Ahmed Subhy Mansour, A speech in a conference

Islam is against Muslim Wahaby terrorists

I prepared a presentation, but I have to change it now, because there is something very important. I have to point out some absent facts here.  I will limit my presentation to a question and answer. 

Here are the questions:

 1- What is Islam and who are the Muslims? 

If you read the Quran, according to its terminology, you will find Islam is a religion of peace, human rights, justice, tolerance, unlimited freedom of speech and freedom of belief.  Islam means "submission to God and peace on earth."  Submission to God is up to you, and you will be responsible for your choice before God only on the Day of Judgment.  No one on this world has any authority to judge your belief or mine. This belongs to God alone on the Day of Judgment. Any peaceful one is a Muslim regardless of his belief. Any terrorist is an infidel according to his behavior, regardless of his belief. This is Islam.

Muslims are humans who have their own human civilization, human history, a human understanding of Islam.  Because they are human, there are differences between all of them.  There are many sects.  We have now three Muslim sects: Sunni Muslims, Shiites Muslims, and Sufi Muslims.  The fanatics belong to the Sunni Muslims. 

Sunni Muslims are four schools – Hanafi School, Shafi'i School, Maliki School, and Hanbali School.  There are four schools inside the Muslim Sunni sect.  The most fanatic school inside Sunni is Hanbali.  The most fanatic, hard-line inside Hanbali School are the groups of Ibn Taimiya.  The most fanatic group inside Ibn Taimiya are the Wahhabi.  The Wahhabi is a very minute cult, and very notorious fanatics.  They are not all Muslims.  They are not all Sunni.  They are not all Hanbali.  They are not all Ibn Taimiya groups.  They are just very minute.  But because of the Saudi state and its money and funds, they are now acclaiming themselves the representatives of all Muslims, and the real Islam. In fact, their terrorist crimes are against Islam. They are tarnishing its name and values.

We have to make distinctions between Islam as a religion and Muslims, and between Muslims as many sects and those fanatics.  This is a start.

2- Are the fanatic Wahabi Muslims still one cult?

No. The fanatics themselves are two categories.  The so-called moderate fanatics or moderate scholars belong to the authorities of the Saudi or Egyptian regimes, but the most hypocritical among the fanatics are the Muslim Brotherhood. All those groups present themselves as moderate.  The others are the terrorists; Ben Laden and others.

In my opinion, the most dangerous people are tge so-called moderates because Ben Laden himself will be killed or will die, but the moderates are the people who are keeping the religious culture of terrorism.  This religious culture of terrorism will produce more terrorists that are worse than Ben Laden.

3- But Ben Laden and his people are called Mujahedeen, and they represent the Islamic Jihad!

There is a contradiction between the culture of terrorists and Islam.  Jihad, according to the Quran, means to defend your country only; not to start war, nor to attack other people who do not attack you. God says, "And fight in the cause of God, only those who are fighting you. And do not transgress the limit, because God does not like the transgressors” (2/ 190). According to this Quranic verse, Ben laden is the enemy of God and the enemy of Islam.

In Islam, war is an exception. You have to fight to defend yourself and your peaceful country, after you try all the peaceful ways to avoid war.  Then, at last, you have to defend your peaceful country.  This is in many verses in the Quran.  These are the brief laws of Jihad in Islam.

The early Arab Muslims have changed this peaceful face of Islam when they established their mighty empire in the Middle Ages, giving Islam a notorious name. The Sunni sect was created during this powerful empire to justify its policy in the name of Islam. So, the old Sunni Scholars attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, two centuries and more after his death, thousands of false sayings named Sunna.  For example, they claims that he said, "I was commanded to fight all the people until they testify that there is god but One God, and I am the messenger of God.” That means to force all the people to be Muslims.

This contradicts more than one thousand of the Quranic verses. 

This saying, which is attributed falsely to the Prophet Mohammed, is the favorite constitution of Ben Laden and all fanatic Wahabi Muslims. They uphold Jihad accordingly to restore and reestablish the Muslim Arab Empire in our time, using their Middle aged bloody tradition named Sunna. Because I reject this Sunna, they call for my death, branding me as the denier or the rejector of Sunna.

They also attributed to the Prophet Muhammad another saying. They claim that he said, "My livelihood is made under the shield of my spear," or "of my sword." This means that he was sent to terrorize the people. God in the Quran said that he sent Prophet Muhammad as mercy for the human. (21/107); not to kill people or to terrorize them.  

