We Declare in Public Our Happiness and Satisfaction with Our Sons and Daughters the Quranists

Was published in Arabic in January, 21, 2016

Translated by Ahmed Fathy

Firstly:

1- We were once for a long time alone and lonely in Al-Azhar University, vociferous in our call for religious reform. Such calls reverberated in space with no results except in the others around us saying: "Who else before you and apart from you is repeating your views?!" We resigned from the university and began to be a mobile preacher in different mosques, chased and persecuted by both Wahabis/Salafists and the former Egyptian State Security Apparatus men during the rule of Mubarak. The same chase and persecution reached tens of others like us whom the Apparatus at the time called ''the Quranists''. Many of them, like us, were imprisoned on several occasions. The same question was posed to us several times: "Who else before you and apart from you is repeating your views?!" We got out of prison into the public space, as a freelance writer in several newspapers, a speaker in several forums, and a leader in several Egyptian human rights societies such as The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, The Society of Religious Fraternity, The Egyptian Society for Enlightenment, The Popular Movement for Facing Terrorism, and finally Ibn Khaldoun Center. We made good use of our presence in such pulpits to call for religious reform. We used to receive the same question: "Who else before you and apart from you is repeating your views?!" We have later on immigrated to the USA, where we can say and write anything we want without fear of being chased and persecuted. We have worked there as a Visiting Professor at The National Endowment for Democracy, Harvard University, Center for Religious Freedom, and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. We have published online articles in Arabic via the websites of Arab Times, Modern Discussion, and Middle East Transparent. Later on, we have launched the website of the International Quranic Center (IQC). Later on, we have confined our articles to our website and the Modern Discussion website. We have participated in establishing several American societies such as Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, Islam and Diversity, and other Egyptian-American societies. We have made good use of all of the above in our call for religious reform within Islam. The trend of Quranism has grown into a full-fledged school of thought. The above-mentioned recurrent question is no longer posed to us. Several Quranists have formed many groups, and they spread over the cyberspace. The leading group of Quranists is the one joining our website ahl-alquran.com and the International Quranic Center. After years of suffering and hardships in our peaceful call for religious reform since 1977 until this very minute, and four waves of arresting Quranists in Egypt by Mubarak, the only intellectuals who can face peacefully the Wahabi terrorist trend in the Gulf monarchies, the KSA, Cairo-based Al-Azhar institution and university, the terrorist MB group members, Al-Qaeda terrorist group members, and ISIS that wreak havoc in the Middle East are the ONLY peaceful Quranist reformation alternative: the Quranists, who are powerfully present on the intellectual level within the cyberspace.

2- We no longer feel alone and lonely as we have been in Al-Azhar University in 1977; we have the warm company of tens of thousands of Quranists all over the world. We do not know the vast majority of them personally, and we would love to have that honor to see them in person. Yet, we communicate with one another via the internet. Tens of noble Quranists stand beside us in our peaceful intellectual jihad. Some of them finance us so that we go on, may God reward them, and some volunteers translate our articles into English (our dear son Mr. Ahmed Fathy, who has translated one hundred and plus articles, almost one article per day). Some others volunteer to help us on our website, among them our dear brother Mr. Amin Riffat who publishes our books online in PDF versions for free download via Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AhmedSubhyMansourBooks

https://www.facebook.com/The-International-Quranic-Center-IQC-Established-to-defend-Quran-201294979914305   

One of our brethren is Mr. Muhammad Dandan, a member of the IQC board and the admin of the following Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/464854560257638

 To mention more brethren and fellow Quranists, we would like to add Mr. Muhammad Sadeq our fellow on the path of peaceful intellectual jihad for reform since 1980s, in addition to our nephew, Dr. Othman M. Ali who is the admin of our Arabic website and our brother Dr. Abdel-Razak Mansour who is the admin of our English website, along with our son Al-Amir Mansour, the webmaster of the site. Our eldest son Muhammad Mansour has videoed and directed more than fifty episodes of the program (Salafism Exposed). This program has been stopped due to lack of finance and means. We wish that all Quranists will spread the links of such videos via the internet for the sake of enlightenment. Currently, we are working on a dramatic documentary movie on a Muslim young woman getting married to a peaceful non-Muslim, and this movie is supervised by our sons Al-Sharif Mansour and Muhammad Mansour.

