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Speaking on a Mayadeen TV show, Egyptian researcher of Islamic studies Ahmad Abdou Maher said that the Islamic nation is a "static" nation and that "innovation is accursed and damned in the land of stagnation." Referring to jurisprudence relating to the Islamic conquests and to the capture and sale of women and children, he said: "What is this if not insanity and idiocy?" Maher further said that "enlightenment requires courage" and that "days, years, generations, and centuries pass us by, without any change and without any examination of the Arab mentality." The show aired on August 26.
Following are excerpts
Ahmad Abdou Maher:: "The jurisprudence of enlightenment is not prevalent for several reasons. The first is that the Arabs have become accustomed to servile obedience, and they do not encourage innovation in any field - political or sociological. As a nation, we are 'static' - to use a term from mechanics or engineering. That's why our kings, our princes, and our presidents remain on their thrones until their death. Nobody is replaced. This has led to stagnation of the mind, and to a lack of freedom in thought."
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"As a result of our resistance to innovation, we stone the innovators and accuse them a heresy. We even throw them into prison. Take, for example, Islam Behery, who is currently in prison. His only 'crime' was that he wanted to innovate, but innovation is accursed and damned in the land of stagnation. This is the land of stagnation in mentality, in ideology, and in awareness. That is why you don't find any books, because publishers are concerned for their financial and economic future. You don't find any [free] thinkers because they suffer from political cowardice. Enlightenment requires courage."
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"We have jurisprudents who say one thing and its opposite in a single breath, without being aware of it. Our petrodollars and all the money of the Gulf are dedicated to the printing of millions of books of ancient heritage, with all their idiocy and insanity. It is as if there are no people with any sense in the entire Arab world."
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"If, for example, I were to tell the viewers that I oppose the four imams regarding this, that, and the other... If, for example, I oppose their claim that a husband does not have to pay for a doctor or medicine for his sick wife, because, according to them, marriage is for a pleasure, and what pleasure can be derived from a sick wife? So her treatment should not be the husband's responsibility. It should be the responsibility of her father, her brother, or her uncle. You call this jurisprudence?When I am told that according to the Maliki and Hanbali schools of jurisprudence, a husband is not required to buy shrouds for his late wife if she was poor - are these sensible people? Those who preserved these traditions... The crime is not just writing them down. Keeping them alive is a crime too. This is a mental crime."
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"Is even a single line of the writings of Muhammad Abduh regarding freedom of thought taught at Al-Azhar? Not a single line is taught there. Not a single line of his writings is taught in the Islamic world or in Al-Azhar. Take the conquests that are falsely called 'Islamic.' What were they relying on when they permitted the capture of women, and having sex with them in the presence of their husbands? What were they relying upon when they permitted selling women and children? From what law did this emerge? What is this if not insanity and idiocy?"
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"There are no scholars in the Islamic nation. If you consider Abu Hanifa, for example, to be a scholar - tell me what he reads that merits his being called a scholar. What have the contemporary religious scholars read - apart from the writings of Abu Hanifa, Shafi'I, Malik, and Ibn Hanbal - that merits their being considered scholars? Where are their writings? Anybody wearing a turban in the Islamic world, who gets a doctorate... A doctorate is a degree of research... Where is their research? Where is their innovation? They have slaughtered the mind for the sake of quotations."
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"ISIS is a Salafi plant with an Al-Azhar scent, and a false Islamic identity. As a result of the glorification of these 'experts,' who, in turn, glorify quotations and refrain from any development, and who have betrayed Allah, His Messenger, and the Muslim community, we have lost all identity, I am sorry to say. We have lost all reason. We have mental and conceptual diseases. That is why the Islamic nation has not produced knowledge. Even in bygone times, most of our thinkers - or those who created this idiotic jurisprudence - were not Arabs. Was Al-Hanifa an Arab? Was Imam Muslim an Arab? Was Imam Al-Bukhairi an Arab? None of our thinkers were Arab. We must recognize the diseases of our nation, and we must begin to treat them immediately by means of our experts. In the meantime, days, years, generations, and centuries pass us by, without any change and without any examination of the Arab mentality. It's no surprise, then, that when you mention Nietzsche or Voltaire, they think you are talking about sex, because the Arabs never heard or Nietzsche, Voltaire, or anyone. Or else they think that you are a secular infidel."
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