Desicritics

Abdel Karim - How Extremism Silences Moderate Voices

tbs — Mon, 5 Mar 2007 03:46:35 EST

I received many responses and comments after writing the first article about Kareem Amer and his blog. One of the comments inspired this second article. The comment said amongst other things: "But Kareem did write some very explosive articles. In an ideal world that should not have landed him in jail, but by posting them on his blog, he took a huge risk in the current climate in Egypt, where radicalization is on the rise and the government is weak and trying to portray itself as the guardian of religion and morals. In one article he describes the University of Al Azhar - where he was enrolled as a student - as "the other face of Al Qaeda."

Therefore today I would like to analyse this particular post which as Kareem Amer's title tells us was based on "Contents of a mail by another Azharite student - Al Azhar and Al Qaeda - two sides of the same coin."

His post was about a debate on a discussion forum online between him and another fellow student of Al Azhar whom he sarcastically calls "enlightened". The debate was about the gender segregation of students in Al Azhar, its effects on them, such as heightened sexual tension leading to violence, discrimination, hate and vindictiveness. The fellow Azharite declared him to be a non-believer or rather an apostate and threatened to kill him. Kareem Amer asks if Sheikh al-Tantawi knew that inside his own university were students adopting the very same line of thinking, which he himself condemned while performing the funeral prayers for the slain Egyptian Ambassador to Iraq. Ihab al-Sherif was killed, according to a statement released in the name of al-Qaeda in Iraq "because he was an apostate, who had betrayed his faith." Kareem further writes that this line of thinking is not only advocated by many students but also by a number of faculty members, specially in the departments of fiqh and sharia, using the same arguments like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Kareem concludes that when violence and threats replace logic and reasoning, a solution needs to be found very fast. For Kareem the similarity between Al Azhar and Al Qaeda comes from this fanaticism, parallels in behaviour and outlook, a comparable disregard of life and frankly very little concern towards basic kindness and compassion to other human beings.

Declaring another human to be a kafir or an apostate is an extremely serious theological charge and should never to be carried out lightly. Not only did Al Azhar itself condemn that practice, but a select group of Muslim scholars, representing all the eight different sects and mazhabs, of the Sunnis as well as the Shias, denounced the same thing at the end of the recent conference held in Oman.

Given the rather extreme reactions by the almost illiterate fanatics to these accusations (we have seen too many people killed in various Muslim countries after being accused of being apostates), it is surprising that we see this very same behaviour repeatedly coming from the eminent institution itself.

Al Azhar has not only figured as a major player, but has also continually declared many an intellectual as overstepping the lines by using examples of their art, literature, speech or other forms of expression.

In an article titled "Ban.. Ban.." published in French, Tunisian columnist Zyed Krichen condemns the censorship and denial of free speech implemented by most Arab states and Islamist groups since the introduction of printing. In the second part of his article, he lists examples of censorship and persecution in the name of Islam from various Muslim countries, including banned works and artists who have been imprisoned, flogged, and/or killed. He writes: "As for literature the list of banned books is so long that it would be easier to name the ones that are permitted and approved. This is true even in large countries like Egypt, and even for masterpieces of our cultural heritage, like the 'One Thousand and One Nights'. Works by Abu Nawas, Bashar Ibn Bord, Al-Isfahani, Al-Madari, and hundreds of others were banned from bookstores in the 20th century."

