Firstly: wait for the collapse of the judicial authority and system in Egypt if the terrorist MB and Salafists assume power in Egypt one day: 

  These Wahabi terrorists have an ideology of theocracy, tyranny, and terrorism; they have no real political rule program or any definite or certain group of laws that would be applied by judges. In fact, they have nothing but empty and void slogans and mottoes fed to gullible Sunnite electors like fodder for cattle. The terrorist MB and Salafists manipulate and misuse the name of Islam and words like 'sharia', 'caliphate', 'fiqh', etc. without having a clear-cut definition or boundaries of their so-called sharia legislations (i.e., Wahabi sharia of course), and they misinterpret on purpose Quranic verses containing the Quranic/Arabic term or root (Hukm) (please see discussion of this term in Chapter II of Part I of this book that you are reading now).       

 

Secondly: the Cairo-based independent newspaper Al-Ahrar published our article (quoted partially below) on 5th of July, 1993, within a series of articles titled "The Narrator Says", and this article is titled "Ruling without God's Revelation". Here is a quotation below from this article.

 

(...... 1- The political religious trends accuse the Egyptian State of ruling with laws never revealed by God; Wahabi extremists thus deem Egypt as a heretic state, as they rise slogans that misuse certain verses of the Quran that contain derivations of the root (Hukm). Even in the book titled "Neglected Duty", authored by one of the culprits who participated in the assassination of Sadat, namely, Abdul-Salam Faraj, we see how the Wahabi author incite readers to perform military jihad against the Egyptian State because it rules without God's revealed laws of sharia. 

2- An Azharite ignoramus of a sheikh has written a booklet to refute the book of the terrorist Abdul-Salam Faraj, asserting that the verses about ruling with what God has revealed refer only to the People of the Book (i.e., Jews + Christians) and the Egyptian government lauded the booklet and its author and promoted him as a reward!     

3- The Azharite ignoramus wrote a false view, as the Quranic verses are addressed to all its readers in all eras; besides, God is the Only Judge of People of the Book and all human beings, and we (i.e., Quran-believing people) are NEVER to judge faiths of Jews and Christians or any other denominations, as this is God's business and NOT ours as mortals. When God revealed His Scriptures (e.g., the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran), He never imposed faith/belief on humans using angels, weapons, or swords; rather, He granted all human beings the freedom of choice (to believe or disbelieve) and specified the Day of Judgment to judge all humanity as per their choices, faiths, and deeds, to reward/punish each of them. Hence, mortals are not to judge one another in terms of faith, as such insolent interference is never allowed by God; God is the Sole Owner of the Day of Judgment, and no mortals are allowed to share such ownership. Hence, it is a grave sin to play God's role by accusing others of being infidels because they differ from us in terms of faith/belief or in terms of political views.   

4- Away from declaring others as infidels and heretics (a hateful notion to us that we have condemned and refuted in earlier articles), we assert here that the Quranic idea of ruling without God's revelation does not refer to political rule, but court rulings of arbiters/judges like what we understand within the judicial system or authority of today. It is a historical fact that ancient forefathers and ancestors among Sunnite scholars, imams, theologians, etc. honored by Wahabi Salafists of today NEVER applied the notion of using God's revelation to judge and rule as per Quranic verses on any issue. Instead, they followed the dominant culture of tyranny and oppression within all caliphates (Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, etc.) and formulated man-made sharia legislations of fiqh to serve tyrants and despots to help them have quasi-religious pretexts to commit all crimes of massacring, torturing, and oppressing people in the name of God, and such man-made fiqh legislations (formed with the passage of centuries) have been deemed as God's sharia; yet, Islam and the Quran are innocent from such falsehoods. God's revelation is only the Quranic verses and NOT fiqh laws and rules. This fact has been ignored by imams and scholars  for centuries.    

5- Sadly, the Wahabi religious trends in Egypt who seek political power have not even the minimum amount of Quranic religious culture to use the Quran as the criterion to judge the traditions and old notions. If we do so, we will see how the Quran contains no punishment of death for non-murders, especially the weird notion of stoning adulterers/adulteresses, and no penalties for drinking wine and other sins that Salafists insist that they require corporeal punishments. God commands putting to death those who murdered anyone on purpose; see the Quranic Chapter 6 and the Quranic Chapter 17. "And do not kill the soul which God has made sacred, except in the course of justice..." (17:33)  " Because of that We ordained for the Israelites: that whoever kills a person-unless it is for murder or corruption on earth-it is as if he killed the whole of humankind; and whoever saves it, it is as if he saved the whole of humankind..." (5:32). Even in self-defense fighting, no aggressions are allowed as per the Quran: "And fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression; God does not love the aggressors." (2:190); "And fight them until there is no persecution, and worship becomes devoted to God alone. But if they cease, then let there be no fighting except against the unjust ones... Whoever commits aggression against you, retaliate against him in the same measure as he has committed against you..." (2:193-194). The Quran commands flogging and NOT stoning for fornication, and punishing those who terrorize and commit aggressions against people, in order to regulate how people deal with one another and live in peace by protecting rights of people. As for rights of God (i.e. acts of worship and how one performs them), no mortals have the right to interfere in them to reward or punish anyone for them; this is God's exclusive business, not the business of mortals; otherwise, mortals who interfere would be deifying themselves by sharing God's authority and judgment.  

