Commenting on the third arrest of the Islamic writer: Reda Abdel-Rahman on:

The believer is afflicted

Ahmed Subhy Mansour on Monday 21 September 2020

An introduction

1 - This important message came to me from one of an unknown Quranists in Egypt. I publish it after deleting what might refer to its owner, then respond to it.

2- He said: (Doctor Ahmed. Before I got acquainted with the site of the “people of the Qur’an”, I was a traditionalist and a fanatic, and I was thinking about traveling to Turkey to join the leaders of the Brotherhood there, but the one who saved me was the imam of the mosque in our village, he was a respectful and upright man. He warned me, I told him that the Muslim Brotherhood believes in the application of Islamic law, and he told me that the sharia they mean is not the true Islamic law. I told him that their slogan, the Qur’an, is our constitution, and the Messenger is our leader, he said that this is just a slogan and they want to come to rule using the name of Islam. The argument continued between us until I doubted everything. I told him:  you lost me, and there is no longer anything I believed in. He told me: Is not the Qur’an sufficient for you alone?  he started reciting verses from the Qur’an, and I was astonished as if I heard them for the first time even though I was fond of listening to the recited Qur’an. I told him, as long as this is your opinion, and you think it is correct, and you are a Friday sermon-giver, why don't you say this? The first time in my life I see a sheikh crying. He cried in front of me and said, "I am an old and weak man, and I am afraid of disgrace at the end of my life."

I asked him for advice and he said look for the Quranic site. I followed his advice and found the site of the “people of the Qur’an”, and the first thing I read of your writings was (The Qur’an , It is sufficient),(The chain of transmission), (The torment of the grave), (The penalty of apostasy) and (interpretation).

I became a follower of everything you wrote, I entered into arguments with my family, a well-off and well-connected family, with senior high ranking government employees. They threatened me and considered me a danger to them, and every time I quoted the Qur’an, they refused to listen, they even went to the imam of the mosque and complained to him, me being one of those close to him, The imam of the mosque disavowed me in front of them and in my presence, and I of course excused him because he was an out of town employee, from the countryside and did not have any privilege or backing.

 I sent you, Doctor, asking you for a solution, and you kindly advised me in a special email, in which you mentioned what happened to your family in Egypt and the death of your relative, Ramadan Abdul Rahman, the writer at the site.. You advised me to stay away from arguing about the Quran,   because arguing about the revelations of God is one of the characteristics of the unbelievers, and that after I am firm in what I believe in, I must tell people to work on their positions, We are working on ours, and to wait the Day of Judgment . 

Your response made me more admirable of your excellence, because you showed interest in someone that you did not know and wrote to him on his private email and you did not publish the topic in the fatwas section  on the site. Indeed, I remained in my isolated condition, and contented myself with reading your articles and praying and worshiping alone. After that, my family asked me to pray at the mosque, which my family built. I refused and threatened them that I will leave town, if they did not leave me alone, they threatened to report me to security agencies, and that if the security forces arrested me, they would disown me

I told them that God is sufficient for me, and He is the best to depend on, I told them I don’t think they would arrest me if I minded my own business and my family is minding their own. Then I found out what happened to your relative, Mr. Reda, and that they arrested him even though he had left the site for years, stopped writing and lived in isolation. I am afraid they will arrest me because the situation is turbulent these days, and they will arrest anyone, I am thinking of immigration. I want you to advise me, what can I do, and thank you very much.

