Editing Nasr Abu Zayd (section)

== Nasr Abu Zayd case ==
Zayd's academic work on the [[Qur'an]] led to a lawsuit against him by conservative Muslim scholars. The subsequent [[hisbah]] trial led to him being declared an apostate (''murtadd'') by an Egyptian court. Since under [[Sharia]] law it is not permissible for a Muslim woman to be married to a non-Muslim man, the court also declared he could not remain married to his wife—Cairo University French Literature professor Dr. Ibtihal Younis.<ref>Karim Alrawi, "Letter from Cairo", ''New Statesman & Society'', London, June 25, 1993</ref> This decision, in effect, forced him out of his homeland.<ref>Staff (8 August 2009) "The battle for a religion's heart" ''The Economist'' 392(8643): pp. 52&ndash;53, p. 53</ref>

=== Rejection of promotion ===
The Nasr Abu Zayd case began when he was refused a promotion for the post of full professor. In May 1992, Dr. Abu Zayd presented his academic publications to the Standing Committee of Academic Tenure and Promotion for advancement. Among his thirteen works in Arabic and other languages were ''Imam Shāfi'ī and the Founding of Medieval Ideology'' and ''The Critique of Religious Discourse''. The committee presented three reports, two were in favor of the promotion of Dr. Abu Zayd. But the third one, written by Abdel-Sabour Shahin, a professor of Arabic linguistics at the Cairo Dar al- 'Ulum, and a committee member, accused Abu Zayd of "clear affronts to the Islamic faith," and rejected the promotion.<ref name=FRINHAZ2004:170/>

Despite the two positive reports, the Tenure and Promotion Committee voted against the promotion (seven votes to six), arguing that his works did not justify a promotion. The Council of the Arabic Department made a statement against the committee's decision, and the Council of the Faculty of Arts criticized the committee report. Despite all that, the Council of Cairo University confirmed the decision of the committee report on 18 March 1993.

Not content with blocking the promotion, at the pulpit at Amr Ibn Al-`Aas Mosque where he was a preacher, Shahin publicly denounced Abu Zayd as an apostate (''murtadd'').{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}} Shortly thereafter a "flood of vitriolic articles accusing him of heresy" appeared in the "mainstream, semi-state press".<ref name=FRINHAZ2004:170/>

Critics of the case have noted that Shahin's interest in the beliefs of Abu Zayd may have been motivated by factors other than piety. In addition to being preacher during Friday Services at Cairo's oldest mosque and a host of a number of television and radio programs about Islam, Shahin was active in Egypt's ruling party as chairman of its religious committee.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=203}} In addition:

<blockquote>Insiders also knew Shahine had been a consultant in the late 1980s to the Rayyan Investment Company. Rayyan had touted itself as an Islamic financial outfit, appealing to pious Muslims who believed that Islam forbids them to receive interest. It promised to pay them instead with Islamically sanctioned "dividends." Badly run, the firm went bankrupt, depriving thousand of Egyptians of their life savings. In his book, Abu Zaid cited Rayyan as an example of how some Islamists used religious discourse for ulterior motives and material gain. Shahine had not been pleased with the criticism.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=203}}<ref>see also: `The Case of Abu Zaid,` ''Index on Censorship'' 4 (1996) 36-37</ref><ref>see also: Loutfi Al Khouli, `University and Academic Freedom,` ''Al Ahram Weekly'', April 8–14, 1993.</ref></blockquote>

=== Forced divorce proceedings ===
In June (April according to another account{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}}), the case moved beyond Cairo University when a group of Islamists led by the former state official, Muhammad Samida Abu Samada and including Shahin, filed a lawsuit before the Giza Lower Personal Status Court (family court) in Cairo demanding the nullification of the marriage between Abu Zayd and his wife, Dr. Ibtihal Younis, arguing that Islamic law forbids a marriage between a Muslim woman and an [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]]. (The couple were not notified but heard about the case first in the tabloid newspapers.)<ref name=FRINHAZ2004:170/>

