Abdel Sabour Shahin is drinking from the same cup that he gave to Dr. Nasr Abu Zeid. So say those rejoicing at his misfortune. Abdel Sabour answers that they are a bunch of spiteful people and fame-seekers.
Dr. Abdel Sabour Shahin has issued his fifty-sixth book titled ’My Father Adam... The Story Of Creation Between Myth And Truth’. In it he claims that Adam is not the father of human kind, but the father of reasoning man, that he [Adam] was born of a father and a mother, and that human creation was a project that took 12 million years. The world stirred and the scholars of the Islamic Research Institute gathered in meetings and wrote reports about the book. An ex-judge has taken Dr. Abdel Sabour to court while Youssef Al-Badry interfered - as usual - and filed a case in his turn. Dr. Abdel-Azim Al-Mat’ani prepared a book in reply to Dr. Abdel Sabour’s. The accusations spread. Here are the details of the story:
As soon as the book of Dr. Abdel Sabour Shahin was issued and released for sale, lawyer Ibrahim Gabr, 45, and ex-Chief-Judge of the Summary Court of Cairo filed a case demanding a ban on the printing, circulation, publication and sale of the book until a clear opinion, permitting or prohibiting the book would be available from the Azhar. He continues telling what happened: "The lawyer of the Azhar asked for a postponement, so a report could be prepared. I had an official copy of the case files, dated May 4, and I had them signed by the Grand Sheikh of the Azhar who referred them to the Islamic Research Institute. I went to Sheikh Samy Al-Sha’arawi, secretary general of the Institute, who affirmed the necessity of banning the book because of its content of faulty interpretations. A committee of the Institute’s scholars, the Grand Sheikh of the Azhar, the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Samy Al-Sha’arawi and other scholars met, and delayed its decision several times until it issued a report on August 5, and it was sent to the court."
Lawyer Gabr Ibrahim Gabr demands the confiscation of and the banning of the publication of the book because the freedom of opinion is certainly not accepted for fixed and proven [Islamic] texts. "Concerning me, I have not met with Dr. Shahin and there is and will be no coordination between me and Youssef Al-Badri, the other party who separately filed another case," said Gabr.
"The report of the Azhar is like someone who is holding the stick from the middle. It discussed what it did not want to discuss, such as the writer’s method. It is also stuffed with unnecessary phrases. The reply to Shahin’s mistakes were vague and collective, which disagrees with the tradition [of the prophet Mohammed] that insists that the judgment should be clear and straight-forward. The report mentioned the writer’s mistakes in simple lines, not exceeding ten [thus the rest of the report was stuffed with unnecessary phrases]. I expected Al-Azhar to state its opinion clearly in the report written by Dr. Kamal Aboul-Magd, maybe because it did not want to give a chance for secularists to rejoice at its misfortune. I am not a fame-seeker and am ready to withdraw all the cases in return for Dr. Shahin’s promise to the court not to publish the book once again. God says in His book "I made them not witnesses of the creation of the heavens and the earth, neither of the creation of themselves; I would not ever take those who lead others astray to be My supporters." 51, The Koran Interpreted, Arthur J. Arberry, Oxford University Press, 1964, [but] then [along] comes Dr. Abdel Sabour to say that Adam had a father and a mother and after 12 million years of experimentation."
In the report of the Committee of Faith and Philosophy, Second Emergency Session, Season 35, dated August 8 [The article doesn’t mention a year but 1999 is meant], of which we had a copy, Dr. Abdel Mo’ti Bayoumi, dean of Faculty of Theology [’Usul el-Din] said: "The
idea of the book is that the humans existed before Adam and that Adam was born of two parents, and this is a negative point against the book."
In Dr. Bayoumi’s 33-page report, he described Dr. Shahin’s book [as one] of intellectual luxury because it interprets the verses and hadiths wrongly. Dr. Bayoumi said: "When I spoke with him [Dr. Shahin] he said: "For the next edition, God willing, I will sit and review some things you did not accept, because you are right in those points."!
On the other hand, Dr. Awad Hegazi said in his report to the committee that Dr. Shahin interpreted the verses of the Qur’an in a way that is distant from the truth to support his opinion. And Dr. Hegazi sees that the case should be considered a case of divination and not one of science or rationalization, in that Dr. Shahin accused the inspiration [Qur’an] and Hadith of lying and started an unnecessary misleading [interpretation], and committed offences against the Qur’anic text and the Tradition.
