Farag Foda
Farag Foda فرج فودة | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 8 June 1992 | (aged 46)
Cause of death | Assassination by al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya |
Nationality | Egyptian |
Occupation(s) | Professor, writer |
Farag Foda (
He was assassinated on 8 June 1992 by members of the Islamist group al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya after being accused of blasphemy by a committee of scholars (ulama) at al-Azhar University.[1]
Farag Foda was one of 202 people killed by "Islamist motivated assaults" in Egypt between March 1992 and September 1993.[2] In December 1992, his collected works were banned.[3]
Biography and background
Farag Foda was born in El Zarqa near Damietta in the Nile Delta. He worked as professor of agriculture.[1] He wrote numerous books, and contributed as a columnist to the Egyptian magazine October.[1] Foda wrote during a time of Islamic revival and growing influence of Islamism, both violent and non-violent. In Iran, Islamists had overthrown the Shah in 1979.
In 1983,
Views and opinions
Among the few who defended
Though accused of apostasy, Foda argued he was defending Islam against its distortion by Islamists, stating "Islam is a religion and Muslims are human beings; religion is blameless, while humans make mistakes".[4] After an Islamist periodical condemned as immoral the broadcast of the ballet Swan Lake on television, he argued that the problem lays within "the onlooker or viewer (mushahid) rather than the looked upon view or what is viewed (mushahad)" and quoted passages from a 1979 book, The Jurisprudence of Looking in Islam, which directs men to avoid looking at both women and males and, "in particular, smooth-faced boys".[4] In a column in October magazine shortly before his death, he lamented that "the world around us is busy with the conquest of space, genetic engineering and the wonders of the computer," while Muslim scholars concern themselves with sex in paradise.[2]
Assassination
On 8 June 1992, Foda, after leaving his office, was shot dead by two assassins. His son and other bystanders were seriously wounded in the attack. The two gunmen had reportedly been "monitoring Farag Foda’s movements and watching his house in al-Nuzha area in
Before his death, Farag Foda had been accused of blasphemy by Al-Azhar.[4] The Al-Azhar
In a statement claimed responsibility for the killing,
One of those involved in Foda's murder,
Foda's eldest daughter Samar has rebutted the claims about her father's alleged apostasy, stating: "My father was a thinker in the full sense of the word and wholeheartedly defended moderate religion. I challenge his killers if they could spot a single text in his writings against religion."[10]
Published works
Foda wrote 12 books in Arabic:
- The Absent Truth
- Dialogue About Sharia
- The Harbinger
- Sectarianism To Where?
- Before The Fall – 1st Print 1985. 2nd Print 1995
- Dialogue About Secularism – 1st Print 1993. 2nd Print 2005
- The Warning – 1st Print 1989. 2nd Print 2005
- The Played – 1st Print 1985. 2nd Print 2004
- To Be or Not to Be – 1st Print 1988. 2nd Print 2004
- Pleasure Marriage – 1st Print 1990. 2nd Print 2004
- The Ponzi Scheme
- So the Words Will Not Be in the Air
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f "DOCUMENT - EGYPT: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS". amnesty.org. Amnesty International. September 1998. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
- ^ ISBN 9781439129418. Archivedfrom the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
- ISBN 9780313311932. Archivedfrom the original on 2023-07-18. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
In December 1992 Foda's collected works were banned
- ^ a b c d e Soage, Ana Belén (2007). "Faraj Fawda, or the Cost of Freedom of Expression". Middle East Review of International Affairs. 11 (2): 26–33. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
- ^ Pollard, Ruth (December 27, 2013). "Egypt's military gambles with repression". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
- ^ a b de Waal, Alex (2004). Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. C. Hurst & Co. p. 60.
- ^ Bar, Shmuel (2008). Warrant for Terror: The Fatwas of Radical Islam and the Duty to Jihad. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 16, footnote 8.
- ^ Brown, Nathan J. (1997). The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and the Gulf. Cambridge University Press. p. 99.
- ^ Egyptian Islamist Justifies His Assassination of Secularist Intellectual Farag Foda in 1992 Archived 2013-08-07 at the Wayback Machine, MEMRITV.org, Clip No. 3926 (transcript), 14 June 2013 (video clip available here Archived 2014-01-16 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ Al Sherbini, Ramadan (12 June 2013). "Slain Egyptian anti-Islamist writer Faraj Fouda remembered". Gulf News. Archived from the original on 16 January 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2014.