Arab Non-Believers and Freethinkers on Youtube: Re-Negotiating Intellectual and Social Boundaries

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Article Arab Non-believers and Freethinkers on YouTube: Re-Negotiating Intellectual and Social Boundaries

Sebastian Elsässer

Seminar für Orientalistik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, 24118 Kiel, Germany; elsaesser@islam.uni-kiel.de

Abstract: This article uses the increasing visibility of Arab non-believers in the virtual public sphere as an opportunity to re-examine the key issues and dividing lines between believers, sceptics, and non-believers in Arab societies. It analyzes the currently four most popular Arabic-language YouTube channels created by freethinkers, nonbelievers, and atheists and points out commonalities and differences in style, content, and message. The article argues that the sense of a lively and growing virtual community has raised the conﬁdence of non-believers (la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıyun¯ ) and atheists in the Arab world and made them more daring in their self-portrayal and in their demands on society. As the examples show, YouTube allows them to circumvent the hostility they face in society and in the mainstream media and to connect with an audience that numbers in the tens of thousands of people from all over the Arab world and the diaspora. The article argues that freethinking and non-belief imply an attempt to re-negotiate social and religious boundaries within Arab societies and could—in the long run—have an impact on legal and constitutional questions as well, such as family law and the prerogatives of religious authorities.

Keywords: nonbelievers; freethinkers; atheism; Egypt; Syria; Arab world; social media

Citation: Elsässer, Sebastian. 2021. Arab Non-believers and Freethinkers 1. Introduction on YouTube: Re-Negotiating Over the last decade, atheism and agnosticism have become more visible in the Arab Intellectual and Social Boundaries. world, and a new socioreligious group of self-declared non-believers (la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıyun¯ ) seems Religions 12: 106. https://doi.org/ to be emerging (see the introduction to this special issue and several other contributions). 10.3390/rel12020106 While the phenomenon has been covered quite extensively in journalistic accounts, such as Brian Whitaker’s Arabs Without God. Atheism and freedom of belief in the Middle East Academic Editor: C. van Nieuwkerk (Whitaker 2017) and Khaled Diab’s Islam for the Politically Incorrect (Diab 2017), as well as Received: 1 December 2020 in many articles in Arab-language blogs and newspapers, important analytical questions Accepted: 30 January 2021 remain unanswered—for example, concerning the precise meaning and rhetorical function Published: 5 February 2021 of the neologism la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıya and to what degree it can even be considered a clearly defined intellectual trend. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral Writing in the Oxford Handbook of Atheism (Schielke 2013), anthropologist Samuli with regard to jurisdictional claims in Schielke pointed out that “atheism”, the most common umbrella term to denote non- published maps and institutional affil- believers in a Western context, might be a misnomer in the contemporary Arab world, iations. as the common Arabic word used in the sense of atheism, ilh. ad¯ , does not necessarily imply an ontological stance on the existence or non-existence of God. Neither does the neologism la-d¯ ¯ın¯ı, which simply negates belonging to a religion (d¯ın). This could mean that in the contemporary Arab context, “the dividing line between theism and atheism is Copyright: © 2021 by the author. often less important than one’s stance towards other key issues of a religious worldview” Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. (Schielke 2013, p. 639). Schielke suggests that, in order to reach contextually appropriate This article is an open access article and precise definitions of the terms we are using, it is important to situate atheism and distributed under the terms and other shades of non-belief “within a wider landscape of moral-spiritual critique and dissent conditions of the Creative Commons that is nearly as old as Islam” (Schielke 2013, p. 648). Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// This article uses the increasing visibility of Arab non-believers in the virtual pub- creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ lic sphere as an opportunity to re-examine the key issues and dividing lines between 4.0/).

Religions 2021, 12, 106. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020106 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religions 2021, 12, 106 2 of 18

believers, sceptics, and non-believers. Its aim is to provide an updated mapping of the self-positioning of Arab non-believers and their relationship with the wider field of religion and religious critique. For this purpose, I have examined the content of four YouTube channels propagating radical criticism of religion between 2015 and 2020, which I have selected based on to their relative outreach and popularity at the current juncture.1 While YouTube offers an infinite variety of content on almost any topic, the platform itself provides valuable quantitative data on the audience reaction to the published content, which makes it possible to identify the most popular and most widely known voices. To begin with, users can express their interest in a channel by “subscribing” to it, which means they will be notified about newly published videos. The individual videos of each channel can further be rated by the number of views and the number of likes and dislikes they receive. A large number of subscribers, a consistently high number of views for different videos, as well as high like-to-dislike ratios mean that a given YouTube creator has a dedicated and engaged audience. The four YouTube channels portrayed in this article (see Table1) were among the leading Arabic-language channels according to these criteria in the past five years and, at the time of writing, have a core audience that numbers at least in the tens of thousands. Three of the four protagonists portrayed below are of Egyptian and one of Syrian origin, but that does not seem to limit their audience to people from the respective country. Additional user data, partly of a non-public nature and provided to me by one of the creators themselves, indicate that their channels are being watched all over the Arab world from the Maghreb to Egypt and the Arab East to the Arabian Peninsula, especially Saudi Arabia.2 They also have a strong following in the Arab-speaking diaspora in Europe and North America, where three of them actually live. In this sense, they really are manifestations of a regional and global trend of Arab non-belief.

