Section 1: An Interview about the Myth of the Torment of the Grave

An Old Interview with Dr. A. S. Mansour, Published in Al-Midan Newspaper, in Egypt, in the 1990s, about the Myth of the Torment of the Grave and Lies of the Bald-Snake Sheikhs

Published in February 18, 2014

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

(N.B.: this interview was published before on several websites before we have launched our Quranism website ahl-alquran.com, where now all of our articles published before on any website are found. Because of the fact that they are so many articles and so many attempts of hackers to destroy our website, some articles were partially copied and some disappeared, while others lost their format; we've managed to retrieve all of them in a neat manner, including the one you are reading now, and Mr. Muhammad Dandan is the one to notify us that this article has been deleted by hackers, though its previous readership reached more than 57657 hits, and he made a thorough check on all articles within our archive to make sure everything is OK. We now re-publish the complete version of this article/interview, with due thanks to Mr. Muhammad Dandan; God bless him.)

Introduction:

1- In 1993, the first and last paper edition of our book titled "The Myth of the Torment Of the Grave" emerged in Cairo, Egypt, and we have refuted in it this falsehood that the dead sinners are being tortured in their tombs by a mythical creature called the bald snake, a lie concocted by Middle-Ages imams which has nothing to do with Islam (i.e., Quranism), and we have proven how this lie has its Pharaonic mythological roots. This book has caused a tremendous shock, and this is typical of most of our writings in general, as our reformist writings trouble very much the sheikhs of the bald snake who terrify and intimidate people by such tales and myths of the so-called torment of the grave so as to gain authority and control over the gullible masses among the Muhammadans, while contradicting the Quran on purpose to get transient gains, power, and wealth and help impose theocracy on Egyptians and Arabs later on. Thus, clergymen live off spreading obscurantism and ignorance settled in minds of the masses in the form of 'sanctified' and 'hallowed' myths that no one before us had the courage to refute and expose by discussing them in light of the Quran and the methodology of reasonable minds ordained in Islam (Quranism).

2- Reactions to this book led Azharite clergy to author articles to verbally abuse us virulently and to attempt to refute the book; even sheikhs of mausoleums and tombs hate us for writing this book. We never gain any intellectual benefit from reactions and writings of Azharite clergy, as they repeat the same naïve superficial statements ad infinitum ad nauseam, but indeed, we have enjoyed the laughable  reactions and supposed refutations of sheikhs of mausoleums and tombs, who at least never attributed their myths of blissful paradise or fire pits inside tombs to Muhammad, unlike imams/scholars of fiqh/hadiths and oral narrators and orators in the Middle-Ages mosques. We took interests in their defense because they added to our knowledge of modern myths still propagated until now in Egypt, revived and re-packaged by the era of Neo-Salafism sponsored by the KSA.

3- Many journalists in the Egyptian press attacked us and attempted to refute our 1993 book by quoting hadiths of the so-called Sunna, and this made the journalist Motawe' Barakat of the Cairo-based Midan newspaper to interview us about our book, and this interview was published in two pages, stirring wide interest and more controversy. This led the newspaper to interview Azharite clergymen as well as sheikhs of tombs and undertakers who attempted to refute us regarding the bald snake and the torment of the grave; their words were laughter-inducing and never convincing to readers, and this stance indicated that the bald snake is still residing in their minds, making them lose this world and the next.     

Firstly: before getting to the questions posed by the journalist of the independent newspaper Al-Midan and our answers, let us assert the following points:

1- We may wonder why this mythical creature/snake of the so-called the torment of the grave is described as ''bald''? All reptiles are hairless, anyway, and no one ever seen a hairy snake, we presume! No one among the Muhammadans thought of that; when myths control the minds fully, the minds are rendered crippled and cannot think at all. 

2- The Azharite clergy insist that the torment of the grave and the bald snake are things known necessarily within the religion of Islam; we vehemently and outspokenly reject such falsehoods as having nothing to do whatsoever with Islam (i.e., Islam is only the Quran), as such myths are Sunnite ones derived from Pharaonic roots.  

