Rules of engagement in war of ideas against Jihadists

  Part Two: To define its missions:

 Chapter I : Mission 1:  Defending the US

As a matter of fact, Muslims who immigrated to the US feel the differences between American values and the  unjust that controls the people in the so – Muslim world. The intellectuals among them believe that real Islamic values are in the US, not in the Muslim dictatorships. However, this fact is covered by hatred made by the strong Wahhabi Salafi brainwashing made by mosques, education and media. In Muslim World, the dictators support  this hatred in order to twist the frustration of their people twords America in stead of them, while the Wahhabi Salafi trends in the US doing the same job of hatred in their mosques using Arabic language in the weekly Friday sermons, enjoying the American values of free speech. By this hatred, they can recruit suicide bombers here and there.

Our mission is to defending America inside American soil and overseas having Islam with us against them to terminate their danger.

We published in this mission tens of articles.

Let’s look at some of them.

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Samples: 1

Freedom of religion and tolerance between Egypt and America

This article was published in Arabic in 08 – 06 – 2006

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=95

 The loving and tolerant teachings of the Quran and Islam have been perverted over the years by hypocrites who twist the word of God “Allah” to gain money and power. The consequences include the hateful ideology that has created several terrorist groups. This false doctrine of hate has been spread throughout the Middle East and even in America with Saudi money. 

John Henry below illustrates the dangers and intolerance of most Islamic leaders in the US and hopefully will give you insight on what must be done to make a safer, more peaceful world. To understand this story the reader should know that there is a difference between Islam as a religion and Muslims as human beings who have their own human traditions and human civilization and history. Even Muslims are not the same. They are mainly three sects; the Sunni, the Sufi and the Shiites. The Sunni sect is the most fanatic sect among Muslims. It has four schools; the most fanatic school inside Sunni sect is the Wahabi cult and its bloody terrorist culture. The Wahabi teachings are upheld by the Saudi Kingdom. By the Saudi money the Wahabi cult is hijacking the name of Islam, controlling most of the mosques in the U.S and the West. Because of their influence in Egypt, the Quranist Muslims were persecuted. The Quranist Muslims are free minded Muslims who believe in Islam as the religion of peace, tolerance, justice, human rights, democracy and freedom of belief and speech. The writer of this article is the founder of this new trend in Islam. As a witness he gives here his story in the U.S and Egypt comparing tolerance here and there.

 John Henry was born on March 27, 1950 in New Jersey to a rich Anglo-Saxon American family.  After successfully completing a high level of education, he worked as a diplomat and ended up working at the American embassy in Cairo in the early eighties.  At the time, John had a habit of eating lunch in a nearby cafe.  Not because it was the closest to his work, but because he had fallen in love with Siham’s eyes.  Siham is a beautiful Egyptian who has a bachelor’s in tourism and works at the Hotel’s cafe.  John would go to the Cafe even when he was not hungry and would always leave a huge tip (twenty dollars!) to get the attention of that beautiful tan Egyptian young lady.  He succeeded in getting her attention and was able to win her heart.  To marry her, John decided to convert to Islam and changed his name to “Sharif”. They got married in 1984 according to Islamic laws in addition to registering the marriage at the American embassy.  They had a wonderful life together.  Sharif, or John, was blessed with the faithfulness and dedication of Siham.  They had two beautiful daughters.  As John became more and more convinced with Siham’s genuine goodness and faithfulness, he decided to be a true practicing Muslim with all his being while maintaining a great relationship with his parents, siblings and the rest of his family.  His family was happy for him and respected their son’s freedom to choose a wife that he loved and a religion that he believed in.

When the happy family moved to America, Siham’s main concern was to have a strong relationship with an Islamic center. It was important to her to be able to impress John’s big family by being a part of a close-knit Islamic community.  John also wanted to have some Muslim friends, and even though he “looked the part” by growing the traditional beard, he was not successful in making Muslim friends.

John was diagnosed with cancer and spent five years fighting the disease with all that he had.  Unfortunately, the disease worsened and John spent the last year of his life in bed.  He would spend his time between the bed at his house and the hospital.  John enjoyed looking at his beautiful daughters and his faithful wife who dedicated her life to taking care of him.  Siham dedicated everything she had to her husband and her only wish was to please him.   It made her happy to see her husband’s smile when people asked him how he was doing and his answer in Arabic, “Alhamdulilla” which means in Arabic :” All the praises be to God”.

John had one wish, which Siham could not satisfy. He wanted her to bring him a “sheikh’ or Muslim cleric to read the holy Quran for him in Arabic. He felt that Quran had a peaceful and magical effect on him.  He desired to experience that feeling during his last days before he left for his journey to meet the lord, the creator of this universe.
Next to their house was a big mosque filled with tens of hypocrites with beards who claimed to be professional sheikhs.  None of them was able to make time to visit John and read the Quran to him.  Siham returned home broken hearted with some Quran tapes.  John had always wanted a Muslim friend to explain to him the meanings of Quran in English, but died before his wish was satisfied.  He died before he could learn what is eve more shocking about his “brothers in Islam”.
 John died on January 8th, 2005 and was buried on the thirteenth of that month, just a few hours before I started to write this article.  Between his death and until he was buried, Siham saw a new side of the hypocrites’ cowardliness.  She insisted that he get an Islamic funeral attended by his Muslim brothers, but she could not find anyone at the mosque who would listen to her.  It was expected that those Muslim clerics would refuse John’s “Christian” family attending the funeral, especially with their “improperly dressed” women.  More importantly, she did not find a cleric to pray for him the final prayer at the hospital or even at the house.  She was confused and terrified, but her relief came from the nearest church to that mosque.  The church offered to have John’s funeral the Islamic way with all the details.
 That was a temporary solution that left a sorrow in Siham's heart.  She wanted a Muslim “sheikh,” or cleric, to lead the final prayer at the funeral according to what she and John believed in.  Through a friend of ours, my wife heard the story and I offered to do my duty at John’s final prayer; this duty which those professional hypocrites refused to do.  Early the next morning, my wife and I arrived at the church and waited for the person in charge.  I was surprised that this person was a nice lady.  This was a Protestant church where they allowed women to hold religious positions.  The lady gave us a warm and sincere welcome.  When I introduced myself as the Muslim cleric who came to lead the prayer, she welcomed us even more and suddenly tears started to fall from her eyes which made me feel embarrassed by her nobility and sincerity while those professional cowards resided close at the nearby mosque.

The lady patiently explained to me how she planned the details of the funeral.  She had two scenarios: the first, assuming my absence, in which she would lead the funeral and perform all that is needed.  She had prepared a religious speech, which contained versus from the Qur’an appropriate for this event and prepared a great translation (from Arabic) of a prayer for the deceased.  She was prepared to do all of that herself in case I did not attend.  The second scenario, including my attendance, would be as the first scenario except my name would appear and I would have full control of planning the event.  Either way, the lady had prepared a tape that contained recitation of the Quran and recorded Arabic prayers.  After explaining all that to me she told me, “If the presence of the cross in the hall offends, we can cover it.”  I refused and could not keep the tears in my eyes from falling.  I was amazed and wondered at the extent nobility and forgiveness exists.  My wife told me that this was the first time she has ever seen my tears.  I said, “It’s the religion of Islamic tolerance that I believe in, but did not find in Muslims and I found it here in this American church.”  This happens while the clerics in the nearby mosque curse Americans in every prayer and reside in an American land and enjoy the peace and protection of Americans!

The lady insisted that I get up with her to speak at the funeral.  This nobility was beyond what I could imagine, especially when I remember the story of my painful persecution in Egypt.  Along with me were the Quranists (those who only believe in the holy Quran only as the only source of Islam and reject the bloody religious culture of the fanatic Muslims).  I compared all that with what I saw here in this church.  I got up and spoke when my turn came to speak.

She started her speech with John’s life story and how he met Siham and how he embraced Islam for her sake to marry her and how wonderful their life was; how Siham made a good example of the Muslim wife and how well John did raising his children, how John was a great son and how deep his believe in God was.  At last, she mentioned how John found in Islam the spiritual purity that he was searching for.  She was careful to pronounce God’s name in Arabic” Allah” to insure that she maintained an Islamic atmosphere to Sharif’s funeral since he was a Muslim after all.

This American tolerance made me feel so emotional that I was worried I would not be able to stay focused while speaking at the funeral, especially since I was speaking in a foreign language.  To relieve myself I started asking myself silly questions, “Am I now in an American church or in a mosque? Did Muslims conquer America and convert its churches to mosques?
 I led the prayer for Sharif and behind me stood my wife, Siham and some of her Muslim friends, and one Muslim Indian man who was friend with Sharif.  In my speech, I apologized for the absentees (and I meant those Muslim clerics in the nearby mosque) and I recited in Arabic language the verse from the Quran 49:13 “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that you may fight each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).  Then I translated it into English.  The Lord of all beings has decided that we are all equal brothers and sisters who belong to one father and one mother despite our differences, and that the Lord has made us differ in colors and languages to learn about each other not to fight and destroy each other.  The interface of cultures and interaction between different people is what promotes the horizons of human minds and confirms their mercy among themselves.  I said “some of us rank themselves above others based on color, wealth, power and social class, but the true classification that God uses is one’s righteousness.”  The most honored in the eyes of the Lord are those who are most righteous.  Righteousness is the true belief in the creator, the only one and no one besides him.  It also means the consistency in doing good deeds that benefit the society and people.  And to insure that no one claims that they are more righteous than others and use this claim as a means of making money and power, the Lord confirms in this verse that He is the only one who will decide who are those righteous according to their deeds and beliefs.  This will only happen on the Day of Judgment, but until that day comes, let’s live in tolerance and love.  Let’s embrace this lesson that we learned from this noble church which welcomed the funeral of a noble Muslim and which was generous to his family.

In the second half of my speech I said “there is a forgotten Islam that is kept in this Qur’an which we can only get to know by reading it, and not translating it, in Arabic and understanding it according to its own meanings and contexts.” And to confirm this I read verses 10-13 of the same chapter, which talks about the best of behavior. At the burial, I mentioned some facts about death referencing the Qur’an, and how each of us will experience it one day without a doubt.

Their attentiveness and their acceptance of my speech impressed me, and the fact that they came to thank me and showed appreciation of what they had learned that day.  They appreciated me attending the service at the church and the first to come to me were the family of Sharif.  His mother had cried a lot and was explaining to me how she lost her husband and another son before Sharif.  Then she asked me to pray for them.  After the funeral, there was a banquet at the church.  The church had appointed an Egyptian restaurant to cater the banquet according to the Islamic way.  The attendees were Siham’s friends at work and who ever wanted to attend from the Muslim community.  I apologized for not being able to attend and I returned home to write this article.

I say, “Truly, how great is this good tolerant American nation?”  And then pictures come to my mind and compare themselves and I ask myself painful questions:
Imagine a Christian Egyptian has converted to Islam in Egypt; will his family still love him all his life? If he dies as a Muslim and the extremists deny his Islam and refuse to perform in his funeral and pray for him or even bury him, will an Egyptian church hold his funeral as an Islamic funeral? In answering those questions, I started to remember a friend of mine, Father Abraham Abdul Sayed, the most important Christian reformist in the history of the Egyptian Coptic church of the new generation.  He lived estranged and hated by Father Shnoda.  When he died, Shnoda refused to hold a Christian funeral for him in any Egyptian church and no one offered him any support except for the Ibn Khaldoun center and its members. Father Abraham Abdul Sayed was one of the main leaders and members of my Ibn Khaldoun weekly conference in Cairo.

We are not going to discuss Christian extremism in Egypt although there is no doubt that it exists in the Christian society in Egypt, as a reaction to the Wahabis hatefulness.  The Wahabis hatefulness has poisoned Egyptian culture, and has extended to murder and theft.  Allowing murder in the name of religion is one of the disasters of the history of the region.  It is not an Egyptian custom, but the Wahabi ideology has helped plant the seed for this bloody culture in Egypt, which was known for tolerance of other cultures and religions.  This Wahabi ideology has spread with the support of Saudi money.
 Imagine a Muslim Egyptian who converted to Christianity, will he live respected in his country until he dies and still be surrounded with people’s love and attention, or will the fear of punishment by his people for apostasy make his life a living hell? Or at least would he be accused of “despising” the Muslim religion as a sin, a custom that was invented by the Wahabis contradicting Islam?  In any way, he would surely be a guest at the national security penitentiary and would enjoy its “hospitality” which would make him forget his own name and only remember the beating and torture schedule.  I remember that when they arrested me and my fellow Quranist Muslims and accused us of “renouncing the Sunna or the Wahabi belief in 1987.   During our interrogation we met another person who was accused of converting to Christianity.  International human rights organizations were strongly defending him while we, the Quranists had no one to empathize with us in prison or even outside of prison.  The press strongly criticizes and belittles us, spreads lies about us, posts  “fatwas” (religious rulings) that declare us infidels and make it okay to murder us in the name of religion.  When we coincidentally met this Muslim who converted to Christianity during our trip in the national security vehicle, we were handcuffed. [Our hands were handcuffed! We, who never stole, never killed or hurt any one.  The oppressors and thieves who embezzled the wealth of nations and people and those who had no respect for human rights or even human life were not handcuffed.]  The man accused of converting to Christianity said, “Your case is worse and more dangerous than mine.” Verily, he was released quickly and we stayed in prison seven more weeks.