Table 1. Popular YouTube Channels by Arab non-believers and freethinkers, December 2020.

Name of Channel Hamed.TV Sherif Gaber Adam Elmasri Kosay Betar Established in May 2015 March 2016 October 2017 February 2018 No. of subscribers 160,000 299,000 66,000 78,000 Total no. of clips 272 22 97 69 No. of clips with over 123 22 22 24 100,000 views Most views for a single clip 641,000 2,169,000 290,000 266,000

2. Freethinking and Atheism in Arab Muslim Thought While atheism is a relatively recent phenomenon in the Arab world, radical religious criticism is not. A common term that has been used to describe the overlapping tendencies of unconventional religious inquiry, religious criticism, and skepticism in the Muslim world—past and present—is the term “freethinking” (Schielke 2013; Urvoy 1996; Coury 2018, p. 3; Stroumsa 1999). Freethinking means critical thinking about established religious dogmas and the total or partial rejection of established religious authorities. It does not necessarily imply either belief or non-belief in a given God or religion. Arab intellectual history before the modern era includes a number of radical minds who expressed far-ranging disapproval of all known religions of their time—Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism—and many more ﬁgures who took issue with some religious dogmas from a rationalist or skeptical point of view (Urvoy 1996; Stroumsa 1999; Crone 2016). Stroumsa(1999) notices the vague use of the term “freethinkers” and proposes to reserve it for those who rejected all religious traditions, like Abu¯ Bakr ar-Raz¯ ¯ı and Ibn ar-Rawand¯ ¯ı, the two protagonists of her study “Freethinkers of Medieval Islam” (Stroumsa 1999). While it is intriguing to know that Arab la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıs—those who apparently

