Instead of Supporting Freedom and Justice, American Grants Promote Atheism in Arab Countries

The Islamic organization based in the United States CAIR has expressed grave concern about a US program that promotes atheism in Muslim-majority regions in the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Central Asia.

According to the US State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), the grant would be allocated to build and strengthen "networks of advocates for the diverse communities of atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities in target countries."

The grant proposal states that 2-3 countries will be selected to host activities that include freedom to object to religious belief and non-observance of religion. Applicants will be responsible for ensuring that program activities are carried out in accordance with the incorporation clause in the US Constitution.

 

Religion Freedom

In the statement released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said: "Just as it would be inappropriate for the State Department to directly fund the spread of religion in secular societies, it is inappropriate for the Department to directly fund the spread of atheism in religious societies."

"Our nation should fund efforts to advance freedom and justice for all people around the world, not specifically anti-faith movements," he added.

The council stated that it was cm-majority areas that would contribute to suspicion among some people abroad that the US government seeks to secularize the Muslim world by supporting foreign organizations and governments hostile to Islam.

Citing the Qur'anic text "There is no compulsion in religion," Mitchell stressed that everyone should be free to believe or not around the world and that the US nation should not pump money into foreign countries in an effort to favor atheism over religion specifically.

 

Atheism in Arab World

Despite the entrenchment and rootedness of religiosity in the Islamic world, this did not prevent the presence of fewer cases of atheism, according to observers and researchers.

It is difficult to find real numbers that accurately express cases of atheism in the Islamic world. However, following some websites and social media, with their free platforms for thought and expression, without requiring the disclosure of the identity of their owners, indicates the existence of proliferating cases in which those based on them disclose and participate in their membership about their exact positions on religions.

The legal researcher, Ahmed al-Sayed, explained that observing and talking about the phenomenon of atheism should not be limited to explicit atheism only and the denial of the existence of God Almighty. It should include the denial of the presence of the basics of Islam principles. Because, in fact, it is nothing more than a result of previous cumulative problematic premises, represented in the objection to the existence of God Almighty. Many objects to the Sharia texts and religious fundamentals because of misunderstanding or wrong interpretation.

Al-Sayed explained to Arabi 21 that objecting to the legal texts and questioning them may lead to total atheism and may not lead to that, and these manifestations of objection are many and very widespread among Muslims. As for monitoring the phenomenon of explicit atheism, it is not possible to give accurate numbers about it.

In an interview with Al-Estiklal Nadia Bouchaalah, representative of the social and cultural association ASCA, she said: "Objections to religious texts and religious issues are constantly on the rise due to the media and communication openness in our world today. Which made information flow easily and smoothly between people despite their geographical distance, as well as the repercussions of the new atheism wave in the Western world on our Islamic world."

On the spread of the phenomenon of outright atheism and its prevalence in Islamic societies, Nadia pointed to the different estimates regarding its size in the Islamic world, pointing out that it is not remarkably and clearly visible, at least in conservative Islamic societies, although some data suggest its increase and growth in recent years.

 

Internal or External Factors?

In the context of mentioning the reasons for the spread of the phenomenon of atheism, the speakers usually refer to external factors that revolve around the spread of atheism and its prevalence abroad, and the ways in which it is transmitted to the Islamic world. While the internal factors related to internal conditions and the weakness of religious and faith education, and a third related to ways and mechanisms of addressing the problems of atheism represented by the lack of religious discourse in Addressing suspicions of atheism and confronting it with a rational and conscious confrontation.

For his part, the Palestinian researcher, Ahmed Abu Artema, considered atheism from a psychological and social point of view as a case of protest, and it may be a state of revenge fueled by the youth's sense of injustice and oppression because of the inability of the prevailing religious discourse to formulate aa adequate discourse capable of achieving justice and demonstrating human values.

In his interview with Arabi 21, Abu Artema added: "Atheism is an extreme reaction in societies in which injustice prevails, and the religious discourse fails to convince people that religion is able to provide effective solutions to their pressing social problems."

Abu Artema pointed out that there are many atheists' questions that are actually logical, and they need satisfactory answers that respect the human mind, but the superficiality of the prevailing religious theses and their inability to present a deep intellectual argument on these questions pushes young people to reject religion.

He further explained that there are no questions that represent a danger to the truth of faith because faith, by its nature, is kinetic, and it is a state of internal debate that leads the person to reassurance after a journey of doubt and research and questioning. This is the approach of the Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) in the Qur'an. He went through a long journey of doubt and questions while searching for the true God.

He criticized the prevailing religious pattern, describing it as accustomed to providing canned and ready answers, driven from heritage books, so are unable to quench the thirst of knowledgeable youth or resort to his helplessness by prohibiting the question, claiming that thought may lead to infidelity.

According to Abu Artema, this type of religious discourse creates a big gap between the youth who aspire to knowledge and quench their intellectual and philosophical research and the religious sheiks who base their religiosity on imitation, not on thinking and contemplation.