Sadly Al Azhar has participated in this heavily. In the Name of Islam many books have been banned. Starting in 1925 with 'Islam and Principles of Government' by Al Azhar's very own Sheikh Ali Abdel Raziq, which was termed heretical, because it advocated the separation of religion and state as a principle of proper governance. Ali Abdel Raziq was then expelled from Al-Azhar University. Since then this has happened almost regularly. In 1926, Taha Hussein's book 'On Pre-Islamic Poetry' was banned and he too was later expelled from the university for his rationalist interpretation of pre-Islamic literature and the Qur'an. In 1959 Naguib Mahfouz's 'Children of the Alley' was condemned by Al-Azhar as blasphemous. In 1975 Al-Azhar censored books, including previously published works, by Tawfik Al Hakim and Youssef Idris. In 1981, 'History of the Arabic Language' by Fikri Al-Aqad is also banned for claiming that certain words in the Qur'an are of Egyptian origin. Four years later in 1985, three thousand copies of 'One Thousand and One Nights' were destroyed and the publisher was sentenced to jail for corrupting the morals of the younger generation. In 1990, Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid proposed a reformist approach on reading and interpreting the Qur'an and later received death threats and was declared an apostate. He felt he had to flee the country and settled down in the Netherlands. In that same year Farag Foda's book "To Be or Not to Be" was banned and he was prosecuted for offending religion.

Book banning increased and in 1992 Al-Azhar scholars demanded the banning of eight books on Islam. In the very same year Farag Foda was shot. Al Azhar's Sheikh Muhammad al Ghazali had declared Foda an apostate and said that Islamic law would condone his killing. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya accepted responsibility for the murder, saying "al-Azhar issued the sentence and we carried out the execution." Though Al Azhar scholars later deplored the way in which Foda was murdered, they nevertheless still considered him an apostate who deserved a death sentence.

In 1994, Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck and seriously wounded after Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, the spiritual leader of the fundamentalist group al-Gama'a al Islamiyya, issued a fatwa excommunicating him. 196 books were to be banned on moral and religious grounds in 1997, according to a compilation by Al Azhar. However that same year saw the release of author Alaa Hamed after serving a year in prison for writing a novel that "insulted Islam."

The year 2000 sees the writer Haydar Haydar being declared an apostate for writing 'A Banquet for Seaweed', in which a character says: 'The divine Bedouin laws and the teaching of the Qur'ran are all shit.' Al Azhar University called for a public burning of the book. A year later journalist Salaheddin Mohsen and female preacher Manal Manea are each sentenced to three years in prison for atheism and blasphemy.

In 2004, al Azhar's Islamic Research Council recommended banning Nawal el-Saadawi's novel The Fall of the Imam, which had been on sale in Egypt since 1987.

Beginning with Law Number 102 of 1985, Mubarak's various governments gave Al Azhar's Islamic Research Council (IRC) the power to advise on the banning or censoring of any book it judged as heretical. Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni later gave the increasingly potent body a boost when he was quoted as saying, "Al Azhar is the supreme authority; when it states an opinion, we must all fall silent." Paradoxically Minister Farouk Hosni said recently that "the headscarf is a symbol of backwardness", which landed him into a lot of trouble in Egypt, yet he was not accused by Al Azhar of anything at all.

The IRC at Al-Azhar University had the legal authority to censor, but not to confiscate any books. Unfortunately the Center was given the authority to confiscate books and audio and videotapes that they believe violate Islamic teachings by Minister of Justice Faruq Seif al-Nasr. The minister's order led to the confiscation of hundreds of publications from bookstores.

Not only were books affected by that, but also the range of academic research was rigidly restricted. The case against Nasr Abu Zeid began as a response to his interpretation of the Qur'an and resulted in an implied decision in all Arab language and philosophy departments to ban registrations of any theses involving an interpretation of the Qur'an that might lead to the same problem. Any academic researcher thinking of a thesis on a religious subject no longer has complete freedom to decide the subject. In 2006, Al Azhar not only allowed, but also granted, a doctorate to an obvious fanatic. The thesis listed who all he thought are apostates, with one of Egypt's first female journalists Rosa Al-Youssef in the lead.

