Ahmed Subhy Mansour: Difference between revisions

Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour (also Ahmad Subhy Mansour and Ahmad Subhi Mansur), born March 1, 1949, in Abu Harair, Kafr Saqr, Sharqia, Egypt is an Egyptian-born noted Islamic scholar and cleric, with expertise in Islamic history, culture, theology, and politics.^[2] He founded a small Egyptian sect that is neither Sunni nor Shiite, Quranists, was exiled from Egypt, and lives in the United States as a political refugee.^[3]

Mansour was an advocate for democracy and human rights in Egypt for many years, during which time he was isolated by Islamic extremist clerics and persecuted by the government. He was arrested and served time in prison for his liberal political, religious, and social views.^[4]

In May 1985, Mansour was discharged from his teaching and research position due to his liberal views, which were not acceptable to the religious authorities who controlled much of university policies and programs.^[5]

Mansour sought and was granted political asylum in the United States in 2002. He has served as a visiting fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, and at the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.^[6]

Mansour received his junior middle school education in 1964, and ranked second in the Republic on the national exam. He graduated from Al-Azhar Secondary School, in Sharkeya, Egypt, in 1969, and ranked fourth in country on the national university entrance examination. He then attended Al-Azhar University in Cairo, a prestigious Sunni religious university. There he studied Muslim History, earning his B.A with Highest Honors in 1973, his M.A. with Honors in 1975, and his Ph.D with Highest Honors in 1980.^[7]

He founded a small Egyptian sect the Quranists, who believe: the Quran is the sole source of Islam and its' laws (they reject hadith, or reported traditions of Muhammad), is comprehensive and completely sufficient in itself, was revealed to Mohamed to clarify all controversial and mysterious religious issues, was Mohamed’s only tradition and he was ordered to abide by it alone, and Islam is the religion of peace, mercy, justice, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.^[8] Its fundamental principles put it squarely at odds with those Muslims who follow the principles of the Wahabists and other Islamists who consider the central tenet of Islam to be a requirement to wage violent jihad.^[9]

From 1973-80 he was an Assistant Teacher and Lecturer, from 1980-87 he was Assistant Professor, of Muslim History in the College of Arabic Language at Al Azhar University.^[10]

In May 1985, Mansour was discharged from his teaching and research position in Egypt due to his liberal views, which were not acceptable to the religious authorities who controlled much of university policies and programs.^[11][12][13] Because of his unconventional scholarship, Al-Azhar University accused him of being an enemy of Islam. He was tried in its canonical court, and expelled March 17, 1987. In 1987, beginning with his arrest on November 17, and in 1988 he was imprisoned by the Egyptian government for his views, including his advocacy of religious harmony and tolerance between Egyptian Muslims, Christian Copts, and Jews.^[14][15]

In 1991-92, he worked with Farag Foda to establish a new political party in Egypt, Mostakbal ("The Future Party"), dedicated to a secular democratic state, and to defend the Christian Egyptians. Foda was assassinated in June 1992.^[16]

In 1996 Mansour established a weekly conference at the Ibn Khaldoun Center – headed by Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim – in order to discuss Islamist dogma, religion-based terror, and other issues. It functioned until 2000, when the Center was closed down by the Egyptian government.^[17]

Mansour sought and was granted political asylum in the United States in 2002.^[18]

He and his sons operate the Quranic Center in Northern Virginia, which includes an Internet site in Arabic and English. On its website at www.ahl-alquran.com, the organization is republishing dozens of Mansour's books and hundreds of articles he has written over the years.

Since arriving in the United States in 2002, Mansour has held a number of academic posts.^[19] In 2002, he was a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, where he wrote on the roots of democracy in Islam.

The next year, he received a visiting fellowship at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program. Mansour claims about 10,000 followers in Egypt.^[20] The sect members call themselves Quranists because they believe that the Qu'ran represents the single authentic scripture of Islam. The basic differences with the rest of the Muslims is that they reject the Hadith and Sunna, purported sayings and traditions of the prophet Muhammad.