The fanatic scholars in the Saudi Kingdom, including the so-called moderate, still insist on saying in their preaching and prayers, that Muhammad was sent by God with the sword in his hand to conquer the enemies of Islam.  This is a contradiction between them and Islam and the Islamic Jihad.

4- Is their fanatic bloody Jihad against the non Muslims only?

No. Any Muslim who is not one of them should be killed. They excommunicate the Sufi Muslims and the Shiites Muslims. They call for the death of any Muslim scholar who discusses their tradition in the light of the Quran, accusing him to be an apostate. Any secular Muslim who argues with them in any political issue is called an apostate. This happened to me and to my late friend Dr. Farag Foda. They killed Farag Foda in Cairo in June 1992 because he discussed the slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to their Sunni tradition, any apostate should be killed.  So they accused me and Farag Foda of being apostates and two fanatics killed Farag Foda. In response to this brutal terrorist murder, I wrote my book “The Penalty of Apostasy”  to prove that this penalty of apostasy contradicts Islam. This book is translated into English and is available now on the internet. 

In the early Sunni tradition in the Middle ages, the apostate means the Muslim who converted from Islam to uphold another religion. The fanatics revived this in our time and made it more than the one who converted from Islam to another religion.  They added "zindik."  Zindik means a Muslim scholar who is not one of them and has new Islamic insights. As they could not argue with him, they said he must be killed by any one any time without any discussion and any court. They said: “kill him when you get him.” This is inside their books and scriptures.

This contradicts all verses of the Quran.

This is the official Saudi translation of the Qur'an, made by the moderate scholars. They add their own fanatic ideas as comments in this translation to brainwash Muslims in the West and the U.S.  You know the Al-fatiha, the statement, the opening of the Quran that every Muslim repeats seventeen times in his prayers every day? Al-fatiha says, "In the name of God, the Almighty, the most merciful, the only owner of the Day of judgment, you alone we worship and you alone we ask for help, guide us to the straight path, the path of those on whom you have bestowed your grace, not the way of those who earned your anger nor of those who went astray."  This is a translation of Al-fatiha in the official Saudi translation of the Quran.  The so-called moderate Saudi scholars comment here accusing the Jews and the Christians to be the enemies of God. In other comments in this translation, they add this false Sunni tradition saying: “The hour will not be established until you fight against the Jews and the stone will say to the Muslim: There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him”. This Saudi translation of the Quran is full of these base, fanatic comments, which reflect their Wahabi Sunni faith.

Hundreds of thousands copies of this translation were distributed among the Muslim community here in the United States and in Europe.  Muslims who repeat this Al-fatiha in English, put in their minds that Christians and Jews are the enemies of God and should be killed and fought as Jihad.  This is done by the so-called moderate official scholars of the Saudi Kingdom. They are more dangerous than Ben Laden because they are the people who produce Ben Laden and they are producing more and will produce more and more if we let them keep doing their bad job.

5- How to deal with this problem?

By reforming the Muslims here and there.

6- How to reform them?

It is not by forcing them to accept the Western secular teachings.  This is nonsense.  The religious Muslim will not change his background for any western thoughts. Even the ordinary poor Muslim will not understand you or agree with you if you talk to him about what Jean-Paul Sartre, Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson said. But when you call to him and  introduce him to what Allah, God, says in the Qur'an, he has to listen. Therefore, you have to reform Muslims by Islam. 

If you deal with the so-called moderate Sunni scholars, they will deceive you. They talk about the bright side of Islam; the true Islam. At the same time, they will not talk about their secret sacred side of Sunna, which is undiscussable and untouchable. They will deceive you. 

The only way is to reform Muslims from inside Islam by the reformist Muslims, who struggle for this mission and suffer because of it and consider it their own peaceful Jihad.  They usually discuss the bad side of Muslim tradition in the light of the Quran to establish real Islamic reform. They usually believe in Islam as the religion of peace, freedom, democracy, tolerance justice and human rights. They make a solid distinction between Islam and using its name in the political sphere. They are against using the name of Islam in any political issue or for any vanities of life.

Actually, it is not only to reform the religious life of Muslims, but to reform their political and cultural, social and economical life.  You have to change these dictatorships into real democracy, but in peaceful way, not war.  War is a problem that has many consquences.  Thank you.