The court case was filed through personal status law for divorce because in this area "the Islamic Shari'a is still in force" in Egyptian law.<ref name=Agrama-2012-45>{{cite book|last1=Agrama|first1=Hussein Ali|title=Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt|date=2012|publisher=University of Chicago Press.|page=45|isbn=9780226010700|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nRx_40HIxy4C&q=Nasr+Abu+Zayd+apostasy&pg=PA45|access-date=10 December 2015}}</ref>

Filing cases of ''[[hisbah]]'' against Muslims who violated a "right of God" and thus disturbed the public order was at one time the function of an official known as the ''muhtasib'' before that function had lapsed. The lawsuit by the Islamists resurrected ''hisbah'' and had the advantage that the plaintiffs did not have to be directly affected by a defendant's alleged wrongdoing.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}} The ''hisbah'' principles are stated in Article 89 and 110 of the Regulations Governing Sharia Courts in Egypt but were amended in 1998, too late to help Abu Zayd.<ref name=OISO>{{cite web|last1=Shepard|first1=William E.|title=Abu Zayd, Nasir Hamid|url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0919|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304113656/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0919|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 4, 2016|website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online|access-date=14 December 2015}}</ref>

According to conservative Islamist scholars cited against Abu Zayd by the plaintiffs, the professor was an "ignorant" proponent of the Enlightenment "who understand[s] freedom of thought to mean freedom to lead the people to infidelity". Another called Abu Zayd's work "cultural AIDS" and "intellectual terrorism." (This critic was himself assailed as an apostate several years later for his own religious writings.)<ref name=Kurzman-119>{{cite book|last1=Kurzman|first1=Charles|title=The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA.|page=119|isbn=9780199766871|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CpW7hmBQ_mYC&q=abu+zayd+islamism&pg=PA119|access-date=14 December 2015}}</ref>

On 27 January 1994, the Giza Personal Status Court rejected the demand because the plaintiff had no direct, personal interest in the matter. However, on June 14, 1995, Cairo's Court of Appeals reversed the lower court ruling in favor of the plaintiff, judge 'Abd al-'Alim Musa (who had worked for several years in Saudi Arabia) found Abu Zayd to be an apostate, and declaring the marriage of Abu Zayd and Ibtihal Younis null and void.

====Reasoning of judgement====
Among other things the court declared that the verse authorizing the discriminatory [[jizya]] tax on non-Muslims "is not subject to discussion", and that owning slave women is allowed under certain conditions by " clear Qur'anic verses that we must follow"{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=206}}<ref name=CHRLA1996:12>[[#CHRLA1996|CHRLA1996, '' Dossier 14-15'', 1996]]: p.12</ref><ref name="p.16 of the judicial opinion">Cairo Court of Appeals ruling of June 14, 1995, (ordering the divorce of Nasr Hamed Abu-Zeid (the Cairo University professor) from his wife, Dr. Ibthal Younis), p.16</ref> Abu Zayd was also accused on not believing in ''[[jinn]]'' (genies).<ref name=cook-2000-47>{{cite book|last1=Cook|first1=Michael|title=The Koran : A Very Short Introduction|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/koranveryshorti00cook |url-access=registration|quote=The Koran : A Very Short Introduction.|isbn=0192853449|page=[https://archive.org/details/koranveryshorti00cook/page/47 47]}}</ref>

The judgement stated that:

<blockquote>the defendant's proposition that the requirement of Christians and Jews to pay ''[[jizyah]]'' (poll tax) constitutes a reversal of humanity's efforts to establish a better world is contrary to the divine verses on the question of ''jizyah'', in a manner considered by some, inappropriate, even for temporal matters and judgments notwithstanding its inappropriateness when dealing with the Qur'an and [[Sunnah]], whose texts represent the pinnacle of humane and generous treatment of non-Muslim minorities. If non-Muslim countries were to grant their Muslim minorities even one-tenth of the rights accorded to non-Muslim minorities by Islam, instead of undertaking the mass murder of men, women, and children, this would be a step forward for humanity. The verse on ''jizyah'', verse 29 of Surat al-Tawbah, which the defendant opposes, is not subject to discussion.<ref name=CHRLA1996:12/><ref name="p.16 of the judicial opinion"/>
</blockquote>

The judgment stated that the questioning by Abu Zayd of the permissibility in Islam of the ownership of slave girls, is "contrary to all the divine texts which permit such provided that the required conditions are met", and that the legitimacy of owning slaves is considered "religiously proven without doubt".<ref name="p.16 of the judicial opinion"/><ref name=CHRLA1996:13>[[#CHRLA1996|CHRLA1996, '' Dossier 14-15'', 1996]]: p.13</ref>

Court of Appeals head Judge 'Abd al- 'Alim Musa and his fellow jurists declared Abu Zayd to be "a threat to national security, saying that by attacking Islam, he had attacked the state on which it is founded."{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=207}}<ref>see also: excerpts from the appeals court ruling come from a translation in `People's Rights,` June 1995, pp.4-5</ref> The conservative religious interpretation of the court was evidenced a month after the ruling, when Judge Alim told an Egyptian magazine that Muslims are required to believe in spirits, devils, and the throne of God.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=320}}<ref>Reuters Cairo, July 13, 1995</ref>

In examining Abu Zayd's work and the charge against him of disbelieving in Jinn, scholar [[Michael Cook (historian)|Michael Cook]] notes that Abu Zayd did not explicitly deny the existence of ''[[jinn]]'', but explained their reason for being in the Qur'an as part of an appeal "to existing Arab conceptions of communication between genies and humans". Since jinn "were part of the culture of the Arabs at the time when the Quran was revealed" (and still are very much a part of Arab folk culture), without their inclusion "the notion of divine revelation" would have been difficult to accept.<ref name=cook-2000-47/>

====Motivation====
In addition to Abu Zayd's innovations in interpreting the Quran, his background as a critic of Islamic fundamentalism,<ref name=cook-2000-47/> and of Islamic investment companies in particular, (for one of which Abdel-Sabour Shahin had been a religious advisor), is thought to have played a part in motivating his opponents.<ref name=Olsson-2008>S. Olsson (2008), "Apostasy in Egypt: Contemporary Cases of Ḥisbah", ''The Muslim World'',  95–115</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Bakr |first1=Ayman |last2=Colla |first2=Elliott |last3=Abu Zayd |first3=Nasr Hamid |title=Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd |url=https://merip.org/2010/09/nasr-hamid-abu-zayd/ |website=Middle East Research and Information Project |date=20 September 2010 |access-date=30 December 2020}}</ref><ref name="Loza-2013-51">{{cite book |last1=Loza |first1=Pierre Roshdy |title=THE CASE OF ABU ZAID AND THE REACTIONS IT PROMPTED FROM EGYPTIAN SOCIETY |date=2013 |publisher=Georgetown University |page=51 |url=https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/558329/Loza_georgetown_0076M_12035.pdf?sequence=1 |access-date=30 December 2020}}</ref>

====Promotion at Cairo University====
The irony of the story occurred when Cairo University promoted Abu Zayd to full professor and the academic committee wrote:

<blockquote>After reviewing the works submitted by Dr. Abu-Zeid in his application for promotion, examining them both individually and as a whole, we have reached the following conclusion: his prodigious academic efforts demonstrate that he is a researcher well-rooted in his academic field, well-read in our Islamic intellectual traditions, and with a knowledge of all its many branches — Islamic principles, theology, jurisprudence, Sufism, Qur'anic studies, rhetoric and linguistics — He has not rested on the laurels of his in-depth knowledge of this field, but has taken a forthright, critical position. He does not attempt to make a critique until he has mastered the issues before him, investigating them by way of both traditional and modern methodologies. In sum he is a free thinker, aspiring only to the truth. If there is something urgent about his style, it stems from the urgency of the crisis which the contemporary Arab-Islamic World is witnessing and the necessity to honestly identify the ills of this world in order that an effective cure be found. Academic research should not be isolated from social problems, but should be allowed to participate in current debates and to suggest solutions to current dilemmas by allowing researchers to investigate and interpret as far as possible.<ref name=CHRLA1996:3>[[#CHRLA1996|CHRLA1996, '' Dossier 14-15'', 1996]]: p.3</ref></blockquote>

=== Reaction to decision ===
The decision provoked a great debate, criticism abroad because of the violation of fundamental human rights but anger against Abu Zayd and death threats in Egypt. Abu Zayd himself lamented, "it took one week for my name to be cursed all over Egypt. Even in my village they were saying I was teaching heresies to the students..."{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}}

====Death threats====
Shortly after the verdict was issued, a group of professors at [[al-Azhar University]], the "theological centre of Egypt", issued a joint statement calling for Abu Zayd's execution.<ref name=FRINHAZ2004:170/> The [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]] organization (which assassinated Egyptian president [[Anwar Sadat]] in 1981 and was engaged in a guerrilla war with the government at the time) issued a statement saying the professor should be killed for abandoning his Muslim faith. But calls for his death were not limited to insurgents. Even a newspaper published by the ruling political party of the ostensibly secular anti-fundamentalist regime, ''The Islamic Banner'', declared that `execution` was a fitting penalty if Abu Zayd failed to repent.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}}<ref>from April 15 and 22, 1993 issues of ''Islamic Banner'' as quoted in Index on Censorship p.39.</ref> In addition Abu Zayd received threats in the mail, one promising "No matter how much the police tries to protect you, you will not get away."{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=204}}

Dr. Nasr Abu Zayd was protected by the police, but belief in his apostasy was so widespread that even a police officer guarding his house referred to him as a "kafir" when asked about the situation by a neighbor of Abu Zayd.<ref name=Whitaker-2009-127>{{cite book|last1=Whitaker|first1=Brian|title=What's Really Wrong with the Middle East|date=2009|publisher=Saqi|page=127|isbn=9780863566240|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ta0sAQAAIAAJ&q=abu+zaid+neighbor+kafir|access-date=10 December 2015}}</ref>

====Case against decision====
The Court case was based on the alleged apostasy of Nasr Abu Zayd, hence the decision was based on Qur'anic punishment. But the Egyptian Penal Code did not recognize apostasy, and Civil Law restricts the proof of apostasy to two possibilities: either a certificate from a specialized religious institution certifying that the individual has converted to another religion, or a confession by the individual that he has converted. Neither had been provided. Nasr Abu Zayd never declared himself to be an apostate. In an interview, he explained:

<blockquote>I'm sure that I'm a Muslim. My worst fear is that people in Europe may consider and treat me as a critic of Islam. I'm not. I'm not a new Salman Rushdie, and don't want to be welcomed and treated as such. I'm a researcher. I'm critical of old and modern Islamic thought. I treat the Qur'an as a ''naṣṣ'' (text) given by God to the Prophet Muhammad. That text is put into a human language, which is the Arabic language. When I said so, I was accused of saying that the Prophet Muhammad wrote the Qur'an. This is not a crisis of thought, but a crisis of conscience.<ref name=WtPCT>{{cite web|last1=Abou El-Magd|first1=Nadia|title=When the professor can't teach|url=http://www.arabworldbooks.com/news10.html|website=arabworldbooks.com|agency=Al-Ahram Weekly |issue=15–21 June 2000|access-date=10 December 2015}}</ref></blockquote>