Therefore I say, “Imagine a Muslim who is not a Wahabi and lives in a society controlled by the Wahabis, will he be able to practice his religion according to what he thinks is the true Islam?”  The answer is demonstrated by the pain and misery of the Shiite who have been harassed and oppressed by the Wahabis not only inside of Saudi Arabia, but even in Egypt because of the Saudi influence there.  This Saudi influence supported by the damned Saudi money is responsible not only for the oppression of the Christian Egyptians but also the Shiite Muslim Egyptians in their own country.  And here comes the painful persecution of the “Quranist” Egyptians, which is kept in the dark inside and outside the country.

In the beginning of the eighties, I was the first speaker for the “Islamic Invitation to Truth” organization, which is a moderate Sunni organization, led by its creator, my friend at the time, Dr. Sayed Rizk Altaweel.  Dr. Altaweel is a professor at the Al-Azhar Islamic University; the most powerful seminary in the entire Muslim world.  He wrote the preface to my first book “Al Sayed Al Badawee between Truth and Superstition” in 1982.  In his preface, he praised my patience in the face of Sophist oppression inside and outside Al-Azhar University at the time.  Saudi Arabia was supporting this organization and built a marvelous mosque for them in the most prestigious neighborhood in Cairo.  The organization published a monthly magazine called “Al Huda Al Nabawee” (guidance of the prophet).   During Dr. Altaweel’s absence, when he was in Saudi Arabia teaching, his brother was the acting president.  However, I had managed the organization and my younger brother, who is now a professor at Cairo University, shared this responsibility with me.  Also, Dr. Abdul Quader Sayed Ahmad, who was the chair of the college of pharmacy at the time, had helped in this mission.  We worked as volunteers without compensation.  At this time I was busy reviewing the Sunni ideology and comparing it to the Holy Qur’an.  This is why I refused to travel and work in Saudi Arabia despite their strong demand for me and the popularity of my book “Al Sayed Al Badawee between Truth and Superstition” and my irrefutable facts about the Sophists from within their own ideology and culture.

My research had reached a point where I renounced the “the intercession of the prophet Mohammed in the Day of Judgment.” (Sunnis Wahabists believe that the prophet Mohammed will be asking God on the day of resurrection to forgive the sins of those who embraced Islam). My research had also guided me not to rank Mohammed above other prophets in importance, and to believe that he was a human being who did many mistakes and was blamed by God. 
I declared this in my books, which I taught to my students at Al-Azhar University.  I also declared this in my speech at the mosques of the “Islamic invitation to truth” organization which spreads from Cairo to many towns in Egypt. This generated discussions among members of the organization and those who attended to the congregation, which led to acceptance and added many believers in those concepts.

Dr. Altaweel returned from Saudi Arabia and with him he brought oil grants to preachers; 700 Egyptian pounds for every preacher at the time.  Quickly after that, an urgent meeting was held for all members of the organization to question me.  I was surprised to see the strong attack on my new views by the same people who had earlier championed my views and supported them.  I later understood what had happened. Al Azhar University had decided to suspend my employment, stop payment of my salaries and pension, stopped my promotion, made it illegal for me to leave the country, confiscated all my books and recommended that I be investigated.  I submitted my resignation without being sorry for leaving such an organization where people can be bought for 700 Pounds only.  And so they rejected me and my friends from their mosques and their organization. This was the beginning of the Quranist Muslim trend and their persecution.

  Later, my father-in-law Mohammed Al Baaz, who is no longer alive, built a mosque in Al-Ebrahimia City so I could speak to the public and continue my mission there.  The opening ceremony was huge.  I used to travel there every week from Cairo, to speak at the Friday prayer and then perform the prayer.  My family members, who lived in a village called “Abu Hareez”, attended the prayer with me because of the short distance to their residence.  However, national security, Al-Azhar University personnel, and the extremists were after us.  They were creating problems to make our lives miserable.  After my father in law had died, they confiscated the mosque and claimed it property of the public with the purpose of exiling me.  This is how they exiled my family and me from a mosque that we built to pray to God in.

We later started performing the Friday prayer in our houses or our offices until an opportunity presented itself for us to pray in a big building on Ahmad Orabi Street in the Dukkee neighborhood in Cairo.  We were thankful to find a place to pray in quietly and away from conflict.  However, this did not last long as the workers in that building received warnings about us.  To avoid conflict we left the place thankful to its people for their hospitality.

Later, a friend found a mosque under construction.  A single person was managing the construction and was collecting donations and led the congregation during the prayer.  The mosque was in the most prestigious area in Cairo facing the Nile.  Those attending the mosque were from the elite: ambassadors, the wealthy, Saudis and others.  Donations to the mosque construction were extremely generous in efforts to make the mosque stand out between the nearby casinos.  Those attending the mosque complained about brother Fawzi as he didn’t possess any knowledge in religion but still was the speaker on Fridays and led the prayers.  Thus, the solution for everybody was that I speak on Friday prayer instead of Fawzi.  This was a huge opportunity for us that we were going to use wisely so that it lasted.  Therefore, my speech was incremental in delivering the ideas step by step.  My speech would call for the understanding of the Qur’an, and the importance of making it the source for any issue.  This was based on the freedom of the listeners to accept or reject the ideas. When I presented some of the controversial issues, a man stood up and contradicted me.  Fawzi who was “in charge of the mosque” took the man aside and gave him some of my banned books and asked him to read them first and then express his opinion.  The following week the same man came, he was a very educated engineer, and he stood up and praised my books and apologized for what he had said.  From that day, he became loyal to us until he died.

Every Friday, I led the prayer and then I returned to my apartment in Cairo.  I did not know what was happening at the mosque and what Fawzi was doing.  He was in charge of everything, but my presence at the mosque made it more popular, especially because some of the attendees were journalists.  At the time, I had started going into deep discussions that presented the Quranic view on controversial issues.  Then reaction would come from the press in Cairo.  This attention resulted in an increased number of people who wanted to attend this mosque which meant more donations for Fawzi.  Fawzi strongly refused to make the mosque a public institution and made sure that construction never ended.  He refused, in front of me, an offer from a group of wealthy people to take on the construction project at no cost to himself.  Fawzi wanted the mosque to stay in the “construction phase” to keep the thousands of pounds in donations coming to his pocket.   Some people wanted me to intervene.  Most of the new and huge donations came because people thought that I, not Fawzi, was the one in charge of this mosque.  Fawzi stayed away from the spotlight on Fridays, as he was busy monitoring the donation boxes.  I refused to intervene and confirmed that my mission was only to speak and educate on Fridays.  When I insisted that I would not intervene, people revealed the truth to me, which made it impossible for me to continue to go to this mosque unless I stood up with the others to correct this issue and purify the mosque from Fawzi.  They showed me his criminal record.  They said that he used the mosque at night for indecent activities, that he facilitated prostitutes for the Saudis who attended the mosque and that he collected donations from them for the sake of being pardoned of adultery.  He also charged them for his other nightly services.  He bought huge farms in “Al Ismelia” desert from donations that he collected.  I was shocked by what I heard and decided to leave that mosque, and that neighborhood.

After that, our friends found a small piece of empty land in Cairo. They asked me to come pray with them there.  From our small donations, we started making a fence around the land and filled an application to establish an official league that could coordinate the needs of the mosque legally.  So we started to perform the Friday prayer there and we insured that we maintained our independence by financing the construction ourselves.  Some of us helped financially and some with labor and hard work.  Slowly, what was just an empty land and a fence became walls, doors, windows and a complete building.  A sign was erected.  We called it “Al-Furquan Mosque”.  The Quranists heard of this mosque and started to come from Cairo and surrounding areas to attend the prayer there.  The people of the neighborhood were peaceful and did not bother us until the extremist devils intervened.  We were surprised with extremist groups invading the mosque and calling against us.  At the same time, the office of national security refused our application and kept the list of names of those in the application so they could arrest us.  I sensed danger so I left the mosque, which was later invaded by the extremists, who exiled us from this last mosque, which we had built with our own hands. 

My abstinence from attending any mosque defeated their plan.  They were planning a war between the Quranists and the extremists that would result in my death or at least they would have an excuse to arrest us.  When we left the mosque, they came up with another trick.  They used some of the people of the neighborhood.  They came to my home and begged me to attend a debate at the mosque and guaranteed my safety.  I attended the debate and some Quranists also attended to defend me.  The debate started with a scholar from Al-Azhar.  He stood and started in with the usual boring cliches.  My turn came and I defeated him using the Quran and their tradition too.  Then, we were surprised by an offensive move from the young extremist men wielding their weapons.  The mosque was full of building materials that we had bought and stored away.  When the clashes started, a group of the Quranists quickly rescued me and sent me home in a taxi.  The other group of the Quranists stayed at the mosque and gathered the steel rods and wooden posts, to be used as weapons.  The extremists found themselves fighting against men who did not fear death, so they retreated.  The funny thing was that when the “Today News” newspaper mentioned this incident shortly thereafter, they reversed the events.  They claimed that the Quranists were the ones who fled the battle.  In any case this did not change what had actually happened.  This was a fabricated story used as an introductory step to our arrest and exile from the mosque, which we built with our own hands.  This mosque still exists but they have changed its name to “Al-Furquan and Al-Sunna” mosque. “ Al Furquan’ is the another name of the Holy Quran.

Since the nineties, I stopped going to any mosque and just prayed at my home in Cairo with my friends.   I rearranged the top floor of my house in the village to be suitable for performing the prayer.  My family would celebrate every time I went to see them in their small village.  I went there every month.  I made sure that every time I went there was on a Friday so that we could pray together; all of the family members, men and women, boys and girls.   Some of them were my direct cousins.  My grandfather was married to four women and had sixteen sons and daughters who eventually had more than one hundred children all together.  Some Quranists would come and pray with me in my home in Cairo on other Fridays. 

Some of the workers of the office of national security sought glory and became “heroes” by arresting and torturing peaceful Muslims who pray to God in their houses to avoid trouble.  Some of my close and extended family members were surprised when they were taken from their houses and arrested.  They were accused of a heinous crime and were tortured.  My family members were asked “During the prayer, why don’t you recite “Altahiat”, why instead do you recite the verse (2:255) of the Qur’an?” They were asked other questions like, “What does Ahmad Subhy tell you and what do you tell him?”

I couldn’t imagine what to say to my people and family every time I went to see them. If I were this gangrenous, why wasn’t I arrested instead of my family and supporters?  It was clear that the extremists’ purpose was to stop me from going to my hometown and to prevent me from meeting my family and people.  The officials made sure to dismiss some of my family members after they had been arrested.  They were sent home in the middle of the day with their faces swollen from the beating and torture that was used to humiliate and terrorize them. This made it public knowledge that if you are a follower of Ahmad Mansour this is the punishment for you too.

It was the right decision for me to stop seeing my family fearing for their safety and because I loved them and did not want them tortured.  The torture did not stop easily.  I had complained to the minister of interior and other high officials.  Despite all of that, I could not attend my uncle or my aunt’s funeral.  Then Dr. Saad Al dein Ebrahim was arrested.  He is the owner of Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo, and the famous leader of the call for democracy and human rights in the Middle East. I used to work with him for five years as the second one in his center assisting him by Islamic insights. Arresting Dr. Sa’ad and shutting down Ibn Khaldoun Center, I was expecting to be arrested at anytime.  I communicated to my friends, brothers, sisters and other family members in Cairo not to come see me and not to pray with me on Fridays fearing for their safety.  I closed the door on myself and waited for the unknown.  Soon came the news about the arrests of some of my old Quranist friends, and some of those who attended the prayer at my home in Cairo.  Al-Ahram newspaper published all of this since October 2001.  Later, I was being asked to go to the office of national security for questioning.  I decided to escape.  The Lord has blessed me by giving me the opportunity to come to America where I can pray in my house without fear or terror. God bless America!

I am the only Quranist who came to America and enjoys the tolerance and peacefulness of its people.  On the other hand, my family, relatives and brothers in Islam are still under the siege of the extremists.  When I came to America I went to the nearest mosque, but found it to be extremist and fundamentalist.  I later learned how those extremist control the mosques and the Muslims in this country.  Not only did they steal the name of Islam while being its worst enemy; they also violated the American tolerance and acceptance of freedom of religion and expression.  They used the freedom of expression to fight America in their mosques and the -so called-Islamic schools.  They took advantage of the name of Islam and the freedom in America.