6- The Wahabi political trends desire that modern people in Egypt of the 20 century A.D. would return to the Middle-Ages culture and mentality, and yet, they accuse the Egyptian government of being 'heretic' despite the fact that the man-made sharia laws of fiqh contradict the Quranic sharia laws and Quranic teachings and add to the things never ordered by God in the Quran. when we refute Wahabism using the Quran, they accused us of being a 'heretic' and an 'infidel' who distort meanings of the Quran and incite the Egyptian regime to persecute our person, and Egyptian State men think of Wahabism as if it were Islam, and this makes them linked to Wahabi extremist trends.).

 

Thirdly:

 The Wahabi trends of Sunnite extremists use the slogan of (application of sharia) to deceive the gullible Egyptians and Wahabis could never define boundaries/limits to their Sunnite sharia which is like a bottomless ocean with no shores to be seen. The Wahabis of today in Egypt and elsewhere never know that the so-called sharia/fiqh (i.e., man-made laws formulated with the passage of centuries during the Middle Ages and have nothing to do with the Quran) was a tool to commit injustices from the Umayyads to the Ottomans and all caliphates between them, and such injustices committed to maintain tyranny and theocracies were manipulating and hijacking the name of Islam and insult God and His religion (i.e., Quranism). Sunnite backward obscurantist sharia laws are applied perfectly in the KSA by the Wahabi Saudi royal family and in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime, and people there are oppressed, suppressed, persecuted, tormented, tortured, and killed, and they suffer many grave injustices, lack of human rights and freedoms, and despicable living conditions. The rudimentary judicial systems in Afghanistan and the KSA maintain injustices, tyranny, and oppression, and Human Rights Watch reports about both countries are used be enemies of Islam to undermine it, because they think of the devilish evil Wahabism as if it were Islam.       

 

Fourthly:

  We conclude our book with quoting here below an old article of ours that depicts a historical portrait of the role of the judicial authority and system as well as Sunnite sharia to maintain grave injustices during the Mameluke Era in Egypt. The article is based on a book authored by the historian named Al-Makrizi, titled "Al-Solok". This great historian was a witness of the Mameluke Era and he protested and stood against injustices by writing his book of historical accounts to teach all generations of readers about adherence to justice and to warn against injustice and its consequences. The is article titled "A Page from the History of Mameluke Injustices: Al-Makrizi as a Witness Bearing his Testimony of his Corrupt Era", published in the page titled "heritage" in Alam Al-Yom newspaper on 28th of February, 1992, and here is below a quotation from this article.