1 I have excluded some popular Moroccan channels from the survey because I do not understand Moroccan Arabic. 2 Adam Elmasri, video-interview with the author, 16 August 2020. Abdel-Samad speaks about his viewer statistics in the following clip from October 2015: : , . (Box of Islam Programme—21st episode: new talk about àðQåªË@ð éK XAmÌ'@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - ÐCB @ ðYJ l×. AKQK. à@Q®ÊË úÍðB@ HA£ñ¢jÖÏ@ á« YK Yg. ÐC¿ the ﬁrst manuscripts of the Qur’an) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyOCQmE0WL0. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 2020—reads as follows: “Hello, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all humanist (insānī) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to share my thoughts about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new generation a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have when I was young.”39 Kosay started his YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remarkable pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of 100,000 views; thousands of likes and mostly favorable comments show that a considerable part of the audience is actively engaging with the content. According to his own account, Kosay experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young Religions 2021, 12, 106 adolescent3 ofthat 18 was triggered less by external changes than by lingering questions and doubts.40 Journalist Khaled Diab found a similar process in many of the non-believers he interviewed: “For a surprising number of atheists […] their abandonment of faith was, “are not of a religion”—existed long before the term was invented (probablyparadoxically, around the actually the product of an attempt to deepen it, understand religion better turn of the 21st century?), there is no benefit in defining freethinking in suchor a narrowsilence way.the doubts plaguing their consciences.” (Diab 2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to Hence, I shall opt for a broader concept of freethinking that encompassesreading both believers the Quran, hoping to find answers: didn’t people always say that it was written and (possible) non-believers, precisely because it captures the “ambiguityin and clear, fluidity” easily understandable Arabic? Instead, he stumbled on many verses that were (Schielke 2013, p. 648) of religious criticism in the Arab world that defies thehard application to understand of and explain, and a great many that clashed with his own sense of logic narrow concepts. and morality. As he was losing his faith more and more, he experienced a phase of shock, Even though atheist ideas started spreading rapidly from Europe to theanger, Middle and East disappointment vis-à-vis his parents and Muslim society at large: Why were 41 in the late 19th century and some Arab non-believers have adopted the termtheyil tellingh. ad¯ in theus all those illogical stories about God, Creation, and Revelation? Why were sense of “atheism” since the 1930s, self-declared non-belief remained a rarethey phenomenon lying to us about the negative sides of the Prophet and the Quran? in the Arab world throughout the 20th century. Nevertheless, the modern ArabAs much world as he stresses that he was not raised in an intolerant, bigoted religious at- has a strong tradition of freethinking, which reached a first climax in the so-calledmosphere, “liberal Kosay expresses a strong intellectual disaffection with liberal and progressive age” between the 1920s and 1950s (Hourani 1962; Coury 2018). In this period,interpretations even some of Islam.42 He compares those who argue that the Quran does not promote mainstream intellectuals, such as T. aha H. usayn (1889–1973) and Nagibˇ Mah. fuviolence¯z. (1911–2006), and hatred with those who propagate the “scientific miracles” found in the penned books that were considered highly impious by religious conservativesQuran: but both have approaches rely on selective and entirely arbitrary interpretations that have continued to inspire later generations of freethinkers (Diab 2017, pp. 282–86; noGunaym˙ philological 2017). or historical basis. When it comes to the questions of violence towards When the intellectual climate became more restricted and more conservativenon-believers with the rise of and the subordination of women, Kosay seems convinced that the conserva- authoritarian nation-states and, since the 1970s, of religious revivalism, manytive freethinkers and extremist shaykhs do have much of the textual evidence on their side. He fre- became more cautious about voicing their views in public. Some decidedquently to fight uses back “citations” in the form of short video clips from television shaykhs—all the against the rising tide of both oppositional political Islam and the Islamic-conservativeway from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša turn of the nationalist regimes by adopting a discourse of political secularism (ʿ alman¯ ¯ıya) (Kinitz 2018). As a religious stance, secularism is a type of freethinking becauserā itwi can (1911–1998) be to the league of mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars used to criticize dogmas and certain social and political effects of religion,who but became brackets famous through television during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is the question of belief itself. On this background, the emergence of a broaderWaǧdī trend Ġunaym of (Wagdi Ghoneim, b. 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- self-declared non-believers (la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıyun¯ ) or atheists (mulh. idun¯ ) in the 2010stian represents Muslim anBrotherhood who espoused Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. important rupture from the dominant pattern of the preceding decades. However,In the clips as thisreferenced by Kosay, he defends some of the most shocking practices re-intro- study is going to show, the emerging trends of non-belief overlap and intermingleduced by withthe so-called “Islamic State” on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence previous traditions of freethinking to a considerable extent. (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny Hence, for the sake of analytical precision, I will continue to use the term freethinking along with the terms non-belief and atheism. There is an overlap between freethinking and non-belief in the area where people profess39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about that they “have lost their faith,” “have (accessed 25 August 2020). ,do not (The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ but ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ any - prophet,” 7 ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ with ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ left religion x,” “do not believe that God communicated40 Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ explicitly declare themselves non-believers. The generichttps://www.youtube.com/ term for professedwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. non-belief in the contemporary Arab world seems to be la-d¯ ¯ın¯ıya. Asis a mentioned failure), 16 March above, 2020, its literal https:// meaningwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. is ,Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ concerning ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ stance- ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ philosophical - 1ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ a specific ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ not belonging to any religion and does not imply41 God. In modern-day usage, ilh. ad¯ is a sub-categoryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. of non-belief that corresponds to what The reasons for the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ Keysar ;ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ 2013 ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ Bullivantﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ) ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - ”atheism ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ English-language scholarship usually calls “positive42 and Navarro-Rivera 2013).3 The new atheist writersof exegesis), of the English-speaking5 May 2019, https://www. world,youtube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. such ,Why I left Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ world ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ the - Arab ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 12in - ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ well-known ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ fairly ﻣﻛﺎﻥas Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens,43 are (Jackson 2018). However, many Arab non-believershttps://www.youtube.com/wa prefer other terms to describetch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. themselves, such as agnostic (la-adr¯ ¯ı), indifferent (la-ikrit¯ a¯t¯ı), or deist (rubub¯ ¯ı). As the following ¯ analysis will show, these tendencies are significant in their own right.

3. Arab Non-Belief and Social Media As Brian Whitaker, Khaled Diab, and other chroniclers of contemporary Arab non- belief have pointed out, freethinkers and other non-conformist groups in Arab societies were early adaptors of the internet and the social media (Whitaker 2017; Diab 2017). The rapid spread of smartphones and the social media app Facebook in the Arab world has enormously facilitated this development. By the late 2000s, Atheist Facebook groups started springing up by the dozens—this is when observers ﬁrst noticed that non-belief could be a growing phenomenon in Arab societies. The transition of some activists from the relatively closed and limited sphere of blogs and social media groups to YouTube