Back to Dr. Abdel Mo’ti Bayoumi, a member of the committee, who said: "I disagree with Dr. Abdel Sabour in his attempt to mix religion and science. There is no hard evidence that Adam had parents, neither are there proofs that before Adam there were creatures that could not hear, see or reason. Dr. Abdel Sabour has interpreted the Qur’an and Sunnah [tradition] and we do not want to call people disbelievers for that and without right. Dr. Abdel Sabour has come to us and we had discussions with him in the committee. Dr. Abdel Sabour has not touched the bases of religion, and God delegated us to protect the faith, so we do not wait
for a court’s judgment or a State Security confiscation order because the Azhar is meant to protect religion with its law number 103 for the year 1961 that gives some of the Azhar’s employees the authority for judicial seizure of any faulty publication. We asked for Dr. Abdel Sabour and he came, while Dr. Nasr Abu Zeid did not, and when the court called for him [Abu Zeid], he refused to come as well - maybe if he had gone things would be different now. The two situations are different, and the Azhar does not weigh with two scales. I will publish my report about the book of Dr. Abdel Sabour soon in a booklet. It is an objective report and includes 13 points I took against him, but I do not call him a disbeliever!"
The final report of the Islamic Research Institute, issued on August 7, 1999, is comprised of five pages, and refers to the issue of not keeping people busy with cases that may have harmful side-effects, confusing and misleading them, and that the researcher should choose the phrases that suit the situation of standing between the hands of God. The report said
that the author chose for his study a delicate subject in which it is hard to reach a final conclusion. Therefore, the details shown and reasoned by the author are almost completely ’hidden’ subjects only known by God. The committee sees that it does not agree with the author about his own contributions where his evidences are not enough to prove the conclusions he reached. It also does not agree with many of his interpretations for the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet, especially what he said about Adam being born of two parents and what he [the author] concluded concerning the relationship between God and man as well as some phrases he used which the committee sees as inappropriate in describing the Divine will of creation!"
For his part, Dr. Abdel Azim Al-Mata’ani, professor at Al-Azhar University issued a book with the title: "My Father Adam, The Story Of Creation Between Extreme Imagination And Rejected Interpretation" in which he portrayed the imagination of Dr. Abdel Sabour as extremely wild, more than deluded and that the work of imagination controlled him from A to Z. The writer, Dr. Abdel Sabour, did not leave a single piece of text standing in his way without interpreting it in a method that goes with his objective, reminding us of the Mu’atazila [a stream of thought or scholars in the early days of Islam who used reason
in dealing with religious subjects] in supporting their beliefs, for they used to accept what goes with their opinions and interpret the texts according to their own beliefs and mis-interpret what they do not accept.
Dr. Al-Mat’ani also said: "Dr. Shahin strayed from objective discussion. Both persons who filed cases against him asked me to join them but I refused, because my disagreement with Dr. Shahin is not personal. It is not to my benefit to have him in jail or executed or separated from his wife. But the faculty of Dar Al-’Uloum, of which he is a member, met with him and discussed with him, headed by Dr. Mohammed Al-Beltagi, professor of Islamic Shari’a [law]. They mocked him so he ran away from them. Now he is drinking from the same cup he gave to Dr. Nasr Abu Zeid. He claims that he will receive the Nobel prize for his book, and he would be right about it if the book reached the hands of Jews."
"Dr. Abdel Sabour humiliated the faith of the nation as well as the Qur’anic indications. He is a "Sufianic" [referring to Abu-Mu’awia Ibn Abi-Sufian, first Omawi Caliph] who likes self-pride and has the complex of "Narcissus". He likes himself and holds to his opinion although the whole world opposes him. I demand the book’s confiscation."