==== Exile ====

On 23 July 1995, the couple fled their homeland for an indefinite sabbatical.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=208}} They flew to [[Madrid]], then decided to go from [[Spain]] to the [[Netherlands]], where he was invited to teach as a visiting professor at the [[Leiden University]].
Abu Zayd explained,

<blockquote>I couldn't take more than two months of around the clock security. Whenever someone came to visit they had to be cleared. Whenever I wanted to go out I had to coordinate with security. I couldn't just go to a coffee shop with my friends and play a round of backgammon. What kind of life was that?<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,,260766,00.html Lives torn apart in battle for the soul of the Arab world], [[Mona Eltahawy]], October 20, 1999, The Guardian</ref></blockquote>

Though his books were not officially banned in Egypt, they were pulled from the library shelves of his alma mater.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=208}}

On November 8, 1999, he filed a suit against the Egyptian justice minister, demanding that the 1996 ruling which annulled the marriage be declared illegal.

===Legacy===
The Egyptian government "strived to ignore" the case. There were only brief mentions of it in the state-run media and no government official spoke in his defense. However, in 1998, the regulations governing Sharia courts in Egypt were amended making it impossible for individuals to file lawsuits accusing someone of [[apostasy]], leaving the issue to the prerogative of the prosecution office.{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=209}}

The action against Abu Zayd was not isolated. During the 1990s there were several assaults on liberal intellectuals and artists in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world. Ahmed Sobhy Mansour was dismissed from [[Al-Azhar University]] and imprisoned for six months. This was based on a verdict reached by the university itself on the grounds that he rejected a fundamental tenet of [[Islam]] in his research of truth of some of [[Muhammad]]'s sayings, or [[Hadith]]. Egyptian [[Nobel laureate]] [[Naguib Mahfouz]] was stabbed in the neck by an [[Islamist]] in 1994, leaving him incapable of using his hand to write. Egyptian courts were the theatre of different lawsuits brought against intellectuals, journalists, and university professors such as Atif al-Iraqi, Ragaa al-Naqash, Mahmoud al-Tohami, and [[Youssef Chahine]] (for his film ''El-Mohager'', ''The Emigrant'').

Abu Zayd's case has been described as demonstrating the "coercive impulse behind much [[Islamism]], as well as the unintended consequences of making concessions in its direction",<ref name=McHugo-2013-231>{{cite book|last1=McHugo|first1=John|title=Concise History of the Arabs|date=2013|publisher=The New Press|isbn=978-1-595589507|page=231}}</ref> as those conservatives calling for his killing included religious figures and media supposedly co-opted by the regime. Other became suspicious of "collusion" between "violent rebels and the conservative Islamists" who held "senior positions in some of Egypt's public institutions."{{sfn|Murphy|2002|p=210}} [[Gilles Kepel]]) noted the case as a demonstration of how moderate and extremists Islamists could "complemented one another's actions". Rather than the moderates undermining the extremists as some had hoped, "moderates" (such as Abdel-Sabour Shahin and The Islamic Banner) would singled out victims as "apostates" who were then executed (or in Zayd's case provided with a very credible threat of murder) by the extremists (such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad). The "moderates" would deplore fanaticism of the extremists in public, but plead "attenuating circumstance" on their behalf when the need arose.<ref name=Kepel-2002-288>{{cite book|last1=Kepel|first1=Gilles|title=Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam|date=2002|publisher=I.B.Tauris.|page=288|isbn=9781845112578|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OLvTNk75hUoC&q=showed+how+the+moderates+and+the+extremists+complemented+one+anothers+actions%2C&pg=PA288}}</ref>

His case has been compared to controversies over interpretation of the Quran involving [[Taha Hussein]] in the 1920s and [[Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah]] in the 1940s. The fact that a well established/respected scholar like Abu Zayd "suffered more concretely" than the other two is an illustration of "the gains made by Islamists in the last half of the 20th century.<ref name=OISO/>