3- The silly expression (known necessarily within religion) has been produced within the Mameluke Era in the 8^th century A.H. by clergymen of imitation, obscurantism, and backwardness who refused to apply ijtihad of the previous eras that caused many unsettled differences and disputes among sects, schools of thought and fiqh, philosophers, etc. and the ancient imams who differed among one another became deified beings to imams of obscurantist eras who refused innovative ideas of all sorts and imposed on people to follow Salafist ancestral ideas and notions; this lasted during the Mameluke and Ottoman eras. At the time, no one dared to oppose, criticize, discuss, question, or refute views of earlier imams or the founding fathers of the Sunnite-Sufi religion. Within such an atmosphere, silly phrases have emerged and repeated like: (known necessarily within religion); (the unanimity of the Umma/nation); and (the unanimous view held by ancient imams). In fact, the so-called unanimity is a myth; no groups of imams in any era ever agreed upon one single issue of fiqh, within all sects/groups and sub-creeds of Sunnites, Shiites, and Sufis as well as philosophers of Kalam and Mu'tazala and heir likes, since all of them abandoned the Quran and followed their whims. The topics that were never agreed upon within lots of details include the so-called torment of the grave, paradise inside tombs, infallibility of saints and prophets, and Afterlife intercession of Muhammad and other prophets, saints, angels, etc. For more details on that topic, we recommend that readers should peruse the book titled "Discourses of Muslims Sects and Differences of Performers of Prayers" authored by the Kalam philosopher and imam of fiqh Abou Al-Hassan Al-Ashaary who died in 330 A.H., and he wrote this book about differences in sects, philosophies, and doctrines of the Muhammadans, during the Abbasid Era of ijtihad (i.e., innovative creative thinking) even within the one group/school of thought, and the unsettled disputes in so many topics, including the so-called torment of the grave.  

4- We have proven that the so-called torment of the grave by the bald snake is derived from the Pharaonic mythology that lived on for millennia, a myth revived with additions and omissions under the guise of hadiths ascribed falsely to Muhammad and under the pretext of Quranic 'interpretations' that followed whims of so many Kalam (i.e. Arab religious philosophy) authors and imams of Sunna and fiqh to distort and twist meanings of many Quranic verses that contradict many Quranic teachings, values, rules, and principles. Of course, at the Abbasid Era, those who held opposite views expressed them openly, as ijtihad and intellectual wars and rivalry was rife, especially between those who called for the use of reason and reform of thought (i.e., the Mu'tazala philosophers) and the Sunnite imams/authors who invent and fabricate hadiths, ascribed to Muhammad and his so-called companions, to hide their own ignorance and static minds that could never think or ponder upon the Quran and to prevent anyone criticizing their ideas. The Mu'tazala philosophers were among those who denied Sunna and hadiths, rejecting them altogether; yet, some of them invented their own hadiths (thus imitating Shiites) to spite Sunnites by refuting and undermining their hadiths with counter-hadiths using the same way of Sunnites. The result of such silly disputes is thousands of contradictory hadiths that crippled people for centuries until now; many scholars tried in vain to reconcile these hadiths, and when the era of imitation, stagnation, and backwardness dominated, ijtihad and the use of reasoning minds disappeared, causing Sunnite myths to reign supreme – including the bald snake – and no one dared to oppose them so as not to appear as an 'enemy' of Muhammad and hadiths! Thus, the silly phrases like (known necessarily within religion); (the unanimity of the Umma/nation); and (the unanimous view held by ancient imams) have been repeated until now and each phrase will be refuted in a separate article that will be published soon on our website. Azharite curricula tackle all such issues and refer to discrepancies among views on each topic and issue, but within their support of Sunnite religion and its backward stances and visions.                

5- Our own personal methodology regarding such controversial issues is as follows: pondering the Quranic verses while bearing in mind that they explain one another and determining Quranic terminology using the Quranic text itself, and then to gather all verses related to a given topic to reach the Truth and spread it, while seeking to please God and never to care at all about pleasing mortals or about their angry reactions. We are to support God's Path and Truth, not to care for incurring ire and wrath of people. And the very last step is to delve into the roots of the issue at hand within Muhammadans' traditions/books and how they are manifested at present, and hoe to be refuted by the Quran alone.    

6- After our long years of arduous study since 1977, we are quite sure that all views contrary to the Quran, like deifying mortals/prophets as intercessors and infallible beings and the myth of the torment/paradise inside tombs, existed before Islam, and the Quran refers to them and refutes them thoroughly.

7- The myth of the bald snake tormenting the wicked dead sinners is derived from the Pharaonic mythology whose influence went on for millennia but we did not know it until Champollion decoded the hieroglyphic characters and letters, and the influence of the Pharaonic mythology on Sufism of the Mameluke Era is the topic of coming book of ours that will be published on our website. We say briefly here that at the Mameluke Era, some Sufis worked as ''tourist guides'' to mausoleums to explain miracles and blessings ascribed to Sufi entombed saints and to get money by serving 'holy' tombs and spreading tales about them, including paradise/torment of the grave, and they repeated in Arabic what their Pharaonic ancestors used to repeat in hieroglyphics, as we know from books authored by Egyptologists.    