3 According to this deﬁnition, a positive atheist is someone who holds a speciﬁc belief that there is no God or gods, while a negative atheist is someone who does not know or does not care whether a God exists. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

who became famous through television during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is 3.1. Hamed Abdel-Samad and the Freethinking Tradition Waǧdī Ġunaym (Wagdi Ghoneim, b. 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- In Germany, where Abdel-Samadtian Muslim Brotherhood has been living who since espoused 1995, Salafi-Jihadist he is a public intellec-views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. tual knownthat for different, his (self-)critical more moderate and often interpretation provocatives engagement of Islam exist with and Islam have anda broad his following, he mistrusts theIn broad the clips influence referenced of the by “bigoted” Kosay, he (muta defendsʿaṣṣib ūsomen) shaykhs of the mostin Arab shocking societies, practices re-intro- appearance in debates aboutduced the integrationby the so-called of Muslim “Islamic migrants. State” on It is the little basis known of traditional there Islamic jurisprudence that he alsoespecially runs one ofover the uneducated most successful people. Arabic-language It’s the moral outrage YouTube at channelsthe injustice covering of both the foun- (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny freethinkingdational and religious religious criticism. texts—Quran5 The channel and Hadith—and was set up inthe May conservative 2015 and hadscholars 157,000 and preachers subscriberswho as of uphold August them 2020. to Onthis this and channel, try to force Abdel-Samad them on society, has published that fuels a Kosay’s series of drive to dismiss the religious tradition altogether. 39 videos, mostly lectures by himself, entitled S. anduq¯ al-Islam¯ (“Box of Islam”), dozens of https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/aboutKosay’s attacks on religious (accessed dogma 25follow August hi s2020). personal explorations along the main .thousand views ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ hundred ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ over a - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ reached ﺇﻟﻰ have ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔwhich 40 paths of non-belief7 described above:(The textualdeceivers criticism, #7—the philosophical path towards reasoning, non-belief), and histori- 8 August 2019, village (Why imam. I left Islam #1—the story of creation ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ofa ﺗﺭﻛﺕ son ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ -as the ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ Egypt - 1 ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ Lower ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ https://www.youtube.com/Abdel-Samad was bornwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. and raised in rural cal inquiry. What is unique about his channel is Kosay’s thoughtful engagement with a Afteris a failure), studying 16 March English 2020, and https:// Frenchwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. in Cairo, he migrated to Germany, where he acquired an question that is probably quite essential to those who have lost their faith: What now? After ,Why a career I left in Islam academia. #1—the In 2009,storyhe of published creation anis a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ pursuedﺗﺭﻛﺕ and ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ -science ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ in - political1 ﻓﺷﻝ degree ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ.M.A 41 deciding to leave Islam, where do I go? What does atheism even mean and what can non- autobiographyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. entitled Mein Abschied vom Himmel (“My departure from heaven”), in which that and (Thebelievers academically reasons can’t? for the How successful, spread do Iof counter atheism but emotionally accusations and doubt in and Islamic prej- society—problemsﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ gifted ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ society ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ to ﻭ intellectually ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲas contribute an ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ believers himselfﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ portrays ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭhe 42 andof exegesis), sexually udice?5 May deeply 2019,How troubled https://www. do I sort person. outyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. my One relationship of the main wi themesth believers, of the bookboth isintellectually the desperate and emotion- ,Why and I left faith. Islam He #12—suitable is unable to findfor all peace times and and places), 21 August 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍreligion ﺗﺭﻛﺕ with ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - narrator ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ first-person - 12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ally? theﻟﻛﻝ of ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥstruggle 43 fulfilmenthttps://www.youtube.com/wa in religionIn one but of also histch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. cannotearliest stop videos, searching Kosay and take hoping.s to task “God the isarrogance not the solution and excessive in- to my loneliness.group/out-group God is my thinking loneliness”, of many he states non-believers, enigmatically, especial addingly recent that heones: envies “Atheism does people whonot can make just calmly you more state intell that theyigent “don’t or more believe educated!” in anything”44 Some (Abdel-Samad have left religion 2010, merely be- p. 286). In Germany,cause of an this emotional book propelled crisis or himbecause from it a is little-known “cool.”45 Many academic atheists, into he a warns, public have expe- figure. He appearedrienced a onsudden, television superficial as a sidekick and ill-digested to famous conversion, journalist Henryk which then Broder becomes in the a source of satirical documentaryintolerance “Entwederand bigotry. Broder—Die Here, Kosay Deutschland-Safari” echoes (self-)critical (2010/2011) tones that andare not was uncommon invited to representamong Egyptian German non-believers, Muslims in the too advisory (Schielke body 2013, “Deutsche p. 646; Andeel Islam-Konferenz” 2015). Kosay insists that by the Germanatheists interior should ministry. be the first to respect others and other opinions because the lack of intel- In parallel,lectual Abdel-Samad freedom inside also religion attempted is exactly to launch why a publicthey left career it. He in suggests Egypt. An that Arabic being a believer version of hisor not autobiography is not a matter appeared of intelligence in 2008 ( underḏakā the slightly modified title Wada¯ an ayyatuha¯ as-samaʾ : riwaya¯ (“Bye-bye, heaven—a novel”). Although he was well aware that the book was likely) but to of cause conviction furious (iqtin reactionsāʿ), and from people religious with different conservatives convictions and extremists can still respect and love each other. Still, unbelievers have something important to give because they contribute to the spread of science and logic in societies that have been intellectually stagnant for 4 During this period, Ah. mad H. arqan¯ (b. 1982), aa former long Salafisttime. from Alexandria, became a well-known face of atheism on Egyptian television— see for example his appearance on the show al-Bab¯ al-MaftOn a relatedu¯ h. , hosted note, by Im¯Kosayan¯ Ab pointsu¯ T. alib¯ onout Dream that peop TV inle June who 2014. have Available left religion online: arehttps: still in search //www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVHoR_1C2g (accessed 4 February 2021). of a worldview and an ethical orientation that they find rationally convincing and emotion- 5 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnTJcc901wCa5vZQQot8fCw/ (accessed 13 August 2020) ally appealing.46 The path toward settling on a new conviction can be long and arduous. For example, there is no teleological progression from religious belief to deism, then agnosticism, and finally positive atheism. Any of those stages is a valid intellectual stance in itself. Kosay stresses that is it important to explain these differences to religious believers as well, in order to counteract the problem that non-believers in Arab societies get lumped together indiscriminately under the label of atheism (ilḥād), which is fraught with negative connotations.47 Kosay makes a lot of effort to confront the most common preconceptions and accusations faced by non-believers and to suggest effective counter-arguments. For example, it is a common misconception (according to Kosay) that atheism and its emphasis on science leads to a materialist belief in the non-existence of God.48 In contrast, he proposes that non-believers simply place knowledge above belief and hence refuse to believe in things or theories that they do not find intellectually convincing, a stance called agnosticism (lā adrīya). When Muslim believers portray disbelief as something eccentric

