positions. They hate our person as we expose their ignorance and polytheism as they hate Islam (i.e., the Quran).
QUESTION: Most of your views are moderate and serve the public interest in Egypt; yet, they are opposed very much by Al-Azhar and Islamists. Is Islam an extremist, fanatical religion?
ANSWER: Of course not; Islam is only the Quran, and never books of Azharites and other Salafists. All enlightened views typically came from outside Al-Azhar or from Azharite thinkers who has rebelled against Al-Azhar such as M. Abdou, Taha Hussein, and our person: Dr. A. S. Mansour. Azharite clergymen and sheikhs oppose any ijtihad (i.e., innovative thinking and reform) because they hate to appear in public as ignoramuses, though the Azharite clergymen are really very ignorant people who fear rulers whom they serve obsequiously and wait for their approval to side with this or that stance. When Azharite clergymen grow too powerful, as in this era because of the KSA money, they defend Wahabism and refuse to declare ISIS terrorists as apostates. Azharite clergymen (who attack anyone who refutes the Wahabi religion of ISIS) are behind the incarceration of reformist thinkers in Egypt like Eslam Al-Beheiry and M. Abdullah Nasr. Thus, Wahabi Azharite sheikhs are behind the accusations of obscurantism, extremism, bigotry, and fanaticism levels at Islam; these accusations must be leveled at Wahabism instead. It provokes the fury and ire of Azharite clergy that we prove within Quranism that Islam is the religion of peace, justice, mercy, direct democracy, and absolute religious freedom and that Islam is against all types of clergymen. Clergymen are evil groups of polytheists who live off spreading lies (or rather opium) to the ignorant masses everywhere. Such man-made, fabricated, earthly religion like Wahabism needs the State to impose it on people and to silence all those who dare to criticize it and prove how it contradicts the Quran itself. Within more than four decades of Azharite and Wahabi control of Egyptian media, mosques, education, and culture, generations of Wahabi extremists youths have been turned into time bombs. We still remember violent demonstration of blood organized by Wahabi Azharite male and female students in 2013 and 2014 in Cairo in support for the terrorist MB and its ousted president. This proves that Wahabism is a veritable danger and it leads inevitably to acts of violence and bloodshed. This is way Wahabi hate any call for reform and preachers of religious reform, especially Quranists who call for the return to the Quran as the only criterion and as the only source of Islam, as per what we infer from the verse 6:114. This is why Wahabis read our writings and feel furious and hate our person; they impose media blackout on our person and on our website that exposes their deep-seated hatred toward the Quran and exposes their being ignoramuses.
QUESTION: You have written about the Quranist view that written wills and testaments protect the rights of women within inheritance shares; Tunisian laws now make inheritance shares of women equal to those of men, in violation of Quranic sharia laws. What is your view about this laws of Tunisia?
ANSWER: We have refuted these Tunisian laws that violate the Quranic sharia in one episode of our YouTube show titled "Quranic Moments" whose all videos are subtitled into English (the link to this subtitled video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGZbJJ-aEc). We briefly assert here that the Tunisian law of inheritance violates these verses: "...the male receives the share of two females..." (4:11 & 4:176). This law applies to siblings and progeny of the deceased person; yet, parents inherit equal shares. Islamic sharia of the Quran must be applied by Muslims. By the way, men are the ones who spend and provide for the families and pay dowries; the husbands spend on wives and children as per Islam. Thus, it is just and fair to make the male receives the share of two females in inheritance. Women in Islam are not required to spend on families or children. In Islam, justice is above equality. Besides, written wills and testaments protect the rights of women; a living person can give/grant (or sell assets to) women/girls when necessary within written wills and testaments. It is a major sin to disregard Quranic laws of inheritance.
QUESTION: What if a law is issued and imposed to make women have equal inheritance shares, especially that many women spend on their families and provide for them now?
ANSWER: written wills and testaments is the remedy in that case to protect the rights of women in this respect as we have mentioned before to adhere to justice as much as one can. This justice applies to a son, for instance, who helped his father in trade and made his father richer; he must have more than inheritance share by convincing his living father to give him more within written wills and testaments. Fathers like this should do this on their own accord to be just and fair. Shares mentioned in the Quranic Chapter 4Four apply only when a person dies and NOT before his/her death.
QUESTION: But you have approved the Tunisian law, rejected and condemned by Al-Azhar, to allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslims men, right?
ANSWER: We have asserted this view in our articles, fatwas, and videos years before the Tunisian law was issued. (links for the two subtitled videos: (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89itv_SWwA0(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W_P2AhBaxc). We in fact draw marriage contracts of these mixed marriages in Fairfax, VA, the USA. The non-Muslims husband must be a peaceful non-violent and non-aggressive person; this is the only stipulated condition.
