For Immediate Release:
Press Release from the International Quranic Center
Oct. 17, 2007

A call for “understanding and PEACE" was initiated by 138 Muslim scholars in an open letter addressed to 25 Christian leaders and clerics – among them: the Pope of the Vatican, Pope of Alexandria and the Archbishop of Canterbury. THIS INITIATIVE aims at shrinking the growing gap between Muslims and Christians in the world today. The letter comes a year after the speech of the Vatican pope that caused angry reactions in the Muslim world. In the open the letter, the Muslim scholars ask the Christians of the world to admit "the historical and religious relations between Islam and Christianity to build a future of common understanding” citing many verses of the Koran and the bible that urges "the love for one god and the love for neighbor ".

This is certainly a kind initiative, but it lacks the necessary sustentative pillars to succeed and be sustained. Peaceful dialogue between followers of different religions should be based on what is agreed upon by both followers and not on areas of conflicts. Because when the debate reaches beliefs, it highlights disputes and changes the dialogue to become a battle field where both teams curse each other 's sacred beliefs.

This is the reason for the failure of the Muslim-Christian dialogue so far, because the Muslim stars of this dialogue are always the pillars of Muslim extremism and the advocates of intellectual blasphemy. In this A call for “understanding and PEACE, you find many fanatic leaders like: Zaghloul Al Naggar who usually insult Christians in his T.V shows, and Ali Joma’ah , who announced in his fatwa that the urine of the prophet Mohammed is sacred, and Saleem Al ‘Awwa, the Muslim Brothers leader who is well known as the ardent enemy to the West and Christian and the Jews. They cover their ugly extremism while dealing with the West, but the mask falls when they are addressing their fellow Arabs, where their words are full of hatred against Jews and Christians. They all believe in the Hadiths that encourage terrorism. For example they believe in this false saying attributed to the prophet Mohammed: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe that there is no god but Allah." They all believe in preventing Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims. Moreover, they also believe that Non-Muslims in the Muslim State should be counted as second-class citizens and must pay tribute to the government for not forcing them to change their religion. Finally, Non-Muslims should be banned from recruitment and citizenship rights as Muslims.

These Sheikhs state publicly what the Koran says that there is no god but Allah, but in their home-made religion they deify the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and make him -along with his companions- sacred, against the Koran 's teachings. They usually say that the prophet Mohammed is the master of the all the Prophets, making him equal to God. They also make the prophet Mohammed the infallible one who will intercede for the Muslims in Day of Judgment and make them enter Paradise whatever crimes they have done in this world. By this false belief of intercession, those fanatic clerks brainwash the Muslims to be suicide bombers.

Thus, instead of addressing an invitation to the Pope's to call him not to take other gods to Allah, they have to look at themselves first and stop taking Mohammed and other imams and sheikhs as gods.

We, the Quranists, have been through three waves of arrests and hundreds of killing fatwas from those sheikhs just because we invite them to belief in Islam as shown in the holy Koran, which instructs us not to make the prophet, peace be upon him, sacred and not to differentiate between him and other previous messengers, and to stop the canonization of their human made tradition and lifting it above the level of the Koran.

We address all the advocates of human rights in the whole world to pressure those sheikhs to stop declaring non-Muslims and Muslim reformers as infidels, and most of all to let them state their true opinion on these questions: What do they think of alleged prophet sayings that puts Prophet Muhammad above the other prophets, and attributes Intercession and control on the Day of Judgment to him? What do they think of killing apostates, in the husband right to divorce his wife with just a word, and in the right of Muslim women to marry non-Muslim? What do they think of the right of Christians and Jews to build houses of worship in the countries inhabited by a majority of Muslims, the same way Muslims enjoy it in the West? What do they think about the right of the Westerners to preach Christianity among Muslims, like those who are doing preaching of Islam in the countries of the West?
The list goes on to confirm that those sheikhs are the ones MOST NEEDING reform and COMMITMENT TO civility.