The Farce of Sentencing Sheikh M. A. Nasr to a Five-Year Jail Term Accused of Showing Contempt of Religion
Published in February 27, 2017
Translated by Ahmed Fathy
Introduction:
1- The Court of Misdemeanors, in Shoubra Al-Kheima District, Cairo, Egypt, has issued a verdict of sentencing the Azharite sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr to a five-year imprisonment term with labor, within the Case No. 1277, on 26th Feb. 2017, when he was accused of showing contempt of religion and was found guilty. Sheikh M. A. Nasr was immediately sent to prison to begin his jail term at once.
2- We are fed up with condemnation statements; we have condemned many times the persecution and imprisonment of religious reformers and reformist thinkers and the attacks on Egyptian Orthodox churches and murdering Copts in many incidents. All such events are part of a farce or a black comedy that is very lethal and destructive, and we blame Al-Sisi regime for it, as it reached very fast the lowest possible depths or levels of disgrace and failure.
3- Let us tackle below parties involved in that farce and victims of it.
Firstly: parties involved in that farce:
Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr:
1- The views of the Azharite scholar sheikh Nasr includes that theft is not punished in the Quran by cutting a hand off but by making a mark in a thief's hand and the figurative meaning is to stop a thief's hand from stealing again. This view should have been celebrated by Al-Sisi, his head of Al-Azhar, his military generals, his judges, and his men and cronies, because we tend to think that all of them are thieves who have stolen billions from public money in Egypt. Sheikh Nasr is deceived in Al-Sisi and his regime and media that have urged reform of religious discourse in Egypt. Sheikh Nasr thought he must participate in this assumed reform, thinking well of Al-Sisi and that his views as a thinker would be accepted and praised, but he was very much disappointed. Sheikh Nasr is a poor, ill youth who is imprisoned while big thieves enjoy luxurious living in their palaces. We tend to think that Al-Sisi is the head of all those thieves!
2- This naïve sheikh thought that Al-Sisi would do good as far as religious reform is concerned. He lately returned from France after attending an event there, invited by the French who appreciated his role in enlightenment, and we think he should have sought political asylum there, and he would have been easily granted asylum there as his life was in danger. Yet, he naively returned from France to Egypt. In his prison cell, he might be invoking God now by this verse, wishing to get out of Egypt for good: "Our Lord! Bring us out of this. If we ever returned, we would truly be evil."" (23:107).
Head of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayyib:
1- Personally, we have never witnessed in our life a head of Al-Azhar more ignorant than this creature named Al-Tayyib; this ignoramus has been of course nothing but a worm in the dying decomposed corpse of the Mubarak regime, and servile hypocrites used to get promoted at the time to high positions, and when this worm obsequiously served Gamal Mubarak, son of the ousted Mubarak, in his committee of policies, as Gamal desired to succeed his father, this ignorant sticky worm called Al-Tayyib was rewarded by being appointed as head of Al-Azhar University and then the head of Al-Azhar institution in 2010. This ignoramus can never deliver even a short sermon, unless he would read it from a piece of paper, with extreme difficulty while doing many mistakes in uttering Arabic words and Quranic verses. This ignoramus seem to have stopped learning at the preparatory level of education! His ascending the promotion ladder of Al-Azhar institution has nothing whatsoever to do with knowledge, but with talents of obsequious flattery and hypocrisy, which are much require talents by the military regime that rules Egypt since the 1952 coup. Thus, Such talents made one of the ignorant mob get dressed in Azharite uniform of clergymen and later on head Al-Azhar itself!
2- In addition to being an ignoramus, Al-Tayyib is so envious toward the knowledgeable ones as he suffers too much from an inferiority complex. Especially when a learned scholar (like sheikh Nasr) appeared in media to expose Al-Azhar by proving the fact that Azharites know nothing about Islam and the Quran. Such type of learned people expose the ignoramus called Al-Tayyib and scandalize the reluctance of Al-Azhar to do anything positive, especially regarding reforming religious discourse to combat ISIS terrorists intellectually. This head of Al-Azhar hates talking about any slightest reform or change, because Al-Tayyib sanctifies, and the same goes for ISIS terrorists, religious traditions of the ancestors and the forefathers. Even when some imagine that Al-Tayyib would desire one day to undermine and refute ISIS from within Islam (the Quran), he will be unable to do this, because he is such an ignorant fellow. Hence, Al-Tayyib knows that his being ignorant and unable to do anything must never be exposed by allowing real reformist, thinkers who can actually undertake, develop, and apply religious reform (and to revolutionize religious discourse), to appear in Egyptian media and online. Hence, Al-Tayyib rejects and adamantly refused the call of Al-Sisi to change religious discourse in Egypt, because any type of reform has no room for Azharite ignoramuses to participate in it.
The Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi:
1- We tend to think that Egypt witnesses now the worst stage of its contemporary history under the rule of Al-Sisi regime; Al-Sisi is the result of a failing military regime ruling since 1952 with oppression and tyranny, and his name was never known before 2012, and suddenly he has become the head of State! Sadat was the worst president of Egypt, but we later on saw that Mubarak was worse, and worse than him was general Tantawi (and his military council) in the transitional period in 2011-2012. Morsi was worse than Tantawi and the previous ones, and now, Al-Sisi (the general who became a president) is the worst of all his predecessors. We tend to think that Al-Sisi is clownish in appearance, who laughs a lot on cameras of his media for no reason, making us laugh and weep! Most of his statements and media speeches are filled with shocking lies, and he has humiliated Egyptian citizens when he said to the French president, who expressed his concerned about conditions of Egyptians, that human rights cannot be applied fully in Egypt in the European manner! Thus, the French president thinks that Egyptian citizens are humans who deserve human rights, whereas Al-Sisi think they are cattle, thus not deserving human rights!
2- Let us bear in mind that Al-Sisi is a military general, but he never fought any war throughout his career, and he has no experience in any field; he was just a man serving under the military leaders of the Mubarak regime, and he saw how they stole, conspired, spied, and committed injustices and corruption. We tend to think that Al-Sisi imitates them now; he never really means what he has said about reform of religious discourse. When he has talked about this in 2014, we have felt happy at first and written an article to encourage him, but we have realized later that he uses empty, showy words in his speeches and that he does not intend to do anything in that respect, and our articles criticized him; later on, we groups these articles in one book, titled "A Witness of the Earliest Months of The Presidential Term of The Egyptian President Al-Sisi", found in English on this link:
http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=77
Indeed, ISIS terrorists in Sinai now are killing soldiers of Al-Sisi in an attempt from those Wahabi terrorists to control Sinai. And yet, clergymen of Salafists and Azharite clergymen, in addition of the head of Al-Azhar, defends the cursed religion of ISIS, the Ibn-Hanbal Sunnite Wahabism, and they impose on Al-Sisi (and the Saudi embassy pressurized him as well, we presume) to punish sheikh Nasr, and he did just that! We refer our readers to our book, in English, titled "The Cursed Religion of ISIS", found on this link:
http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=73
3- We tend to think that Al-Sisi has outdone his predecessors of tyrannical rulers, because his deeds and words express hatred and despise toward the Egyptian citizens. It is silly that during his delivered speeches, he is the only President to address people saying "O Egyptians!" as if he were addressing a race/ a nationality different from his! His military regime turned Egypt into a big military camp or front controlled by him for the military beneficiaries among the generals. The unarmed Egyptian citizens cannot refuse military commands or dare to disobey the military rule, or else, armed military forces (armed using Egyptian public money) would attack them violently. Yet, such Egyptian armed forces (the strongest military army in the Arab world) cannot as yet face ISIS terrorists in Sinai who defeat it until recently. Why the Egyptian armed forces do not feel the disgrace of being attacked by ISIS terrorists many times in Sinai?! Why Egyptian armed forces do not achieve victory unless regarding the unarmed Egyptian citizens?! We think that the Egyptian armed forces assume they have achieved victory over the peaceful, unarmed, impecunious, and ill sheikh Nasr! This is utterly disgraceful!
4- In the first presidential term of Al-Sisi, Egypt spiraled downward in all fields and aspects; some people outside Egypt tend to predict a hunger revolt to occur. We tend to think that Al-Sisi knows this possibility quite well; he thinks that after he made Egypt on the verge of bankruptcy (as thieves stole public money), he cannot maintain authority and power for long, we presume. This is why he distracts the citizens to gain more time, as he is eager to please the head of Al-Azhar, the Saudi royal family members, Salafists and Wahabis everywhere, and all Gulf monarchies. We tend to think that one day, Al-Sisi would flee to any Gulf monarchy, so as to avoid being betrayed by Egyptian Salafists who seek power, though he is a Sunnite Wahabi like them. Distraction entails a new victim every now and then, and Al-Sisi would not sacrifice any businesspersons or any generals, but to sacrifice a weak youth and reformer like sheikh Nasr!
