EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION DESTROYED BY MOHAMMEDANISM

[Guest guest]

AN EXILED SCHOLAR OF ISLAM

AN EXILED SCHOLAR OF ISLAM

By Daniel del Castillo

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/8/2002, Vol. 48 Issue 22,

pA48, 1p, 1c

 

LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS

 

Nasr abu Zeid does a passable job of hiding his bitterness behind a

warm smile. But after six years here, a continent away from his

homeland, he cannot conceal his anger.

 

Mr. Abu Zeid's story is the stuff of nightmares. A professor and

eminent Egyptian scholar of Islamic studies at Cairo University, he

was propelled to notoriety in .1993 when a colleague who is an

Islamist -- an advocate of fundamentalist Islamic political rule --

accused him of apostasy and of blaspheming Islam in his scholarship

on Koranic exegesis.

 

His alleged crime was the reconciliation of Islam with modernity. He

argued in his writings that Islam, like all religions, must be seen

in its historical context and that its holy book, the Koran, should

be given the same scrutiny as other texts. He applied techniques of

literary criticism to the Koran and insisted that religious

interpretation is and has been dependent on social, political, and

historical currents; that, in effect, reason and rationalism go hand

in hand with faith.

 

Because of the fundamental belief that the Koran is an eternal sacred

text, no solid tradition of exegesis or textual criticism emerged

outside a brief two-decade period in the ninth century.

 

So Mr. Abu Zeid's rationalist writings cost him his country, his

career as an Egyptian professor, and, in a strictly technical sense,

his marriage. Under an arcane loophole in Egyptian law, he was

ordered forcibly divorced from his wife -- it was the only punishment

the Islamists could levy against him, since Egypt is governed by

secular rather than Islamic law. Under Islamic law, though, he would

have been executed for apostasy, and after a series of death threats,

the most serious one issued as a fatwa by Osama bin Laden's associate

Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Abu Zeid and his wife fled to the Netherlands,

where he now teaches Islamic history at Leiden University.

 

Q: Why didn't you just leave early on, before things got ugly?

 

A: I am a 58-year-old Egyptian professor. ... Teaching was like a

mission for me. Teaching Egyptian students about Islam, how not to be

deceived by this manipulation of Islam, was something more than a

position. If I had decided to go to Saudi Arabia for five years, I

could have become wealthy as a scholar of Islam, but I made my

choice, and I have no regrets. This is what is keeping me alive, that

I am not on the wrong track. I have my students here, and I am still

working and traveling.

 

Q: Was it difficult to make the decision to leave Egypt?

 

A: The first time I went to the university after the verdict, the

security procedure was like the president was going to the

university. The university wasn't just a place I worked, it was a

dream. A dream that turned into a nightmare very much like the dream

of Egypt that turned into a nightmare. Under this protection, my wife

and I exchanged one word in our bulletproof car on the way home from

the university: "No!"

 

Q: Forced divorce had to have been a fairly traumatic experience --

couldn't you have spun your ideas to be more palatable to the

Islamists?

 

A: I don't believe soft discourse can possibly bring about change.

Maybe a challenging discourse can create reaction and draw the

attention of the silent majority. We have a problem in the Arab world

of intellectuals only talking to intellectuals. Not compromising your

critical approach as a scholar might provoke, and this provocation

would create a sphere of discussion.

 

Q: Many Arab academics and intellectuals contend that universities in

Egypt have been taken over by Islamists. True?

 

A: I would put it in a rather different way. Their power, in my

opinion, is based on the weakness of others. ... The whole weakness

at that time wasn't only ... the university. It was the state of

Egypt, which was [trying] to deal with terrorism without addressing

the basic issue behind terrorism -- the absence of any public sphere

for exchanging ideas, the failure of development not only in villages

but in the outskirts of Cairo. Development and enlightenment have not

at any moment in the history of Egypt reached any area beyond the big

cities of Cairo and Alexandria.

 

Q: So that lack of academic freedom means there is no real

scholarship on Islam?

 

A: Right. In universities all over the Muslim world, there is no

scholarship about Islam. There is preaching of Islam, so Islamic

study is the preaching of Islam. There is no comparative study.

 

Q: What is it about Islam that tends to encourage rigidity?

 

A: The concept of the Koran as the literal utterance of God is a

historical concept. Muslims from very early on have different

opinions about this, and we have to bring to the attention of

Muslims, not only scholars, that this is a dogma that was created and

protected as a political decision. And we don't have to swallow it as

the Islamic doctrine, it's a dogma, ... a human understanding.

 

Q: So how do you convince Muslims that this is a dogma and that it is

not haram -- religiously forbidden -- for them to question things

about their religion, just as people with other religious traditions

do?

 

A: This is my work, this is my life. It's not impossible. What is

needed in the Muslim world is more reformation. ... It is possible,

if we have a free sphere of discussion in universities and the public

sphere. I have been saying what I'm saying now in different contexts.

For people who are open and willing to listen and who don't rush to

say, "This is against something," the possibility is there. I have a

feeling that so many Muslims -- I am talking about the young

generation now, those about to turn 30, are tired of the traditional

answer, that the word of God is divine and human. As humans, we are

entitled to bring our understanding and to bring history to the word

of God to try to deduce answers to our questions.

 

The problem in the Muslim world at large now is the absence of any

theological discussion. Islamic theology has been frozen since the

12th century. To reopen questions of theology concerning God, man,

the world, is essential and should be done outside the religious

institutions. Universities should have done this.

 

Q: Is an Islamic revolution in Egypt likely?

 

A: To tell you the truth, all of the convictions I've had have become

illusions after September 11. I was sure that even if Egypt had a

very open system with free elections, a utopia of democracy, that

religious groups might gain a few seats but never reach a majority.

 

Because the Egyptian people ... are very religious, but mixing

religion with politics -- they have become aware of its danger. Now I

am not sure. The new situation has given more power to the very

traditional Islamic trend.

 

Q: Why haven't more Muslim intellectuals used September 11 as an

opportunity to define what Islam is and what it is not?

 

A: We have to look at September 11 and the success of Osama bin

Laden ... as the protector of Palestinian rights. ... Because what is

Islam? is my question, and now, what is the West? Can I equate the

United States with Europe? Now it seems, in the political arena,

there is no difference between them, but to analyze the situation and

explain differences, it would be very easily taken against me as a

Westernized Muslim, and I'm already discredited. So the difficulty is

how to produce an honest discourse to convey what you think is the

truth and at the same time, not to let language use you. Now if you

confront Islamists it will be easily understood that you are backing

Westernism.

 

Q: Will you ever return to Egypt?

 

A: [i told my wife,] if I die anyplace in the world, don't take my

body back to Egypt. Six years now, and I still feel the same way. I

said this before, and it was published in Arabic and many Egyptians

were angered by my statement. ... Deep inside ... I feel like a

deserted child whose mother didn't like him. Egypt means more than

people think it means to me, it's something that's in my blood. I am

still very angry. What did I do? I was trying to ... teach the

Egyptian people how to think.

 

Maybe I was wrong -- it's always possible for me to be wrong -- but

do you have to kill me because I was wrong?

 

PHOTO (COLOR): Nasr abu Zeid: "The concept of the Koran as the

literal utterance of God... was create and protected as a political

decision. And we don't have to swallow it as the Islamic doctrine."

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Non-Sectarian Hindus = Strong Bharat Mata

 

"The glory of Krishna is not that he was Krishna but because he was

the

great teacher of Vedanta. Thus our allegiance is to principles and

not to

persons" ----- Swami Vivekananda