M. Bitar, Mira Albitar:

The  muslimBrotherhood takes refuge in the sacred because it represents, for them, the absolute and only truth, As long as there is backwardness, there is ignorance, and the worst form of ignorance is the sacred, because sanctification eliminates the possibility of correction and development, A mind that contains only the material of the sacred is a narrow-minded, dependent mind that is parasitic on the Creator of these sacred things, Limiting the mind’s possession of the material of the sacred represents a castrating and sterile intellectual poverty and leads to the revival of the tendency to personal superiority, because whoever sanctifies believes that he is also sacred, and everything that is outside the intellectual and personal sacred is profane and provokes a hostile reaction that inevitably leads to the practice of various forms of violence.

  There are those who claim that sacred ignorance is not a product of religion, but rather a product of a superficial reading of religion, We see that sacred ignorance is the product of religion par excellence, because religion, with all its pillars, was ignorant and remains ignorant, Religion insists on a single reading of itself and does not allow for multiple readings, The different readings according to the different religious groups were a major cause of the bloody wars between those groups throughout 1440 years, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,The attempt to abort the multiplicity of positions and impose a single position, i.e. a single reading, was the cause of the deterioration and continuous backwardness in its absolute and relative form until now, which established the foundations of excommunication, which represents the legitimate father of what is called sacred ignorance, Excommunication is also the legitimate father of the lack of thought, and thinking, by its nature, has multiple directions regarding the same issue,The lack of thought practically means the assassination of the mind. Whoever wants to abolish pluralism and impose monotheism in reading and thought in general is the one who assassinated the mind.

 Given the dire situation that the peoples of the region between the ocean and the Gulf have reached, and given the stability of the relationship between the Brotherhood, as one of the many factors of backwardness, and the cultural slumber of these peoples, and because of the shallowness or even the absence of effective self-criticism, external criticism has become urgent and important and an indispensable necessity that cannot be dispensed with, even for those outside the believing classes. We live in a pluralistic homeland and we cannot claim that what religion wants to implement in an area such as the area of ​​personal status does not concern us. We are very concerned about preventing mixed marriage or allowing it in one direction, We are very concerned about the ongoing stumbling block in the field of development that serves the aspirations of people, present and future, and that is caused by the sacred religion that denies development or what is called “obstructed development.”   

The muslim   Brotherhood does not stand idly by in the face of criticism that exposes them, so they resort to several methods to assassinate criticism by branding it with the stigma of sabotage, Constructive criticism is required, not destructive criticism!!!! The critic, whoever he is, here gets a considerable share of distortion, excommunication, and accusations of disrespecting sanctities,These methods have succeeded in destroying criticism and the critic in many cases, Farag Foda was shot dead by someone who did not read his book because he was illiterate, Nasr Hamid Aba Zaid divorced his wife by force according to the concept of Hisba (Islamic morality law) without the couple wanting a divorce, Sayed al-Qimni terrorized and then fled, seeking forgiveness from the killers and announcing his repentance in Rose al-Youssef magazine,Political Islam wanted to hang Taha Hussein on the gallows, and years ago, political Islam shot Nahed Hattar dead because he had published a very expressive caricature, There are many examples of violent practices by the Brotherhood, and violence means the physical elimination of criticism and the critic.

 Criticism has many types, the most important of which are constructive criticism, destructive criticism, and forbidden criticism, The most important characteristics of constructive criticism are its scientific nature, its objective, its dynamism, its objectivity, and its not being fixed, but rather variable and subject to change, As for destructive criticism, it is characterized by its decisiveness, negativity, stability, and the attempt to personally attack the critic, then its transgression of the boundaries of literature and its deviation from the subject,As for forbidden criticism, it has many characteristics, the most important of which is its placement in a fixed relationship with the sacred, Criticism here represents what is called contempt for religion.

We don’t think there is a disagreement about evaluating constructive and destructive criticism. Forbidden criticism is the problem!!! Prohibition under any pretext is tantamount to absolute permission for influences that are not defined in form and time to continue to destroy living and life conditions in the way we see and touch these days, We should be happy to watch the failure continue because its cause is sacred, Until when! And to where!

We do not know the limits of the sacred, as the area expands according to demand and need, and the expansion of the area devours every thought, especially the new one, Culture calcifies and dies, and there is no mechanism for renewal and protection of creative thought except through reviving and activating comprehensive critical thought, Peoples are afflicted with the catastrophe of sanctifying the past, negatively and positively, Whoever says that the sacred and its elastic area represents the catastrophe of Arab thought is right,These peoples are befallen by one catastrophe after another, and they do not dare to dismantle their causes, because their causes lie within the area of ​​the sacred, which must not be touched because it is “sacred.”

It seems as if the only way to deal with the sacred is absolute submission to it, which is no different from absolute surrender to it, By surrendering to the sacred and its elastic patch, we can only expect more disasters, Have I been unfair to the sacred when I call it sacred ignorance?? And how can we deal with sacred ignorance?

There is no way to salvation except by removing the sacred aura from ignorance as a necessary prelude to its elimination, There is no way to salvation except through a scientific, critical review of the historical heritage in order to identify the truth of this heritage, and thus reconciliation with it becomes possible, The peoples of this region are the only ones in this universe who are not reconciled with their history, who do not agree on it, and who are not in harmony with it and about it! They are the only peoples in this world who commit suicide voluntarily.