Can you imagine anything more cowardly than this? America opens its doors to them and gives them freedoms that they didn’t have in their countries.  They enjoy the opportunities, good living and technological advances but curse this country day and night.  When one of them is caught red handed of some crime, they find that the American justice system is on their side, the media watches closely but remains neutral and human rights organizations stay on alert and insure that they get humane treatment. Human rights organizations view America as the gold standard for their superior record regarding human rights issues.  We, in the Arab nations, still have not known or experienced this standard and never have throughout our history. The same incidents that the media here regards as violations of human rights are considered a gentle “tease” in our countries.  However, our media sensationalizes news stories and blow things way out of proportion and accuses America of being evil.  They forget the oppression, humiliation, corruption and extremism, which they live under but choose to ignore.
 Here in America, I hear a lot of ugly stories about mosques and those people who run them, so many stories that the subject deserves a separate article unto itself.  I will quickly highlight some points: Donations such as boxes of clothing that are given by non-Muslim Americans and churches are collected under the direction of the extremist clerics.  They are later packaged in huge warehouses and shipped to Middle-eastern seaports, especially Alexandria’s seaport in Egypt.  Once there the cleric’s helpers receive the product and sell it and deposit the funds into their own accounts. Therefore, we should forgive them.  In between all this hard work they don’t find time to perform the prayer at John Henry’s funeral and don’t find time to help the less fortunate Muslims and Arabs that attend their mosques.  One of these unfortunate people was my Jordanian friend who was arrested for violating his visa terms along with other issues related to errors in his passport.  He needed to pay a huge sum for his bond to get out of prison.  Despite the fact that he attended that mosque, the evil clerics refused to help him.  He remained in prison until his Christian American boss paid for the bond.  Another friend of mine, whose wife had cancer, could not find any one to help him among his friends at the mosque.  When his wife died, he asked the mosque to buy a piece of land for her grave  (those clerics engage in the business of buying and selling grave land to Muslims from the land which was given to them by the church at the local cemetery).  The man handed them a check for the grave, but they refused to take a check because they only accepted cash.  The man did not have cash because it was a weekend and the bank was closed.  All this did not matter to the clerics and they did not allow him to have the plot until he paid them cash money that he had to borrow from some friends.

I return to the beginning of the story of John Henry to reiterate some Quranic facts:

1- Islam means submission in dealing with God and peace in dealing with people. It is your freedom of belief in dealing with God but any peaceful one is Muslim according to his peaceful manner regardless of his belief. No human has the right to judge another human regarding their faith and beliefs; otherwise, the person doing the judging is claiming to be God.  Every person has the absolute freedom to believe or disbelieve in this conceptual Islam and every one will be responsible for his or her choice in front of the creator on the Day of Judgment. As a Quranic people we consider any peaceful person our brother or sister in Islam regardless of his belief. Our enemies are the terrorists and the dictators and all those who persecute and kill the peaceful humans and violate the human rights.

2-According to the Qur’an a Muslim woman can be married to a Christian, Jew or Buddhist as long as he is peaceful and doesn’t harm others.  What is forbidden is the marriage to a nonbeliever, meaning a transgressor, whom engages in war with peaceful nations.  The houses of God (churches, mosques, etc.) must be respected and protected from transgressors.  This protection is one of the meanings of Jihad in Islam according to Qur’an (22:40).

3- It is my belief that the traits of Osama bin Laden and his followers along with the dictators and the tyrants are exactly those of infidels, those who transgress against other people’s beliefs and behavior.  Here I speak about known actions and use the great Qur’an to evaluate them.  I am not speaking about specific individuals but about their actions and traits.  Those who are still alive have the opportunity to repent to their Lord.
4- What Wahabism is doing today has exceeded the transgression of the enemies of the prophet Mohammed or “Quraish” in the medieval ages when they falsified the religion of Abraham.  The Quraish used to worship idols and saints and made them holy because they believed such things made them closer to God.  Wahabism is falsifying the same religion of Abraham and Mohammed by idolizing the prophet Mohammed, his companions and other Imams and sheikhs. There are no saints or idols beside God in the real Islam.  Making them holy comes from ranking these individuals above criticism or questioning. According to the Wahabism it is against Islam to discuss the Wahabi saints and Imams.  Can a Wahabi say that Ibn Abdul Wahab lied about something or even made a mistake?  Can a Wahabi criticize Ibn Taimia, Ibn Hanbal or even Abdul Aziz Al Saud the founder of the Saudi current kingdom? 
In the time of the prophet Mohammed the Quraish used to control Mecca and the Kaaba (the holy site of the black stone where Muslims go for pilgrimage). The Quraish oppressed those who believed in God alone, prevented them from the pilgrimage and allowed pilgrimage to sites other than Kaaba.  And so does Wahabism in Saudi Arabia by promoting pilgrimage to another site (claiming it to be the grave of the prophet Mohammed) thereby inventing a religious act that was nonexistent when the prophet was alive or even until a few centuries after his death.  (What I mean here is visiting the grave of the prophet Mohammed during the pilgrimage trip.)  In the meantime, Saudis control the pilgrimage according to their politics and allow some and deny others and convert the pilgrimage of Islam to a moneymaking event.
The Quraish used to oppress the first Muslims, torture them and forbid them from entering the mosques as it was mentioned in the Quran (2:114).  The Quraish used to mention the names of their gods and holy saints in the mosques and they almost killed the prophet Mohammed when he objected to mentioning the names of other idols besides God in the mosques. (72:18-23). Due to the Quraish’s transgression and their controlling the mosques, the Muslims had to emigrate twice to Ethiopia and then to Madina.

Wahabi Saudis also oppress their religious opponents.  They forbid the Shiite from attending their own mosques and force them to attend Wahabi mosques where Shiite teachings are criticized and the peaceful followers of this denomination are called infidels.  The Wahabis are also after the Shiites in Egypt where they oppress their opponents using their oil money to spread their evil extremism.  My Quranist people also suffer from this religious oppression.  I found myself along with other Quranists to be the victims of such oppression; unwanted, hated and discriminated against.  We left their mosques, but they followed us, supported by the authorities, in order to expel us from mosques that we built with our own hands so that we could worship God alone and not worship idols or people.  We respect the right of every person to worship the way they believe in or not to worship. While Quraish in the time of the prophet Mohammed had remained silent about a group of the early Muslims who used to secretly gather and pray at the house of Al-Arquam to allow some passive tolerance, the evil Wahabis use torture to prevent some peaceful Egyptian families from praying together in their own homes.  Is there an act more evil than this?  What do they want from us? What is their concern whether we pray the Friday prayer or the noon prayer?  Whether we recite the traditional “Al-tahiate” or the 18th verse of chapter 3 in the Qur’an? “There is no god but He: That is the witness of God, His angels, and those endued with knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no god but He, the Exalted in Power, the Wise.” (3:18), what is their concern with the way we pray to our Lord who will judge us and them on the day of resurrection? What is their concern with us even if we never prayed in the first place as millions of Muslims do not?

This article could be lengthier if I attempted to present the similarities between the actions of the Quraish and the actions of the Wahabis.  In a later article I will elaborate further on this subject.  I end this article with what caused my tears to shed at John Henry’s funeral and which has confirmed to me what I have felt since I fled with my life to America.  Today, Islamic tolerance and noble Islamic behavior exists in the American people while those traits have disappeared in the Egyptian people who once were famous for their tolerance and their love for peace.  This happened because the Wahabis poisoned their minds.  I cry for Egypt....for Islam, which has become estranged and hated.

Sample 2

 Fahmi Howaydy is one of the most famous thinkers of Muslim Brothers.

He usually attacks the U.S and the West and the Muslim free thinkers.
Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour has responded to some of his articles.
You find attached the English translation of two articles of Howaydy and two articles of Dr. Mansour rebutting him. Howaydy’s weekly articles are usually published in many famous Arabic newspapers, while Dr .Mansour’s articles are usually banned in many of the Arabic World. He has to publish his articles on line in these few Arabic websites:
http://www.arabtimes.com/

http://www.metransparent.com/authors/arabic/ahmad_sobhy_mansour.htm

http://www.rezgar.com/m.asp?i=627

http://www.ildp.net/
The translations of the four articles are published in Ahl Al Quran site under the title of ( Defending the US and its policy in the Middle East ):

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=107

The Campaign to Dismantle Islam
Fahmi Howaydy 
Al-Ahram, 29 March 2005.

When the “Islamic “Friday prayers were called at the Washington Church, the Sermon was delivered and the prayers led by one of the ladies, for the first time in the history of the Muslims. This was not a mere flight of fancy or an American idiosyncrasy, but was part of a wide-ranging campaign aimed at the dismantling of Islam under the guise of either modernizing it, or of fighting extremism and terrorism.

1 – On one of the visits during which I attended an Islamic conference in Chicago, an American Muslim directed the following question to one of the sages (ulema) taking part: "Is it possible to hold the Friday Prayer on Sunday?" He justified the question on the grounds that the hours of work do not permit him to attend the Friday prayers, whereas there is plenty of time on Sunday, the weekly holiday, for him to offer his prayers without a time constraint so that he can devote all the time needed for the prayer and more. The question, at first blush, seems funny, but the person asking the question was very serious indeed. He seemed disappointed when he was told that the Friday prayer should be offered on Friday, and if the Muslim is prevented from offering them due to the circumstances of his work, he is excused and no blame is upon him.

With regards to a not insubstantial number of American Muslims, the question was logical and natural. Whatever it may be difficult to accomplish on Friday, can surely be accomplished on Sunday without disturbing the order of the universe. This is just like the question that some of them posed, whether it is possible to enter Islam "in installments". Thus one might progressively offer the prayers, and then advance to fasting and on to the obligatory charity (zakah). It is because many of them deal extensively with installments in their daily lives from purchasing a refrigerator, to a car, to buying a house. They thus do not find it strange to suggest applying the installments system to the process of converting to Islam.

It is the same simplistic mentality that caused the American blacks to confuse their resentment of white American society with their faith they said that God was black and that the devil had whitwhite skin, green eyes and blond hair.

When one gets close to the mentality dominant in American society, one realizes that that simplistic thinking does not stem from the naivety innocence characteristic of a wide segment of people, but is also the connecting instrument with the culture of dealing with what they call ‘the new spirituality’, which stems from needs rather than from responsibilities and duties. It is one of the consequences of secularist thinking which sets up the human being as a god, for when the world of fate and the abstracts of the unknowable and unseeable (ghayb) is set aside and its role marginalized, the human being alone becomes the maker of his own fate and future. Consequently any teachings, even if they are of divine origin, are to him, not final, but are amenable to change, alteration, deletion and addition, such that each individual can tailor his religious responsibilities according to what he feels comfortable with.

The result of this confusion is that the United States swelled with religious beliefs. As the ‘Encyclopedia of Religions’ indicates that there are 1586 religious groupings in the United States of which 700 are non-traditional in the sense that it is difficult to classify them as sects of or factions within the historically known world religions.

2 – Beyond the realm of innocence, one would discern nefarious, destructive activities attributed to Islam. These activities move in two directions, one focuses on the political and cultural, and the second is concerned with values, ethics and morality. An exciting and dangerous observation regarding these destructive activities is that they arise on two basic elements and which are: a group of Muslims that has penetrated Islam or fanatics who subscribe to certain beliefs. Among the latter are some Jewish Americans who support Israel and who hate everything Arab or Islamic.

In an important article, carried by the International Press Service (on 7 April 2004), an American researcher called Jim Loeb shed some light on the activities focusing on politics. He revealed the efforts exerted by the extremist American writer Daniel Pipes - in his support of Israel and in his hatred of the Arabs, especially the Palestinians – to establish a progressive Islamic institute, to represent the voice of the Muslim liberals in the United States. This Pipes runs an organization called ‘Middle East Forum for Research’ based in the State of Philadelphia. He has written prolifically and taken well known stands ranging from promoting fear of the confluence of Islamic beliefs with armed Islam, to warning against the presence of Muslims in the United States and what they represent by way of danger to Jewish influence, to criticizing Sharon’s plan for withdrawing from Gaza.

Pipes’ project revealed the establishment of a progressive center called the (Islamic Pluralism Center). He declared that the intent was to encourage moderate Islam in the United States and the world and to combat the influence of armed Islam, and to thwart the efforts of the organizations with extremist Wahaabi orientation, through the media and in co-operation with American government organizations. A later article by the same author, published by the agency on 24 February 2005, contains other important information about the people responsible for the center and about the sources of its funding. Its director is an American Muslim called Stephen Schultz who was a communist extremist (a Trotskyite). He entered Islam through Sufism. He espoused extremism in his Sufism, and his struggle in life became the conduct of the struggle against terrorism. As for his assistant, he is Egyptian. He had been dismissed from Al-Azhar in the eighties for his denial of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (the Sunnah). He went to the United States for a time, then returned to Egypt to become one of the corner-stones of the Ibn Khaldoun Center. After the legal problems faced by the Center and its director in 2000, he disappeared from Egypt to reappear again in the United States and become one of those calling for moderate American Islam. Daniel Pipes gave his name, among others, in an article entitled ‘Defining Moderate Muslims’ published for him in the New York Sun on 24 November 2004.

