Nasr Abu Zayd

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (نصر حامد أبو زيد, ; also Abu Zaid or Abu Zeid; July 10, 1943 – July 5, 2010) was an Egyptian Quranic thinker, author, academic and one of the leading liberal theologians in Islam.

He is famous for his project of a humanistic Quranic hermeneutics, which "challenged mainstream views" on the Quran, sparking "controversy and debate."

While not denying that the Quran was of divine origin, Zayd argued that it was a "cultural product" that had to be read in the context of the language and culture of seventh century Arabs, and could be interpreted in more than one way.

He also criticized the use of religion to exert political power.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was born in Quhafa, a small village some 120 km from Cairo, near Tanta, Egypt on July 10, 1943.

Abu Zayd went through a traditional religious school system and was a Qāriʾ who could recite the Qur'an with the proper rules of recitation, and a Hafiz one who has memorized the Quran completely from a young age.

At the age of 12, Abu Zayd was imprisoned for allegedly sympathising with the Muslim Brotherhood.

He was also influenced by the writings of Muslim Brotherhood revolutionary Islamist Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by the Egyptian state in 1966, but moved away from the ideas of the Brethren and Qutb as he grew older.

After receiving technical training he worked for the National Communications Organization in Cairo.

Abu Zayd has been referred to as among "the big names" of the post-1967 Arab intellectual tradition.

At the same time, he started studying at Cairo University, where he obtained his BA degree in Arabic Studies (1972), and later his MA (1977) and PhD degrees (1981) in Islamic Studies, with works concerning the interpretation of the Qur'an.

In 1982, he joined the faculty of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Cairo University as an assistant professor.

From 1985 to 1989, he worked as a visiting lecturer at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Japan.

He became an associate professor there in 1987.

In 1992 the process of his being considered for promotion to full professor at Cairo University morphed from a routine academic process into a "legal nightmare for him and his wife."

While he was eventually promoted, he was sued by conservative Muslims and a Court of Appeals declared him an apostate and divorced him from his wife.

This was followed by calls for his death and exile to Europe where he obtained the position of Visiting Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Leiden University.

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In Europe he held the Ibn Rushd Chair of Humanism and Islam at the University for Humanistics, Utrecht, Netherlands, while still supervising MA and PhD students at the University of Leiden as well.

He also participated in a research project on Jewish and Islamic Hermeneutics as Cultural Critique in the Working Group on Islam and modernity at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).

In May 1992, Dr. Abu Zayd presented his academic publications to the Standing Committee of Academic Tenure and Promotion for advancement.

Among his thirteen works in Arabic and other languages were Imam Shāfi'ī and the Founding of Medieval Ideology and The Critique of Religious Discourse.

The committee presented three reports, two were in favor of the promotion of Dr. Abu Zayd.

But the third one, written by Abdel-Sabour Shahin, a professor of Arabic linguistics at the Cairo Dar al- 'Ulum, and a committee member, accused Abu Zayd of "clear affronts to the Islamic faith," and rejected the promotion.

Despite the two positive reports, the Tenure and Promotion Committee voted against the promotion (seven votes to six), arguing that his works did not justify a promotion.

The Council of the Arabic Department made a statement against the committee's decision, and the Council of the Faculty of Arts criticized the committee report.

Despite all that, the Council of Cairo University confirmed the decision of the committee report on 18 March 1993.

In 1995 an Egyptian Sharia court declared him an apostate, this led to threats of death and his fleeing Egypt several weeks later.

He later quietly returned to Egypt where he died.

Dr. Abu Zayd also returned several times to Egypt after 1995, but mostly to visit family.

During a visit in Indonesia he was infected by an unknown virus, and was hospitalized in Cairo.

In 2005, he received the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought, Berlin.

His wife returned several times to Egypt for discussion on MA and PhD theses at the French department at Cairo University.

He died at a Cairo hospital on July 5, 2010, at the age of 66.

He was buried in his birthplace, on the same day.

Zayd's academic work on the Qur'an led to a lawsuit against him by conservative Muslim scholars.

The subsequent hisbah trial led to him being declared an apostate (murtadd) by an Egyptian court.

Since under Sharia law it is not permissible for a Muslim woman to be married to a non-Muslim man, the court also declared he could not remain married to his wife—Cairo University French Literature professor Dr. Ibtihal Younis.

This decision, in effect, forced him out of his homeland.

The Nasr Abu Zayd case began when he was refused a promotion for the post of full professor.