8- Hadith narrators were employed by the Umayyads to tell these myths tales, among other narratives and hadiths, to people all over mosques, after and before prayers, to distract them away from revolting against caliphs; orators would increase suspense to their tales to attract wider audiences and gain popularity and influence (to get more money by caliphs), and they typically used to ascribe such myths and narratives typically to Muhammad. Such narrators used to be paid by the caliphs to defend and justify atrocities of the Umayyads indirectly within the façade of preaching and sermonizing. Such oral traditions that have been spread during the Umayyad Era had the chance to be written down during the Abbasid Era, with much additions and distortions by many authors, including the Persian author follower of Mazdakism, whose first name was Ibn Berzaweih surnamed Al-Bokhary, who died in 256 A.H.

9- Indeed, tales and hadiths of the torment of the grave were popular among narrators during the Umayyad Era, and a clergymen/scholar named Al-Awzaay, who served both the Umayyads and Abbasids, was a popular narrator of hadiths and his tales about torment of the grave, which were supported by their Pharaonic roots that people knew in the collective memory for thousands of years for many generations. Al-Awzaay was the first one to spread such myths by inventing hadiths and he invented the so-called penalty for apostasy to allow caliphs to massacre their enemies.

10- Some Muhammadan cattle and ignoramuses assume that Satan has tendered a resignation once the Quran was conveyed fully and Muhammad died; this cannot be true, and that all conquered nations accepted Islam willingly without doubts or any influence of former civilizations and myths, again another grave error in history. Another fallacy is that the Muhammadans assume that their Sunnite faith is spotless and perfect and that they imitate Muhammad and his method of applying Islam. This is why they hate any Quranist preachers who are outspoken and vociferous in their call for religious reform among all Muhammadans worldwide, and instead, they proselytize Wahabism in remote areas worldwide in deserts, forests, North and South Poles, and at the Equator. Other sly foxes desire to reach power and establish theocracy to make all Muhammadans submit to them blindly as representative of God's religion! They aim to conquer the world and massacre Christians/crusaders like Arabs of the Middle Ages!

11- Such foxes and cattle among the Muhammadans desire to control the awareness of the nations by making them engrossed in Sunnite, Wahabi mythology as opium, and especially hadiths of the so-called torment of the grave, so as to stop them from criticizing and questioning Wahabism, and they are ready to accuse Quranist reformers of being heretics and apostates for their denying Sunna and hadiths. Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by the motto (no one is allowed to produce ijtihad to understand the texts), as if their 'holy' texts of hadiths and fiqh have one definite meaning! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people to prevent them from thinking critically and to control minds of people to the authority of clergy who steal their money, and they would control the masses to allow theocrats to reach power and to make the masses turn into suicide bombers and fierce fighters to change 'vice' by force whenever needed! Thus, Sunnite Wahabis intimidate people by making them afraid of the bald snakes waiting in tombs, with open mouths, to devour those who dare disobey or question clergymen.

12- Thus, Salafist books are filled with details of the so-called torment of the grave and not the other myth of bliss/paradise inside tombs! This is intellectual and moral terrorism that destroys human dignity and mind and it is more dangerous than bloody terrorism and other atrocities; Salafists make people forget that God provided human beings with dignity and made them rule over earth as successors. Hence, Salafists and Wahabis make the gullible masses turn unawares into polytheists who lose both this world and the next, while Satan is glad for their efforts, as they assume that Satan has tendered a resignation to seek a work contract on Mars instead of earth controlled by the bald snake and its clergy!

13- Hence we understand the reason of the virulent attacks on our person from these Wahabi foxes and Sunnite cattle herds when we have refuted the myth of the torment of the grave in 1993; this refutation is making them lose both their money and their authority over the masses, and Quranist writings are obstacles impeding the theocracy desired by them to come into being one day. We remember a secular friend of ours to whom we gave a copy of our book, within a session attended by some cultural elite members, and he finished reading it in one sitting, in silence with full concentration, while ignoring and disregarding the discussions of this session in which he did not participate as he was so engrossed with our book. As we went out, he thanked us for this gift; he told us frankly that stories of the torment of the grave used to frighten him as a child and a grownup man, and he was furious regarding how Salafists used this myth to influence minds of the youth. If this was his condition, what about the rest of the simple people and gullible masses who lack culture?! What about the rest of the youth who dream of a better, promising future to find only sheikhs of the bald snake turning future into obscurantist doomed past. 