The achievements of Arab atheists), 19 April 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYDIvv3Jgnw; Cf. the) ﺍﻧﺟﺎﺯﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻣﻠﺣﺩﻳﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﺭﺏ 44 observation by Anthon Jackson: “Of course, there is plenty of in-group/out-group thinking on Egyptian atheist forums, including outright mockery of what many members see as pure religious lunacy.” (Jackson 2018). ,The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019) ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 7 - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. 46 Ibid. ,Belief and unbelief and the probability of the existence of God), 5 December 2019) ﺍﻹﻳﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ ﺇﺣﺗﻣﺎﻟﻳﺔ ﻭﺟﻭﺩ ﷲ 47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hpNTYZ20ig. 48 Ibid.

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and might put his safety at risk, he opted against using a pseudonym and personally appeared on Egyptian television to present the book (Abdel-Samad 2010, p. 296). His unconditional will to break taboos and stir up discussions runs deeply through Abdel- Samad’s intellectual and personal style. The documentary film Art War (2014) by Marco Wilms shows him in 2012—at the height of Islamist influence after the 2011 revolution— walking through the streets of Cairo. He wears a T-shirt that features an image of Satan and the words (in English): “God is busy. How can I help you?” As one might expect, he ends up surrounded by a crowd of agitated young men but makes a narrow escape. In the tumultuous years of the Egyptian revolution, the courage and recklessness encapsulated in this anecdote earned him a great deal of respect from likeminded people and consolidated his reputation as a freethinker and fearless opponent of political Islam in Egypt.6 This partly explains the immediate success of his YouTube channel when it was set up in 2015. The basic idea of “Box of Islam” is simple: Most of the clips, each between 22 and 30 minutes long, are plain lectures by Abdel-Samad on a given topic within the genre of historical criticism. Its gist is to treat sacred scriptures and sacred histories—like the Qur’an, the life of Muhammad and the early Muslim community—as simple human phenomena that can be analyzed with the same tools of historical investigation as any other event. Abdel-Samad’s trademark approach is to draw on the scholarly discourses in which he is well-versed due to his religious formation in Egypt and years in German academia. He has a way of channeling high-brow academic debates into simple and provocative talking points. While his views about Islam and Muslims have often been criticized as one-sided and overly simplistic, he has always been able to justify them on the basis of commonly recognized textual readings and historical research.7 Some of the most important views that Abdel-Samad expresses in “Box of Islam” and in his books are the following: The Quran is not the word of God. “I do not believe that God ever talked to Muhammad or anyone else,” Abdel-Samad states bluntly (Abdel-Samad 2015, p. 159). He argues that its content can only be salvaged from a modern scientific and ethical perspective if it is thoroughly demystified and humanized. The Qur’an should be read as a human document that reflects the circumstances of its time and the experiences of Muhammed and the early Muslim community (Abdel-Samad 2018, pp. 208–30). The spiritual and ethical message of the Quran remains a valuable source of inspiration for Muslim believers and can be appreciated by non-Muslims as well. The leg- islative part of the Quran contains rules that constituted creative and acceptable solutions to the practical challenges of the time but are no longer valid and certainly not applicable to modern multi-religious and democratic societies. This includes Quranic injunctions concerning war and peace, the treatment of non-Muslims, women, and sexuality. Quranic passages about heaven and hell are equally problematic and only acceptable if interpreted metaphorically in the way of the mystics. According to Abdel-Samad, traditional and literal interpretations of the Quran lead more or less directly to what he labels “Islamic fascism” (al-faš¯ ¯ıya al-islam¯ ¯ıya). By Islamic fascism, Abdel-Samad means the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the Salafi movement. The choice of the term “fascism” shows Abdel-Samad’s style of adding rhetorical flourish and acuity to common talking points, in this case criticism of political Islam. Rather than staying on conventional territory, Abdel-Samad ups the ante by claiming that “fascistic ideas” are already present in early Islam and in the Quran (Box of Islam #36–43): Islam terminated religious pluralism on the Arab peninsula, demands absolute obedience from its followers, does not tolerate differing views, and aspires to world supremacy. Both Islam and fascism are “political religions” with their respective prophets, absolute truths, and propensity toward violence