What I find very puzzling is that the government clamps down so very hard on Islamists and Muslim Brothers, yet allows their constant meddling in intellectual affairs. This is very strange, because it is exactly this intellectual backwardness disguised as religious zeal, which is the core challenge to Mubarak's ostensibly secular state. In the Human Rights Watch report of 2005 it was noted: "The Egyptian government must create an environment where academic freedom is respected, i.e., restore autonomy to the universities and cease violating the rights of individual members of the community. Such steps would make it harder for those who challenge academic freedom to achieve their goals. The state should also actively oppose intolerant individuals or groups who carry out attacks against academic freedom. For example, it should reject calls to censor books and allow students to choose their own thesis topics. Rather than combating Islamists' attempts to limit academic freedom, Egypt has allowed them to deprive others of their rights."

In an explosive interview in 2004, Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst with Al Ahram Political and Strategic Studies Center wrote about how Politicians have used religion to gain legitimacy, how extremists have used it to condone murder and how religious institutions have been more than happy to play the power game to win some control of their own. Welcoming the reader to twenty five years of religious politics in Egypt, he said: "Al-Azhar has been censoring books and, worse, we've become accustomed to reading about one Islamist lawyer or another calling for movies to be banned because the posters were 'suggestive'. Instead, the state over-used religion in its political war and it over-used Al-Azhar. We can't ignore the fact that there are extremists inside Al-Azhar itself, which put additional burdens on people and society." This was published in Egypt Today, a famous Magazine in Cairo. The words are not very much different from Kareem Amer's conclusion now are they?

Islam is intrinsically a moderate religion. Yet, today the biggest problem it faces is the extremism of its advocates. Al Azhar, as one of the oldest universities and Islamic institutions should be the first to ensure that Muslims stay on the middle path. Islam neither teaches extremism nor rejection, neither arrogance nor ignorance. In fact, it condemns them all. My parents and teachers never taught me this. I do not recognise many aspects of this violent intolerant behaviour. What then does it teach? The Islam I learned teaches people to be kind and forgiving, to be open hearted and modest in behaviour. It teaches a beautiful middle way, a critical balance between two unhealthy and unworthy extremes. "And it is thus that We appointed you to be the community of the middle way, so that you might be witnesses before all mankind and the Messenger might be a witness before you." (Qur'an 2:143)

Abdel Karim - The Crime of Obeying God, and Al Azhar's Curse

tbs — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:16:46 EST

Newspapers all over the world are replete with articles about the prison sentence given to Egyptian Blogger Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, who blogged under the name of Karim Amer.(Arabic website)

The last entry on his unfortunate blog dates back to October 28, 2006 where he mentions that he received a summons to appear at the police station for an investigation. The charges against him, he writes, are the ghost of Al Azhar haunting him, despite him receiving his dismissal paper from Al Azhar University already. He mentions other luminaries and intellectuals that were touched by Al Azhar's curse, as he calls it, and who were forced to either abandon their ideas or flee the country or paid with their life, such as Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, Dr. Ahmed Sobhy Mansour, Nawal El Saadawi or Ahmed El Shahawy and the late Farag Fouda. He writes that this only strengthens his courage and resolve.

Since that last entry he has been arrested and detained and has no doubt gone through hell. We have all seen enough videos on YouTube of what goes on in Egyptian Police Stations to know that his detention there was probably a nightmare - to say the least. Visits from his family and lawyers were forbidden.

The charges against Karim were those of insulting Islam, harming the peace and insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

According to the articles of the international press - for some strange reason the Egyptian press has remained rather silent about Karim - he is supposed to have said: "I don't see what I have done, I expressed my opinion...the intention was not anything like these charges."

Let us take a look at his blog and see what he wrote and whether or not he indeed insulted Islam or harmed the peace.

Karim starts blogging in February 2004 about love, hardly harming peace unless his own peace of mind. In June 2004 he writes about honour killings and how the hymen is an affliction women are cursed with and how this insignificant piece of skin becomes a curse. Strangely enough just this week Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, issued a fatwa making hymen reconstruction surgery for women who have lost their virginity before marriage as halal.