 The message ended,

and I say:

• The people of the Qur’an (Ahlul Qur’an) are an ideological stream that spreads continuously in the hearts and minds of people, it spreads through the Internet, and appears through dichotomies in different opinions, but they agree in relying solely on the Qur’an ,  then differences develop and diverge. We are the leaders, others are followers, we are well-established in reflecting upon the Qur’an, and specialists in knowledge of heritage and attributed narrations of the prophet. It is impossible to determine the number of “the people of the Qur’an” in Egypt and elsewhere, especially when they are under security supervision. Around 2006, the Al-Masryoon newspaper, which had a Salafist Brotherhood orientation, attacked the Ministry of Religious Endowments with a headline saying that the security services had detected about 20,000 “Quranic preachers” in the mosques, and this was at the beginning of the launch of “the People of the Qur’an” website, after which many entered the” Qur’an alone”  religion in groups, but security agencies know no one except my family, that is why there were waves of arrests in 2007, 2008: 2009, 2015, and now, 2020.
•  State Security knows that most of my family members are not from the “people of the Qur’an”, and after our immigration to America, the writers on the site from my family are only two, Rida Abdul Rahman and his late brother Ramadan Abdul Rahman. My people are poor and they, in their condition, are worried about their livelihood and want to live free of problems, like all the vulnerable people on earth.
• This reminds me of Mr. Ramadan Abdel-Rahman, may God Almighty have mercy on him. He was an active writer on the site, and fell prey to cancer for several years until he died. He was firm in our beliefs, and upon his death he recommended that they pray for him at home and not at the Sufi mosque or the Sunni mosque. But because of their fear, my family did not implement his will and prayed for him in the Sufi mosque, which I consider an abomination from the work of Satan. His brother Reda Abdel-Rahman wrote to me, apologizing that he could not stand against the opinion of the family, so I wrote to him that: what happened was ok, and you know your circumstances better. Now Reda Abdel-Rahman is in the third time of arrest, and some of those who refused to implement Ramadan Abdel-Rahman's will, entered the detention with him for a few days, fearing the security services. I remember that I told you what happened at the time at the funeral of Ramadan Abdul Rahman, because at that time I felt very sad not only for the late Ramadan Abdul Rahman, but my grief more for the living of my relatives who were so horrified. This horror is deliberately spread by the Egyptian security apparatus in the hearts of those who follow the Qur’an trend, and this state security  takes  people as a means to terrorize a trend that it does not know the extent of its spread. This explains the horror of your imam of the mosque and the horror of your family despite their social and political status.

Second: On immigration

 1- It is difficult - at the very least - to migrate abroad.

2 - I do not advise you to migrate to another town in Egypt because you will lose your family and will be alone and prey to state security. As long as you declare your opinion, you have become monitored by state security, and perhaps this is the cause of your family's fear. If you leave them and migrate to the most extreme part of Egypt, state security will question you, and it will reach you and devour you. Therefore, I hope that you will remain among your family because they are a kind of protection for you, especially if you retire in your home and avoid any religious activity.

3 - However, there are no guarantees for you. Because at the very least, they will summon you to terrorize you, to interrogate you, and to scare others by doing that to you. This is the introduction to the main topic, which is that the believer is afflicted.

Third: The believer is afflicted, and the non-believer is also

1 - Calamities, whether good or evil, are inevitable and inescapable, such as death and resurrection. God Almighty have said: (Every soul will taste death, and we test you with evil and goodness as a form of temptation, and to Us you shall return) Al Anbeya’- 3

2 - Calamities from tribulations may come directly from the Lord of Might, such as illness and disability, and may come from unjust human beings. The oppressors, the criminals. The Most High said: (And we have made some of you into some temptation for each other, will you then be patient,  your Lord was all-seeing) (20) Al-Furqan).

• Accordingly, human reactions differ in terms of affliction with good and evil.

 3/1: The believer accepts what is predestined about him there is no way to avoid it, relying on his Lord, the Exalted, the Exalted, saying: (Say: Nothing will afflict us except for what God has decreed upon us, He is our Protector, and in God believers should put their trust-Tawba 51). Even in the grace form of temptation, no one should be deceived by it, rather should take the middle of the road approach, it is as much  as destiny written upon us before our existence in this life, the Almighty said: (no calamity befalls on the earth or in yourselves but prewritten in a book before We execute it, that it is easy for Allah) Chapter “The Iron”-22) (so as not to grieve  over what you have missed or rejoice over what He bestowed upon you, and God does not love the arrogant, the  proud .Chapter(The Iron-23).