6 Kacem El Ghazzali, “Kein Preis ist zu hoch für die Freiheit: Liberale Muslime kämpfen in ihren Ländern für sie, westliche Intellektuelle kapitulieren vor ihr”, NZZ, 23 May 2019, https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/muslimische-welt-aktivisten-setzen-sich-fuer-die-freiheit-ein-ld.1483682. (El Ghazzali 2019). 7 For an academic criticism of Abdel-Samad’s views see Mouhanad Khorchide’s replies in the jointly published book Islam der Islam noch zu retten? (Abdel-Samad and Khorchide 2017). Religions 2021, 12, 106 6 of 18 Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

and martyrdom (Box of Islam #36, 7:56). From the lens of cultural psychology, Abdel- Samad claims, it is obvious that Muslim societies share the same symptomsin colloquial of Syrian collective Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 2020—reads psychological disorder that plagued European societies in the ageas of follows: fascism: “Hello, narcissism, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all hu- coupled with an acute inferiority complex and paranoia (Box of Islammanist #36, 6:50).(insān Itī) isand about moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to time that Muslim societies acknowledge these problems and deal withshare them my in thoughts a self-critical about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new gen- way. eration a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have It appears that this “psychological” approach is Abdel-Samad’swhen favorite I was young.” and most39 powerful tool of religious criticism. This becomes clear in his iconoclasticKosay portrayal started his of YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an the Prophet Muhammad, which is the subject of the first twenty episodesalmost weekly of Box base of Islam through, 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remark- uploaded between June and October 2015. In the same year, Abdel-Samadable pace: published Between theFebruary and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel book Mohamed. Eine Abrechung (“Settling the Score with Muhammad”),rose from which 30,000 covers to the60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of same material. In this book, Abdel-Samad initially shows an acute100,000 interest views; in revisionist thousands of likes and mostly favorable comments show that a considera- tendencies in Western Islamic studies, which postulate that Islamicble narratives part of the about audience the is actively engaging with the content. Prophet and the early community cannot be corroborated scientificallyAccording and that to earlyhis own account, Kosay experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young Islamic history may have to be retold in a totally different way.8 However,adolescent in that the end,was hetriggered less by external changes than by lingering questions and opts for a radically different approach, which consists in taking thedoubts. Islamic40 sources Journalist at face Khaled Diab found a similar process in many of the non-believers he value, but reading them against the grain. This sudden shift awayinterviewed: from radical historical-“For a surprising number of atheists […] their abandonment of faith was, critical skepticism is explained by Abdel-Samad’s real aim, whichparadoxically, is to draw a actually life-like the product of an attempt to deepen it, understand religion better “psychological portrait” of Muhammad that reflects his deeply personalor silence disappointment the doubts in plaguing their consciences.” (Diab 2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to the Prophet. reading the Quran, hoping to find answers: didn’t people always say that it was written Abdel-Samad’s portrait goes as follows: Muhammad was a deeplyin clear, ambiguous easily understandable person Arabic? Instead, he stumbled on many verses that were who did a lot of good things but suffered from serious behavioralhard disorders to understand and mental and explain, and a great many that clashed with his own sense of logic problems. The roots of Muhammad’s torn personality lie in his difficultand morality. childhood. As he Or-was losing his faith more and more, he experienced a phase of shock, phaned at an early age and raised by strangers, he was an outsideranger, in his and own disappointment clan. Some vis-à-vis his parents and Muslim society at large: Why were even suspected that he was not a legitimate child. The deprivationsthey of his telling early us life, all which those illogical stories about God, Creation, and Revelation?41 Why were only ended with his unconventional marriage to the wealthy widowthey Khadija, lying motivated to us about his the negative sides of the Prophet and the Quran? lifelong “addiction to power and recognition” (Abdel-Samad 2015, p. 16).As Hismuch prophetical as he stresses that he was not raised in an intolerant, bigoted religious at- calling—after a relatively stable and happy period as Khadija’s husband—wasmosphere, Kosay probably