5- Lastly, we assert here that Al-Sisi has to choose between two options: to immediately introduce real political and religious reform, or to persist in the route of corruption and tyranny to its near known end. We tend to think that he has already chosen the second option, however cleverly he has chosen to play on words in his speeches in public TV. We tend to think that his end is drawing nearer and this frightens him and drives him to sacrifice any weak victim every now and then like sheikh Nasr, who will not be the last victim. More victims will be sacrificed soon!
The judge who sentenced sheikh Nasr to prison:
1- This judge who sentenced sheikh Nasr to prison is contracting himself and the law by which he issue verdicts; this judge never issued a verdict to cut off hands of thieves, and this means he agrees with sheikh Nasr about not to apply such a punishment. Sheikh Nasr maintains, in his views available online in writing and on YouTube videos, that theft is not punished in the Quran by cutting a hand off but by making a mark in a thief's hand and the figurative meaning is to stop a thief's hand from stealing again. The laws in Egypt have no punishment of cutting hands off, and this makes the Egyptian laws agreeing with views of sheikh Nasr. It is supposed that the judge is literate and he knows how to read Arabic, and he should have noticed that views of sheikh Nasr are compatible with the soul of the Egyptian laws regarding punishing thieves. Why, then, did this judge issue such a verdict, with maximum penalty, against sheikh Nasr?!
2- Apparently, this judge might have been given orders by the phone to issue this verdict. Within the military regime ruling Egypt now, the Egyptian corrupt judiciary system is subordinate and submissive to the President, who in his turn submits to several embassies in Cairo, especially the Saudi embassy. We tend to think that this is true; the President would give orders to judges to issue verdicts that are unjust and tarnish the image of Egypt worldwide. This is shown when we read most verdicts issued by judges during the presidential term of Al-Sisi, as such verdicts assure us that that Egypt of the mother of wonders!
Secondly: victims of this farce:
1- Worldwide and in different languages, some people say that "Egypt is the Mother of the World", (L' Égypte est la Mère du Monde), (Ägypten ist die Mutter der Welt). We personally say that Egypt of the mother of wonders, and the clown called Al-Sisi is indeed a wonder that provokes ridicule. There are two sides of Egypt; Egypt of corruption and tyranny represented by Al-Sisi and his military, security, media, economic, judicial, and religious apparatuses and bodies, and Egypt of the weak ones, who are victims of corruption and tyranny. Egypt of the weak ones is being raped and violated by Al-Sisi and his men. It is he who has invented virginity test (performed by the military doctors in prisons) to humiliate revolutionary women of the Egyptian uprising, especially university female students who participated in demonstrations in 2011 to demand dignity, freedom and bread. This utter humiliation to Egyptian female citizens is a violation of Egypt itself. Did you about military men who stripped a female youth naked in Tahrir Square, thus making the military, armed with billions of $, achieve a victory over a weak female citizen on camera?! This is Egypt of corruption and tyranny, and it is still being ruled by the military regime, headed now by Al-Sisi, that still oppress the weak ones.
2- Talking about weak ones and victims inside Egypt will take a long time and sheets and sheets. Sheikh Nasr is an impecunious youth who is ill, but for Al-Sisi, he is a case that is merely a source of amusement and distraction. While some Egyptian youths suffer and cry out loud in prisons where they are being tortured, feeling humiliation and utter injustice, Al-Sisi builds new prisons. At the same time when Copts are fleeing from ISIS terrorists in Sinai as they run for their lives, Egyptian media show Al-Sisi on camera riding his bicycle, in an attempt to show overtly that he is happy!
3- It is a matter of time, Al-Sisi, and what lies in store for you in the future is nearer than we think!
Lastly:
Indeed, sheikh Nasr has not been really imprisoned; rather, he has entered history from a large gate of honor, to add great lines to the Egyptian history, and this very history will despise Al-Sisi and his generals, judges, guards, and Azharite sheikhs and clergymen!