As for the funding and support of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, it comes from many sources aside from the Research Center run by Pipes. There is the conglomeration of Shiites Americans and the mosques that were liberated from extremist thought. Most prominent among those supporting the project was the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz (the architect of the war on Iraq and one of the most prominent Jewish activists among the neo-conservatives), and James Woolsey, past director of Central Intelligence. There is no need to bring in other names; the significance of these two names is enough to tell us the tendency of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, and the nature of moderation and progressiveness in its activities and aims.

Mr. Daniel Pipes was not satisfied with promoting the project of the Center for Pluralism; he tried to set up another organization, the purpose of which was to counteract the activities of the Islamists in the United States. Its true purpose was to combat the efforts exerted by the American Islamic organizations that Pipes describes as being representative of ‘Radical Islam’.
On another plane, is a third organization by the name of ‘free Muslim coalition against terrorism’, set up in Washington by an American Muslim of Palestinian descent called Kamal Ni’waash . He had made many failed attempts to get involved in politics. He finally found what he was looking for in carrying the sign reading ‘Resisting Terrorism’ and in supporting the efforts of the American Administration in that direction.

(On the 5th of August 2004, the Zionist oriented Fox News, which is antagonistic Islam, all Muslims and Arabs ran an interview with him in which he said that 50% of the Muslims are extremists and fascists and accused the prominent Islamic organizations in America of bias in favor of Radical Islam).

3 – The article by Daniel Pipes, published by the New York Sun, is of special importance; it reveals the efforts exerted to rally in support of preaching American Islam through the dismantling of Islam and setting it aside. He considered this rallying to be good news as he gave his readers news of the involvement of some Muslims in a campaign against the activities of the Islamists,(He means the extremists and the radicals). He said that these raised their voices after the events of 9/11 and mentioned in this respect the names of seven people, including Dr. Subhy Mansour who was fired from Al-Azhar University and Dr. Bassaam Teebi; he is one of the more militant Syrian secularists.

He spoke also of the appearance of two new organizations, these are, ‘Free Muslim coalition against terrorism’, established by Kamal Ni’waash, mentioned earlier. Then there is ‘The American Islamic Forum for the Defense of Democracy’, it was established by a person called Zuhdi Jaassim. What also captivates one’s attention about the list that Pipes produced, is that he added to the glad news that memorandum prepared by three of the extreme secularist Arab supporters of Israel who antagonize the Islamic trend (one is Iraqi, the second, Jordanian and the third, Tunisian).

In it, they demanded setting up an international tribunal for those they call ‘the Sages of Terror’, and at the top of the list is Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradaawi. It is the very memorandum submitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations two weeks ago. It is said that four thousand Arab intellectuals signedthe memorandum (Pipes said 2500 from 23 Muslim countries).

No proof is needed that these individuals and those quarters are not alone active in the field of dismantling and distorting Islam. The United States indeed takes advantage of the likes of these examples (among them are some examples that are fair and respectable and are combated and their voice is unfortunately not heard), but what Pipes pointed to represents the new efforts made to promote American Islam through the use of prominent Islamic names and personages. It is also required that these personages gain legitimacy in order to replace the other Islamic organizations that have been in the United States for at least four decades.


4 – Within the scope of the second grouping, move certain groups carrying the banner of progressive Islam and calling for the easing – or more accurately – overlooking the system of ethics and morality and the traditions generally accepted in Muslim communities. A website on the Internet, called ‘The Muslim’s Awakening’ (Yakazat Al muslim), expresses this view.

The matter of sex takes up a great deal of attention from the people responsible for website who have dedicated a permanent page to sex and the nation. Among the most famous of the activists in that group is a lady – of Pakistani origin, it seems – who had a child out of wedlock and is conducting a campaign to change Islamic thinking on this matter, to admit the rightness of what she did or at least to accept it. This progressive group that comprises no more than tens of people is the very group that adopted the call for a woman to lead the Friday prayers and the Pakistani lady I just referred to was among the leaders of the procession at the Washington church to attract attention and announce presence.

Moving in tandem with these, is another, more liberated group led by a Muslim lady of Pakistani descent who is homosexual. She wrote a book on the subject, called ‘The Problem within Islam’; she is currently being marketed in the American media as a social reformer and a great Islamic intellectual leader trying to modernize Islam and get it moving forward.

5 – I hope that I am not wrong in having moved these efforts out f the orbit of innocence at least in regards to methods and intentions for it is one’s right to doubt them when one finds out that those who back moderation are among the most ardent enemies of Islam and the Muslims and the allies of Israel. It is also one’s right to raise many a question mark regarding the relationship between these activities and the intellectual war declared by the American Administration in the wake of 9/11, and the intent of which is the restructuring of the Muslim mind in tandem with the redrawing of the maps of the region along the lines of the ‘Greater Middle East’ plan.

It is equally one’s right to raise other question marks around the relationship of these activities and the proposals, put forward in the report of establishment of an American leader in research, to take Islam apart and put it back together again under the name of ‘Civil and Democratic Islam’, especially as some of these proposals have found translation into reality through the activities we have just reviewed, be it in their secularist perspectives or in substituting new personages and leaderships in place of the existing ones, or in the attack upon traditional, conservative Islam, or in encouraging the Sufi trend. It is also one’s right to wander about the effects of those activities that have spread lately in the Arab World, emanating from some secularist institutions and centers that have addressed Islam and have delved into the question of changing the religious dialog and amending the school curricula and attempting to create Islamic intellectual leaderships loyal to the secularist agenda.

(For information: One of those responsible for one of those centers in Cairo is, these days, exerting persistent efforts to market an intellectual project of that nature and visited one of the Gulf countries carrying with him his wares. He went seeking funding to set up a center for enlightenment that will cross-fertilize Islam with Secularism.)
Islam and the Muslims seem, in this scenario, to have become an open field for anyone and everyone. It is openness without limit, with none to impose punishment on whoever takes liberties with it. Its people are without dignity or honor. This brings us to one last question to add to the previous ones: Who is to blame for this? The ones who took liberties, or those who kept quiet and stood still and lay low?

Dr. Ahmad Subhy Mansour.
Dismantling Fahmi Howaydy

In reply to his article 'Dismantling Islam' published in Al Ahram and other newspapers on Tuesday, 31 March, 2005.

This is not the first time that Fahmi Howaydy attacks me, nor will it
be the last.
He accuses me of working with others to dismantle Islam, although the
Islam I believe in is not amenable to dismantling since it is the Holy Quran only, and it is preserved by God Almighty and immune to the falsification and the corruption of mankind.

It may be that he confuses Islam with the Muslims and accuses me of working towards dismantling the Muslims. However, the disintegration of the Muslims into sects has started two decades after the death of the prophet Mohammed, since the great civil war between the early Muslims; the Companions of Mohammed, then it has evolved and spread for ten centuries. Today the Muslims are divided into three major sects, the Sunna, the Shiites and the Sufis. Every one of these sects has, in turn, disintegrated internally into various schools of jurisprudence and factions.

The Sunna has disintegrated, in the Third Century of the Islam, into four schools of jurisprudence of which the most fanatic is the Hanbali School. That Hanbali School also immediately broke up into various factions of which
the most fundamentalist was Ibn Taymiyah in the Eighth Century of Islam.
And from the trend relating to Ibn Taymiyah, there sprouted,in the modern age, an undercurrent that was even more fundamentalist and violent, that is the Wahaabis, thus increasing the disintegration of the Sunna even further.

It is to Wahhabism that Fahmy Huweidi's loyalty goes. He deems it alone to be Islam, denying all the other Muslims and accusing anyone who even discusses Wahaabism of being anti-Islamic, or of working towards the dismantling of Islam and incites against him.
The terrorists consider his incitement a license to kill, and so the
thinker or the intellectual loses his life, as happened to Dr. Farag Foda, or he disappears without a trace as happened with the journalist Rida Hilal, or he is forced into exile as has happened with me and with Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, or he is made to scream, objecting in fear of the fate that awaits him, as happened with Dr. Saad ed Deen Ibrahim and others. The victims of Fahmi El Huweidi are indeed many, among is he who has met his fate and among them is he who is still waiting.

Let us read together what 'Dismantling Islam' says, that we might
become familiar, with that phenomenon that is called Fahmy Huweidi.
Huweidi spoke of, “The efforts exerted by the extremist American
writer, Daniel pipes, to establish a progressive institute to represent the voices of the liberal Muslims of the United States”. He says, “Pipes' project aims at the establishment of a progressive center under the name of 'The Center for Islamic Pluralism'. He declared that the object is the encouragement of moderate Islam in the United States and the world, as well as com-batting the influence of armed Islam, and neutralizing the efforts of the organizations that are oriented towards Wahaabi extremism, through the media and in co-operation with U.S. governmental organizations.” He also says, “In a later article, published by the agency, by the same author, on February 2005, is important information about the people responsible for the center and its sources of funding. Its director is an American Muslim called Stephen Schultz. As for his assistant, he is Egyptian. He had
been dismissed from Al-Azhar in the eighties for his rejection of the
traditions of the Prophet. He then went to the United States for a while, and then returned to Egypt to become one of the pillars of the Ibn Khaldoun Center. Then, after the legal problems faced by the Center and its director, in 2000, he disappeared from Egypt and reappeared in the U.S. to become one of the preachers of moderate American Islam. Daniel pipes cited his name, among others, in an article entitled 'Recognizing Moderate Muslims’ published in the 'New York Sun' on 24 November 2004.”He further says, “The article by Daniel Pipes, published in the 'New York Sun', is of particular importance for it discloses the concentrated efforts exerted to preach American Islam through disintegrating Islam and nullifying it. He considers that this concentration constitutes good news because it conveys to the readers the news of the involvement of some Muslims in the campaign against the activities of the Islamists (He means the extremists and the radicals). He said that these raised their voices after the events of September 11th. He mentioned, in this respect, the names of seven people including that of Dr. Subhy Mansour, the man dismissed from Al-Azhar University. Also Dr. Bassaam Teebee, who is one of the Syrian secularists most noted for their exaggerated views.” He goes on to say, “I do not believe that I am wrong in that I have removed the mantle of innocence from these efforts, at least as far as methods and aims are concerned. It is indeed one's right to doubt them when one finds that those who support Islamic moderation and renewal are among the veteran enemies of Islam and are Muslims allied to Israel. It is also one's right to raise numerous question marks concerning the relationship between these activities and the war of ideas declared by the American Administration in the wake of September 11th, the object of which is the re-engineering of the Muslim mind, in conjunction with the redrawing of the maps of the area in conformity with the 'Greater Middle East Project'. As it is also one's right to raise other question marks around the relationship between these activities and the suggestions put forward by the Rand Corporation in its report, on dismantling Islam and reconstituting it under the title of 'Civil
and Democratic Islam' especially as some of these suggestions have
found expression in the activities we have already seen, either in their secularist origins or the replacement of new personalities and
leadership in place of the existing ones, or in the attack on traditional, conservative Islam, or in encouraging the Sufi trend.
It is also one's right to question the consequences of the activities
that have appeared in the Arab World of late, in the form of some of the secularist centers and organizations which have addressed Islamic
matters and have delved into changing the content of the religious dialog, amending the educational curricula and the fabrication of a leadership of Islamic thought committed to the secularist agenda.”

We comment upon it, briefly:
Firstly: All of the information reported by Howaydy is published openly to the American Public. American society is open and thus imposes freedom of information and forbids its suppression. Thus the announcement of all these activities beforehand precludes any notion of conspiracy.
Secondly: The traditionalist trend that Howaydy belongs to is based on dividing the world into two camps, 1 – The Domain of Islam, in which
the Sunni sect monopolizes Islam unto itself and accuses the Shiites Muslims and the Sufis of apostasy and idol-worship and oppresses the politically.
As it also oppresses the original inhabitants of the land, People of the Book who have held on to the religion of the fathers and grandfathers.
2 – The Domain of war. That comprises the countries in the West.
They must be fought and forced to accept Islam. Their culture is considered an ideological invasion and explains the disasters that befall us as being caused by the conspiracies of the West against us. That is the background that gives rise to the articles of Huweidi and his ilk. His article 'Dismantling Islam’ is proof of that. Indeed the title, 'Dismantling Islam' indicates that he believes in monopolizing Islam, such that any other Muslim is not entitled to think or study outside of the boundaries that Huweidi knows, otherwise he becomes a 'dismantler of Islam'. The Americans who have entered Islam other than through the Sunni sect, are not entitled to choose a way of worship other than that of the traditionalists and what the traditionalists found their forefathers doing, otherwise they become 'dismantlers if Islam'. And as usual, Huweidi does not bother
to discuss the ideas of those who disagree with him, because he is not an expert in Islam and its study, and his knowledge of Islam does not go beyond my personal knowledge of the Island of Cuba; that is why he hastens to accuse us of conspiring against Islam.

