Hossam Badrawi Official Website
oppression and tyranny,
And we, Ibn Rushd.
By
Hossam Badrawi
There is a saying that says, “Andalusia fell on the day Ibn Rushd’s books were burned (born April 14, 1126 AD, Cordoba – died December 10, 1198 AD, Marrakesh) (525-595 AH) and the renaissance of Europe began the day his ideas reached them!”
One of the first things that turned the Spaniards and Europeans into the light was Ibn Rushd’s saying that settled the relationship with religion: (God cannot give us minds, then give us laws that contradict them).
Ibn Rushd added his second saying, which determined trade in religions:
(Trading in religions is the common trade in societies where ignorance is widespread, so if you want to control an ignorant person, you only have to wrap every falsehood in a religious cover)..
In light of this, the men of authority and religion issued their fatwas to burn all his books, for fear of teaching them because of the corruption, blasphemy, immorality and heresy they contain (as they said). Indeed, people crawled to his house after misleading their consciences, and burned his books until they became ashes.
At that time, one of his students cried bitterly. Ibn Rushd said his famous sentence:
(My son, if you were crying over burnt books, know that ideas have wings, and they fly with them to their owners, but if you were crying over the condition of Arabs and Muslims, know that if you turn the seas of the world into tears, it will not be enough for you).
This means that the conditions of Muslims (in the twelfth century AD, “the fourth Hijri” in which Ibn Rushd lived) called for crying over them. One of the tragedies of time is that we can repeat Ibn Rushd’s words as if they were said today, even though its author died hundreds of years ago! Some delirious about our reality and say that our conditions are bad because of others, criminals, conspirators. And here is Ibn Rushd talking about bad conditions that deserve to cry over them before any colonialism and conspiracy.
Rather, I look at our situation as an Islamic gathering in multiple countries, and I find that we are the ones who kill each other, deny some, and consider others to be unbelievers, and not anyone from outside us. Even when we issued a law protecting a part of society that professes the Christian religion, when it became difficult for them
From the extremists, at the end of the seventies, and we called it the law of contempt of religion, we found that it was not used once to criminalize a Muslim against a Christian or vice versa, but rather that all those who were tried, convicted and went to prison were with complaints of extremist Muslims against everyone who says a dissenting opinion or expresses a desire to think against Muslims Muslims!!!!!!!!!!
And if Ibn Rushd lived and knew about the emergence of al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, the doctrine of Wahhabism and Salafism, treatment with camel urine, breast-feeding the elderly, fatwas not to treat the wife, or other rituals and dealings that have nothing of Islam or reason, he would praise his Lord for simply burning his books, as the matter developed in several ways to more than That unfortunately.
And I had these thoughts in my mind while I was enjoying watching films from the Olympics, and various sports competitions, and watching football matches in the major European competition, and the finals of tennis and swimming championships and beautiful sports competition, and I compared between the players and their wonderful performance, and I found that when we look at the bodies of the players of different sports We marvel at the difference in their physical composition, depending on the type of sport they practice. The marathon champions are characterized by extreme thinness and small size and weight, and the hundred-meter running champions are the fastest. Each practice is reflected in the form of its players. Likewise, every culture reflects on the content and way of life of its people.
And since the cultural formation of peoples may occur as a result of the accumulation of habits and mutations that change from one generation or more and affect subsequent generations in values, behaviors, habits, and succession, the influence of religion as a form of tyrannical culture is confusing. She shared certain characteristics, values, and habits, so this or that religion must be the one that created this effect.
If our Islamic peoples, over time and the differences of the countries, shared in extremism in thought, harshness and violence in imposing their faiths, and killing their just leaders, as well as in their economic and political backwardness, then there must be a common factor that brings them together. Here, Islam looks at me historically and presently, and Christianity before the separation of religion from the state with all its tragedies against science and scholars in the dark ages of Europe.
I see in Islam a call for respect for the mind, tolerance, love, knowledge, passion for the beauty of life and man, and an appreciation for all of God’s creation and their plurality, but it appears that I am a minority in the total because the Islamic peoples as a cumulative and historical group do not act in accordance with these values, and they reflect an aspect of religion that they choose with human interpretations, giving it divine attributes. It represents sharpness, violence, unilateralism, and the use of religious vocabulary to dominate people and oblige them to obey their guardians, whether politicians or clerics.
If all these nations agreed on a specific form of life, and their poverty, ignorance, and violence increased, and they subjugated and accepted the dictatorship of their rule, and the call to obey their ruler without transferring power except by killing or death, then my belief in the importance of separating religion from the state and politics increases. History clearly tells us that the extremists of Judaism Christianity and Islam do not differ from each other, and the peoples that survived are the ones who separated religion, which is a relationship between man and God, and between politics and the authority of government.
I believe that the extremists of the monotheistic religions belong to one religion and are closer to each other than they are to the moderates of their religions. They only see one way, and they believe that they are always on the absolute truth.
And I go back to Ibn Rushd and his saying that summarized all of that
“If you want to control an ignorant person, all you have to do is cover all falsehood for him with a religious cover,” and add to it, “or make him ignorant, intimidating, terrorizing, and suppressing his freedom.”
And the most important question remains, what are the restrictions that impede our transfer to science, reason, logic and enlightenment?
There are many restrictions, the most important of which is the human comfort to keep the matter as it is. Change requires effort, joint concessions, and a transition from one time to a new time in which responsibilities change, orientations multiply, and human nature is that they are enemies of what they are ignorant of. In addition to that, if the ruling is established for a political, religious, or military sect, why do they expose themselves to shocks that might rob them of ownership or control over the people and a victory that they achieve through sustained corruption.
We notice at the beginning of the pages of the Holy Qur’an and the beginning of Surat Al-Baqarah a dialogue between the angels and the Creator, the Almighty, when they asked a disapproving question about the reason for the creation of human beings. Whoever causes corruption therein and sheds blood while we glorify Your praise and sanctify You, he said that I I know what you do not know.” It is noticeable here that the angels did not speak of atheism or blasphemy, but rather they denounced corruption and killing, so the atheist and the infidel is atheist and blasphemy against himself, but societies collapse and states fail if corruption and crime spread in them.
The Holy Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, did not migrate from Mecca because of the disbelief of its people, but he migrated because of their oppression and corruption, and he did not order his companions to migrate to Abyssinia for the faith of its ruler, but rather for his justice, as he said, “There is a just king with whom no one is oppressed.” Our children today migrate to a country where there is no corruption or tyranny in order to live like humans.
When the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, arrived in Yathrib, he changed its name to Al-Madina, acknowledging pluralism and civility. He wrote this pluralism in Al-Madina newspaper, as if he was writing a constitution that protects pluralism and freedom. The angels were afraid of corruption and bloodshed, because they are what generate injustice.
This remains our responsibility before the society in which we live, an educational mission to liberate ourselves from ignorance and obscurantism, and from the tyranny of absolute dictatorial regimes, whether religious, military or ideological, to freedom regulated by law, and a mind that is open to accepting difference in its various names and even respecting it.
Nature has endowed every man with an instinctive capacity for understanding, which makes him equal to all and to others, provided he is freed from the corruption of superstition, ignorance, and fear. And a person who is freed from submission to authority and the darkness of ignorance will use his mind correctly and automatically, and make rational choices for those who rule him, because it is his choice and not God’s choice as some clerics and rulers claim, and he will be able to hold them accountable in this world and not wait for the justice of heaven.