In his next posts also in June 2004, Karim criticized the use of religion to suppress women in all spheres of life. He objects to not educating girls, of not allowing them to work in certain professions and fields. He condemns female circumcision and genital mutilation as yet another form of repression. He criticizes marrying off girls at an early age and is very passionate about discontinuing domestic violence. All his criticism has been dealt with before by Al Azhar and the Grand Mufti. Just this month Egypt's Grand Mufti declared that Islam does not bar women from becoming heads of state. So if this position is theoretically open to women, what other positions could be forbidden.
Al Azhar held many symposiums on the education of Muslim women, which affirmed women's rights to education. Al Azhar even went as far as saying that misleading social norms and traditions which impede the development of Muslim women should be corrected.

In a recent conference in Cairo, sponsored by a German human rights group and held under the patronage of the Grand Mufti of Egypt, ten of the highest ranking scholars from all over the world met. Their final statement pronounced the custom of female genital mutilation (FGM) as a punishable aggression and an attack on women and a crime against humanity. As a result, the custom can no longer be practiced by Muslims. The conference appeals to all Muslims to stop practicing this habit, according to Islam's teachings, which prohibit inflicting harm on any human being.

In his next post he writes about the increasing phenomenon of black niqabs on the streets. He criticizes them and calls them black shrouds. That too does neither insult Islam nor Al Azhar. Just recently Mohammad Hamdi Zaqzouq, Egypt's Religious Affairs Minister said that the niqab is not a religious object. Zaqzouq said: "Nor is the niqab a duty deriving from the Sharia. I know I will be criticized for my words but I think some Muslims are committing a fundamental error, focusing on external and superficial aspects, without exploring more relevant themes, and hence providing a distorted image of Islam." Zaqzouq went a few steps further a few weeks later by rejecting the appointment of niqab-clad women to work as counsellors in his ministry on the grounds that this would just promote "the culture of the niqab". According to Zaqzouq: "The niqab is a matter of custom and not the faith -- it has nothing to do with the religion".

So far so good! Until now I have not seen anything that insulted Islam or even went against any of Al Azhar's decisions, fatwas, conferences, symposiums or teachings.

He blogs sporadically, about once or twice a month for the next few months. He writes about his neighbour, about Chechnya and more about love and he even starts writing poetry. He writes about Biblotheca Alexandria and about Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, about educating women, about decreasing women illiteracy, how language can be used to disguise intentions and about escaping reality. He also writes about dictators such as Saddam Hussein and George Bush and about the behaviour of a certain group of young Muslims who have been brainwashed into taking matters into their own hands to implement an Islamic society. He describes how they harass people on the streets, allow themselves to stop music, separate girls and boys and generally promote what they perceive as honourable Islamic values and combat what they perceive as vice. He criticises the blind following of so-called enlightened individuals who have a magic hold on many young people by means of lectures distributed via cassette tapes. He writes about the elections, about Ayman Nour, the Kefaya Movement, about Nawal Sadawi and Inas El Deghedi, a female movie director with many controversial and highly critical films.

I went through the entire blog. It took me a couple of days, but I seriously read each and every blog entry. I had to find out why he will be robbed of four years of his life. Why he was denied the right to complete his education. Why he was dismissed from University. Why he was silenced and used as an example to perhaps frighten other bloggers into silence.

The posts that allegedly insult al Azhar only appeared much later. In November 2004 he wrote a long entry about the segregation in al Azhar between female and male students and how this heightens the tension. He explicitly describes the questions asked in fiqh classes about sexual matters and how this whole separation leads to all sorts of sick fantasies. In November 2005 he writes another entry about the cooperation between mosque and state, in other words between Al Azhar and the government and adds pictures of President Hosni Mubarak in various meetings with top clerics, and of Gamal Mubarak meeting Pope Shenouda, pictures mind you that have been posted all over the newspapers. The post discusses the relationship between figures of state and clerics (Muslim and Christian) in a historical context and how the two exchanged legitimacy and power from that relationship. Again nothing that cannot be found in various history books. The contention probably comes from extending the link to modern times and writing about a group calling themselves "Ansar Al Sunna" and how this radical and fanatic group was supporting the President in the elections, as per ads they published condemning other candidates and portraying the President as a just and impartial figure akin to the ancient concept of Amir-ul-mu'minin (Prince of the believers). The next contention comes from his analysis of the failure of Sheikh Al Tantawi to obtain the support of the clerical staff of AL Azhar for the President in his election campaign, on the grounds that they are men of religion and teachers and shouldn't be getting involved in politics, another fact that was published in various opposition papers. His only crime here could perhaps be writing passionately about the hypocrisy of politicising religion.

