Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
We and Ibn Rushd
There is a saying: “Andalusia fell on the day Ibn Rushd’s books were burned, (born on April 14, 1126 AD, Cordoba – died December 10, 1198 AD, Marrakesh) (525-595 AH) and the renaissance of Europe began on the day their ideas reached them!”.
One of the first things that turned the Spaniards and Europeans towards the light was Ibn Rushd’s saying, which settled the relationship with religion: (God cannot give us brains, then give us laws that contradict them).
Ibn Rushd added his second saying that settled trade in religions:
(Trading in religions is the popular commerce in societies where ignorance is widespread, so if you want to control an ignorant person, you have nothing but to wrap every falsehood with a religious cover.)
In light of this, the men of power and the religion issued their fatwas to burn all his books, for fear of teaching them because of the evil they contain, infidelity, immorality and heresy (as they say), and indeed people crawled to his house after misleading their conscience, and burned his books until they became ashes.
At that time, one of his students cried very bitterly.. Ibn Rushd said his famous sentence:
(Oh my son, if you were weeping over burnt books, then know that thoughts have wings, and they fly with them to their owners, but if you were weeping over the condition of Arabs and Muslims, then know that if you turn the seas of the world into tears, it will not suffice you).
This means that the conditions of Muslims were (in the twelfth century AD “the fourth AH” in which Ibn Rushd lived) that called for crying over them. Among the tragedies of time, we can repeat Ibn Rushd’s words as if they were said today, even though their owner died hundreds of years ago! Some are raving about our reality and say that our conditions are bad because of others, the criminals, the conspirators. And here is Ibn Rushd talking about bad conditions that deserve to be weeped before any colonization and conspiracy.
Rather, I look at our situation as an Islamic gathering in several countries, and I find that we are the ones who kill some, deceive others, and make others unbelievers, and no one is outside us. Even when we issued a law protecting a part of the society that professed the Christian religion, when the extremists became very demanding of them, and we called it the Law of Contempt for Religion, we found that it was not used once to criminalize a Muslim against a Christian, or vice versa. Against everyone who says a different opinion or expresses a desire to think of Muslims against Muslims!!!!!!!!!
And if Ibn Rushd lived and learned about the emergence of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Wahhabism and Salafism, the treatment of camel urine, the feeding of the elderly, the fatwa not to treat the wife, the killing of those who think about changing his religion and others, and other rituals and transactions in which there is nothing from Islam or reason, he would praise his Lord just for burning his books. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more than that.
I had these thoughts in my mind while I was enjoying watching films from the Olympics on the occasion of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics within days, and watching the football matches in the major European competition between countries, the Wimbledon tennis final and the beautiful sports competition, and comparing the players and their wonderful performance, and I found that when we look at the bodies of Players of different sports marvel at the difference in their physical composition depending on the type of sport they practice.
The marathon champions are distinguished by their extreme thinness and small size and weight, and the 100-meter running champions, who are the fastest, have a muscular body build with their clear anatomical formations. As for the discus throwing champions, they differ from swimming champions who have a different shape from football players, and so on. Every practice is reflected in the shape of its players. Likewise, every culture is reflected in the content and way of life of its people. But culture may be the result of human capabilities and formations that change from one generation or more and affect subsequent generations in values, behaviors, habits and succession.
I also found that the impact of religion as a form of tyrannical culture on societies because it is not man-made, is puzzling. If the peoples practicing the same religion differed, and despite that, they shared certain characteristics, values and customs, then this or that religion must be the engine for this compatibility, just as every human culture and every physical sport have an impact on the form and content of everyone who belongs to it.
If our Islamic peoples, through time and country differences, participated in extremism in thought, harshness and violence in imposing their beliefs and killing their just leaders, as well as in their economic and political backwardness, then there must be a common factor that unites them. I may not be right, but it looks at Islam, which mixes religion with politics, at this moment in a large way. It overlooks Christianity before the separation of religion from the state, with all its tragedies against science and scholars in the dark ages of Europe.
