How is Rashad Khalifa's Assassination justified in Islam?


What an irony! An idiot and bigot using the nickname "Use Your Brain" who answered the question, declared "HE DESERVED IT." No wonder, the so-called Muslim world is troubled with ignorance, backwardness, oppression, corruption and chaos. When they cannot respond criticism with their brains, which they have betrayed through the teachings of hadith, sunna and sectarian jurisprudence, they just scream KILL, KILL, KILL.

Sunni or Shiite sects are religions very different than islam (peacemaking and submitting to God alone in peace). I have exposed these religions in many of my books, especially in Quran: a Reformist Translation and Manifesto for Islamic Reform.

If you prefer watching videos rather than reading you may go to the link in the end of this information:

Dr. Khalifa was an Egyptian-American Biochemist who became a popular author in Muslim world and later dared to criticize the orthodox teaching of the Muslim clerics; he promoted a radical islamic reform by rejecting all sectarian teachings other than the Quran.

By referring to the Quranic verses, Dr. Khalifa demonstrated that today's Islam has little to do with Muhammad's original message, but rather is a religion concocted by scholars using fabricated narration and medieval Arab culture (Hadith and Sunnah), and falsely attributing these to Prophet Muhammad. By incorporating their opinions, along with those mediaeval lies, Muslim scholars have created various orthodox sects promoting vicious and oppressive laws, misogyny, hatred, terror and aggression.

In February 19, 1989 a group of scholars met in Saudi Arabia to discuss the issue of Salman Rushdi. When they issued their fatwa (religious decree) it became headline news in Muslim countries, including my homeland Turkey. Their fatwa was: "both Rashad and Rushdi are apostate." The world knew Rushdi, but who was Rashad? Dr. Rashad Khalifa, a biochemist resident of Tucson, Arizona, had become a popular figure in Muslim countries after he discovered a secret mathematical system in the Quran via computer analysis. The consequence of the mathematical code was too difficult to be accepted by the Muslim clergymen. Consequently, they issued fatwas calling for his assassination.

About 19 years ago, as a young radical Islamist youth leader and a best-selling Turkish author, when I rejected the the teaching of Sunni Islam, I found refuge in the US. However, soon I found out that I was not safe even here. My mentor and friend, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, was assassinated in 1990 by a terrorist organization organized in Salt Lake city. The members of Fuqra, which was later claimed to be affiliated with Ben Laden's newly founded Al-Qaida, stabbed him to death in our Tucson Mosque. The assassination of my mentor and its aftermath was widely covered by Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Weekly and local radio and TV stations. After September 11, the national media picked up the story. For instance, Newsweek and Dan Rather at CBS Evening News declared this incident to be Al-Qaida's first terrorist act in the USA. See: CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, on October 26, 2001; cover story of Newsweek, January 14, 2002, p.44. On March 19, 2002, KPHO-TV at Phoenix, a CBS affiliate, in its evening news, broadcast an interview with me under the headline: Traces of Al Qaeda Cell in Tucson. However, despite its importance in revealing the theological vulnerability of Al-Qaida, this first terrorist event did not receive the attention it deserved.

American foreign policy and sectarian Islam are both incubators of religious terrorism. War against terrorism has two fronts: reformation in American democracy and islamic reform. Unfortunately, the victims of these wars, whether they live in skyscrapers or caves, are mostly innocent people.

Earth is Fixed; or You are Dead

Abd al-Aziz bin Baz was the chief cleric of Saudi Arabia, the head of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars for three decades. He had great impact in regressive and oppressive laws in Saudi Arabia, including the ban on women's driving. A book authored by Bin Baz was published in 1975 carried the following title: "Scientific and Narrative Evidence for that the Earth is Fixed, the Sun is Moving and it is Possible to Go to the Planets." The book was not published by any publishing house; it was published by no other than the Islamic University of Medina. In that book, Bin Baz complains about a new heresy; he is saddened to see, well more accurately, hear, people talking about motion of the earth and he wants to put a stop to that heresy. In page 23, Bin Baz after listing some hadiths issues a fatwa, asserting that those who believe that the earth is rotating are kafirs (disbelievers), and if they were Muslims before they become apostate. The Saudi Sunni leader does not stop there and explains the ramification of fatwa: any Muslim believing in the rotation of earth lose his or her right to life and property; they should be killed! This same cleric was the head of an international conference of Sunni scholars representing 38 countries discussing the Salman Rushdi affair. Then, Saudi Arabia was competing with Iran regarding leadership in the Islamic world and this was the hot issue then. The conference issued a unanimous fatwa in 19 March 1989, condemning Rushdi and Rashad, as apostates. The Western world by then knew Rushdi, but not many westerners were familiar with the second name in the fatwa. Dr. Rashad Khalifa, the late leader of modern reformist movement and the discoverer of the mathematical code of the Quran, in less than a year after this fatwa would be assassinated by a terrorist group affiliated with the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden in 31 January 1990, in his Masjid in Tucson, Arizona.

Bin Baz, in his book, quoted some verses and many hadith to support his position that the earth is fixed. After his expressing is religious verdict of death penalty for the apostates who believe in a moving earth, he included the following reasoning as his scientific evidence:

"If the world was rotating as they assert, countries, mountains, trees, rivers, seas, nothing would be stable; humans would see the countries in the west in the east, the ones in the east in the west. The position of the qibla would change continuously. In sum, as you see, this claim is false in many respects. But, I do not wish to prolong my words."

Towards the end of the 20th century, a "university" of a Sunni country publishes such a nonsense authored by the highest ranking religious leader of that country! Considering that the Ottoman chief clerics banned the import and use of printing machine for about 300 years, it becomes clear the reason why the so-called Muslim countries are so lagging behind civilization, socially, politically, and in science and technology.

Ibn Kathir is a popular commentary of the Quran, which is respected because of its reliance on hadith to "explain" verses of the Quran. Ibn Kathir (d. 1372), in the classic commentary carrying his name, makes the following remarks on verses 2:29 and 68:1. For this commentary, he relies mainly on a hadith from Abud Dawud (d. 888), one of the so-called authentic Sunni holy hadith books:

Ibn Abbas told all of you by Wasil b. Abd al-Ala al-Asadi- Muhammad b. Fudayl- al-Amash- abu Zabyan- ibn Abbas: the first thing god created is the pen. God then said to it: write!, Whereupon the pen asked: what shall I write, my lord! God replied: write what is predestined! He continued: and the pen proceeded to (write) whatever is predestined and gong to be to the coming of the hour. God then lifted up the water vapor and split the heavens off from it. Then god created the fish (nun), and the earth was spread out upon its back. The fish became agitated, with the result that the earth was shaken up. It was steadied by means of the mountains, for they indeed proudly (tower) over the earth.

After learning the intellectual level of the believers, collectors, narrators, and commentators of the above hadith, such as Abu Dawud (d. 888), al-Tabari (d. 1516), and Ibn al-Baz (1995), it becomes clear why Muhammad would utter the words in 25:30.

Here is my video answering this question.

-  Edip Yuksel

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