Islamophobic Muslim? Egyptian Writer: "Who Offends the Prophet is Not the West, But we Muslims, for Making Islam Terrorist"

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Translated from the original Arabic by Al Mutarjim

It is certainly rare to see such blunt self-criticism coming from the Muslim world, and it would not be surprising to hear that Ahmad al-Aswani had received death threats for his outspoken criticism of Islam and Muslims.

I don’t believe that cartoons, books, or movies can offend any religion, or affect the faith of those who adhere to that religion with truth and conviction.

The ones who offend the Prophet are those who slaughter and blow up innocent people throughout all the world—from New York to Madrid, in London, Bali, Riyadh, Cairo, Kabul, and Baghdad—even now, after mentioning Allah and the Prophet under the banner of Islamic jihad. Protests come out in support of all this, and internet forums sing praises to the knight Usama bin Laden, the hero of the raids of New York and Washington.

Who offends the Prophet is a man like al-Qaradawi, who incites people to kill Jewish children in their mothers’ wombs (from an interview with Egyptian journalists in 1996), and incites people to carry out suicide operations. In the name of the religion and the Prophet, he declares jihad in Iraq, and innocent victims are killed.

Who offends the Prophet are those who demand that the world issue a decision preventing the disrespect of religions while they practice it themselves in every prayer in their mosques, schools (madrasas), and on their television stations. They especially disrespect Christians and Jews, and curse them in every prayer (after the Islamic bloc offered a decision on this issue in the Human Rights Council in the United Nations, the Saudi Shura Council objected to this decision because insulting other religions is one of the rites of Islam, according to what was published on the Saudi site al-Arabiya).

Who offends the Prophet is he who issues a fatwa, ruling that adults should be breastfed, and that the urine of the Prophet is blessed. It is he who allows hadiths like these to be studied in religious schools (madrasas) and colleges, such as the hadith of the fly, hadiths about holding the dhimmis (Jews and Christians) in contempt and humiliating them, hadiths about Paradise being under the shadow of swords, and thousands of other hadiths like these, whose mere existence offends the Prophet and Islam.

Who offends the Prophet is he who teaches children in schools (madrasas), especially those called Islamic, to hate Christians because loving them is forbidden. “[They are] your enemy and your religion’s enemy,” as the veiled teacher said to the daughter of one of my friends of ten years in the schools of the Islamic conquest (a private school in Egypt) in Ma'adi (southern Cairo). When her family complained, they were told, “This is Islam.”

Who offends the Prophet is he who believes that outward signs such as the beard, the mark on the forehead [from prostrating oneself], the hijab, the niqab, and the jilbab (Islamic robe) are duties of Islam, and declare people to be infidels and kill them because of them.

Who offends the Prophet is he who believes that women are 'awrah [i.e. something shameful to be covered up], and are banned from prayers, like dogs and donkeys. (Or who believe) as it says in the famous hadith in Sahih Muslim, that “women are deficient in intelligence and religion.” They forget that women are mothers, sisters, sweethearts, daughters, and wives, and are equal to men. It is lamentable that the majority of Muslim women believe in the correctness of these hadiths which insult them.

Who offends the Prophet is a man like Zaghlul al-Najar, who is called a scholar, and yet believes that natural disasters, such as hurricanes, volcanoes, and floods, are punishments from Allah for sinners. He also degrades the Gospel and the Torah, calling them made-up books. He does all this under the banner of the Prophet and in the name of Islam, and many uneducated people follow him.

Who offends the Prophet are those who publish myths among Muslims, such as Prophetic medicine, and the interpretation of dreams. They say that following them is according to the sunnah of the noble Prophet, to publish ignorance and backwardness, and many fall prey in their demonic traps.

Who offends the Prophet are the rulers and shaykhs of Arab nations who have transformed them into the last bastions of tyrants and dictators in the world. They turn to religious texts to justify their crimes.

Who offends the Prophet is not the West, but we Muslims, for making Islam terrorist, a hypocrite, a hater of life, nourishing on the killing of others in the name of jihad, warring against free thought, on the pretext that these are the fundamentals of the Ummah, which stands for nothing but backwardness and rigidity.
Who Offends the Prophet?
Ahmad al-Aswani, elbashayer.com, December 22, 2011