Between Secularism and Religious Fraud

Was published in Arabic in December 24, 2015

Translated by Ahmed Fathy

 We have received this message that we have liked a great deal, with the title above. We would like to publish it here followed by our reply. Here's the message:

 (…I am from Lebanon; I used to notice that there is something the matter with our Arab and Islamic world. I used to be a Marxist who joined the Palestinian resistance, with the Fatah movement. After the revolution of Iran in 1979, I joined a group of youth that embraced the so-called political Islam as a methodology to face all challenges in the Arab world. We joined together a movement established in 1980s in the Lebanese city of Tripoli called Al-Tawheed Al-Eslami. I noticed the huge gap between the ideals in the sermons preached to us and the reality surrounding people due to criminals and their acts contrary to Islam who carry banners and mottoes speaking falsely in the name of Islam. Gradually, I began to notice that there is a huge abyss between what was being preached to people and what is practiced actually by the so-called Islamists when they reach power and authority in a given area or country. The Islamists are money-and-power-hungry terrorists who aim to monopolize everything and exclude people of other creeds and even their co-religionists who share their creed references. Once in power, the so-called Islamists declare any oppositionists as ''apostates'', ''renegades'', and ''traitors'' who have forsaken 'Islam'. Once these appellations were established, torture and killing ensued. My experience with them makes me an eye-witness of all what I say to you in this message. I used to ask myself: is this real Islam given to people by God to save humanity and to lead them out of polytheism and worship of persons to the sole worship of God?! My confusion and skepticism kept growing until I coincidently have found your Quranism website. I am actually following all your Quranist articles regularly to benefit from your website regarding getting to know real Islam that I kept searching for. I know now for certain that all clergymen do not represent real Islam. I wish you, Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, the very best. God bless you and aid you in your responsibility of propagating and clarifying real Islam...)

Our reply: After thanking the sender of this message, we reply as follows.

Firstly: Diagnosis:

1- Let us agree firstly that any struggle for power, rule, and authority is political activity, not a religious one at all, regardless of its being purely political or mixed with military and armed conflicts. Any armed group of 'resistance' aiming at reaching power, rule, and authority in a given country has a leader/governor to be blindly obeyed and who later on might become a president of any given country. To exemplify this, Yasser Arafat was the leader of Fatah movement and then the president of Palestine in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. As for the Hamas movement, its leaders now control and rule the Gaza Strip.

2- By both examples above, we know the two types of political activity in the Middle East: one type that does not mix politics with creeds and religious notions, too much, as in the Fatah movement, and the other type is the one mixing politics with earthly man-made fabricated creeds: as in the Hamas movement. We can deduct here lessons to learn about the tyrannical culture dominant in the Middle East. Secular regimes, military or party-based, which are tyrant, do not hesitate to make use of man-made creeds and religious notions in their policies when necessary. This occurs when such regimes of secular tyranny face crises that threaten their existence; they invoke and enlist the help of fabricated creeds imposed on people as 'Islam'. Such fabricated creeds are the ever present/absent part of the equation. We saw this during the last years of the rule of Gaafar Nimeiry in Sudan, Gaddafi in Libya, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. All of them called their foes and opponents as enemies of faith and apostates who forsook Islam. Saddam Hussein added the words ''Allahu Akbar'' (God is the Greatest) to the Iraqi flag and became a fanatic Sunnite Wahabi. As for the Fatah movement, they never hesitated in waging military armed wars against some Palestinian factions to keep Yasser Arafat in power. Yet, Arafat in his turn was forsaken by Fatah; his comrades let him die by poisoning in his old age. Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, remains now the leader of Fatah and the de facto Palestinian president. Fatah members reached power and authority by sham 'democratic' means of elections; yet, they have forsaken democratic veneer upon the nearest chance.

3- What is important to us here is to state the fact that within the culture of tyranny in the Middle East, what is important to any tyrant is to reach power, rule, and authority and to remain enthroned under any banner or mottoes: democratic or religious. Hence, both Fatah and Hamas are not unlike in tyranny: the former claiming to be secular and the latter religious (Sunnite Wahabi). Hamas members committed the crime of controlling so many minds inside and outside Palestine using the Sunnite Wahabi creed of terror. Once they reached rule in Gaza Strip, they got rid of Fatah members. In all their policies, the Hamas members have played all cards with all people, have acted treacherously with all, and have gained billions of US$ from Syria, Iran, the KSA, the Gulf monarchies, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Moreover, Hamas members have committed suicide bombings unfit to combat the Israelis. This has led Israel to destroy Gaza and houses of its poor people. Hamas have sold innocent blood to gain billions of US$ for the Hamas leaders who live in luxury. We must always remember terrorism acts that have been committed by Hamas members in Egypt, especially in the Sinai Peninsula recently.