 We cannot forget to mention the main writers/researchers and commentators on our website who have supported and enriched it steadfastly since its launching until now. Among those are the following Quranists: Mr. Ibraheem Dadi, Mr. Khaled Al-Laheen, Mr. Reda Abdel-Rahman, Mr. Ramadan Abdel-Rahman, Mr. Abdel-Lateef Saeed (Mr. Abdel-Rahman Ismael), Mr. Yehya Fawzy Nachachbi, Dr. Muhammad Shaalan, Ms. Aisha Hussein, Mr. Abdel-Fattah Asaker, Mr. Abdullah Amin, Mr. Mourad Al-Khouly, Mr. Anis Salih, Ms. Dalia Samy, and Abdel-Rahman Hawash. Later on several notable researchers/writers have joined us, among them are the following: Ms. Nihad Haddad, Mr. Nabil Hilal, Mr. Rabe'i Bouakal, Mr. Sameh Askar, Dr. Abdel-Ghani Bushawar, Abdel-Wahab Al-Nawari, Mr. Hafez Al-Wafi, Mr. Muhammad Hassan, Mr. Mehdi Malik, and Mr. Abid Asir, and recently Dr. Oria Mordachai. Some other former writers/researchers participated and contributed for a while and then left us, but we still remember them with fondest of memories. There are those who recently joined us while belonging to various thought trends but share with us the call for reform on all levels, such as Mr. Reda Al-Battawi, Mr. Muhammad Abdel-Meguid (Bird of the North), Dr. Khaled Montasser, Kamal Ghobrial, and Shady Taalat. We hope to be forgiven if we have forgotten to mention more names in this quick overview.

3- Our website, which is simple and lacking in ad finance, is facing with modest means and with deep enlightened thought countless of human devils: starting from the axis of evil, the KSA and its Wahabism (which has created several terrorist organizations like ISIS recently, which will not be the last one), and ending with Middle Easter tyrant regimes. Both foes own and finance thousands of websites, TV satellite channels, institutions, institutes, centers, societies, universities, and overt and covert groups and movements, as well as millions of followers and supporters. Wahabis and regimes could not face or refute our line of thought intellectually; they used to confront and try to silence us by persecution, incarceration, confiscation, and hunting us down. We have immigrated to the USA and have faced them via our website. The evil ones could not refute our ideas; hence, they have tried, and are still trying, to sabotage and hack our website. This website has been hacked for the sake of its destruction three times. It has been infiltrated by our foes several times that we have not mentioned before. Registration was open for all; this gave the chance for some adversaries to infiltrate and try to damage the website and to form a fifth column inside it! We had at one point to stop registering people for about two years. Later on, and within being urged by hundreds of newcomers converted recently to Quranism, we have opened registration once more by urging them to send us an email message via a newly-created email address, sending us their prenames, surnames, birth date, country of origin, current country of residence, and city of residence. They had to confirm their agreement to regard the conditions of writing on our website: 1) Never to ascribe any hadith whatsoever to Prophet Muhammad, and 2) Never to deny the Quranic facts of Islam. Now, Dr. Othman M. Ali undertakes the mission to register any newcomers.

4- Our modest website is receiving daily an avalanche of emails with questions asking for our views and edicts (fatwas), let alone queries posed to us via Facebook accounts. We sometimes feel alarmed by such a number of questions that increases and we have not enough time for all of them. Sometimes we wonder how we manage possibly to answer them all; such questions entail tenfold Ahmed Subhy Mansour! All such queries assert the need for more support to our website; it is the only Quranist website issuing modern religious edits and views based solely on the Quran and its sharia and legislations, which have been distorted by the Sunnite/Wahabi/Salafist creed by its bigotry, stupidity, eagerness for bloodshed, ignorance, regression, and backwardness. The problem persists; we are a sedentary old man about to reach the age of seventy with little energy who has to write a daily article and reply to incessant email messages on a daily basis, let alone supervising the website, reviewing all matter, making phone calls, and holding meetings. May God help us to solve such a problem!

5- Despite of the above, 2016 brings us good news and fills us with renewed hopes. We have held for the first time a Quranist Friday congregational prayers in the first Friday of January 2016, the very first one after living for 15 years in the USA. We have uploaded the video of this Friday sermon on our website and via Youtube. Other sermons will follow soon. We are looking forward to updating the English Section of our website after the laudable endeavor of our volunteer translator, our dear son Mr. Ahmed Fathy, who is translating our articles into English. We hope to establish a French section on our website to include the articles written in French by Ms. Nihad Haddad and Mr. Yehya Fawzy Nachachbi, among other francophone Quranists. A Persian language section is already there that includes articles written by the Quranist Iranian Dr. Ali Ezadi, and we hope this would be a burgeoning seed for a larger Persian Section, later on, on our website.

6- Our website today is celebrating new excellent articles that add vitality and liveliness to the Quranist articles, such as those recently written by Dr. Oria Mordachai and the articles written in English by Dr. Abdel-Razak Mansour. The articles are enriched with useful comments written by Dr. Muhammad Shaalan, Mr. Abdulla Amin, Mr. Saeed Ali, Ms. Dalia Samy, Ms. Bint Al-Forat, Mr. Abdel-Rahman Ismael, among others. We wait for more contributions from all our sons and daughters, the Quranists, by writing/translating more Quranist articles and adding comments as well as by spreading links from our website via the cyberspace and within Facebook and Twitter accounts and the like.

Lastly:

1- We no longer feel alone as we have been at Al-Azhar University in 1977. We have now tens of thousands of fellow Quranists from all age groups and all countries.

2- This article is a report concerning our website that has been launched in September 2006, and that still exists thanks to all promising youths who will add to the flourishing of it.

3-Now, in 2016, we declare in public our happiness and satisfaction with our sons and daughters the Quranists.

Signature:

Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour