Ahmed Subhy Mansour - Quraniyoon - Quranists' Arrests in Egypt

Quranists' Arrests in Egypt

In May and June 2007, Egyptian authorities arrested five leaders of the movement, including Mansour's brother, on charges of "insulting Islam", and began investigations of 15 others. Following the arrests, Mansour's homes in Cairo and Sharqia were searched by the State Security.

Paul Marshall analyzed the arrests in the Weekly Standard as follows:

"These arrests are part of the Egyptian government's double game in which it imprisons members of the Muslim Brotherhood when the latter appear to become too powerful, while simultaneously trying to appear Islamic itself and blunt the Brotherhood's appeal by cracking down on religious reformers, who are very often also democracy activists."

Mansour lamented:

"Killing people just because they are not Muslims, they have a Hadith for this. To kill a Muslim like me after accusing him to be an 'apostate," they have a Hadith for this. To persecute the Jews, they have a Hadith for this. All this is garbage. It has nothing to do with Islam. It contradicts more than one-fourth of the Koranic verses. We find Islam has the same values as the West: freedom, unlimited freedom of speech, justice, equality, loving, humanity, tolerance, mercy, everything. This is our version of Islam, and we argue that this is the core of Islam according to the Koran."

He added: "Few Americans understand that the battle against terrorism is a war of ideas. It is a war that is very different from the military in its tactics, its strategy and its weapons."