In August he writes an open letter to the President. He poses many questions to him about forgeries in elections, about his long time rule, about whether or not he intends to fight discrimination in Egypt on religious grounds and about providing job opportunities for the young graduates and about the rumours of appointing Gamal Mubarak as a successor. All his questions come from the President's own campaign speeches and slogans or from articles previously published in opposition papers. Again nothing new here! Perhaps the only thing was that he actually urged the President to reconsider running. But that was also nothing new. The Kefaya Movement has made that its slogan.

In another post in August 2005 he criticises the statement made by Al Azhar to allow the enrolment of Coptic students under the condition that they memorise the Qur'an. Personally I can see the double standards in such a permit.

In March 2006 he blogs about receiving a letter from Al Azhar temporarily barring him from continuing his education there. He writes about Taha Hussein, Abdallah Al Qussaimy and Ahmed Sobhi Mansour who were all expelled from the university at some point, either as teachers or students, for wanting a reform and for asking for it. This very emotional post discusses his decision of not leaving the university, but rather waiting to be expelled. He argues that if everyone left a problem without trying to solve it or attempting at least to draw attention to it then nothing will ever be corrected. He further explains that Al Azhar is a state university funded by taxes collected from both Muslims and Copts and that it was high time to stop its discriminating practices, both on gender and religious grounds.

In a following post he describes the disciplinary council he was summoned to attend for his writings on the internet. He attends it accompanied by Raymon Youssef, a writer for Copts United, and Mamdouh Nakhla, a lawyer and director of AL Kalima (Words for Human Rights). The accusations levelled against Karim transformed personal writings to slandering Al Azhar, labelled his criticism and call for reform as hate inciting and apostasy.

In March 2006 he gets summoned to the Dean's office and the accusations continue and so does his blogging, which now takes a political colouring. He writes more about the demonstrations, the charade democracy, the persecution of demonstrators, the police brutality against demonstrators, about religious fanaticism on the rise and about curbing freedoms. Again nothing new that couldn't have been read in various opposition papers before.

Perhaps the only thing that could be taken against Karim on religious grounds is a post titled "No God but Man". The post, unlike its title though, deals with the law and whether or not the law is there to curb freedoms rather than guarantee them and concludes with a metaphor that the law becomes a god to enforce certain powers reserved for certain humans.

Amazingly, Chapter Three of the Egyptian Constitution which deals with Public Freedoms, Rights and Duties says in Article 47: "Freedom of opinion shall be guaranteed. Every individual shall have the right to express his opinion and to publicize it verbally, in writing, by photography or by other means of expression within the limits of the law. Self criticism and constructive criticism shall guarantee the safety of the national structure. "

This is exactly what Karim has done. He exercised his freedom of opinion. He took his right of expressing his opinion seriously and believed enough in it to write it on the internet in a publicly accessible blog. In my opinion Karim lived up to both his own true self and principles as well as his religion. In his Blogger profile he wrote that he was looking forward to help humanity against all forms of discrimination. The Qur'an implores believers to speak up against injustice, which is precisely what Karim has done.

Once again a religious institution is confusing itself with God, instead of seeing that they are part of the problem, they interpret any criticism of the institution as criticism of Allah, whereas Karim only did what Allah has told every Muslim to do: [4:135]: "O you who believe! be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness of Allah's sake, though it may be against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives; if he be rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow (your) low desires, lest you deviate; and if you swerve or turn aside, then surely Allah is aware of what you do."

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