Ahl AlQuran website and the lessons we can learn from its problems
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It was meant to be a great push for the Koranic viewpoint. An Arabic speaking website with commentators and anlalyst from both the Christian Arab community and the liberal Arab community. It was a website that was aimed to bring the Koranist together under one roof and propagate the Koranic message with the aim of reforming the Arab world drowning in sectarianism and disunity. The website grew for the past 3 or 4 years with prominent names like Shaker Nabulsi and Sa'ad Edeen Ibrahim being regular contributers to the website. As the visitors increased and the comments increased the website took a very different turn and now its struggling with dissent and seperation. New rules are being imposed to control the topic areas to be discussed and many comments were deleted. Some regular Koranist writers are leaving the website many forming blogs of their own or writing in other websites run by liberal Arabs. So what happened? What are the lessons we can learn from all this?
What happened the reason that the website took a bad turn is because the person running the Website(Dr. Subhi Mansour) and his followers never really understood the meaning of "bringing the Arab Koranist together under one roof" actually means. Many of the website administrators were ideologues who were somewhat influenced by RK and spent a lot of time in their Koranist reasearch but not enough time debating with other Koranist about Koranic issues.
I believe what happened was a shock. A shock that other readers of the Koran have a DIFFERENT interpretation of the verses of the Koran than they do and a shock that these DIFFERENT interpretation of the Koran can lead to DIFFERENT Koranic perspectives, even about issues that the administrators thought were clear cut issues.
I believe what happened is that some Koranist who have been active in writing and propagating never understood that the Koranist movement is a movement where somebody can only grow with debates and counter debates and not hiding in a room holding a Koran with a computer and an Arabic dictionary grinding the verses one after the other. Its a movement about people, just as it is about verses of the Koran.
I believe that many Koranist have an inflated image of their contribution to the Koranist movement. Many who were pioneers or who were early activists can not deal with the explosion of new ideas that new people can bring with them. Some of the Koranist speant most of their time gaining credentials outside the Koranist community and are not able to confront other Koranist who challenge their interpretation, something that people outside of the community may not have done.
I believe when a community is set up whether in the internet or elsewhere it must be true to its slogans and must be transparent about its intentions and must be inclusive. Secularists and liberals may not care where you get your ideas from but Koranist will ask for your evidence from the Koran and how you interpret these verses.
The Koranist movement requires a form of humbleness when it comes to providing answers from the Koran. Nobody has a veto and nobody should think he is the sole representative of the Koran. Being perceived as a leader among the Koranist can only be real if you provide an avenue for other Koranist to participate and their views are being respected and taken into account. Anybody can run around with a bunch of liberals and secularist claiming to be their Mufti and saying you are a Koranist leader. Not anybody can actually be a leader for the Koranist unless he provides a means for other Koranist to have their views expressed and propagated and their concerns raised. Thats the least they would expect or they will just ignore you.
The internet is an excellent avenue for discussion and community building and for Koranist its the only real way as the movement is still small in its active memebers but growing. Plus there are legal pitfalls in many Muslim countries.
As far as Ahl AlQuran website, the problems that ended up creating the problem was the 5 salat believed to be from Abraham by the administrator with no other salat accepted, the lack of intercession by any human including the prophets in judgement day, the second shahada was seen as shirk, tawassul also was seen as shirk, heaven and hell is eternal, code 19, did the prophet have knowledge of the unseen(ghaib), who wrote the Koran and questions regarding haj and zina. These of course are usual differences that you encounter among Koranist but it seems the administrators of that website, specifically Dr Mansour, were either unprepared or were unwilling to accept different view points in these issues. Especially the second shahada. There was also the kufr based on actions and deeds like miserly or arrogance. So there seems to have been different opinions but the website was not able to accept those different view points and is now facing dissent and abandonment by many writers there.
These are all lessons for us to learn.
Those who want to follow some of the dispute that happened there can go here
http//www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=5158
http//www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_article.php?main_id=5263 ( comments were deleted by administrators)
I have been keeping an eye of that website for a while now. I have said before in this forum that the community there is not as advanced as the ones you find there but because many of them are Arabs I thought they might bring something new and exciting in terms of Koranic interpretation. There has been some insights, but the inability to handle differences was always its biggest challenge since Arab societies have a problem dealing with public differences and tolerance of view points. I was correct in my fears and what i feared has happened. Lets hope they will come to their senses.
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This is to be expected, and is discussed in many parts of The Quran.
I think many people see differences as some sort of bad thing or a barrier which prevents something. Perhaps, but I know one thing, differences in opinion do not prevent one from doing good deeds, being charitable, telling the truth etc. In this is a sign to reflect upon.
2/05/02
A Muslim sister asked me if there were easier & simpler ways to study The Quran, as she was struggling understanding the English translation she had. She blamed this difficulty upon her "not very intelligent" self, I answered her as follows... "Your comments reminded me of a theory of mine... I personally think that intelligence can be divided into two parts, spiritual intelligence & academic intelligence. I consider spiritual intelligence to be far superior to academic intelligence. For example, if a man was very intelligent, high IQ, good grades etc but was not charitable/caring/honest etc (ie. low spiritual intelligence) and another man was only of average intelligence but very charitable/caring/pious/honest etc. (ie. high spiritual intelligence) I would consider the latter man to be of superior intelligence overall as spiritual intelligence is what will be counted in the next life, not academic... so dont be too hard on yourself, if you are on the right path, you are surely one of the intelligent ones."