Thirdly: Since 1977 I have been carrying on my shoulders the burden of
my project to reform the Muslims peacefully with the Quran. As a result I was subjected to a spectrum of persecution within Al-Azhar and outside of it, from dismissal from the Al-Azhar University, to prison to harassment by state security, to exile twice. The first time I fled to America in 1988, after I was released from prison, Fahmy Huweidi was the cause. He did not wish to attack me while I was in prison and unable to defend myself and while I was being attacked by tens of pens accusing me of rejecting the traditions of the Prophet. Huweidi waited till after I left prison terrified, to launch a vicious attack upon me under the title, 'The Traditions, between Fabrication and Disrespect.' He filled it with attacks upon my person, by name and description, confirming that I am no longer in the pale of Islam with all he could muster in the way of religious pronouncements. On the following day, I met, by accident, some old friends who are members of (Islamist) groups. I saw the fear in the face of one; he advised me, for the sake of our long friendship, to drop out of sight because Huweidi's article had put my life squarely in danger. Other warnings signs came from colleagues at Al-Azhar and traditionalists who are
honest.

I had sent Huweidi a response defending myself, with a copy to Al-Ahram, but the response was not published. I was thus forced to escape with my life to America, where I remained ten months until the effect of Huweidi's article subsided; then I returned.

My intellectual project confirms, by means of the Quran, that Islam is
the religion of justice, democracy, tolerance, peace, freedom of belief and human rights, and the God Almighty sent Muhammad as a mercy to mankind, not to fight them to force religion upon them and to split the world into two camps. He, may He be praised, created us brethren, of one mother and of one father, and that He made us peoples and tribes that we might know each other, not to fight, and that the most honored among us, at God, is the most righteous. This will be determined on the Day of Resurrection, not now, so that some of us do not feign righteousness to walk all over us in the name of religion. God Almighty decreed for us and for the People of the Book different laws that we might compete in good works, not to compete in prejudice and sin.
And based upon this type of thinking, I went to work, after my return to Egypt, with Farag Foda until he was killed by Fahmy Huweidi's pronouncements, then I worked with human rights organizations and participated with The Ibn Khaldoun Center in its struggle for enlightenment and its projects for reform, including the project to reform education in Egypt and other projects. In all this, Huweidi's articles kept hounding us inciting state security as well as the terrorists against us until the dictatorship in Egypt shut down the Ibn Khaldoun Center and arrested Dr. Saad ed Deen Ibrahim and imprisoned some of my friends who subscribe to the Quran alone. So once again I had to escape to America in October, right at the peak of the anti-Islamic wave that occurred after the attacks of September 11th.

My intellectual project addressed America, in English, in defense of
Islam, elucidating the contradiction between it and the type of extremist thinking that produced Bin Laden. And I always used to sent my research and my biography to be published on the Internet and to the intellectuals of America, all of which helped to stem the wave of animosity to Islam, and to redirect the accusation to Bin Laden's terrorist sect alone. Then then came to know what they began to call 'moderate Islam'. My research attracted the attention of Dr. Pipes whom they accuse of animosity to Islam and the Muslims though now he writes that which shows his respect for Islam and its civilization but he is against, like myself, armed extremism.
Indeed he is engaged in a debate with those who still accuse Islam as a religion, and do not differentiate between it and terrorism. Through
his intellectual influence and his constant efforts, he has caused many to change their views. Naturally, this will not cause the traditionalist, Wahaabist organizations to accept him unless and until he follows their religion, and that will never, by the Grace of God, happen.
Co-operation between us against extremism and its terrorist culture was necessary.
They want to defend their country, and I want to defend my religion.

Fourthly: America follows the Quranic rule that, “there shall be no compulsion in religion”. There are in America, by Huweidi's own admission, 1586 religious groupings, of which 700 are non-traditional. This means that everyone in America is free to believe in whatever he believes or whatever he believes not. The extremists, the followers of Bin Laden, are the first to take advantage of this American religious freedom. They expanded their activities, establishing new mosques, establishing control over existing ones, buying up churches and turning them into mosques.
They control about 80% of the mosques which number approximately 1200 on American soil. They curse America day and night in the name of Islam, in their sermons and their prayers and their publications taking exploiting American tolerance and American donations of the houses of worship.
There are tens of groups that indulge in these activities and defend them and blackmails American policy to the extent of declaring themselves sole legitimate representatives of the Islam and the Muslims in America, and enter the White House, invited as such. It is well known that there is not a single “Muslim” country whose sons, or a minority therein enjoy such liberty. But the freedom that his extremist brethren enjoy in their war on America, upon her soil, is not enough for Huweidi, for it upsets him that there are Muslims in America of the Shiites and Sufi persuasions that are not yet involved in Wahaabism.
Fifthly: America is waging a war declared after the aggression of September 11th. This shows who the conspirator is, who sends missionaries and soldiers to the “House of War” abusing American freedom and American openness. America discovered, after September 11th that extremism had wrested control of most mosques and “Islamic” schools as well as of the American Muslim community. She is thus not fighting only Bin Laden, but also his followers in the American heartland and the kind of thinking to which he adheres and which dominates the minds of millions of American Muslims. If America were to use the methods of the Arab leaders, she would close these mosques and execute their clergy and incarcerate their propagators and ban their thinking and confiscate their publications.
She would not have needed an emergency law since she is in a state of war with an invisible enemy who uses psychological warfare and converts the ordinary religious young man into a bomb walking on two legs, who destroys himself and others. There will be, on American soil, millions of candidates if Wahaabi incitement continues to wash the brains of the Muslim youth in the mosques and the schools in the name of Islam. If America were prejudiced against Islam, she would have chosen that solution and closed all the mosques accusing Islam of being the religion of terrorism basing itself on the Wahabi contention that they monopolize Islam and speak in its name.
American civility, however, chose the hard way; so President Bush affirmed the truism that Islam is indeed the religion of peace, and invited the heads of Wahabi “Islamic” organizations to the White House to try to get them to lean towards the right way. Thus instead of war against Islam itself and instead of resorting to violence, the solution was to be a peaceful one, to reform the Muslims, both in America and in the Arab Lands into what they perceive to be moderate Islam, or into true Islam, as I have been saying.

Huweidi resents America her religious freedom and her right to defend herself peaceably on her soil; he sees that as the dismantling of Islam
and a conspiracy necessitating , and says, inciting against us, at the end of the article, “It seems that Islam and the Muslims in this situation are as though they have become fair game for all and sundry to do with as they please without limit, restriction or constraint. With nothing to serve as deterrent to anyone who might take liberties with them or insults them, their people are without value or dignity. This compels us to add another question to what has already been asked, about who deserves the blame for all of this, those who offended and insulted, or those who kept quiet and lay low?”

Finally, I did escape with my life in fear of the incitement of Fahmy Huweidi, and I see that, until now, he is still pursuing me even in America; to where should I escape after America? I have one way left to protect my life, and that is to appeal to the United Nations for refuge.
I present this article as an open complaint to the United Nations,
Against the Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huweidi, the writer in Al-Ahram, the Egyptian news-paper, and against whoever publishes his writings that shall be deemed his accomplice in the crime of inciting against my life and the lives of those who call for reform.

The Philosophy of American Empowerment
Article by Fahmi Howaydy
Al- Ahram, 5 April 2005.

The dismantling of the nation precedes the dismantling of the faith. Those who are now assiduously trying to draft American Islam for us would never have dared do that or even think of it except after the success they scored in the subjugation of the region to American policies. All of this, it is to be noted, is a consequence of the revival of the philosophy of "empowerment" in the United States. This philosophy wants, for the region, only submission and obedience.

1 – An intelligence officer, with the rank of colonel, from an Arab country, used to operate under the cover of a businessman. Under that guise he left his country, in September 2002, and headed for a major Arab capital. After his departure he remained in daily touch with his family. Then abruptly the communication stopped and his fate remained unknown till April 2004 when his family received a message from him informing them that he id a prisoner at Guantanamo, the US Navy base in Cuba. This seemed a puzzle! The organization known as Human Rights Watch uncovered its secrets last week.

According to a report of the organization, the officer was abducted off a street of the Arab capital by agents of America intelligence, and then taken to Afghanistan. He was the taken to Guantanamo. Throughout his trip, our friend was not accused of anything, but was repeatedly interrogated about the Arab fighters who had been in Afghanistan then moved to Europe where some of them remained. He was questioned because his work as an intelligence officer operating among these Arabs gave him access to a great of information about them. The American investigators wanted to get at this information and to benefit by it.

It is true that the situation of this officer is better than that of that other officer who was suspected of loyalty to Al-Qaida and who disappeared in his own country but an American drone (pilotless aircraft) located and killed him with a missile that tore him to pieces on his own country's soil. However, the Human Rights Watch report mentioned several other similar cases in which Muslim young men were kidnapped from their own or other countries they might be in, through the intervention of agents of American intelligence or by the hands of the local security services who gift them to the Americans. These were then carried aboard long-range American aircraft, which serve as flying prisons, and were consigned to various prisons where they were tortured and forced to confess. They ended up in Guantanamo or were quietly released. One of them is an Egyptian carrying German citizenship; he was incarcerated in the prisons for a year after his abduction from Croatia, then he was released and returned to the very place he was kidnapped. There are now several rows raging between German and American intelligence because of him.

All these measures flout the law and flagrantly violate human rights. What Human Rights Watch mentioned is no more than a drop in a vast ocean replete with violations that have done away with all laws and conventions, let alone values and principles. This constitutes a shameful record which mars any society claiming to be civilized in any way at all.

2 – It is not accurate to claim that the United States undertook all these violations in the course of combating terrorism. American bullying and conceit predate the story of the war against terrorism. This is because the philosophy of empowerment in the United States revived and its stock rose after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties; that event demonstrated that the clearing of the stage was to the advantage of the singular pole. These circumstances mitigate in favor of expansionary thought and thoughts of world domination and talk of "The American Century", "The Clash of Civilizations" and "The End of History". All that the events of 9/11 did was to open the door wide to attempts to turn this philosophy into reality. The Middle East seemed the perfect laboratory not only because the perpetrators of 9/11 were from that region, but also because the inducements are unlimited (oil) and its frailty and weakness are also without limit. Also Israeli incitement against it is, in turn, without limit.

Just as a reminder, American conceit was behind Washington's rejection of the Treaty of Ottawa concerning anti-personnel mines. At that time, December 1997, all the countries of the world supported it, four full years before the events of 9/11. She also defied international will in 1998 and reneged on its agreement (previously obtained under the Clinton Administration) to the formation of the International Criminal Court insisting thereby on remaining above accountability and the law. This defiance was also behind her rejection of the Kyoto Protocol concerned with the prevention of emissions of Carbon Dioxide gas which was signed in 1997.

This conceit encouraged the United States to apply her domestic laws to various countries of the world, and to forbid even the European countries from investing in Iran, to tighten the embargo against her. It was also what permitted her to divide the world into good and evil nations so that it might assign to the evil corner whoever displeases her and classify as good whomever she pleases. That was also what permitted her to invade and occupy Iraq on the basis of a fabricated lie about WMDs.

The sum total of these circumstances did much to revive the philosophy of empowerment which was addressed by numerous research centers long known for their influence on American decision-making. The fact that most of these centers are sympathetic to Israel contributed to their revival in no small measure. Thus they brook no love lost for the Arabs and are concerned with only two matters: that the United States might become a great world power and that Israel might become a great regional power with no competitor or rival.

3 – I have in my hands a recent example of America's efforts in the philosophy of empowerment that answers the question, "How to chastise and discipline the Arab World in order to make it enter the 'American House of Obeisance' and never leave it?"

The person responsible for this effort is Dr. Robert Satloff, head of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs. He is among the most prominent of the minds influencing American Strategic thinking. His basic concern is focused on the subject of Arab-American-Israeli relations. (He is fluent in Arabic, French and Hebrew apart from English, his mother tongue.)

In the middle of last March, Dr. Satloff published, on the website of the Institute, a two part study dealing with American policy in the Middle East and his view of the strategy of Constructive Disturbance followed by President Bush in the region. It is designed to encourage violent quakes to shake the nations in the region to knock down their structures in order to rebuild them in accordance with new specifications conforming with American requirements and, by extension, with Israeli expectations.

The study encompasses numerous thoughts; I shall address their basic outlines presently, but the reader will notice that Mr. Satloff spoke of the region as though it were a worn out entity bereft of all strength, and all that concerns him is how to press submission to conform to American and Israeli expectations.

Thus in the first part of his study, (published on 15 March) he concentrated on the situation in Lebanon and Syria, and emphasized several matters, the most important of which are the following:

• The call to eradicate any Syrian influence in Lebanon after guaranteeing the eradication of the Syrian presence there. He said that international supervision over the elections should be most rigorous, such that the international team slated for that purpose (to be dispatched by the Carter Center) supervises not only the elections, but also the electoral campaign itself.

• Insisting upon disarming HisbUllah so that it ceases to represent a danger to Israel, and blocking the way to its getting any assistance or military aid from Iran and accepting it only as a party on the political scene. That is a basic condition for its removal from the black list of terrorist organizations.

• After guaranteeing the removal of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, the Baathist regime in Damascus itself should be tackled by means of concentrated intelligence activity to keep tabs on the internal situation – opening the democracy, the human rights and the rule of law in Syria dossiers Pressuring the regime there unless it agrees to two conditions. The first is a visit to Israel by President Bashshaar Al-Assad and his joining the procession of peace with her. The second is the expulsion of the terrorist resistance movements from Damascus and shutting down their offices there.