And because I see in people the best in them, and because I see the truth in what I read because I search for it, I see in Islam reason, tolerance, love, knowledge and sympathy, but it appears that I am a minority in the whole because the Islamic peoples, as a cumulative and historical group, do not act according to these values, but rather on the contrary, and they reflect a side in Religion sometimes chooses it from among the lines, representing negative trends as described in terms of severity, violence, domination of opinion, and the use of religious vocabulary to reach and maintain power. As for me, I choose other aspects that I see above the lines of love, dependence on reason, science, tolerance, passion for the beauty of life and people and their appreciation.
But if all these Islamic nations agree on the opposite, and they are late and their poverty, ignorance and violence increases, then I sometimes doubt that I am the one who is mistaken in understanding and appreciation, and 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 who survived are the ones who separated religion, which is a relationship between man and God, and between politics and governance.
I sometimes think that the extremists of the monotheistic religions belong to one religion, and they are closer to each other than they are to the owners of their other moderate 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 summed up all of that: “Trade in religions is the popular trade in societies where ignorance is spread.
There is a saying: “Andalusia fell on the day Ibn Rushd’s books were burned, (born on April 14, 1126 AD, Cordoba – died December 10, 1198 AD, Marrakesh) (525-595 AH) and the renaissance of Europe began on the day their ideas reached them!”.
One of the first things that turned the Spaniards and Europeans towards the light was Ibn Rushd’s saying, which settled the relationship with religion: (God cannot give us brains, then give us laws that contradict them).
Ibn Rushd added his second saying that settled trade in religions:
(Trading in religions is the popular commerce in societies where ignorance is widespread, so if you want to control an ignorant person, you have nothing but to wrap every falsehood with a religious cover.)
In light of this, the men of power and the religion issued their fatwas to burn all his books, for fear of teaching them because of the evil they contain, infidelity, immorality and heresy (as they say), and indeed people crawled to his house after misleading their conscience, and burned his books until they became ashes.
At that time, one of his students cried very bitterly.. Ibn Rushd said his famous sentence:
(Oh my son, if you were weeping over burnt books, then know that thoughts have wings, and they fly with them to their owners, but if you were weeping over the condition of Arabs and Muslims, then know that if you turn the seas of the world into tears, it will not suffice you).
This means that the conditions of Muslims were (in the twelfth century AD “the fourth AH” in which Ibn Rushd lived) that called for crying over them. Among the tragedies of time, we can repeat Ibn Rushd’s words as if they were said today, even though their owner died hundreds of years ago! Some are raving about our reality and say that our conditions are bad because of others, the criminals, the conspirators. And here is Ibn Rushd talking about bad conditions that deserve to be weeped before any colonization and conspiracy.
Rather, I look at our situation as an Islamic gathering in several countries, and I find that we are the ones who kill some, deceive others, and make others unbelievers, and no one is outside us. Even when we issued a law protecting a part of the society that professed the Christian religion, when the extremists became very demanding of them, and we called it the Law of Contempt for Religion, we found that it was not used once to criminalize a Muslim against a Christian, or vice versa. Against everyone who says a different opinion or expresses a desire to think of Muslims against Muslims!!!!!!!!!
And if Ibn Rushd lived and learned about the emergence of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Wahhabism and Salafism, the treatment of camel urine, the feeding of the elderly, the fatwa not to treat the wife, the killing of those who think about changing his religion and others, and other rituals and transactions in which there is nothing from Islam or reason, he would praise his Lord just for burning his books. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more than that.
I had these thoughts in my mind while I was enjoying watching films from the Olympics on the occasion of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics within days, and watching the football matches in the major European competition between countries, the Wimbledon tennis final and the beautiful sports competition, and comparing the players and their wonderful performance, and I found that when we look at the bodies of Players of different sports marvel at the difference in their physical composition depending on the type of sport they practice.
The marathon champions are distinguished by their extreme thinness and small size and weight, and the 100-meter running champions, who are the fastest, have a muscular body build with their clear anatomical formations. As for the discus throwing champions, they differ from swimming champions who have a different shape from football players, and so on. Every practice is reflected in the shape of its players. Likewise, every culture is reflected in the content and way of life of its people. But culture may be the result of human capabilities and formations that change from one generation or more and affect subsequent generations in values, behaviors, habits and succession.