expresses a strong intellectual disaffection with liberal and progressive the result of a specific type of epilepsy. However, this was not hisinterpretations only illness: he ofwas Islam. a 42 He compares those who argue that the Quran does not promote narcissist, a control freak and a paranoiac. He compulsively marriedviolence many and women hatred in his with those who propagate the “scientific miracles” found in the later life, but “he did not treat them like tyrant, but rather like a disturbedQuran: child both that approaches suffers rely on selective and entirely arbitrary interpretations that have from a fear of abandonment” (Abdel-Samad 2015, p. 16). Once he hadno tastedphilological power asor headhistorical basis. When it comes to the questions of violence towards of his community in Medina, his use of violence became unscrupulousnon-believers and excessive and eventhe subordination of women, Kosay seems convinced that the conserva- considering the standards of the time, as for example when he orderedtive and the annihilationextremist shaykhs of do have much of the textual evidence on their side. He fre- ¯ a whole Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayz.a (Abdel-Samad 2015, p. 192).quently Abdel-Samad uses “citations” further in the form of short video clips from television shaykhs—all the points out that according to the Islamic sources Muhammad condoned the killing of people way from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša who criticized him or made fun of him, for example the Jewish poet Kaʿ b b. al-Ašraf. As much as Abdel-Samad’s theses about Muhammad and the Quranrāwi (1911–1998) and Islamic to the league of mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars religion in general aim at provoking and unsettling devout Muslimswho and became forcing famous them tothrough television during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is embark on a radical re-evaluation of their beliefs, it is possible thatWa hisǧ coredī Ġ audienceunaym (Wagdi does Ghoneim, b. 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- not perceive him primarily as a non-believer or atheist. To start with,tian Muslim Abdel-Samad Brotherhood has who espoused Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. prudently never put a label on his own religious status: Is he a doubtingIn the clips and referenced struggling by Kosay, he defends some of the most shocking practices re-intro- believer who is just “angry at God and the Prophet” but willing to reconcile? Is he a duced by the so-called “Islamic State” on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence religious searcher, a spiritual person without religion or God, like some of his German (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny acquaintances whom he describes favorably in his autobiography? (Abdel-Samad 2010, pp. 17–36, 230–33) Or has he become an agnostic or an atheist? He does not say. Probably,

“freethinker” would be a fair description. This also makes sense because it is precisely the 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,with (The people deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ debates ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ at the center- 7 of ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ to beﺇﻟﻰ him ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ tradition of Arab freethinking that allows40 Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ from a variety of intellectual and religioushttps://www.youtube.com/ trends, many of whomwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. seem to appreciate him as a critical interlocutor. is a failure), 16 March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. ,Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ 41 8 He rehearses the well-known works of Michael Cook and Patricia Crone on the subject,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. but seems more familiar with the writings of the “Saarbrücken did (The not reasons for the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ probably ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ Muhammad ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊthe historical ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲthat - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ hypothesis ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭschool,” a lesser-known group of German orientalists who share between them42 the exist and that Islam originated as a Arab-Christian sect in the Levant. In spite of devotingof exegesis), a great deal 5 May of attention 2019, https://www. to the revisionists,youtube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. he ultimately dismisses their ﬁndings—which also have not been accepted widely in Western Islamic studies. ,Why I left Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 12 - ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥ 43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYrCxLumdI.