4 – Changing the situation in the Arab World is the focus of the second part of Robert Satloff's study. In it he called for the increased use of the policy of "Constructive Disturbance". He said that the Bush Administration considers that the process of redrawing the maps of the region will take up an entire generation, about ten years, and that that period is not definite in view of the rapid changes in the Arab World occasioned by the haste of the regimes in their desire to placate the United States by any and all means. In order to bring about this placation, he spoke of Arab nations that have endeavored to get closer to Israel and to clear the air with her; whereas others have tentatively taken some steps towards reform in response to American pressure. A third group has taken both paths; they showed some warmth in their relations with Israel and declared internal reforms.

In listing the symptoms of the Arab attempt to placate the American Administration and earn its goodwill, Dr Satloff said that some capitals raced to support the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. They also hastened to admonish Damascus to withdraw from Lebanon as soon as possible. Not only this, but some Arab nations hastened to inform Washington that the efforts they had exerted to convince President Asad to withdraw were the determining factor in his accepting and obeying the UN Resolution. In this respect, he pointed out that President Bush rewarded one of the nations for its stand in convincing Syria to withdraw by reducing his criticism of her in one of his speeches, and by turning a blind eye to her slowness in implementing internal reforms.

The most important thing our friend said in this part is that he called for Washington not to be satisfied with the encouragement of democracy in the Arab World but emphasized the necessity of supporting the democrats there both morally and materially. This will require betting on the Arab liberal secularists, who share American values and who consider the American political system an excellent example to be applied. In this respect he expressed his reservations about the opinion held by some in Washington, who favor dialog with the moderate Islamists considering this to be a gamble of uncertain results. Such dialog would, in the end, support the position of these Islamists and convey legitimacy upon them; whereas the liberals are closer to the Americans and their feelings towards the United States are more secure.

5 – Even the Security Council has become an instrument to empower America. The matter is no longer limited to The US Senate issuing a resolution bringing this country or that to account (as happened with Syria), but it is within the capacity of Washington to extract whatever coercive resolution it needs from the Security Council. This is what happened recently with Sudan when the Council approved, on 30 March, an American proposal practically putting Sudan under trusteeship. It imposed upon Sudan travel restrictions on, and freezing of funds of those responsible for the crimes committed against the civilians in Darfour, and those who violate the truce there. It also interdicted government flights over the district except with UN permission. And on a later day, the Council decided to refer 51 Sudanese officials to the International Criminal Court in Hague to charge them with responsibility for what happened in Darfour. This was the first case to be heard by the court, which Washington refused to recognize, as is well known, so that no American soldier or official can ever be brought to account before it. (For this reason France undertook to file the case). Thus does the logic of dismantling and restructuring according to American fancy punish Sudan and places her under trusteeship and bring some of her officials before international justice, while at the same time, it suspends responsibility when Russia pulverizes Muslims in Chechnya, or for Israel's crimes in Palestine and her continuing construction of the savage wall which has been condemned and pronounced illegal by the International Court of Justice. It is the same logic that raises a storm to stop the Iranian nuclear program in spite of assurances of its use for peaceful purposes. At the same time, the Israeli nuclear program is disregarded, which, every body knows, holds two hundred atomic bombs in its arsenal; moreover she continues to produce other weapons, chemical and biological.

When this happens in matters of politics, the Arab response would be submission and obedience and a race to please Washington. Thus we should not be surprised or object when the door is opened wide to delving into religion, dismantling and restructuring as required.

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour
Empowering Fahmi Howaydy
Response to the article. “The Philosophy of American Empowerment” published in Al-Ahram, of Tuesday April 1, 2005.

1 – In the article “Dismantling Islam”, Fahmi Howaydy spoke of the American conspiracy that aims at dismembering Islam, and accused me of being involved in that plot. I replied to him in the article “Dismantling Fahmi Howaydy”. He is now continuing his campaign with the article, “The Philosophy of American Empowerment”, and I am continuing to reply to him.

2 – Howaydy began his article by stating that “The dismantling of the nation precedes the dismantling of the faith. Those who are assiduously trying to draft American Islam for us, would not have dared to do this or even think of it except after the success they scored with the subjugation of the region to American policies. It is well known that all this is the outcome of the revitalization of the philosophy of empowerment in the United States which does not want, for the region, horizons beyond submission and obedience”. Here he connects the former article with the latter, still considering America a cause in the dismantling of the nation and the faith.
The Muslims split up since the Great Muslim Civil War (Al- Fitna Al- Kubra ) that took place among the companions of the Prophet Muhammad shortly after his death That, of course, was long before America even existed, and, not surprisingly, their disintegration and fragmentation continues to this day. The latest events in Iraq demonstrate this fragmentation in blood, as when Sunni terrorists kill Shi'is during the latter's religious celebrations. But Howaydy sees that the United States is responsible for the dismantling of the nation and the dismantling of the Islamic faith in view of that being an American requirement for the empowerment of the Unites States.

3 – After this, Howaydy presents, as evidence, the “kidnapping” by America of some of those who have connections with Al-Qaida, and their interrogation to extract information concerning Al-Qaida, and uses that as justification for accusing America of human rights violations. He gets his information from those who defend the rights of those who were “kidnapped”, namely the American organization known as Human Rights Watch. He also forgets that America is in a declared war that is of a new kind, in which the terrorists use religion to turn innocent youth into mobile bombs that go off unexpectedly at any time and in any place. Also, being confronted with this unknown and invisible danger, she is forced to defend her internal security, especially that the extremists control more than a thousand mosques on American soil where they brainwash Muslim youth and turn them into “martyrists” (volunteers for martyrdom). Those who object to what America does are the Americans themselves, although what America does is perfectly legitimate in times of war, but what is not legitimate, is what is done by Arab dictatorship and extremism, by way of the oppression and the killing and kidnapping of the peaceable intellectuals who call for reform. Fahmy Howaydy stands, with his pen, against these reformers and jeopardizes them by inciting against these peaceable thinkers who possess neither power nor might.

4 – He then speaks of what he calls the building up and exercising of American strength which aims at world domination. It is not improper or wrong for any nation to seek to build up its strength, and seek empowerment, but what is improper is that any nation be in the extreme state of failure that we are in.
America today is the greatest power in the world and it is certainly not improper for her to seek to preserve her position. Indeed many have preceded her as the leading power in the world including the empires of the Pharaohs, the Persians, the Romans, the Arabs and the British, and no one has ever said that that building up of power is wrong in itself. We still take pride in the Arab power exercised in the time of the Ummawy, the Abbasy and the Ottoman empires. Impropriety arises when such strength is used to enslave others as happened with every one of the empires previous to America, including that of the Muslim Arabs.
America, when she became the greatest power in the world, did not do the things committed by the previous empires, such as colonization and enslavement. Prior to that America lived in isolation in accordance with the principles laid down in the Monroe Doctrine, well away from the internecine wars of Europe over colonies. She then entered the two world wars in defense of democracy, then she entered into a cold war with the Soviet Union also in defense of democracy and freedom.
Then Soviet Union collapsed and the traditionalist trend appeared as an enemy of freedom, inventing a new kind of destructive ideological warfare. This new warfare started by attacking America in the safety of her home thus forcing her into waging a war against a ubiquitous and invisible enemy that is difficult to spot or define. In the course of her defense of democracy, America backed the peoples under Nazi despotism (in Europe) and Japanese despotism (in East Asia), and those under Soviet or communist totalitarianism (Eastern Europe, South Korea, South Vietnam and Afghanistan). She liberated Kuwait from occupation by Saddam, then she went on to liberate the Iraqi people from him. Now she is calling upon the Arab dictators to effect political reforms and to institute democracy peacefully thus avoiding civil wars and foreign intervention. She officially declares that she will not impose democracy from the outside upon the Arabs. But Arab despotism refuses reform by peaceful means from the inside. We find Fahmi Howaydy resenting America this, her beneficial intervention for reform, and considers it one of the requirements for empowerment.

5 – It is natural that in America's wars of liberation excesses will occur. War is always the worst choice even if it is in the cause of liberation from colonialism and dictatorship. The democracy that came, paid for with American blood all the way from France and Europe to the Philippines, South Korea and Afghanistan and Iraq with the help of God Almighty, justifies any excess that might have occurred. Moreover, it is American Liberalism itself which stands up to any excesses Americans might fall into. It is this self same American Liberalism which aroused the American conscience to the problem of Vietnam. As a result, America was forced to withdraw from the region leaving the field open to the communist Khmer Rouge to kill millions of inhabitants in a communal extermination the like of which the Twentieth Century did not witness.

6 – Moreover, American Society is in no need of admonishment from a preacher of the type of Fahmy Howaydy or anyone else. Among America's most cherished values is the virtue of admitting error and apologizing publicly for it. Not only that, but they also teach it to their children, in the school curricula, that they might learn from the errors of their forefathers. American children live with a guilt complex towards the Blacks and the Native Americans, and all this while we still prohibit the discussion of The Great Civil War, which pitted the Companions of the Prophet against each other, so that the Companions might remain above the level of human beings and thus free of human error. Thus do Americans learn from their mistakes while we, on the other hand, blunder on in the dark depths of The Great Conspiracy to this day.

7 – Howaydy reports the plans, that some American specialists propose, for the restructuring of the Middle East on a democratic basis, considering them part of the conspiracy despite the fact that these are published and available to all. America is doing her best, openly, to convince the Arabs of this democratic, peaceful change. The Arab dictators, on the other hand, delay implementing democracy while, at the same time, trying to placate America in every way that, perchance, she might overlook the democratic choice.

8 – It is strange that Howaydy should consider America's efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East as among the basics for empowerment of America in the region. It is well known that it is easy for America to control the single, individual dictator; that is exactly what is happening right now with the twenty something individuals who rule the Arab World. It would be impossible for America to control a democratic nation, ruled by its citizens in a truly democratic fashion. How is she able to control all the Arab countries if they were democratic? America has chosen democracy to solve the problem of terrorism which threatens her on her soil. Totalitarianism goes hand in hand with corruption, and these two, together, produce a resentful, frustrated generation incapable of fighting dictatorship at home where suppression by the police is strongest. This frustrated generation then seeks migration to the West where they express their pent-up anger against the “Infidel West”. It is thus necessary to reform the Arabs in order that the West might live in peace and tranquility. But Brother Howaydy, who has dedicated his pen to the defense of dictatorship, extremism and fanaticism, resents America her efforts to bring about democratic reform, and considers them empowering America in the world.

9 – The fact is that Howaydy has acquired “empowerment” unto himself. Over the span of thirty years, writing every week, in the service of extremism and dictatorship and being referred to by some as an “Islamic thinker” even though he has never come up with a single new idea to add to the fund of Islamic or, for that matter, political thought. On the contrary, the Arabs, over the last thirty years, thanks to the likes of him, and to dictatorship, corruption and extremism, have reached rock bottom. Howaydy dedicated his pen to attacking America and the West, and to defending fanaticism and terrorism, while remaining silent on dictatorship, corruption and torture, and falsely directing anger, depression and hatred at the West and America, instead of at the real enemy who is the dictator and the purveyors of corruption all around him.

10 – Nasser suspended freedom, purportedly to realize social justice and make the state responsible for providing a decent life for the citizen; he promoted the slogan “No voice above that of the struggle”. Then came Sadat and made peace with Israel. There was thus no excuse to delay freedom and democracy, he then granted slivers of it then reneged and lost his life. Then Husni Mubaarak came along with the emergency law, the sequestration of freedom and social justice and the suspension of the individual's right to a job and a decent life. He monopolized power and wealth and drove Egypt to the lowest levels. Now he is trying to establish succession to guarantee immunity for himself and his descendants from accountability for what he embezzled of Egypt's wealth. Mubaarak is still in power for the following reasons:
(a) - He gave fundamentalism a chance to dominate the people's minds religiously and culturally thus rendering it the sole alternative to military rule. He then exploited this very fundamentalism to frighten the people, as though he says, “Who is preferable, the fundamentalists or me?” After peace with Israel and the demise of the excuse of the foreign Israeli enemy, or the foreign military front, Mubaarak started to cultivate the monster of fundamentalism up to a certain point where he can use it to scare others, but where it cannot jeopardize his military regime, and to turn Egypt into an internal military front that would permit him to rule autocratically with the emergency law.
(b) – Naturally, anger, resentment and frustration with him will increase; equally naturally, Mubaarak will try to deflect such resentment and anger and find release for them away from him. It was thus necessary to direct that resentment, anger and frustration at America and Israel in view of the latter being the major conspiratorial enemy of the Arabs and the Muslims although the true enemy of the people is the dictator and his supporters. By controlling the media and education, the Azhar and the mosques, he was able to brainwash the youth and redirect their hatred at America and Israel instead of it being directed at himself. That is the reason why hatred of America, in the streets of Egypt approaches hysterical levels, despite the fact that America granted Mubaarak over the last 24 years 96 billion dollars in “US Aid”. Would Howaydy dare discuss with Mubaarak where these funds and the proceeds of sale of the public sector went? (c) – Mubaarak used the systems of repression, the media and religion in his hounding of the reformers, assassinating their characters and defaming them in order to denude Egypt of honorable, truly democratic symbols, so that the only opposition left is a weak one subservient to the regime and incapable of confronting it.