4- In sum, both Fatah and Hamas bear different banners: secular and religious, but both are corrupt and tyrannical. Both are unable to realize the Palestinian dream of an independent state. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship never desired to live in the West Bank or Gaza Strip; they live peacefully in Israel, where conditions and liberties are better for Arab Israelis in comparison to despicable conditions of people ruled by Hamas and Fatah. By the way, the amount and rate of corruption and tyranny are larger in Hamas in comparison to Fatah. Hamas terrorists can easily murder any oppositionists and critics of its rule. Even innocent Gazan people never go unharmed by Hamas members who apply the terrorist Wahabi creed sharia in the streets (discrimination, floggings, etc.). Moreover, there is a sham veneer or a façade of democracy décor in Fatah, whereas Hamas considers democracy as unbelief in Islam!

5- Hamas commits more unjust acts in comparison to Fatah. Fatah might act unjustly to – exclusively – Palestinians in the West Bank, whereas the terror, corruption, and injustice of Hamas spread outside Gaza by the momentum of Wahabism to reach Sinai in Egypt and most Middle East countries as well. Hamas has joined the terrorist MB group and learned from it more opportunist pragmatism; Hamas members do not hesitate to enlist the help of Shiites, the foes of Wahabism, as long as there are financial gains. That is why Hamas members cooperated with Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria, to later on deal treacherously with them all. Hamas acts unjustly with all ordinary people and even with unjust rulers. Hamas acts unjustly toward God as well by ascribing its terroristic crimes and corruption to Islam and its sharia by claiming to be the sole representative of it! The same applies to any theocracy or any Islamist movement: mixing creed with politics is a bad corrupting notion that harms both political life and creeds. This applies to Iran and the KSA, as well as the terrorist MB group members, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, in Lebanon: Hezbollah, Al-Tawheed Al-Eslami, Al-Nosrah Front, Houthis in Yemen, etc.

6- The culture of tyranny, the exclusion of others, and the enslavement of some others are the elements that have led the Middle East to the current phase of destruction, ruin, civil strife, and millions of victims everywhere until now and in the future!

Thirdly: The Cure:

1- The way out of all of the above is to eliminate the culture of tyranny, the exclusion of others, and the enslavement of some others. All this has to be replaced by the culture of democracy, absolute religious liberty, celebration of cultural diversity of creeds and races in a given country, as well as spreading and application of the values of equality, justice, dignity, human rights, and individual rights. Any sham or superficial change in the veneer not the core of the matter (in elections, parliaments, etc.) would never produce anything but smaller-scale tyrants who control and manipulate the citizens and recreate the culture of tyranny, the exclusion of others, and the enslavement of some others. This is happening now in Iraq between the Kurds and Arabs. The successful democracies implant deeply the roots of cultural diversity and human rights on the individual and collective levels in a given society.

2- The main obstacle before his is the dominant man-made creeds: the opium of the masses according to Marxists. Europe in the Middle Ages suffered from the rule of tyranny by the Catholic Church. This is a man-made, fabricated creed that has nothing to do with Jesus. Reformation began with Protestants like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. When roots of Catholicism were shaken, rulers of European joined Protestantism to get rid of the authority of the Catholic pope. Later on, secularism or laïcité has become the phase of modern Europe that imposed curfew on creeds outside houses of worship, whose activities outside churches and temples are confined to charity with no interference in politics. This liberating secularism has been the base of scientific advances in all fields; and then, Europe ruled the known world. Meanwhile, the Muhammadans suffered the backward rule of the Ottomans until 1924, and later on, Wahabism replaced this caliphate as an alternative, aided by oil huge profits. Wahabism propagated by the KSA worldwide is the root of all strife and terror in the volatile Middle East.

3- The obstacle here is that the dominant creeds of the Sufis, the Shiites, and the Wahabi Sunnites. All such creeds have to be confined as if in a curfew within neutralization measures to houses of worship so as to make them an individual matter, unlinked to rule and authority at all. Everyone has the right to believe or not to believe, without imposing (un)belief on others via laws. The root of any corruption here is worshipping and sanctifying the clergymen and believing in their myths and lies. Later on, with this established, all political abuse or misuse of creeds ensues by the current and coming tyrant ruler. If one is liberated from worshiping mortal human beings, one is ready to accept, demand, and apply the values of justice, equality, liberty, democracy, dignity, diversity, and human rights.   

4- This is the call of all the Quranists: yet, we do not impose our Islamic identity on this call. In the essence or core of our call are the higher values of justice, equality, liberty, democracy, dignity, diversity, and human rights for all people regardless of differences in creed, race, color, aiming at establishing secular democracies in the Middle East with real application of human rights.

Lastly:

 The hands of all Quranists are still open to cooperate and shake hands with all free people everywhere to get rid of tyranny worldwide. May God help us all in this endeavor.