Sheikh Youssef Al-Badri, whose case is postponed to February 12, 2000, said: "I sent him a message through Hassan Ashour, manager of "Dar Al-I’tisam" [publisher] asking him to repent and apologize to muslims and he rejected it. He said that I am a political clown and a
print house corrector. I say it loudly, Dr. Abdel Sabour stole for 25 years from Dr. Eng. Mohammed Shahrour the idea of his 900-page book "The Book And The Qur’an", he also stole from the book of Magd Eddin Al-Fayrouz Abadi "Basa’er oly al-tamyeez fi lata’ef al-kitab al-aziz".[An insight in the differences in the holy book]. He said that the paradise of Adam is a hill on earth, taking [the idea] from the Torah. He took from Sheikh Abdel-Wahab Al-Nagar and his book "The Stories Of The Prophets", from Rashid Reda, the author of the explanation of "Al-Manar" the existence of Eve’s tomb in India, from Darwin all his theory, and from the communists that God created a project called ’Humans’ and worked on it for 12 million years. Then he claimed that the Devil’s conversation with God was psychological and did not take place between them. He spoke badly of God, [mis]interpreted the Qur’an, and denied what he knew by necessity [of his position] of
religion. He denied the Sunnah, and is ignorant of the science of Hadith and Sunnah. I challenge him."
Al-Badri added: "If Al-Azhar does not answer me with a clear detailed report, I will resort to ten Islamic world bodies because his [Shahin’s] evil is more than Nasr Abu Zeid’s. He lectures in mosques and his mistake affects a whole nation."
I asked Dr. Abdel Sabour Shahin if he would reconsider his book and he said: "I would, and I said in front of the committee of Grand Scholars that I promise to reconsider some difficult phrases so they become easier for the readers to understand. The committee did not answer me but it seemed like they accepted what I promised."
"I wonder, what stirred those people and why are those bad intentions in their breasts. Most of their references are orthodox, and the orthodox took from the Isra’eliat [Israelites, believed to be fake Hadiths and traditions which were put by Jews]. I insist that the modern science is more truthful than the Isra’eliat. Another thing, the case I am discussing is a historical case, not a religious one. The orthodox were confused and mixed history with religion. My book is available and circulated, and I intend to release another edition after the case to clarify things more. It is obvious that with the elections [of the parliament] coming, appearance and fame seeking are spreading among them and are controlling their minds."
Q. They said that you took from the old scholars without saying so in your references, Why?
"I did not read what Al-Razi wrote, neither was Al-Razi aware of modern science like I am, and I do not know Shahrour. My book contains culture that addresses the mind, conscience and history. A trilogy that were not combined in their books but showed in my book. My case has nothing to do with the case of Nasr Abu Zeid, and I did not interfere in the course of
his case after I wrote the famous report. My situation is like someone who has lit a cigarette and thrown it on the ground, and walked on."
Q. What is your main defense about your idea?
"I have two axes. The first is Qur’anic - the Qur’an talked about two levels of creation ’Humans’ and ’Man’. God created humans as indeterminate, then the second level, mankind were treated as responsible beings, people and Adam were addressed as responsible but
humans were not. The Qur’an said "God selected Adam" and selection does happen among existing beings. Those who stood against the book did not understand it. The second axis is science and archaeology, science affirmed the existence of humans on earth for millions of years."
Q. In your opinion, why would an ex-judge, who does not know you, start a lawsuit against you?
"Because this Gabr has a strange history, he was a judge in the case of Youssef Shahin’s film Al-Mohager [the emigrant], and authorized the confiscation of the film. And when the Court of Appeal abolished his judgment he became angry, resigned and opened an office that no customers come to, so he started a lawsuit for fame. It has nothing to do with religion as my lawyer, Dr. [Selim] Al-Awa , told me."
Q. Do you think that you are in the same situation of Nasr Abu Zeid?
"There is no similarity between my situation and his. It is very silly to relate the two, and I am on the right side in both situations."
Q. Your field of specialty is language, why did you chose a non-linguistic case?
The major proofs I brought for my current case are from language. It is based on the explanation of Qur’an that is written in Arabic. It is not strange for a linguist to work on a linguistic text to understand. My specialty is not in words like "even" [which has many meanings in Arabic], my Islamic knowledge is broad and I have 55 books, either written, translated or researched. The Qur’an is an everlasting book and needs continuous study until Doomsday. There is no verse that has become old and needn’t be explained anymore, as long as humans need guidance."
Q. What about Youssef Al-Badri?
"He is an insane man by the testimony of doctors. I do not have the time to waste on him. And like Bernard Shaw said: " They say, let them say."