(...  The Burji Mameluke dynasty sultans ruled in Egypt within the second half of the Mameluke Era, and they were named as ''Burji'' because those Circassian Mamelukes used to live in castles (i.e. 'Burj' in Arabic) overlooking the River Nile. The most prominent of these sultans was the sultan Al-Moayyad who died in 824 A.H., but the conditions and circumstances were very bad in general, because the sultan Barqoq (founder of the Burji Mameluke dynasty sultans) introduced so many types of injustices that dominated for long decades after his death; most people became venal, as they desired to greedily hoard and amass money by whatever means, and so many posts were sold in return for large sums of money, apart from the spread of bribes in all fields to do anything, and those who would bribe their way to get a governmental post (esp. judges) would restore the sums of bribes and more by imposing on people to give them bribes if they desire anything done for them. When injustices of anyone would reach a level that would make people complain to the Mameluke sultans, the sultans would confiscate the possessions of this judge or that governmental official and/or imprison and torture him to force him to tell them about the hidden treasures and precious possessions he had amassed. Such were the features of the Burji Mameluke dynasty sultans since the reign of the sultan Barqoq and his successors, including the sultan Al-Moayyad who ruled Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz for 8 years, five months, and 8 days, until he died in 824 A.H. The sultan Al-Moayyad had a mixture of good traits and evil tendencies; he was the sultan to get the least share of the rebuke and anger of Al-Makrizi in his writings, who typically criticized severely the sultans he witnessed during his lifetime and would shed more light on their faults, injustices, and evil deeds, but in the case of the sultan Al-Moayyad, he received little criticism from Al-Makrizi in comparison to other Mameluke sultans. Indeed, Al-Makrizi mentions his good traits and his evil tendencies together, such as asserting his love of fiqh knowledge and holding talks with erudite scholars and sheikhs, his courage, his being religious and his respect for and submission to sharia and religion, his honoring and respecting judges of his time as he consulted them in cases when people desired their fatwas on many issues away from politics. This was unlike what was dominant and imposed by other Burji sultans, who hindered the execution of verdicts/fatwas of judges by force to serve their purposes and protect their interests, while ruining the judicial authority to maintain their own power and authority. This tyranny always incurred the ire of Al-Makrizi to criticize them in his writings; in contrast, he praises the sultan Al-Moayyad who respected judges and their fatwas and verdicts issued by them in all cases at court, and he never revoked or annulled any of their verdicts or fatwas. The sultan Al-Moayyad condemned the fact that some of his princes would protest against fatwas and verdicts and hinder their execution with all their might and power. Al-Makrizi praises Al-Moayyad for his long nightly prayers (because most Burji Mameluke sultans did not perform prayers at all, except Qaitbay in the last decades of the 9th century A.H.) and his distaste for some Sufi inventions and fabrications. Lines later, Al-Makrizi begins to tackle the negative side of Al-Moayyad, or bad traits shared by all sultans at the time; he mentions that Al-Moayyad was very stingy and miserly in terms of money and even food, he had an envious eye and a hot temper making him get angry easily, he drank wine too much, committed many injustice against people and tyrannized over them on several occasions, and he tended to verbally abuse others to their faces using bad language. Al-Makrizi asserts that such bad traits were typical of other sultans of his era, and then, he writes about events of his tyranny and injustices committed during his conflicts and disputes against his rivals among the Mameluke princes, when he ruled the Levant as a governor and after he became the sultan ruling from Cairo, the capital of the Mamelukes. Al-Makrizi asserts that Al-Moayyad used to scheme and plots lots of intrigues and evil plans and conspiracies in the Levant to get rid of his enemies and rivals, and he confiscated money of many people for no reason at all, and he continued to do so when he became the sultan and typically commanded his henchmen and troops to loot and raid cities in Egypt and in the Levant to amass as much money as possible. Al-Makrizi acknowledges that Al-Moayyad had many good qualities, such as helping judges against the powerful princes who threatened them, helping judges to execute their verdicts and fatwas in certain cases, how he sometimes gave charity money to the poor on certain occasions, and how he upheld justice in certain cases. This is why Al-Makrizi asserts that Al-Moayyad had a mixture of goodness and evil, but anyway, Al-Moayyad had no choice but to be a Mameluke sultan who was, above all, tyrannical, cruel, violent and unjust, otherwise, he would have lost his awe and his rivals would have dared to marginalize or get rid of him. In 820 A.H., Al-Moayyad left Cairo to the Levant in a journey to make sure everything there was under his rule and control, and the sultan's followers and princes he commissioned to preserve order in Egypt, and in its capital Cairo, seized the chance of his absence to raid and loot and commit many injustices, leading the subjects to realize that Al-Moayyad was better than the rest of the Mamelukes and that he stopped many injustices, even if he did not stop them all and even if he occasionally committed some of his own. But we maintain that Al-Moayyad was also responsible for such injustices of his followers as he the one to choose them and the one to condone and overlook their injustices after he returned to Cairo, but he could not stop the habit of those buying their posts and no one could dismiss them at all as per contracts and no one can stop them from embezzling money of others to compensate for bribes paid to get the posts. Summary of injustices: Al-Makrizi writes that the sultan Al-Moayyad in Aleppo, in the Levant, sent an envoy to inform people in Cairo of his return to Egypt, in the last months of 820 A.H., and this envoy was informed of all untold grave injustices committed by Mameluke emirs and princes during the absence of the sultan, and people beseeched this envoy to notify the sultan and urge him to hasten his return to aid people in Cairo and in other cities. Those grave injustices included