3/2: The non-believer does not only disbelieve in God Almighty, but also does not recognize and refuse to admit the grace of God Almighty, and this is the disbelief of the grace with which the life of the Muhammadans is filled, the blessing of health, youth, wealth and influence renders its owner one of the greatest criminals instead of being one of the most thankful. The greatest blessing is the Holy Quran, which the Mohammedans replaced with satanic hadiths. Today, the Mohammedans live in the richest parts of the world, but the greatest criminals have turned them into ruins, gardens of mass graves and rivers of blood. Allah have threatened with havoc and destruction in this life and hell in the afterlife, He said: (Have you not seen those who turned the grace of God into disbelief and ruined their people’s Abode- Ibrahim 28) (Hell would they suffer and evil resolution- Ibrahim 29) ((And they created equals to God to lead people astray from His path, say: enjoy yourself, for your destination is to fire -  (30) Ibrahim.

3/3: The pious believer comes out of the affliction of adversity with increased faith, because through prayer and patience over the trial, he approaches the mercy of his Lord, the Exalted, the Most High, since the Most Exalted and Most High is always with those who are patient.

3/4: Faith is a great entrance to the test of trials and tribulations, so that it becomes clear whether it is real faith or an artificial false one, about the two parties ,the Lord have said:

3/4-1: (Do people think that they will be left to say “we believe” and they will not be tried- Chapter Spider 2) (But we have tried those before them and God will surely make evident those who believed and who are the liars- Chapter Spider 3) (And among the people some say: We believe in God, but if they encounter harm, due to that belief, they regard people’s affliction as a torment from God, While if victory came from the Lord, they would say: we were with you, Is not God well aware of what hearken in the chests of His creation- Chapter Spider10) (God will surely make evident those who believed, and He will surely make evident the hypocrites- Chapter Spider 11).

3/4/2: (and among the people is the one who worships as if on an edge ,if he encounters  goodness, he is reassured by it, but if encounters a trial in the form of hardship, he turns about his face, thereby losing both, this life and the hereafter, this is a manifest loss- Chapter Hajj 11).

• A godly believer is a rational person:

 4/1: No one can deceive him with the myths of reverence for humans and stone. He rejects this and declares it.

4/2: The believer in his mind knows that adversities are temporary, and whatever their severity they will end either during his life or with his death. As for the unjust criminal, by his behavior, he believes that he will not die and that he continues in his power, he does not know the wisdom that says (if it lasted for someone else, it would not have reached you) and he does not see the great finales of the oppressors, the greatest criminals around him, and he does not see that God Almighty inflicts his revenge on them in this world before the hereafter. God Almighty has said:

4/2/1: (He who does evil is recompensed for it) (123) An-Nisaa.

4/2/2 this, aside from eternity in the fire, Almighty said: (but as for those who defiantly disobeyed, their refuge is the fire. Every time they wish to emerge from it, they will be returned to it, while it is said to them “taste the punishment of the fire which you used to deny-Chapter A-ssejdeh 20) (and surely we will let them taste the lesser punishment short of the greatest punishment ,that they might repent - Chapter A-ssejdeh 21) (and who is worse than the one who when  reminded of the revelations of his Lord, then turns away from them. Indeed, from among the criminals, We will take vengeance- Chapter A-ssejdeh 22).

5 :  The believer knows that, God the Most Exalted, responds to the pleas of the one who is in need when he calls upon Him, and removes the bad conditions. He said: (is He not the best who responds to the desperate one when he calls upon Him and removes the evil?

Finally

1- There is no escaping the affliction of misfortune in this difficult time that Egypt is going through. Make the ordeal that you might experience an opportunity to demonstrate your patience and strengthen your faith to be one of the winners and the survivors of not ending eternity in hell, and ponder the Almighty’s saying: (every soul will taste death, and you will be given your compensation on the day of Resurrection, he who is budged from hell fire and entered Paradise has won, and this earthly life is nothing   but the pleasures of vanity (185 (Al Imran).

2- And always: God Almighty foretold truth