Secondly: the interview of Al-Midan newspaper:

- You have denied in your book the notion of the torment of the grave for entombed disbelieving sinners, but what about hadiths of Muhammad about it and about Paradise bliss for the entombed good people?

- Dr. Mansour: Those who believe in even a single hadith of any type are disbelieving in the Quran; it is impossible that one would believe in the Quran and in discourses contradicting it at the same time.    

- What evidence and proofs do you have that these hadiths about the torment of the grave contradict the Quran?

- Dr. Mansour: The Quran contains more than 20 verses that Muhammad never knew the realm of the invisible, unknown, or the future and consequently, he never spoke about it, whether future on this earth, upon/after death, or in the Hereafter. Let us quote some of these verses: "Say, "I am not different from the other messengers; and I do not know what will be done with me, or with you. I only follow what is inspired in me, and I am only a clear warner."" (46:9); "Say, "I do not say to you that I possess the treasuries of God, nor do I know the future, nor do I say to you that I am an angel. I only follow what is inspired to me." Say, "Are the blind and the seeing alike? Do you not think?"" (6:50); "Say, "I have no control over any benefit or harm to myself, except as God wills. Had I known the future, I would have acquired much good, and no harm would have touched me. I am only a warner, and a herald of good news to a people who believe."" (7:188). Thus, the real Quran-believing Muslims must accept this fact and never to believe in any hadiths and they should clear Muhammad's name of such narratives. Thus, hadiths about future events in this world and the next are mere myths contradicting the Quran.    

- But some people quote the Quranic verse 40:46, about Moses' Pharaoh and his people being tormented before the Last Day, to prove there is torment for sinners in their tombs?

- Dr. Mansour: The verse 40:46 has nothing to do with the so-called torment of the grave; it tackles torment of the souls of Moses' Pharaoh and his people in Barsakh until the Day of Resurrection. We imagine that Moses' Pharaoh suffers in Barsakh while seeing the weak Israelites living in bliss in the land in peace and security, as we infer from these verses: "Pharaoh exalted himself in the land, and divided its people into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons, while sparing their daughters. He was truly a corrupter. But We desired to favor those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders, and to make them the inheritors. And to establish them in the land; and to show Pharaoh, Haman, and their troops, the very thing they feared." (28:4-6). "So We took vengeance on them, and drowned them in the sea-because they rejected Our signs, and paid no heed to them. And We made the oppressed people inherit the eastern and western parts of the land, which We had blessed. Thus the fair promise of your Lord to the Children of Israel was fulfilled, because of their endurance. And We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people had built, and what they had harvested." (7:136-137). Thus, Moses' Pharaoh saw the Israelites in bliss occurred while his soul is being tormented in Barsakh, this is going on until the Last Day, when he and his people will enter into Hell as per these verses: "...a terrible torment besieged Pharaoh's people. The Fire; they will be exposed to it morning and evening. And on the Day the Hour takes place: "Admit the clan of Pharaoh to the most intense agony."" (40:45-46). Thus, this torment is never in a tomb or occurring to the body of Pharaoh, but in Barsakh until now and this is going to be until the Last Day before they enter Hell, and this Barsakh torture is done in a special way that cannot be fully imagined by us. This is a special case and the rest of sinning and disbelieving people will never undergo this Barsakh torture, except the people of Noah as per the Quran: "Because of their wrongs, they were drowned, and were hurled into a Fire..." (71:25).    

 - I beg your pardon, but what do you mean by Barsakh exactly?

- Dr. Mansour: This is the location were all souls exist before entering their bodies inside wombs, and to which they return when they leave bodies upon death, after being tested in life; thus, Barsakh contain souls of dead ancestors and souls of unborn-yet grandchildren. As for dead bodies, they return to dust from which they were originally created. The deeds of the soul lasts with it, and all souls remain in a state of stupor and timelessness as if asleep, and upon resurrection on the Last Day, and the universe is destroyed, souls of sinners would feel they have slept for a day of part of a day: "On the Day when the Hour takes place, the sinners will swear they had stayed but an hour. Thus they were deluded. But those endowed with knowledge and faith will say, "You remained in God's Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know."" (30:55-56); "On the Day when they witness it-as though they only stayed an evening, or its morning." (79:46). This means that sinners never experience torment in the grave; otherwise, they would have felt time very acutely for centuries, passing very slowly. This means that all dead people's souls will never feel the passage of time: from Adam to the last human being, all souls upon resurrection will feel as if they have slept for a short while in Barsakh; with the exception of the people of Noah and Moses' Pharaoh and his people whose souls are tortured in Barsakh, feeling the passage of time very slowly and in a perturbed state. Another exception are those who enjoy Barsakh Paradise as they were killed during their striving for God's sake and for His cause: "And do not say of those who are killed in the cause of God, "Dead." Rather, they are alive, but you do not perceive." (2:154); and those winners feel their loved ones left behind who are still alive, as we read in this verse: "Do not consider those killed in the cause of God as dead. In fact, they are alive, at their Lord, well provided for. Delighting in what God has given them out of His grace, and happy for those who have not yet joined them; that they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." (3:169-170).