In October 2004, he said that the leaders of the Muslim organization behind a new $22 million mosque in Roxbury tolerated "hateful views", and harbored extremists.^[21] In November 2004 The New York Sun lauded him for speaking out against Islamists, as did Daniel Pipes the following month.^[22][23]

In 2007, The Washington Times reported that his teachings have earned him dozens of death "fatwas" from fellow Muslim clerics.^[24]

In 2008, he said of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), "The culture of CAIR is the same as Usama bin Laden, but they have two faces. Who are the moderates? You probably never heard of them, and that, they say, is part of the problem. The message of peace does not make the news."^[25]

International Quranic Center

Mansour founded and is a board member of the International Quranic Center (IQC) to further his vision of moderate Islam. His interpretation of the letter and spirit of the Quran focuses on the values of democracy and religious tolerance. The IQC sponsors research, convenes conferences, and disseminates the ideas of Mansour and like-minded advocates in the U.S. and abroad through scholarly and educational publications, Arabic and English-language websites, movies, and TV productions. Its Board of Directors includes Muslims, Christians, and Jews.^[26]

Americans for Peace and Tolerance

He is a co-founder and board member of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, along with political activist Charles Jacobs and Boston College political science professor Dr. Dennis Hale (an Episcopal layman.^[27] Its purpose is to "promote peaceful coexistence in an ethnically diverse America by educating the American public about the need for a moderate political leadership that supports tolerance and core American values in communities across the nation."^[28] The group is a primary critic of the $15.6 million mosque in Roxbury Crossing, which the group asserts is led by extremist leaders and contributors.^[29][30] Mansour said: "I visited this mosque one time with my wife. I found their Arabic materials full of hatred against America. I recognized they were Wahhabis."^[31][32] The Islamic Society of Boston sued him over his attacks on anti-American and anti-Semitic statements he said he read and heard inside the society's mosque.^[33]

Free Muslims Coalition

Mansour is also a board member of the Free Muslims Coalition, a nonprofit organization of American Muslims and Arabs who feel that religious violence and terrorism have not been fully rejected by the Muslim community. The Coalition seeks to eliminate broad base support for Islamic extremism and terrorism, to strengthen secular democratic institutions in the Muslim world by supporting Islamic reformation efforts, and to promote a modern secular interpretation of Islam which is peace-loving, democracy-loving, and compatible with other faiths and beliefs.^[34]

More recently, in May and June 2007, Egyptian authorities arrested five leaders of the movement, including Mansour's brother, on charges of "insulting Islam", and began investigations of 15 others.^[35] Following the arrests, Mansour's homes in Cairo and Sharqiya were searched by the State Security.^[36]

Paul Marshall analyzed the arrests in the Weekly Standard as follows:

"These arrests are part of the Egyptian government's double game in which it imprisons members of the Muslim Brotherhood when the latter appear to become too powerful, while simultaneously trying to appear Islamic itself and blunt the Brotherhood's appeal by cracking down on religious reformers, who are very often also democracy activists."^[37]

Mansour lamented:

"Killing people just because they are not Muslims, they have a Hadith for this. To kill a Muslim like me after accusing him to be an 'apostate," they have a Hadith for this. To persecute the Jews, they have a Hadith for this. All this is garbage. It has nothing to do with Islam. It contradicts more than one-fourth of the Koranic verses. We find Islam has the same values as the West: freedom, unlimited freedom of speech, justice, equality, loving, humanity, tolerance, mercy, everything. This is our version of Islam, and we argue that this is the core of Islam according to the Koran."

He added: "Few Americans understand that the battle against terrorism is a war of ideas. It is a war that is very different from the military in its tactics, its strategy and its weapons."