One last question remains! Where does Howaydy stand with regards to this policy?
The answer, very briefly, is that he is the government's well placed agent writer who plays, for the benefit of the regime, in an area of extreme sensitivity, namely fundamentalist extremism. He plays for the benefit of the fundamentalists as long as that does not harm the regime. He plays for the benefit of both against reform, by relentlessly hounding the reformers. And as to corruption, dictatorship, fanaticism, torture, injustice, the illegal bequest of power, the unlawful extension of incumbency, embezzlement and theft, he looks the other way, conveniently forgetting the demonstrations calling for reform that move the streets. That is the reason for “empowering” Howaydy, in Al-Ahram, for more than thirty years. In order to preserve this empowerment, Howaydy is not disturbed by the hysterical screams of the victims of torture in the hell of Egyptian prisons. Among these victims are thousands of Muslim Brothers, or, his Muslim brothers.

Sample 3

Between President Obama and King Abdullah Aal Saud

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=5828

Originally published in Arabic on January 22 2009, by Ahmed Subhy Mansour

During the race for the white house between Barack Obama and John McCain, I used to say that John McCain is an American man, whereas Barack Obama is American made. The American made or the American culture won over the traditional man known as the (wasp) which is an abbreviation for (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). The era of the white Americans controlling everything ended, and the voice of the American Nazi and groups of white power and domination, which call for superiority of the white race, and oppose the non-white immigration to United States, their voice softened drastically. Many factors contributed to this change, including the Vietnam War and the American human rights movement led by Martin Luther King; with his famous quote (I Have a Dream), after 44 years his dream has materialized with Barack Obama taking over the presidency of the United States.

Those who struggled against the American war in Vietnam and demanded civil rights are now the elderly in America. They taught the new generation not to repeat their mistakes. All of them formed the current American culture that brought Obama to the White House. Standing opposite all this was George W. Bush, who became the worst American president, representing the former fading American style. The advantage of America is that they have high capacity to learn from their mistakes in an atmosphere of freedom and the ability of self-criticism, and that is the structure of its educational system which allowed them to progress in this century, and may be outpace it. But The Sunni Arab culture (salafiya) which is still living the past and trying to impose it on the present and the future, and still imposes the sanctification of historic leaders like Abu Bakr, Omar, Hussein and Ali, and  still differ on historic events like the civil wars between the early Muslims , the pledge of allegiance at Saqeefa, battle of Al-Jamal and Saffeen, and refuses to discuss objectively the Arab conquests and the major turmoil (between Ossmaan, the 3^rd caliph and his opponents)

This Salafiya culture gave us in our times, the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, vs. the renewable American culture that produced Barack Obama. Contradiction is clear and hilarious between President Obama and King Abdullah Al Saud. The difference in age is about forty years, but the cultural difference is about forty centuries. I have never seen a solid and good orator such as Obama, and I have never seen in my life a more miserable public speaker as King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, who almost did not know how to correctly read one line written for him in Arabic. Both are the result of their own culture and natural environment. Abdullah is the son of the family which monopolized wealth and power and gave the state its name:” Saudi Arabia”. Here is the state and here is Abdullah Al-Saud, in his extremely old age is forced to follow a young brown U.S. President Barack Obama. 

If we were to assume that Hussein Obama, the Kenyan man, have migrated to the Saudi Kingdom rather than America, got married and had a son Barak, his son would never have gotten the Saudi citizenship, where he was born, but he would have lived as a servant like his father and would be under the threat of deportation. Aliens in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are deprived from acquiring the citizenship of the country in which they were born, as long as their fathers have migrated to the country. There is even the be-doons (the withouts), genuine Arab tribes, deprived of the citizenship of the State to which they belong. Shortly before Al- Qaameshli uprising, the Kurds in Syria were not recognized as citizens and did not have identity documents or passports. This is the Arab culture if it is Sunni in the Gulf, or Alawite Shiite in Syria.

This is the racist unjust culture of Arab societies and its perception of the other and of the newcomer, even if he is a Muslim and or an Arab. While the American culture allows a young Kenyan immigrant Muslim to marry a white American, offers grants to his son, free and equal opportunities for education, excels in public life to become Senator to the state of Illinois, his presence adding enormous vitality to the U.S. Congress, causing a change in the traditional thinking pattern in Washington, which froze in its innovation at the level it reached in the era of Reagan the Republican ,and Clinton the democrat, then deteriorated more in the era of George W. Bush. The star of the young brown Sen. Barack Obama shone rapidly, and I remember the words uttered by a journalist at the Washington Post in 2003 (Look at this young man well, he will be the next President of America). Those words came true, even the words of Thomas Jefferson finally came true, one of the great founders of the State of America and the U.S. Constitution (we do not care what is your color, nor your religion, nor your language, but we care what you will give to this country). This is the culture of justice, equality and equal opportunities of America. It is a genuine Islamic value forgotten by the Arabs, and resurrected by the West.

The unjust racist Salafi Arabic culture is born by the majority of Arab and Muslim immigrants in America. According to the lottery system, America brings yearly thousands of Arabs and Muslims, gives them the residency green card, and after several years they acquire the American citizenship, but most of them still carry with them most of the Arab cultural genes. They live in America, yet feeling enmity towards America while enjoying all those things that they have been deprived off back home, like freedom and equal opportunities, they could even buy a church and convert it into a mosque, they can teach their children as they please, exercise their religious freedom as they please, yet his Arab cultural genes, reciprocate kindness with evil or worse. The prevailing belief is lawful looting. Wrongfully looting the entire Americans’ money becomes lawful, since they are heathens, and according to the Sunni religion, it is lawful to Loot their monies and to take advantage of their women. Legitimizing looting is very easy in the business environment of America, which depends on the confidence in dealing with, and the ratification of what the customer say, and to give the wrongdoer a second chance to remedy the situation ... some of those Arabs and Muslims took advantage of this American culture to obtain huge loans and then flee to their country of origin. Not to mention the allegations of poverty in order to receive aid unlawfully, while the American shies away (white in particular) from requesting such aid and consider it a disgrace. It is customary for the majority of Arabs and Muslims, to divert their income and savings to their country of origin to circumvent the non-payment of taxes in America. ..

One day I was out in a supermarket .I heard a woman of Sudanese Arabic origin saying: (America’s money goes back to its belly), had a shopping cart loaded with the procurement of various types of food, where the abundance and quality and cheap price, tempt immigrants to overbuy their needs, for they are accustomed where they came from in their country of origin, to stockpile food in anticipation of crises and price increase. And this lady, instead of thanking God for His blessings, for bringing her from the Sudan to America, instead of feeling grateful to the country in which she was welcomed and granted security from hunger and fear when she came here seeking refuge, leaving her people to their misery in Sudan, When I heard the cursing and swearing, I remembered a story of another Sudanese man, I met him through a bad coincidence, the meeting was set up to attack America. The owner of the house is a Sudanese who immigrated to America decades earlier and fulfilled all his dreams. I was waiting for him to say a good word in gratitude, to stop those ingrates who took refuge in this country, but was surprised to hear him say: (I used to think that there are no dirtier public toilets than in Khartoum, until I came to America and found the dirtiest). Enough is enough I said. I forgot that I was a guest in his house and quickly said to him, why you don’t go back to Khartoum and enjoy the public toilets there. And I left the place very angry.

I know an Egyptian immigrant who came to America as a student in the eighties of the last century. He stayed illegally and soon gained legitimacy by circumventing the system gaining residency and then citizenship. He represents the vast bulk of Arab Muslims I know who hate America, yet carry its citizenship. He bluffed his way until he received a huge loan and then fled back to Egypt and tried to invest it. He was surrounded by the powerful from police and the National Party, and became a victim of their conflict, was sent to prison and his fortune disappeared. He was sentenced to be jailed in the United States for stealing the loan and fleeing with the money. In the latest letter from his Egyptian prison, he said that once out of prison in Egypt, he will return to America and choose to enjoy life in a U.S. prison, which will be the Garden of Eden for him to atone for his errors he committed in America, which gave him security and prosperity, yet he betrayed

The same story was repeated with another Egyptian who used to send all his income to Egypt in the hope that someday he will go back to Egypt to invest his money he collected, legally and illegally in a project. I advised him not to be hasty, he rejected my advice. I told him not to venture all his money for investment in Egypt, and only a portion of the money to try his luck, and told him about the previous story. Indeed, he rented a cafeteria on the northern coast for the length of the summer. And soon returned indignantly telling us about the terrible tragedies he encountered, it was daily blackmail by all; he had to bribe tax officials, insurance people, local municipalities and police. Then the catastrophe hit when the police chose to arrest one of his employees in the cafeteria during a routine investigation. The officer told him that he needed to do that in order to prove that he was doing his job and performing his duty. The poor employee went through a routine torture procedure at the police department, was raped by other inmates, and then was sent by the officer to a full investigation. He was taken to all the police stations for verification of his innocence of any charge, and then was set free in the end, devastated. This is poor college student came from the countryside looking for work in the northern coast ,rejoiced that our friend gave him a job at the cafeteria, and was sleeping and working hard to save what he can to help himself in his studies, but a week later, they arrested him. My Friend lost everything in the cafeteria experiment so he closed it and returned to America, but kept his hatred for America even though he found a job with better and more revenue. The strange thing is that this friend was determined to send his American born daughters to study in Egypt; the girls did not like the Egyptian educational system with its corporal punishment and ignorance. The girls were determined to return to America where the rights of the student and the advantages of care beyond description. The experience of our friend with the cafeteria, made him return his daughters back to America where they excelled in their studies, and in the secondary level, they received in advance, grants for free university studies while keeping their Islamic dress code and chastity and their active participation in social and public life. In the election campaign, they volunteered for Obama’s campaign like most ambitious young people, and have achieved recognition from supervisors in Obama’s campaign in the state of Virginia, while Obama was hated by their parents, blind hatred to the point he had made a vow to donate a thousand dollars if Obama failed in the election. When Obama won, the father went through a real depression as if he was a real (red Neck) or white bigot.

Many Arabs of this sort in America carry this sentiment inside them, but there are lots who are honorable. I came to know a former senator in the Congress. He was a Lebanese Christian graduated from the American University in Cairo, emigrated to America, settled and worked in the state of Colorado, has gained the love and respect of its people, for his public work they elected him as a (senator) for the state, then as an American ambassador to Bahrain. He told me that he met with King Fahd, who found it odd that the U.S. ambassador is originally from Lebanon.

I really admired his loyalty to America and his sense of belonging to it. A true country is the one that provides you with security, justice, pride and dignity, guarantees you your livelihood, opens the doors wide-open for you to achieve your potentials. It is not a country that abuses your rights and insults you for the sake of a tyrant

This is the difference between the culture of Bedouins, the worst people in disbelief and hypocrisy, and the culture of America, the culture of ignorance produced Abdullah Al Saud and the American culture produced Barack Obama. Abdullah Al-Saud needs to learn nothing. His fate is to be a king because of descent, and is ranked in the state of Covenant between the siblings of Abdul Aziz, his father. He can, with the people he owns and governs, buy everything from professional dancers to professional policy to professional writing. Unfortunately, however, he must read his speeches, which are written for him, in the Arab summits, and there he shows his inability to read.

For Barack Obama, he must learn, educate himself and work hard to convince the American people that he is efficient at public service, and especially the presidency of the White House. The American people have learned recently that it does not matter what the color of skin is of the greatest servant of the people (i.e., the U.S. president), what is important is his ability to serve the American people after the failure of many white-skinned servants the worst of whom was George W. Bush. For this, Obama has become the idol for millions of young Americans of color, he has inspired each and every one of them that one day they might be president for America. I know of an Ethiopian American wife who recently gave birth to an American newborn, she announced that she is determined to prepare him to become a U.S. president in the future. It is possible that her son might succeed and achieve the American dream; America opens its arms to each successful one of its children in accordance with the standards of justice and equal opportunities. The dictators in the countries of Arabs and Muslims, they do not want one of their citizens or slaves they owned to be famous or recognized, because the tyrant is admired that he alone, holds all the applause, admiration and cheers. He wants efficient people to compete in, being hypocrite and eulogists, not to compete in science and innovation. He wants the trust of the hypocritical employees. The experienced, the efficient , and the innovator in this world has no time for cheering and dancing in processions of the tyrant, which is naturally not satisfied with that as well. This is why the Clappers, the Hypocrites, the Quacks Jugglers , Brokers and the White Slave, command media, culture, education, religious life, social life and the country’s military . Finally, a tribute sent to the late Hussein Obama, who immigrated to America where his son Barak is. The biggest tribute is to him, because he did not immigrate to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States or the rest of the Arab world.