 As for the exceptions of Moses' Pharaoh and his people and Noah's people, we know that Pharaoh's body was never interred so as to be an example for others to avoid, and this means his torment is for his soul in Barsakh, not to his body: "Today We will preserve your body, so that you become a sign for those after you..." (10:92). Thus, this Pharaoh and his people were drowned and never buried in tombs at all. Thus, there is no bald snake biting the body of Moses' Pharaoh, as Sunnites claim in their myths, and he will be made an imam/leader to his people upon entering into Hell for eternity: "He will precede his people on the Day of Resurrection, and will lead them into the Fire. Miserable is the place he placed them in. They were followed by a curse in this, and on the Day of Resurrection. Miserable is the path they followed." (11:98-99). Thus, Moses' Pharaoh and his people were leaders/imams of disbelief and misguidance and they are tormented in Barsakh like Noah's people, unlike those who dedicated their lives for God's sake and got killed, who live in bliss of the Barsakh Paradise until entering the eternal Paradise after the Last Day; we know nothing about Barsakh Paradise except the few words about it in the Quran; thus, we are to believe in its existence without posing any questions about the realm of the unknown. Imagining any additional details would be mere mythology. Thus, Pharaoh and his people had nothing to do with the myth of the torment of the grave; their souls are tormented in Barsakh and they saw how the Israelites were saved and enjoyed in security: "So We drove them out of gardens and springs. And treasures and noble dwellings. So it was; and We made the Israelites inherit them." (26:57-59), Pharaoh, and his people who followed him, deserves this Barsakh torment because of his self-deification, disobedience, misguidance, and his severe persecution inflicted on the weak ones; he spent his life chasing two prophets, Moses and Aaron, and the Israelites who fled his tyranny and he desired to go on persecuting, oppressing, and torturing them. This is why God made him and his people imams/leaders of all disbelievers and tyrants coming after them: "" (28:41). God says the following about Qorayish tribesmen and their likes who followed the footsteps of Moses' Pharaoh: "As for those who disbelieve, neither their wealth nor their children will avail them anything against God. These will be fuel for the Fire. Like the behavior of Pharaoh's people and those before them. They rejected Our signs, so God seized them for their sins. God is Strict in retribution." (3:10-11); "Like the behavior of the people of Pharaoh, and those before them. They rejected the signs of God, so God seized them for their sins. God is Powerful, Severe in punishment." (8:52); "Such was the case with the people of Pharaoh, and those before them. They denied the signs of their Lord, so We annihilated them for their wrongs, and We drowned the people of Pharaoh-they were all unjust ones." (8:54). Likewise, the Noah's people were the first generation of humanity to witness a celestial message, as Noah's ministry among them went on for 950 years, as per the Quran, and eventually, Noah invoked the Lord by saying the following: "Noah said, "My Lord, do not leave of the unbelievers a single dweller on earth. If You leave them, they will mislead your servants, and will breed only wicked unbelievers." (71:26-27). Before the Flood/Deluge, Noah was commanded by God to build the Ark as the disbelievers will drown and their souls will be tormented in Barsakh and they will see that survivors in the Ark saved, and Noah knew all that and when they ridiculed him he retorted by 11:39; let us quote the whole context: "And it was revealed to Noah: "None of your people will believe, except those who have already believed, so do not grieve over what they do." "And build the Ark, under Our eyes, and with Our inspiration, and do not address Me regarding those who did wrong; they are to be drowned." As he was building the ark, whenever some of his people passed by him, they ridiculed him. He said, "If you ridicule us, we will ridicule you, just as you ridicule." "You will surely know upon whom will come a torment that will abase him, and upon whom will fall a lasting torment."" (11:36-39). The Barsakh torment for their souls is mentioned in this verse: "Because of their wrongs, they were drowned, and were hurled into a Fire. They did not find apart from God any supporters." (71:25). This means once they were drowned, their souls entered into fire in Barsakh and these words of Noah, inspired by God, were fulfilled: ""You will surely know upon whom will come a torment that will abase him, and upon whom will fall a lasting torment."" (11:39). This lasting torment of Noah's people, and Moses' Pharaoh and his people, goes on in Barsakh until the Day of Resurrection. The Barsakh bliss of those who were killed for God's cause also goes on until the Last Day, and both types of people feel the passage of time and are exceptions to the rule of the rest of the souls of humanity will feel nothing in Barsakh as they will be in deep slumber, and will feel upon resurrection that as if they had slept for a day or part of a day. Thus, Barsakh bliss and Barsakh torment for souls of exception cases we have mentioned above have nothing to do whatsoever with the myth of the torment of the grave.                  

