Questions about Fanatic Fatwas as Opposed to Our Quranist Fatwas

Written by Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour

Edited by: Ahmed Fathy

1- What is the relationship between the fatwa of the radical sheikhs and extremists' jihad?

  Islamic self-defense jihad does not need fatwa (edict) or religious justification, because it is commonly accepted among all people as a higher human value to defend oneself in case one is unjustly attacked by aggressors. The extremists' jihad needs a religious edict as means of justification or pretext, usually by issuing verdicts or fatwas to be applied by those who believe in those fanatic sheikhs and their dogmas.

2- So, we have here two kinds of extremists, sheikhs and their assistants who issue fanatic fatwas and publish them, then the criminals who execute and apply it by killing the people. Is this right?

  Yes, exactly, but we can say criminals who put the fatwa into action by killing people are really victims also, because sheikhs and their  assistants convinced them - by their erroneous fatwa - to commit this heinous crime as if it were jihad.

3- As a Muslim scholar and sheikh from Al Azhar, have you issued any fatwas?

  Yes, of course. In our researches, books, articles, lectures, and speeches, we have issued many fatwas that confirm the peaceful nature of Islam, proving the contradiction between Islam and the Salafist/Wahabi religious culture and jurisprudence (fiqh). It was our fatwas that stand against theirs to refute them.

4- What was their response? Did they discuss your Muslim perspectives?

  They should have done this, but they have not. Being unable to discuss, question, or refute the Quranic verses we usually quote as proofs to support our perspectives, they have accused us in their fatwas of being a heretic infidel, enemy no. 1 of Islam, and an apostate, so that they would encourage any terrorist to kill us.

5- Did these fatwas against you threaten your life?

  Sure. In 1987, we used to deliver sermons in mosques proving that Islam is the religion of peace, tolerance, justice, democracy, and human rights and proving also that the so-called Sunna harbors and encourages the culture of fanaticism and terrorism. As a result, we were arrested with more than 40 peaceful Quranist people. While being imprisoned, the Egyptian media published the fatwas against us to encourage imprisoned fanatics to murder us inside the prison cell. Then we were released eventually, but the Egyptian media continued insulting us by republishing these fatwas against us, so we had to escape to the USA for about ten months in the 1980s to save our life. Then we had to return back to Egypt to be beside our sons because they were so scared.

6- Is this the only example?

  No. In 1992, the fanatic terrorists extremists of Egypt committed many heinous crimes against the peaceful Egyptian Coptic Christians and threatened most of the secular thinkers and intellectuals. So, we and our late friend, Dr. Farag Fouda, worked together to establish a new political party, named the Future Party, to defend the Egyptian Coptic Christians and to confirm equality between all Egyptians regardless of religious affiliation. One week after the announcement of the new party and the indication of its being approved of and launched soon, the fanatic extremist bigots issued their famous fatwa inciting the death of Fouda and ourselves, accusing both of us of being apostates and enemies of Islam. Five days after publishing this fatwa, Fouda was assassinated in front of his office, as he was getting out of it with his young child, who was shot also, but survived after being hospitalized to receive treatment for a long time. The fanatic bigots who attended the trial of the two assassins of Fouda defended the two criminals, saying that Fouda was apostate who should be put to death by anyone as long as the government did not execute him for apostasy. According to their Sunnite Wahabi jurisprudence, fanatic bigots believe that anyone who forsook their 'Islam' should be put to death. This penalty for 'apostasy' was applied in the Middle Ages, and it is still being applied in the KSA and Iran. The Egyptian Sunnite extremists and fanatics are calling to apply this penalty in Egypt. The Assassination of Fouda and the trial of his two assassins  was a favorable opportunity for Wahabi extremists to assert the fact that they will put to death anyone who may dare to discuss their religious views and refute them as Fouda did; it will be easy to issue a verdict or a fatwa against any refuters or questioners then they will be killed by anyone. This will terrify and deter any thinker, as terrorists would wish. The only one who could face and refute them on the intellectual and religious level at that time was our person. So, we have published many articles proving that Islam is a religion compatible with unlimited religious freedom and absolute freedom of choice of one's beliefs, and full liberty of expression and speech and that Islam is a religion of peace as far as the field of human rights is concerned. Within the weekly public forum of the Egyptian famous literary-figure Naguib Mahfouz, which we and Fouda used to attend, many intellectuals asked us to write a book about this topic, and we did, and it was our book titled "the Penalty for Apostasy" published in 1993, in Cairo, up to four editions in print, and it has been translated into English.

7- Are there other examples about other people?

   Until 1994, the weekly afternoon public forum of Naguib Mahfouz used to be held in locations overlooking the Nile River, on Fridays, to discuss the fanatic extremists' crimes and other issues related to Egypt and culture. Naguib Mahfouz is the only Arab writer who won the Noble Prize in Literature; he was born in 1911. The Wahabi fanatic extremists and bigots threatened us to prevent us from attending this weekly forum, but we insisted on never missing any one of them. Then a Wahabi propaganda campaign against Naguib Mahfouz began, and Wahabi Salafists in Egypt ordering him through the media to repent because his novel titled ''Children of Our Alley'' contains many blasphemies and heretic notions, in their own view. This novel was issued forty years before and he was given Noble Prize in Literature for it. We have written an article in the monthly magazine, Al-Qahira,  accusing Wahabi Salafists of attempting to commit the crime of character assassination against Naguib Mahfouz to encourage an extremist criminal to assassinate him physically, as was the case of Farag Fouda. Six months after that that Salafist campaign in the media, Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed in his neck in front of his home 14^th of October, 1994, but he survived the attempt on his life. The criminal confessed that he never read any works authored by Naguib Mahfouz, but he was convinced to commit hos crime by the fatwa of the sheikhs in that campaign.