“The biggest and deepest problem for Arabs and Muslims is theological. The fuqahā’ have been responsible for our closing in our ourselves and an understanding of religion that is founded upon takfīr and exiling, for the fact that we are unable to live alongside other peoples in an era of globalization and for the fact that we embrace an ideology that brands four-fifths of humanity as ‘infidels’.
THE ARAB-ISLAMIC HERITAGE has its great treasures but they are obscured by dark currents. What is needed is an enlightenment Islam to wake up and solve its problems and its historical blockages. Enlightenment Islam is the path to salvation, whereby Arabs and Muslims can be reconciled with themselves and with the world.”[1]
To those who will most certainly object to the title of the article, being still captive to belief in the eternal purity of Islam, ‘Do you want your children to grow up and be raised in this type of ‘Islam’? Are these the kind of blessings you want to spread to the rest of the world and be embraced by it?
Enlightenment Islam is the path to salvation, whereby Arabs and Muslims can be reconciled
To those who have become exercised by trivial and inept drawings under the pretext of their constituting insults the Prophet, they should just listen carefully to what is said and taught in our places of worship without anyone voicing any objection. They should avoid confronting the truth, no matter how bitter, if they want to avoid the following words of God applying to them:
Certainly We have brought you the truth, but most of you are averse to the truth. [2]
A nation that listens to these imbeciles, instead of throwing stones or at the very least shoes at them, cannot possibly succeed or progress.
Where did all of this come from and how did it come to root itself in the public consciousness and the collective mind of the so-called Muslims, all this delusional belief in the complete and utter purity of absolutely everything inherited under the name of Islam? I have always heard from imams and preachers that the Prophet left us a shining bright path, whose night is like the day, and that only those who will perish will deviate from it.
But upon reflection, I find that it is these preachers who were the first to deviate from the path set down by the Prophet, to whom they still attribute this reprehensible saying: ‘Whoever changes his religion, kill him’.[3] This saying eradicates and destroys a vast quantity of Qur’ānic verses, perhaps foremost among them being: ‘There is no compulsion in religion’.[4] Even so, this is attributed to the one who brought us the Holy Qur’ān.
Now, what if the West were to decide to apply this (decidedly un-prophetic) hadith by executing all of its sons who convert to Islam? Putting such words on the lips of the Prophet is the most horrible insult to him imaginable! Almighty God did not denigrate anyone, either in this world or the next, on behalf of the Prophet, in the way that the Nation associated with Him has certainly done, particularly a group of those who describe themselves as the ‘heirs of the Prophet’
What is gnawing at our body is our understanding and our general conception of the religion
Moreover, we then we find these masters stigmatizing as ‘disbelievers’ anyone who disbelieves in these very falsehoods they claim to be divine teachings. To those who despise these peoples, their religions and even their God, I simply say this: to pronounce ‘kufr’ upon you, your absurd visions and interpretations of the faith, all of them lethal to the soul and harbingers of disaster – is a fard ‘ayn, a personal religious obligation incumbent upon any and everyone who has respect for his own humanity, even if he is not one of those who, through birth, have won the title of ‘Muslim’. You are fashioners of misfortune, not of hope. Things have got so bad and the delusion gone to such extremes that this deviation can no longer be tolerated. We can no longer bear it, for what is happening, and indeed for a long time now, is audible to the deaf, forcing the rocks to speak out and making the dead turn in their graves.
Our nation is very sick and we must not lose sight of, or forget, that there is something gnawing at its body. If it is healthy, the whole body is well, and if it is corrupted it will corrupt its whole being. Surely, and without a shred of doubt, what is gnawing is our understanding and our general conception of the religion. “We should make a distinction” argues Hashem Saleh,
between religion and its interpretations. Keep in mind that its interpretation is usually a product of sectarian obscurantism dating from the eras of decadence, and that the religion was a rationally enlightened one in the eras of resurgence and détente.
“O Muslims, restore your religion with true awareness and true humanity!”, demanded ‘Adnān Ibrāhīm, while, for Muṣṭafā Maḥmūd
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Religion must be presented anew in its pure sources, in a modern, universal language that addresses everyone everywhere, instead of in some closed, fanatical, sectarian language. The spirit and essence of religion must be offered, not its surface formalities: a religion in the first place, that is, of monotheism, ethics, responsibility and deeds, religion as love, of universal consciousness, of science and the sanctification of all that is good and beautiful.
[1] Hashem Saleh, author of the book الإنتفاضات العربية على ضوء فلسفة التاريخ (‘The Arab Uprisings in Light of the Philosophy of History’), 2013.
[2] Qur’ān XLIII (al-Zukhruf), 78.
[3] Cf, for this text: https://sunnah.com/nasai:4059 ; https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2535 ; https://sunnah.com/mishkat:3678 et al.
[4] Qur’ān II (al-Baqara), 256.