- Are there two angels to judge the dead person in the tomb or would you deny this notion as well?

- Dr. Mansour: Of course, we deny this nonsense; why on earth a dead corpse be judged since the Day of Judgment has not yet taken place?! The only divine judgment on all of the human souls is on the Last Day; the Day of Resurrection, and details of this judgment is found exclusively in the Quran. To be judged in one's grave is also a notion derived from Pharaonic mythology in the Book of the Dead translated by Egyptologists; we refer you to the book of Adolf Erman, titled "The Religion of Ancient Egypt", and you will read in it notions of our ancestors the Pharaohs that are repeated in false hadiths ascribed forcibly to Muhammad after his death.    

- Could you please shed more light on Barsakh bliss and ordinary Barsakh of timelessness?

- Dr. Mansour: We urge all readers – ad sheikhs and clergymen in particular – to read details of this in our 1993 book, but let us assert briefly the following: all souls upon leaving the bodies by death are met with angels of death, who either bring glad tidings to the good souls that they are among the winners on the Last Day or bring bad news that they are among losers. The good souls die happily and enter the deep slumber of Barsakh timelessness. The souls of evil disbelievers, after hearing the bad news, ask in vain for a second chance: "Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back. That I may do right in what I have neglected." By no means! It is just a word that he utters. And behind them is a barrier, until the Day they are resurrected." (23:99-100). Timelessness of Barsakh is felt when one is asleep, even the people of the cave in the Quranic Chapter 18 felt they slept for a day or two thought they woke up after 309 years: "Even so, We awakened them, so that they may ask one another. A speaker among them said, "How long have you stayed?" They said, "We have stayed a day, or part of a day."..." (18:19); "And they stayed in their cave for three hundred years, adding nine." (18:25), and the same applies to the one who slept for 100 years: "Or like him who passed by a town collapsed on its foundations. He said, "How can God revive this after its demise?" Thereupon God caused him to die for a hundred years, and then resurrected him. He said, "For how long have you tarried?" He said, "I have tarried for a day, or part of a day." He said, "No. You have tarried for a hundred years..." (2:259). Souls return temporarily to Barsakh while people are asleep and enter into Barsakh upon death, never to get out until the Day of Resurrection, and even souls of sinners will feel they spent one hour: "On the Day when the Hour takes place, the sinners will swear they had stayed but an hour. Thus they were deluded. But those endowed with knowledge and faith will say, "You remained in God's Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know."" (30:55-56). Thus, those sinners were never tormented in Barsakh or on graves; otherwise, they would have felt the passage of time acutely and keenly. The timelessness of the Barsakh is the rule, even with the exceptions we have mentioned above based on the Quran. this has nothing to do at all with the myth of torment of the grave in tombs and cemeteries of the interred dead corpses. Even Moses' Pharaoh is tormented now in Barsakh as a soul, and his body is not tormented at all; see 10:92. The word 'rooh' or spirit in the Quran does not refer to human souls but to arch-angel Gabriel, and this entailed a lengthy article to explain, found on our Quranism website now. As for witnesses, called wrongly as martyrs, are mentioned in the Quran, as a term, to indicate those who preach the Truth and striving for it and will bear witness against their peoples on the Day of Resurrection (whether they die naturally or got murdered). We hope to be one of them on the Last Day. This has nothing to do with those got killed in such striving for God and enjoy Barsakh bliss; we hope also to be among them one day. When Azharite foes could not refute us, they felt the urge to write a report with false, base accusations leveled against us to fire us from our post as an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University in 1987, before we got incarcerated. Among their vile and false accusations (as the report got published later on partially in mid-1990s in some newspapers) is that we deny – in their claims – that Muhammad is the seal of prophets and the last one to them. They were afraid of us because we never fear mortals; we only fear God in piety and smash all their holy cows and intellectual idols and taboos that contradict the Quran; they feared us because we defied them while at Al-Azhar University, knowing very well they cannot refute us; otherwise, they would have shown their disbelief in the Quran. God knows we are innocent of their accusations and charges against us; we defied them when we authored five books in 1985 to teach for our students; they hated the fact that we defend Muhammad against lies and falsehoods of hadiths/narratives ascribed to him after his death which he never uttered at all.       

- Why did you get fired from Al-Azhar University? What are your views about the 1987 Azharite report against you that included accusations like insulting the Prophet and supporting Musaylimah the Liar? They seem to the your views such as denying Muhammad to be the best human being and the best prophet/messenger and that divine inspiration to him was confined to the Quran. What do you think?

- Dr. Mansour: Let us answer briefly to this group of questions; our views of ijtihad during the period of our working as an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University (1975 - 1985) are known in all our writings published now on our website and they do not differ from views expressed in this interview; we apply the Law of Al-Azhar that states clearly that the mission of Azharite people is to elucidate facts of Islam, and we provide proofs to our views from the Quranic verses that refute all ancestral traditions, but the Azharite powerful professors hindered the viva/discussion of our PhD thesis for three years 1977-1980 because we deny in this thesis that Sufism is part of Islam (i.e., the Quran), and we received the PhD degree in 1980 only after agreeing to omit two-thirds of the thesis that proves that Sufism contradicts the Quran. Later on, we had to research the Sunnite traditions to measure them using the criterion of the Quran, and we rejected all the so-called hadiths and Sunna, and when we expressed our views in five books that we taught to our students in the History Department, and we waited to get promoted in 1985, our only reward by Azharite heads and deans to suspend us from work, suspend our financial dues, prevent our promotion, and prevent us from ever leaving Egypt, and to interrogate us within inquisition-like measures to boot. Instead of accusing us of denying Sunna and hadiths, they accused us of insulting Muhammad by denying he would be regarded as infallible and the best human being and the best prophet/messenger. They were my foes and judges at the same time; they had authority and power and never proofs to refute us, and they pressured and threatened us to eat our words, but we adamantly refused. After we tendered our resignation as we despised Azharites who persecuted us, they refused to accept it and we sued them in court to force them to accept it, and this resulted in their firing us without giving us our financial dues, based on the report you refer to. They aimed by this report of false accusations to tarnish our reputation and image and to declare us as a heretic apostate. They wrongly assumed that we glorify Musaylimah who was a self-proclaimed false prophet emerging once Muhammad died. But in fact, in our book titled "Islamic World between Pre-Umayyad Caliphs and Abbasid Caliphs", we compared between Musaylimah the Liar and the Sufi saint/sheikh Ibrahim Al-Disouky of the Mameluke Era who indulged in self-deification in his famous book titled "AL-Jawhara" which is printed in Al-Azhar, and we ridiculed this Sufi man whose crimes are worse than those of Musaylimah, and yet Azharites glorify Al-Disouky until now! Yet, the committee of Azharite ignoramuses that wrote the report against us accuse us of favoring and defending Musaylimah, which is not true; in our book we refer to here, we compared between religious patterns during the pre-Umayyad era and the Mameluke Era of Sufi myths. As for accusing us of denying that Muhammad is the last prophet and seal of prophets, we never say that at all; in fact, our books is filled with the expression (Prophet Muhammad, the seal of all prophets). They fabricated this accusation to tarnish our image in Egypt. We are the first one to assert that God in the Quran does not tell us about preferred prophets to Him and commanded us never to distinguish and differentiate among His prophets and messengers; see the Quranic Chapter 2, 3, and 4. Thus, it is prohibited to say that Muhammad was the best human being and/or best prophet of them all; this statement makes the masses deify Muhammad as a god beside Allah; this is polytheism. We are never to describe Muhammad and Allah with words never mentioned in the Quran. Azharite men overlooked that we have written in this book that prophets and messengers are the best people among humanity as God chose them to convey divine messages. We insist that Muhammad never received any divine inspiration except the Quran; he was never inspired by utterance or narratives they call hadiths or Sunna at all. Muhammad delivered the divine message of the Quran wholly and completely, and he never left part of religion in scattered sayings or hadiths. When we argue and explain our viewpoints, we quote the Quran, God's Word, while Azharite men quote imams and authors of the Middle-Ages to refute us! We say to all of them these Quranic verses: "And say to those who do not believe, "Act according to your ability; and so will we." "And wait; we too are waiting."" (11:121-122).                       