the fact that the Muhtasib (i.e., inspector of markets) of merchants and tradesmen, and whose name was Shams-Eddine Ibn Yacoub, imposed very heavy taxes suddenly on all of them, and Mameluke low-rank soldiers confiscated money of so many people and raided, stole, and robbed and spent their ill-gotten money in drinking wine and in their promiscuous ways of revelry and lavish parties. As for merchants in the markets, they cheated in using the balance to weigh goods and raised the prices of goods exorbitantly, as they were obliged to pay the new heavy taxes and to pay bribes all the time to the Mameluke princes and followers. This is apart from the fact that everyone who bribed their way to get their posts usually imposed on people to bribe them to compensate for the bribes paid earlier to powerful retinue members of the Mameluke palace to get their posts. Injustices of judges: Al-Makrizi then writes about the unjust venal judges, as there were four supreme judges to represent the main four Sunnite doctrines, and each supreme judge had judges under him in all Cairene districts and in all other cities and governorates. All these judges at the time of Al-Makrizi were about 200 judges who were all venal and took bribes to issue verdicts and fatwas serving whims of those who pay, thus committing many injustices and wrong many poor people who could not receive their rights. Those venal judges would overlook ill-gotten money of bribes received by their scribes and guards and all those who work under them in courts, and all such criminals would spend their money on their promiscuous ways and drinking wine and so on, while giving themselves a false appearance by pretending hypocritically they were pious ones and God-fearing and assert to others that God loves them as they were 'guardians' of faith and 'protectors' of sharia laws! Al-Makrizi criticized them severely for their corruption and for their assertions rebuked by God in the Quran: "...We are the children of God, and His beloved..." (5:18). Corruption of police: Al-Makrizi asserts that the governor of Cairo was at the time like the head of the police force who must maintain security, but if the judges were corrupt and venal, one would not expect the police force to be any better. Al-Makrizi asserts that police officers and their soldiers and henchmen raided, looted, robbed, and stole all that they could lay their hands on, and they imposed tributes and bribes paid to them, thus terrorizing the Cairene people in order to spend ill-gotten money on excessive eating, drinking, whores, gambling, etc. Their injustices include releasing thieves from prison or not to imprison them in return for confiscating their stolen goods or money! Hence, rates of crimes of theft increased exponentially. Conditions were worse in cities and provinces away from Cairo; the number of highwaymen increased as they felt sure they would run away with their looting and raiding with impunity! No police forces cared to impose order or to stop highwaymen who massacred and robbed people especially Bedouins and peasants, and in most cases, when they would rob rich people, they would kill them off to stop them from filing complaints to judges! Corruption of politicized judicial authority: Al-Makrizi asserts that people working in courts to help judges grew too powerful and too rich (from ill-gotten money) as they controlled the judicial system more than venal judges, and people had to bribe them all the time to get things done. They usually imposed tributes, fines, and bribes to paid to them for a reason or for no reasons at all, and those who would refuse to pay risk their being incarcerated or even murdered! Injustice of the Treasurer the prince Fakhr-Eddine Ibn Abou Al-Faraj: Al-Makrizi asserts in his writings that the Treasurer who would keep records of all expenditures and revenues of the sultan's palaces and would bring in food and drink items etc. had many employees under him, and the Mameluke sultans would sometimes allow full authority to the Treasurers and sometimes not as per their whims. When the Sultan Al-Moayyad was in the Levant, his Treasurer in Cairo seized the chance to tyrannize and commit injustices as much as he could, as he imposed heavy tributes on all people in the Nile Delta villages, sparing no one among the peasants and landowners. The Treasurer confiscated valuable possessions of the affluent ones in Cairo and major cities who would refuse to pay any tributes that he imposed, until he collected countless sums of money and gold, and he imposed on money changers to change their rates as per what would serve his whims, making prices of all goods increase exorbitantly. Hence, the Treasurer had a huge, immense wealth of ill-gotten money that allowed him to lead a luxurious lifestyle while satisfying his carnal lusts and appetites within promiscuity and excessive drinking, etc. After spending most of money, the Treasurer turned with his men toward Upper Egypt to impose heavy tributes and taxes on villagers there and to confiscate their cattle, goods, and harvested crops to sell them to get more money. In addition, he committed more injustices by imposing on some Cairene people forced labor (i.e., corvée) without wages to build a new district annexed to Cairo and took by force all building materials from merchants without paying them at all. The Treasurer spent lavishly on his lusts and to pay bribes to Mameluke princes to overlook his crimes, of course. Al-Makrizi asserts by the end of this account that the grave injustices and economic collapse that followed them had negative effects that had remained for almost a decade, and plagues occurred in certain cities in the Nile Delta (i.e., Lower Egypt) and Alexandria, while Mameluke troops and soldiers went on looting all over Egypt, whereas those in the Levant with the sultan Al-Moayyad sis the same acts of looting there, while being condoned and overlooked by the sultan. Al-Makrizi was a severe critic of rulers, unlike historians among his contemporaries who used to hypocritically heap praises on the Mameluke sultans and laud and overpraise them by ascribing untrue exaggerated good qualities to them. We indeed must take pride in the honest and truthful Egyptian historian Al-Makrizi who was as a historian better than any others among his contemporaries and who was very meticulous and knowledgeable like historians of the West in the modern age  ...)

 

Lastly:

 Would any reasonable person desire to witness a revival of the Salafist ancestral eras of the Muhammadan forefathers we have shown in this book?! Never!

 

 

Signature:

Ahmed Subhy Mansour

October, 2010

Springfield, VA, the USA