QUESTION: What about the religion of the children born out of such mixed marriages? Would they inherit their Muslim (male or female) parent if they (i.e., the children) choose to be non-Muslims?
ANSWER: Real Quran-based countries must be based on absolute religious freedom and this is the state of affairs in the West (Canada, the USA, and Europe). Choice of one's religion is an individual, personal affair and no one should intrude. Children are to be raised as per higher values and performance of good deeds; they will choose their faith when they come of age. Anyway, they must learn to adhere to peaceful behavior all the time and to bear in mind that they will be responsible for their choice of faith before the Lord on the Last Day. No one is to coerce or force the children to embrace any religion. As for the Quranic inheritance laws, they apply to all Muslim and non-Muslim children within the mixed marriages.
QUESTION: Do hurricanes striking Florida, the USA, indicate divine wrath or torment?
ANSWER: Of course not; we refer you to our two articles in English covering that topic: (1) http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17202(2) http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17206
QUESTION: You have written than Muhammad is never to be distinguished or to be made to stand apart from other prophets as all of them are equal before the minds of true Quranists. How did you reach this shocking opinion that made others persecute you and declare you as an apostate?
ANSWER: We have announced this view, based on our understanding of the Quran, in 1985 in Al-Azhar University within one of our books titled "Prophets in the Quran", and we’ve been interrogated and persecuted for two years inside Al-Azhar 1985-1987. Our incarceration increased the number of Quranists in Egypt and elsewhere later on, and our persecution lasted till 2001. We hope that our foes would assassinate us to make us among those who are killed for God's sake and will enter into Paradise. We have chosen the less frequently trodden Path of the Truth. This is our dearest wish after three decades of suffering persecution and peaceful reformist endeavors and striving for God's sake. God is the One to differentiate among prophets; He commands us in the Quran to make no distinction among prophets at all. We are NOT to assume any ideas about prophets outside the Quran.
QUESTION: You have written that Wahabism has caused extremism and fanaticism within Arab countries and not Islam the religion of mercy and peace; could you explain this further?
ANSWER: Islam is the religion of peace, mercy, charity, human dignity, and justice (see 17:70 and 16:90); Muhammad was sent as a mercy to the humankind as per 21:107. Wahabis of the KSA have used oil revenues of petrodollars to spread Wahabi obscurantism, terrorism, and extremism worldwide in the name of Islam, hijacked by Wahabis. In fact, the KSA is the axis of evil and terrorism worldwide.
QUESTION: Before and after Arab Spring revolts, many youths declared their being atheists as they reject Islam and deny God's existence; are religious wars to blame to linking politics with Islam?
ANSWER: Wahabism is to blame; it hijacked the name of Islam and spread bloodbaths everywhere in the name of jihad. The Saudi money paved the way for Wahabis worldwide to control media, mosques, and education, even Muslims in the West are affected by the Wahabi germ. This lead to millions of gullible ones who have embraced Wahabism, the religion of terrorism, as though it were Islam, and many of them can be turned into terrorists. In contrast, many converted to atheism or agnosticism as a reaction to violence perpetrated by Wahabis. The only solution if Quranism, as this is real Islam and monotheism. Many people have converted to Quranism after learning true long-forgotten facts of the Quran from our Quranism website. The Muhammadans have abandoned the Quran and turned life into veritable hell for these youths.
QUESTION: What is you view about agnostics who believe in God but not in religions?
ANSWER: We respect the rights of all persons to choose their beliefs freely; we care only for the fact that people adhere to peaceful behavior and never to force people to accept their views in religion.
QUESTION: Saudi clergymen used to prevent women from driving cars and then the king has given women this right and clergymen endorsed this royal decree. What do you think of this?
ANSWER: We have refuted Salafist/Wahabi views of preventing women from driving cars (links of the subtitled videos: (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztWCGN4VBhc (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0yDvbhGxw). Such silly views were propagated by sheikhs in the KSA like Ibn Baz and Ibn Otheimein. The true Quranist researcher must be outspoken and vociferous in declaring the Truth without asking for money or rewards from people (see 15:94). In contrast, earthly religions have clergymen who conceal the Quranic Truth in return for money and will enter into Hell if they die without repentance (see 2:174-175) and this applies to Wahabi clergymen who serve tyrants obsequiously inside and outside the KSA to allow rulers to ride and control citizens as they before that ride and control clergymen.
QUESTION: What is your view about the changes occurring the KSA by the crown-prince who aims at limiting the authority of Wahabi sheikhs and clergymen? Does this indicate any religious reform to occur later on?
ANSWER: It is a good indicator for reform; yet, there are so many things that need to be settled and ended: the Yemen war that destroyed everything and settling the dispute with Qatar peacefully. The best indicator for reform in the Arab world has not emerged as yet; i.e., to allow those who hold opposite views (in politics and religion) to express them freely in media and elsewhere without being persecuted, incarcerated, or punished.