Abdel Rehim Ali writes: When one front-page headline saves nine

Screen-Grab: Al-Bawaba’s July 30 front-page feature article

Cairo – On July 30, Al-Bawaba News released a special issue featuring in its front page a “seemingly blasphemous” article that was titled: “I have hated God.” The “bold” title has stirred much controversy and a storm of hype since its release.

The article simply tackles the bitter experiences of some people from theism, deism, agnosticism and eventually atheism. The article was meant to show our readers that how radical thought and fanatics are leading young people astray; i.e. right into the clutches of atheism rather than guiding them to the light of faith and pure religiousness.

The author might have been unsuccessful in choosing the title that has been misinterpreted as blasphemy against God –Almighty. However, I have to preclude all these misjudgments or any further abstruse discussion which are nothing but figments of the detractors’ imagination.  In truth, the author was as though straddling which title he would choose for his article from the following two: it is “I have known God” or “I have fallen in love with God.”

In fact, this article is the first of what the author thought of as an article trilogy. It is  a trilogy documenting some living experiences about how different kinds of thought have led some people to faith; others to piety and a group of others were led astray to atheism and even worse to blasphemy.

The trilogy was meant to tread a very fine line on the issue by highlighting how religion coupled with rationalism could be a benign force that can liberate our natural goodness.

Between the hammer of extremism and the anvil of atheism

Between the hammer of extremism and the anvil of atheism

In fact, we Muslims have experienced this kind of productive thought as much as we have suffered from the destructive one on the other side. The article was propounding how the same religious thought with the same intellectual underpinnings have helped shape the mentality of a whole generation of youth. How this same religious thought once managed to get a whole spectrum of youth out of an impending intellectual vanity that another generation have unfortunately been plunging into.

Who cannot remember the remarkable breakthrough writings of Sheikh Mohammed Abdo, Abdul Muta’al al-Saidi, Mahmud Shaltout, Al-Maraghi, Mustafa Abdel Razek, Ali Abdul Razek; and those who followed suit and gracefully interconnected science to religion such as Mustafa Mahmoud, Imam Dr. Ahmed Tayeb; that’s just to name a few.

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“I have hated God” was the third part of the author’s trilogy that we thought it is of paramount importance at this very critical time in Egypt’s history. Our country is being beset by vicious ideas of violence, extremism and excommunication from every which way.

Apropos of the part about the divine love, it highlights how many Sufi masters, intellectuals, poets and writers contributed to connecting people to God in a remarkable state of divine love. Next to falling in love with God, there comes a state of unparalleled serenity, inner peace, freedom of spirit, purity of the soul that are all preconditions of divine love.

Through the elegant writings of al-Ghazali, and the mesmerizing poetry of Ibn Rumi, Ibn Al-Fared, and Al-Sahrawardi, and Al-Hallaj, and Rabi’a Al-Adawyya, and Imam Hussein, honorable Lady Zainab, honorable Lady Nafyysa, Saint Ahmad Al-Badawi, Saint Ibrahim Al-Desouqi, Saint Al-Morsi Abu Al-Abbas and Abdul Rahim Al-Qenawy.  Books of history and divine love abound with myriads quotations of these sages of divine love.

That is our theory—or let us say our recipe—through which we wanted to say that the Islam has several schools of thought other than those that have filled our lives with darkness and obscurantism.

Yes, the author perhaps did not err on the side of caution; and some were dumbfounded by the title or got it wrong while other found it offensive. However, be that as it may, it is only God -Almighty- who knows best if our  intentions are good or not. That truly suffices us: May God guide us always to the right path.