- Why clergymen attack you though you defend Islam and quote the Quran, and why some secular thinkers attack you as an imposter? Is not that stance strange? What do you think?

- Dr. Mansour: We take pride in our friendship with many members of the secular cultural elite; we respect everyone's religious freedom and freedom of thought and expression. Religious freedom in Islam is absolute and one is responsible for it only before the Almighty Lord on the Day of Judgment. All Quranic higher values long ignored and overlooked are the same ones as all human higher values: freedom, justice, peace, mercy, human rights, etc. just like secular values cherished by us and by the cultural secular elite members in Egypt and elsewhere. Quranism (i.e., real Islam) and secularism agree on rejecting and fighting religious clergy and political clergy, injustices, tyranny, racial discrimination, religious persecution, superiority, domination, aggression, and corruption. Thus, the enemies of Islam and secularism are the same within the intellectual peaceful war of ideas. In such war, the ammunition of Quranists (knowledge of the Quran and traditions) differ from that of secular people, and this is OK and required of course. Yet some extremists among secular ones desire to banish Islam as a religion altogether and they hate the Quran very much; this is their choice we respect and we wait like them for God's judgment on the Last Day; we care only that all people are peaceful regardless of their religious views and affiliations or even lack of them as long as they are never imposing their views on anyone among the citizens.  We consider our intellectual endeavors with secular thinkers who call for human rights and freedoms as intellectual jihad for God's sake; this is a religious duty overlooked by most people, even preachers of reform, as all reformists must resist and undermine tyrants, terrorists, charlatans, and clergy who gain financial profits by manipulating religion and by spreading and propagating falsehoods ascribed to God and seek to establish a theocracy. Thus, our intellectual war against the sheikhs of the bald snake is not to be taken personally; this is a struggle and a conflict between two trends who differ in religion and in thought/ideology. This is the war between obscurantism and real reform. This struggle between innovators and imitators harkens back to 10 centuries ago; like the struggle between the school of thought of Abou Hanifa, who was the first among deniers of hadiths and relied on free thinking, and Malik who invented hadiths and refused to resort to thinking at all as a means to understand religion. This is similar to the struggle between the pioneer Muhammad Abdou (who died in 1905) as he attempted to reform Al-Azhar but his endeavors were aborted by traditionalists like sheikh Eilish and his likes inside Al-Azhar in the late 1890s. Intellectual conflicts are OK and required, provided that freedom is provided for all within a positive atmosphere of intellectual freedom where thought, philosophy, arts, etc. are flourishing, just was the case of the First Abbasid Era. At the time, no one declared those who held opposite views as apostates or heretics, or enemies of Islam and the caliphate, and all thinkers were free to express anything they liked. Such atmosphere of freedom ended in the Second Abbasid Era with political unrest and revolts, and extremists of the Ibn Hanbal Sunnite doctrine controlled minds of the masses and served sultans and caliphs to dominate the subjects. Those were the ancestors of the bald-snake sheikhs of today! Those clergymen have not any proofs or mental faculties; they have no time for intellectual reasoning, researching, and thinking innovatively; they are busy flattering rulers obsequiously and serving those in power and hoarding ill-gotten money by ascribing lies and falsehoods to religion. This is the history of clergy, past and present. Real thinkers and scholars never ally themselves to rulers or any powerful persons; they are busy studying and gleaning information and reaching conclusions within thorough research. Thus, clergymen of today has nothing to do but to repeat myths and falsehoods of the Middle-Ages books, including the myth of the bald snakes tormenting the corpses, and they impose their views on society through media and mosques, using Saudi money, while their obscurantism impedes Egyptians from coping along with the advanced scientific and technological changes worldwide. When secular people refuse to remain living in the past and reformist thinkers deny hadiths, the clergymen declare all of them as heretic apostates who deserve to be put to death or incarcerated. Clergymen hate questions and discussions; they prefer to terrorize and intimidate the masses by myths of the torment of the grave for all those who oppose clergymen: the clergy ally themselves to State Security Apparatus officials to persecute Quranists accused of denying Sunna and hadiths, thus deemed 'heretics' to be punished severely upon Wahabi/Saudi commands. Thus, the bald-snake sheikhs persecute people for religious reason, hate the Quran, and earn ill-gotten money by spreading falsehoods. Shame on them all!                                           

Lastly: how we get to know the truth?! The answer from Dr. A. S. Mansour is as follows: if one wants an answer to that question, one is to read this interview from beginning to end again.