I also found that the impact of religion as a form of tyrannical culture on societies because it is not man-made, is puzzling. If the peoples practicing the same religion differed, and despite that, they shared certain characteristics, values and customs, then this or that religion must be the engine for this compatibility, just as every human culture and every physical sport have an impact on the form and content of everyone who belongs to it.
If our Islamic peoples, through time and country differences, participated in extremism in thought, harshness and violence in imposing their beliefs and killing their just leaders, as well as in their economic and political backwardness, then there must be a common factor that unites them. I may not be right, but it looks at Islam, which mixes religion with politics, at this moment in a large way. It overlooks Christianity before the separation of religion from the state, with all its tragedies against science and scholars in the dark ages of Europe.
And because I see in people the best in them, and because I see the truth in what I read because I search for it, I see in Islam reason, tolerance, love, knowledge and sympathy, but it appears that I am a minority in the whole because the Islamic peoples, as a cumulative and historical group, do not act according to these values, but rather on the contrary, and they reflect a side in Religion sometimes chooses it from among the lines, representing negative trends as described in terms of severity, violence, domination of opinion, and the use of religious vocabulary to reach and maintain power. As for me, I choose other aspects that I see above the lines of love, dependence on reason, science, tolerance, passion for the beauty of life and people and their appreciation.
But if all these Islamic nations agree on the opposite, and they are late and their poverty, ignorance and violence increases, then I sometimes doubt that I am the one who is mistaken in understanding and appreciation, and 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 who survived are the ones who separated religion, which is a relationship between man and God, and between politics and governance.
I sometimes think that the extremists of the monotheistic religions belong to one religion, and they are closer to each other than they are to the owners of their other moderate 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 summed up all of that: “Trade in religions is the popular trade in societies where ignorance is spread.
».
But the most important question remains: What are the restrictions that hinder our transfer to science, reason, logic and enlightenment?
The restrictions are many, the most important of which is the human comfort so that the matter remains as it is. Change requires effort, joint concessions and a transition from one time to a new time in which responsibilities change, and orientations are multiplied, and the nature of human beings is that they are enemies of what they are ignorant of. In addition, if the rule is established for a political or religious sect, why do they expose themselves to convulsions that may rob them of kingship or control over peoples.
But this is our responsibility, the educated, before the society in which we live, an educational mission to liberate us from ignorance and obscurantism, and from the tyranny of absolute dictatorial regimes, to freedom regulated by law, and a mind that expands to accept differences over the diversity of its names and even respect it.
Nature has endowed every man with an instinctive capacity for understanding, which makes him equal to all and to others, provided he is educated and freed from the corruption of superstition and ignorance. The person who is free from the burdens of power and the darkness of ignorance, uses his mind correctly and automatically, where laws must be non-tyrannical and based on the natural rights of man as understood by reason and advocated by all religions.
But the most important question remains: What are the restrictions that hinder our transfer to science, reason, logic and enlightenment?
The restrictions are many, the most important of which is the human comfort so that the matter remains as it is. Change requires effort, joint concessions and a transition from one time to a new time in which responsibilities change, and orientations are multiplied, and the nature of human beings is that they are enemies of what they are ignorant of. In addition, if the rule is established for a political or religious sect, why do they expose themselves to convulsions that may rob them of kingship or control over peoples.
But this is our responsibility, the educated, before the society in which we live, an educational mission to liberate us from ignorance and obscurantism, and from the tyranny of absolute dictatorial regimes, to freedom regulated by law, and a mind that expands to accept differences over the diversity of its names and even respect it.
Nature has endowed every man with an instinctive capacity for understanding, which makes him equal to all and to others, provided he is educated and freed from the corruption of superstition and ignorance. The person who is free from the burdens of power and the darkness of ignorance, uses his mind correctly and automatically, where laws must be non-tyrannical and based on the natural rights of man as understood by reason and advocated by all religions.
