In a surprising and unjustified assault, the Egyptian authorities arrested the representative of the International Quranic Center in Egypt, Mr. Abdellatif Mohamed Saied, and his assistants last Monday. Furthermore, the authorities broke into Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour’s house and arrested his nephew, who is a researcher at the Ibn Khaldun Center in Cairo. Dr. Mansour, the Center’s president, told Reuters yesterday that this could be happening because Alazhar Sheikhs and scholars wanted to avenge their shame and embarrassment after the Quranic people managed to expose those Sheikhs ignorance, by highlighting the contradictions inside the Sunni tradition reference books (Hadeeth) with the Holy Quran. The Center’s writers successfully launched a wide campaign on some of the faulty and (ludicrous) Fatwas and sayings of Alazhar scholars, which they attribute to the Prophet of Islam, and are using to control and brainwash the masses of Moslems. This campaign resulted in a widespread and unprecedented revolt against them and against their Fatwas. Dr. Mansour stated: “The Quranists who live in Egypt now, fear that this could be the beginning of a widespread operation to arrest everyone who belongs to this school of thought, The relatives of the detainees currently also fear for the lives of their loved ones, because the Egyptian prisons are filled with fundamentalists and terrorists who are brainwashed to believe that the Quranists are infidels, and worthy of killing, and this incarceration of these men could be a death sentence against them and a conspiracy by the Egyptian government to get them murdered in jail. Dr. Mansour added, “The Quranic School is nothing but a school of thought in understanding Islam. They are not a sect or an organization; they are people who believe in the true peaceful way of life as dictated by the Almighty God and as interpreted and understood throughout his holly book the Quran. A school of though calling for the culture of peace, freedom, and democracy from within and without Islam. Since the beginning, they have suffered from the persecution of the Egyptian authorities and the killing Fatwas issued by both the fundamentalist and Al-Azhar. Mr. Abdelatif Saied is supervising and managing a project for publishing Dr. Mansoour’s writings on the website, through the collection of what was published before in the newspapers or in the print houses, besides Dr. Mansour’s handwriting researches. Dr. Mansour had mentioned that earlier in his article on Ahl Alquran’s website and on other websites titled “My life’s essence for free!” dated May the first, 2007.

Dr. Mansour told Almasry Alyoum Newspaper that the arrest of the security forces to these members is to accommodate some demands of AL-Azhar Sheiks who felt embarrassed when the Quranists' exposed their fake Hadtihs, Fatwa of "Adults' Breastfeeding". Mansour described the arrest as the first harassmdults' Breastfeeding". Mansour described the arrest as the first harassment by the Egyptian government to the Quranists since 2001, especially while the Quranists have are not a political organization. Moreover, this [arrest] is defiant to all legal and civilized norms. Mansour added that the Quranist are not working in the dark; they believe that the Quran is the only source in Islam and Sharia, implying that such principles have been around since Imam Abou Hanifa through the days of the Sheikh, Imam Mohamed Abdo.



Mansour objected to describing the Quranists as an organized group saying: "This implies political goals," which is not true because the Quranists represent a school of thought built on forgiveness and diversity of opinions. Mansour assured that their work is based on the peaceful reform against ignorance and fundamentalism, and calling for democracy and human rights from within the holy Quran.



Names of arrested people:
1- Adellatif Mohamed Saied – 40 years
2- Ahmed Dahmash – 30 years
3- Abdelhamed Abdelrahman- 26 years
4- Amr Tharwat – 25 years