Response To The Mufti Of Egypt (Part-3)

This is a continuation of previous posts refuting the statements made on television by the Grand Mufti of Egypt on his opinion of the Baha'i Faith.



In this section, the learned Mufti states the following: "How many Baha’is are there in Egypt? The official statistics say sixty-four people, sixty-four people."

Response:

As a result of the 1960 Presidential decree that suspended the Baha'i administration in Egypt, there has been no way to register or document the number of Baha'is in Egypt. Where did the Mufti obtain his "official statistics" to make such a statement? If there is any truth to what he said in the previous segment that Mr. Hussein Bikar was the only person documented as a Baha'i in Egypt, then the "official statistics" would find that there has been only one Baha'i in Egypt!

He goes on to state: "If they had a place of worship in Abbasiyyah, what has become of it now? Now it is The Conservation of the Holy Qur'an Society. And why was it shut down in the 1960’s due to a governmental order? Because in the sixties, they discovered that the Baha'is communicated with the Israeli enemy. So, it started a war. The war started in '48 and was confirmed in '56 then the crisis of '67 occurred then '73. There was a state of war between Egypt and Israel before the peace agreement. So, in this year, they found a strange connection between these groups and Israel. So, they brought them and asked them: Why are you doing this? They said: Our religion, we have a religion called the religion of peace, and we should work towards peace and give this information to others in a way that leads to peace. So, they shut it down not because they are tightening the grip on beliefs but because, they [the Baha’is] were accused of association with the enemy during the war...I only want to clarify Egypt’s position. Per the Constitution Egypt respects...firstly, it recognizes three religions and does not recognize any other. Secondly, it also recognizes the freedom of belief; you can believe in anything you want. And it regulates the freedom of expression so that one does not harm others, so that one does not attack others, so that one does not steal the rights of others and so on."

Response:

There has never been any such communication between the Baha'is and the State of Israel. In fact, if such an occurrence had ever existed it is "no joke" in Egypt, as it is established that this is a crime of treason punishable by the death penalty. I should like to ask the Mufti this question: how many Baha'is have been found to commit this alleged crime? the answer is: none.... This statement by the Mufti is flagrantly slanderous and he should be held accountable for such declaration.

He later said: "I am so familiar with the Baha’i sources to the point that I have extensive knowledge on the Baha’iyyah with sources and information which they [Baha'is] never had....I asked them what they want. They said: Baha’u’llah is the truth. I told them: You folks do not know anything about your religion. Are you religious authorities? They said: no, we do not have religious authorities in our religion. We are all the same. I said: Okay, do you know this religion of yours, which you call a religion but we do not call it a religion but a view, is built on what? They said: no, we do not know. I told them that this is built on something called the Abjad System (Numerology) whereas each alphabet has a value according to the order of the Abjad letters, abjad hawwaz hutti kalamun sa'fas qarashat thakhadhun dazaghun. Layla Murad used to sing Abjad Hawwaz, so, people are familiar with it, but it has a continuation, abjad hawwaz hutti kalamun sa'fas qarashat thakhadhun dazaghun. And each one of these letters has a designated number. So, using these numbers they, for example, calculated the numerical value of "In the Name of God, the Compassionate the Merciful." Then they said: See, this is 19 letters whose value is divisible by 19; so the number 19 is a holy number. I told them: Folks, these are illusions, and I can give you a reason that could discredit all of the Baha’iyyah. They said: What is it? I told them that there is a disagreement between East and West about the way these alphabets are ordered. As Ibn Khaldun says in his introduction, westerners use a different order that differs starting from the letter Seen. Abjad hawwaz hutti kalamun sa'fas; the difference starts here. I showed them the order used by Ibn-Khaldun. Ibn-Khaldun is dead; he was around 600 years ago, before Al-Baha’iyyah and such."

Response:

Here, the respected and learned Mufti recounts a conversation he claims to have had with a couple of Baha'is years ago. Based on the history of all his previous statements, there is no way to know whether or not this conversation has ever occurred, but if we take it on its face value, he clearly shows that he is basing his whole argument to disprove the Baha'i Faith on an erroneous assumption:

As clarified by an authority on numerology, the Grand Mufti confounded his argument by stating that the number 19 derived from Abjad value of the letters of "Bismilláhi'r-Rahmáni'r-Rahím." In fact, the number derives from a straightforward numerical count of the letters of the Basmalah, and has nothing to do with their Abjad equivalents. The Abjad value of the Basmalah, by contrast, is 2 + 60 + 40 + 1 + 30 + 30 + 5 + 1 + 30 + 200 + 8 + 40 (+ 1) + 50 + 1 + 30 + 200 + 8 + 10 + 40 = 786(7). The number 19 has in fact been recognised within Islam as of prime importance in the Qur'án, but this is invariably on the basis of straightforward arithmetical counts. So the Grand Mufti's argument that the entire religion is undermined because of a discrepancy over the numerical value of the letters as between East and West is in this case invalid, since the importance of the number 19 in the Basmalah, and the Qur'án in general, is not based upon the Abjad system, but upon straightforward numerical counts.