Dr. Abdul-Wahab El-Messiri: leading intellectual light of Islam and politics in Egypt.

Dr. Abdul-Wahab El-Messiri: leading intellectual light of Islam and politics in Egypt

Dr. Abdul-Wahab el-Messiri, the 'Arab human thinker' as he called himself, writer of Jews, Judaism and Zionism Encyclopedia, coordinator of the Kafia movement in Egypt that opposes the regime's violations of democracy, died of a heart attack at the Palestine Hospital in Egypt on Thursday 3 July at the age of 70.

Last year he was appointed General Coordinator of the Kafia (Enough) movement in Egypt, a movement that opposes the regime in Egypt and organizes peaceful demonstrations to activate and call for democracy. Due to his involvement in this movement, el-Messiri was subject to all sort of pressures from security forces in Egypt that kept canceling his forums, lectures and even banned dialogue with his students after lectures.


Dr. Mohammed el-Zaheri, chairperson of Political Science at Sana'a University, said that with the death of el-Messiri "the Arab and Islamic nations lost one of its greatest thinkers." "He was one of the most informed thinkers and an encyclopedic writer that enriched the nation with his great contributions in many fields, the most important of them, his encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism," said al-Zaheri. Al-Zaheri stressed that the most important thing that made el-Messiri a unique thinker is the fact that, in addition to his great knowledge, he used his thoughts to get closer to his people and to what they are going through. "He espoused sciences and served his Arab and Islamic nation, representing moderate Islam," said al-Zaheri.

Al-Zaheri pointed out the lack of writing programs about great thinkers like el-Messiri, explaining that the Arab World is a hostile environment to thinkers, scientists and creative figures. "When he needed an operation, the Egyptian government did nothing to help him and only the late King of Saudi Arabia, Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz, helped him to pay all the cost of his operation in the United States," al-Zaheri reminded. He stressed that "when a football player, a singer or an actor dies you see and read many things about him or her. The intellectual production of el-Messiri cannot be ignored and I tried to impress his ideas and thoughts on my students. He critiqued the Western pattern of politics and died carrying his motto 'To die as a martyr is better than to die as an ill person,' may Allah bless his soul," added al-Zaheri.


El-Messiri started his intellectual and personal journey as a Marxist thinker, believing in controversial materialism for more than thirty years. After that, he discovered that 'a man is a compound phenomenon with multi-elements and dimensions, and thus can not be confined and limited to material interpretation." He smoothly turned to a moderate Islamic discourse as an urgent solution for the illness of Western modernism. He later became one of the biggest Islamist thinkers and founded the Middle Islamic Party that was separated from the Muslim Brotherhood.

El-Messiri wrote more than 70 books covering many fields from literature, philosophy, children's stories and biographies. The most important of his publications is the Jews, Judaism and Zionism Encyclopedia that took him a quarter of a century to finish and was finally published in 1999. It comprises eight volumes that record all that is related to the notion and terms of Judaism and Zionism.


A great crowd attended his funeral ranging from scientists, thinkers, writers, political activists, and officials. The well-known Sheikh Yosef al-Qaradhawi said during the funeral that with the death of el-Messiri "the nation suffered a great loss, a loss in intellect, science and independence." He said that el-Messiri was one of the very few scientists and thinkers that worked for knowledge in silence, studying issues from their roots and then connecting all parts together.

Islamic preacher Amr Khalid also described el-Messiri as a global thinker, "with great thoughts that came in an era that lacks real thoughts." Author Mohammed Abdul-Qudoos said that el-Messiri was not only an exceptional man and scientist who wrote about ideas and thoughts that enrich the world, but he also stepped down from his hermitage into the street leading the Kafia movement in a very critical time, bravely calling for freedom.


Journalist Mustafa Bakri described the death of el-Messiri as a great loss for all those who call for reform and change. "He was a great defender of the nation's unity against the Zionist-American attacks, and he has now left an intellectual and notional heritage that freedom fighters can take after," stressed Bakri.

In his Encyclopedia he analyzes Israel from the inside considering it as a functional state. He states that the functional nature of Israel is based on the colonial forces that made it to function and realize tasks that these forces do not want to do directly; it is thus a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism.


El-Messiri spent 11 years in a Western environment and critiqued many aspects of Western life. In his book Partial Secularism and Comprehensive Secularism he said that there is a contradiction in the term 'secularism.' He said that the West promotes this term because they want to live in a consuming world. He presented his vision of partial secularism separating the state from religion (administratively, politically and economically) but said that the importance of religion comes when people talk about is as the ultimate referent for the state like the constitution, social system, values, ethics and social life.

To el-Messiri, comprehensive secularism does not only mean separating religion from the state but also, it means to separate all values, morals, ethics and religion from man's life, general and private lives. This turns the world to a consuming matter taking away the divine from the world. He defined comprehensive secularism as eliminating divineness from man and nature, making man a consuming value-producer/consumer- where anyone who does not produce and consumes a lot, like old people and children, have no value.


His views on the role played by the US in the Middle East are that the US itself does not set a pure democratic example. He takes the case of six presidents in the US, Democrats or Republicans, stressing that they never come from a third party and that all attempts in the political history of the US to present a candidate from a third party have failed. He also said in many interviews that the US historically interfered in a lot of areas and regions, which was never aimed to promote democracy but rather to abort it. He said that it also reached a point where the US in many of its administrations gave some states in the third world and in the Middle East the green light to cheat and fake election results. A case in point here is the elections in Palestine when Hamas won in a process that a former US President described as 'clean.' Notwithstanding George W. Bush's administration put Hamas under financial siege and refused to recognize it, conspiring to get rid of it. El-Messiri refused the Western vision of the world as a matter deprived of any ethics and morals. After he embraced his moderate Islamic orientation he rejected all what is not human, believing that without religion life has no value.There are many thoughts and ideas that el-Messiri has given to the world in not only literature, writings on politics, or his poetry, but also he wrote many stories for children that present no prejudice and help implement the Islamic and Arab identity.


El-Messiri was born in 1938 in Damnhoor, Egypt, and in 1955 enrolled at Alexandria University, College of Arts, English Department and was appointed demonstrator after his graduation. In 1964 he obtained his MA from Columbia University. He then obtained his PhD in Comparative English and American Literature from Rutgers University in New Jersey, in 1969. He taught in many universities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He worked in many academic posts as a researcher and consultant for many institutes, periodicals and universities around the world. He was a member in the Board of Experts in the Political and Strategic Center from Al-Ahram; a member in the Board of Trustees in the University of Human Sciences in Virginia; and he was an editorial consultant for many periodicals issued in Malaysia, Iran, the US, the UK and France. His most important work is Jews, Judaism and Zionism Encyclopedia. He also has other writings in different areas including Western civilization and Zionism. Among his writings written in English are A Lover from Palestine and Other Poems published in Washington D.C. in1972; Israel and South Africa: The Progression of a Relationship published in New Jersey in 1976; The Land of Promise: A Critique of Political Zionism published in New Jersey in 1977; Three Studies in English Literature published in New Jersey in1979; The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry published in Washington D.C. in 1983; A Land of Stone and Thyme: Palestinian Short Stories (Co-editor), published in London in 1996.



Yemen Observer..