Sample 4

Tears of the FBI agent

(This article was published in Arabic in 01 – 25 – 2009):

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=4801

 The FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation which includes the terms of reference for crimes and is the authority over the local police in each American state.
As a way to commit theft, a professional gang of African Americans in the city of Detroit in the state of Michigan, began to compile information on other criminal gangs. Disguised in FBI uniforms, they would then break into their homes, handcuff them and rob them of the stolen money or drugs; masked, they would then flee. The gang members affected of course could not complain to the authorities. Cloaked as the FBI, the gang’s activities were sometimes not limited to theft but would extend to murder and rape.
The news reached the FBI when the gang broke into the wrong address. When they entered the house they did not find anything of worth to steal; they raped a girl and killed her mother!!
I heard this story in the program (ID) which specializes in crime detection and analysis. The U.S. officer who was a witness to these events was invited to the program. As he recalled the crime he was in tears, recounting the events when the girl was raped by the perpetrators, the body of her mother by her side. The U.S. officer said that he was very sad that even though his duty as a police officer was to protect citizens, crimes were still happening
2- The education and training of this police officer specify that his main duty is to serve and protect the people (to serve and protect). This U.S. police officer is a permanent guest in children’s schools where he explains to them the mission of the police officers, assuring them that he is in the service of the people, that he is a friend of everyone and that his salary is paid by their taxes. He explains that his loyalty is to the people and everyone in that region and suggests that if any child is subjected to abuse that they should call 911 immediately and that they will receive an immediate response to help them.
Due to the training and education they receive, there is a culture of respect. This means that the U.S. officers have full respect for all citizens so that even if someone is a criminal he will refer to them as Mr. so and so. For example, when a police officer stops a citizen or puts someone under arrest, they always address him as “sir” out of respect.
In an arrest, there must be sufficient evidence against the accused so that the Attorney General (Chief Prosecutor) approves the arrest. The arrest includes the reading of the rights of the accused: the right to remain silent and not speak in his or her detriment, the right to call a lawyer, and, if he or she cannot afford a lawyer, then there is the right to have the state appoint a lawyer on his or her behalf. If there is any abuse of these rights then the accused is entitled to go to the police and to the Attorney General for compensation.
The Attorney General (Chief Prosecutor) acts on behalf of the community and reflects the rights of the community against the accused, pointing out any damage inflicted on the community and its members. The position of Attorney General is an elected one, the length of his term in office depends on his efficiency and integrity, and all eyes are watching him for a slip or a lapse.
The lawyer for the accused has the same rights of the prosecutor. If counsel falls short on his duty, the judge can kick him out of court. It is the judge’s responsibility to make sure all evidence is presented and that both the defense and prosecution have the opportunity to present their case to the jury so that the jury can then prepare their verdict.
The desire to achieve justice is the source of a democratic system itself. This means the independence of the judiciary in all levels of the executive and legislative branch. It also means the presence of freedom of information and a transparent process for any oppressed person so that he can speak out and be heard. Individuals, associations and organizations can then stand up for him.
Second
1-Egypt does not lack legal skills. It is a leading legal and legislative renaissance in Africa and the Arab and Muslim world. It is full of elders and law scholars of the highest integrity and purity.
The police force has officers, which include the sons of respectable families with good credibility. These officers have grown up with dignity and know that their duty is the same as the duty of the officers in the U.S., to serve and protect. There was an old slogan: (the police serve the people). This is still the duty in some divisions of the police and the service sectors such as fire and rescue, traffic control and immigration.
2- These positive features in the judiciary and the police were clear before the rule of the military in 1952.
The military gave the first blow to the Egyptian judiciary system in the attack on Alsanhoury Pasha (an greatest Egyptian law scholar and judge in the twentieth century). It also asked for a strike against the Constitution and established emergency law.
During the military rule of Nasser, the military prison opened its doors to civilians and torture, a task that was left by the military to the dirty police. A police state was created in Egypt to protect the military, led by the State Security Investigations and assisted by armed military (Central Security). The police (political) and the Central Security turned into a big prison and tightened the grip of the state on the people’s neck. The rest of the army stays away to monitor the situation closely, interfering only when the police are unable to. The situation has grown worse each day since the arrival of Mubarak to office in 1981.
3- The outcomes have been toxic. These are some of the most important ones:
*The continuing collapse in the level of efficiency and integrity, and the prevalence of corruption in the judiciary and police.
*The prevalence of a culture of torture perpetuated by the police. This has reduced the role of the police, meaning that policemen have missed a career in the investigation and detection of crime and have lost the duty to be in the protection of the citizens.
It is no longer the role of policemen to serve and protect people. Members of the public can be arrested and insulted by him, at any time and place. It is not required of the officer to put great effort to find the real criminal and search for criminal evidence, it is sufficient to arrest any person and torture him until he admits that he has killed Ceasar, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Kennedy and maybe Sadat too. The prosecution will then take care of him according to the circumstances.
It is dangerous for someone to go and complain to the police as they are in peril of being forced under torture that he was the one who killed raped, committed robbery and dealt drugs.

In any case, the officer will not bother to act for this citizen, the victim, when the police can torture the victim when and however he wants. The officer will act only if it is of interest and if this is the case it does not matter if the complainant is guilty or innocent. The police, therefore, are not there to serve the people but to torture and oppress the people. Their service is limited to rich people in power, not the poor. The oppressed, however, stay away form the police department and the fulfillment of justice. In secret they pray for protection from injustice and oppression.
4- The security of seventy million Egyptians has collapsed as security has taken on a political focus: the President and his followers. In order to protect the president, the army, intelligence members, and all the staff of state and government are carrying weapons. In order to protect the President the people have become naked of protection. The weapons of the army and the police are directed towards the people in order to keep the president in office, the eternal ruler.
If the chair of the president would have lasted longer for Sadat, this chair would have never reached Hosni Mubarak. Each day that passes brings him closer to his final rest and all the armies in the world cannot protect him from death. When Mubarak dies he will not find any sad tears shed for him. All the tears have been exhausted grieving for the victims of Hosni Mubarak. In every second Egyptian home there are one or more members who have been exposed to insult, beatings, looting, rape, theft and injustice by the police and Mubarak’s army and regime. The tears of the Egyptian families who have become victims under the rule of Mubarak and his regime have all dried up.
Mubarak has monopolized for himself and his followers all the security, all the wealth, and all the power, and kept it all to the last moments of his life. To protect his interest, he has let the armed forces and the police subjugate the people with humiliation, torture and rape. Not a single tear is left for him.
So thank God Almighty for what is left for Mubarak’s life which is much less than in the past, the Egyptian has reached the age of decline and everybody is waiting for his death, it does not matter to them what happens afterwards. This is the extent of the Egyptian people’s hate for him; he knows this and people know this too. They hold each other in sight, waiting to see who will die first, and death is the final say. There are more than seventy million Egyptians who live everyday with the hope of the arrival of Mubaraks’s death, so that they can start their demonstrations and chant (Long Live Death).
5- Most beautiful is death!
The biggest player in the lives of people who are unable to confront their tyrants is to wish for death. Dictators try to escape death but to no avail. Death is not a gray hair that can be removed by dying it black or wrinkles than can be hidden by makeup power.
6. All the oppressed Arab people stand in a queue waiting for death to resolve the problem of the tyrant controlling them with an iron fist. Sooner or later the moment of death will come for each and every one of the oppressors then there will be no escape, no excuses.

Sample 5

Brainwashing Egyptians against America by using the U.S Aid

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=6313

Every Tuesday evening, from January 2, 1996 to the end of June 2000, I conducted weekly seminars for the Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo. In a seminar in 1997 we discussed the subject of the determination of some of the Christian leaders in establishing a Coptic University in Egypt. I invited to the discussion the leaders of the Copts.

I did not like the project because it would make more division among Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Therefore, I proposed that the alternative is to reform the Egyptian education, especially of religious education, which is where the distinction between the sons of one homeland lies. Also, the reform of other materials such as history, which neglects the Coptic era of Egyptian history, and of reading materials which neglect the component of the Coptic Egyptian people. The proposal had a good response, so I published an article in the Egyptian magazine (Rose Al Yousef) calling for the reform of the curricula of religious education in Egyptian schools as a step in the reform of Al-Azhar itself.

The Ibn Khaldoun Center for Egyptian Education Reform was founded the following year, it worked for a whole year. We prepared alternative materials as proposals for history and reading materials, and religious education. I myself wrote proposals for religious education (three books for the education of elementary, middle and s the education of elementary, middle and secondary schools) with a book to guide the teacher to articles on religious education. I also wrote the scenario for the religious tolerance of the historical reality of what took place in Egypt in the Abbasid Age. I also wrote the scenario of a documentary on Egyptians celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Mostorod ( place east of Cairo), where the majority of the pioneers of the Muslims in reference to the existence of tolerance in the grass-roots Egypt develop it.

We sent what was written the films that were produced to Al-Azhar, the Church,the Ministry of Education, the media, and the People's Council, and invited the thinkers and intellectuals for discussion. Suddenly we were accused of being disbelievers. We did not weaken. The project still in practice, we hosted teachers to discuss the topic, then selected teachers to teach to a selected group of students in different stages during the middle school year holidays. The attacks on us intensified and ended with the arrest warrant against Dr. Saad and the closing down of the Centre. I fled to America, while the second wave of arrest targeted the Alqra’nyeen and who were sentenced to imprisonment for contempt of religion.

Why do I tell this here?
To cite what happened in our discussions with a group of teachers who accepted to discuss the proposals with us. We booked them in a luxury hotel in Al Ain Sukhna on the Suez Canal during the days of the conference. Each received the equivalent of about a month's salary. All their travel expenses were paid from the budget of the project. They also received gifts of books and other materials from the center.

They were required to read the proposals and then discuss it together with us to try and find an answer to the important question: Is it possible to actually teach these alternative proposals or not? And are they better than the textbooks that already exist?
Surprisingly, the discussion turned to questioning us in the same manner that as had been reported on the role of the Ibn Khaldoun Center, its objective and the financing of the project; and whether the project was a Western-American conspiracy against Islam and Muslims.

I repeatedly told them the following:
1- Funding of the project is not from America but from the Netherlands; it is not about the ambitions of the Netherlands.

2- Financing the project was in accordance with the formal agreements and the knowledge of the Egyptian government. Its accounts subject to the scrutiny of the state bodies so that if they wish to find any gap they can use it against the center and its employees.
3- Foreign funding is the policy of the Egyptian government. This is evident by the billions of dollars in American and non-American aid; funding which does not reach the billions of Egyptian people. The funding of the past ten years which has come to all the centers working in human rights, in the defense of the Egyptian people and the advancement of Egypt, is no more than a half percent of the subsidies received by the Egyptian government in one year. At a time when the rulers of looted billions of dollars, the cents which came to human rights organizations support thousands families who live on the salaried of researchers, activists and ordinary workers who work for a true fit for their community.

4- Then you are talking about Western funding, which is claimed to reform and is in the public financing. How about the Saudi funding to support mosques to spread terrorism and the culture of extremism and intolerance? This funding is from unknown sources and is uncontrolled. It has caused Egypt to go back 100 years, scattering discord between Egyptians and igniting sectarian sedition and terrorism. Producing armed movements, which reached a climax in the early nineties, and producing ignorance instead of science, all of which urges the center to treat and fix this problem by implementing this project of educational reform.

5- So, where is the conspiracy here? Conspiracy is usually in secret, and we do not ever work in secret because the reform is based on openness. We announced of project, sent copies of everything we have done to those responsible and the media, intellectuals and educators, university professors, Al-Azhar and the Church and the Ministry of Education; we asked the opinion of everybody and affirmed the need for discussion.
How can you say, you are plotting, and you yourselves are witnesses to yourselves? You have come of your own free will to us, and we have given you books written by us. And we ask you to hear your discussion, and everything you have read: you did not find anything showing western conspiracy. I am the author of the proposals for the religious education materials, which are derived from the Qur’an and show the greatness of Islam and its tolerance. So, do we have the West conspiring to prove that Islam is tolerance, peace and human rights? Then you finally will return home in peace and safety, and spend a happy time and a wonderful picnic and be well paid financially. If this is conspiracy, then what a best conspiracy!

6- Then this funding is money come here from the West for us work productively for the benefit of Egypt. Why do we not compare the people's money which been stolen by Egyptian rulers and smuggled it to the West? Who conspires here? Who are the thieves? Who is worthy of accountability and punishment?
7- In the end ... why would America conspire against us? America may conspire against its competitors or who fight them, but why would America be plotting against Egypt, which depends on their weapons and food? Without the need for any conspiracy, the Egyptian President is carrying out orders received by telephone from Washington.
Can the mayor of your village conspire on a laborer who works for him? If the mayor gives financial aid to one of the laborers, is he now a conspirator?
I am tired of the repetition of these words without any improvement.
Finally, I looked at them with sympathy. These teachers are themselves the victims of bad teaching and a falling culture.
This was in 1999.
Unfortunately, this culture continues to spread.