Mansour has authored 24 books and 500 articles in Arabic, dealing with many aspects of Islamic history, culture, and religion. They include a history of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia; a critique of the concept of jihad, bigotry and dictatorship in Muslim thought; women’s rights in the Muslim world; the reform of Egyptian education; and various pieces of prose fiction and screen plays. ^[38][39]

Books in Arabic

1. Al Sayed Al Badway: Fact versus Superstition. Cairo, 1982.
2. Using Religious Texts to Inform Muslim History. Cairo, 1984.
3. The Personality of Egypt after the Muslim Invasion. Cairo, 1984.
4. The History of the Historic Sources of Arabic and Muslim Fields. Cairo, 1984. .
5. The Fundamental Rules of Historical Research. Cairo, 1984.
6. The Invasions of the Moguls and the Crusaders in Muslim History. Cairo, 1985.
7. A History of the Cultural Development of Muslims. Cairo, 1985.
8. The Muslim World between the Early Stage and the Abbasy Caliphate. Cairo, 1985.
9. The Prophets in the Holy Quran. Cairo, 1985.
10. The Sinner Muslim: Common Mythology Regarding the Sinner Muslim. Cairo, 1987.
11. Egypt in the Holy Quran. Al Akhbar newspaper, Cairo, 1990.
12. The Quran: the Only Source of Islam and Islamic Jurisprudence (published under the title The Quran: Why? using the pseudonym Abdullah Al Khalifah) Cairo, 1990.
13. Death in the Quran. Dar Al Shark Al Awsat, Cairo, 1990.
14. The Penalty of Apostasy. Tiba Publishing, Cairo, 1992; Al Mahrousah, 1994; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab (The Arab Intellectuals Publishing Company), 2000; English translation, The International Publishing and Distributing Company, Toronto, Canada, 1998.
15. Freedom of Speech: Islam and Muslims. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Cairo, 1994.
16. The Al Hisbah between the Quran and Muslims. Al Mahrousah, Cairo, 1995; Al Kahera magazine, Cairo, 1996.
17. The Torture of the Grave. Tibia, Cairo, 1996; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab, Cairo, 2000.
18. Naskh in the Quran Means Writing Not Abrogating. Al Tanweer magazine, Cairo?? 1997; Al Mahrousah, Cairo, 1998; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab, Cairo, 2000.
19. The Introduction (mokademat) of Ibn Khaldoun: A Fundamental Historical and Analytical Study. The Ibn Khaldoun Center, Cairo, 1999.
20. Suggestions to Revise Muslim Religion Courses in Egyptian Education to Make Egyptians More Tolerant. Ibn Khaldoun Center, Cairo, 1999.
21. Religious Thought in Egypt in the Mamluke Era: Islam versus Muslim Sufism. Ministry of Culture, Cairo, 2000.^[40]
22. Al-Aqaid Al-Diniyah Fi Misr Al-Mamlukiyah Bayna Al-Islam Wa-Al-Tasawwuf, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9770169919, al-Hayah al-Misriyah al-Ammah lil-Kitab
23. Al-Tasawwuf Wa-Al-hayah Al-Diniyah Fi Misr Al-Mamlukiyah, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9773130576, Markaz al-Mahrusah lil-Buhuth wa-al-Tadrib wa-Nashr
24. Misr Fi Al-Quran Al-Karim, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9771243551, Muassasat Akhbar al-Yawm

• "Mediaeval theocracies in a modern age", by Ahmed Sobhi Mansour, Al-Ahram, October 15-21, 1998
• "The Roots of Democracy in Islam", National Endowment for Democracy, December 16, 2002
• "The False Alarm of Evangelism", April 28, 2005
• "The Suicide Bomber", FrontPage Magazine, August 3, 2--5
• "They ask you about the veil", November 21, 2006
• "A Shackled Reformation; Egypt persecutes Muslim moderates", The New York Times, February 3, 2009

• Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., October 25, 2005

• Qur'an alone

• Free-Minds bio
• International Quranic Center website
• Washington Times Article
• Conflict & cooperation: Christian-Muslim relations in contemporary Egypt, Peter E. Makari, Syracuse University Press, 2007, ISBN 0815631448]