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public debates about “whether a reform of Islam is possible” and with whom he has 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,religion a common(The or God,deceivers book like some on the#7—the of samehis German matterpath acquaintancesto (Abdel-Samadwards non-belief), and Khorchide 8 August 2017 ).2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ published withoutﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ a spiritual - 7 person ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ,searcher ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 40 Why 230–33) non-believers I left Islam #1—the and some, story like of creation Mouhanad) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ,36–17 ﺗﺭﻛﺕ.are professingpp ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ,2010 - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔthese - 1 guests ﻓﺷﻝ of(Abdel-Samad ﻗﺻﺔ none ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ ?https://www.youtube.com/whom he describes favorablywatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. inSignificantly, his autobiography is a failure),Or has 16 he March become 2020, an agnostichttps://Khorchide,www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. or an atheist? Ah. mad He does Sa’d not Zayid,¯ say. Probably, and Sa ¯ıd “freethinker” Naš ¯ ¯ıd, are would even avowed Sunni Muslim believers. sense the(Why be promotioncause I left it isIslam precisely of atheism, #1—the the thetradition story main ofof aim Arabcreation of free- Abdel-Samad’s is a failure), channel 16 March seems 2020, to be ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ makes than ﺗﺭﻛﺕ alsoRather ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ This - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ fair description. - 1ﻓﺷﻝ be aﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ 41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4.thinking that allows him tothe be creation at the center of a virtualof debates “intellectual with people salon” from a for variety freethinkers of intel- from all over the Arab-speaking lectual and religious trends, many of whom seem to appreciate him as a critical interlocutor. The the Westernreasons for diaspora. the spread The of atheism aim that and Abdel-Samad doubt in Islamic shares society—problems with his guests) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭincluding ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ ,worldﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ 42 Looking at the “guest list” of Abdel-Samad’s channel, there is the Egyptian Aḥmad of exegesis), 5 May 2019, https://www.and thatyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. motivates them to collaborate with him is to demolish religious dogma and replace Saʿd Zāyid, who appears in a series of episodes in 2019, is a university lecturer and fellow doubt(Why andI left open Islam inquiry—freethinking #12—suitable for all times in its and traditional places), sense.21 August Finding 2020, an ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ with ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ certainty- ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 12 - ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥ 43 YouTuber who runs a popular channel on the “history of ideas” and calls himself a “hu- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYrCxLumdI.alternative identity and philosophical answers to existential questions outside religion, on manist.” In 2017, Abdel-Samad travelled around France and Morocco to meet a number the contrary, do not appear as a central issue. Regarding the age of Abdel-Samad and his of Maghrebian intellectuals and give them the opportunity to promote their published works. Among the peoplecircle he interviewed of guests—uniformly are Muḥammad middle-aged al-Musayyaḥ and, a historian above, thisand might be a message that has a researcher in pre-Islamicstronger and early appeal Islami amongc manuscripts,; the older secularist generations philosopher in the Arab and world. However, regarding the Amazigh activist Muḥammadsize ofʿA theṣīd, audience,Rašīd Aylā itl, author must be of consideredan iconoclastic an book important about al- current alongside the novel trends Buḫārī and his Hadith collectionof non-belief.9; and Sa Itʿ isīd alsoNāšī transformatived, whose books promote in the sense a rationalist that Abdel-Samad—if one accepts him style of Islamic faith.10 Finally,as a freethinker—has there is Mouhanad probably Khorchide, pushed professor the of boundaries Islamic theol- of Arab freethinking as far as very ogy at the University of Münsterfew people (Germany), before with him. whom11 Abdel-Samad has also held several public debates about “whetherIn one a reform of their of debates, Islam is possible” Mouhanad and Khorchide with whom asks he has Abdel-Samad, somewhat exasper- published a common bookatedly, on the “Isame really matter wonder (Abdel-Samad how you and want Khorchide to reform 2017). Islam if you at the same time hold that Significantly, none ofit these is not guests susceptible are professing to reform. non-believers Which and kind some, of offer like areMou- you trying to make to Muslims? ḥ ʿ hanad Khorchide, A madBurying Sa’d Zāyid, the prophetand Sa īd and Nāš abolishingīd, are even theavowed Quran Sunni is not Muslim reform.” While Abdel-Samad ducks believers. Rather than the promotion of atheism, the main aim of Abdel-Samad’s channel the question, an increasing number of Arab activists on the internet—especially of the seems to be the creation of a virtual “intellectual salon” for freethinkers from all over the Arab-speaking world, includingyounger the generation—have Western diaspora. beenThe aim offering that Abdel-Samad a straightforward shares answer: leave Islam and become with his guests and that motivatesa la-d¯ ¯ın¯ı (non-believer). them to collaborate with him is to demolish religious dogma and replace certainty with doubt and open inquiry—freethinking in its traditional sense. Finding an alternative3.2. identity Sherif Gaber: and philosophical Atheist and Comediananswers to existential questions outside religion, on the contrary,According do not appe to hisar as YouTube a central figures,issue. Regarding the most the successful age of creator of atheist content on Abdel-Samad and his circlethe of Arab guests—uniform internet inly the middle-aged late 2010s and is above, Sherif this Gaber might (Šar be¯ıf Gˇ abir),¯ a young Egyptian in a message that has a strongerhis twenties, appeal among who hasthe 288,000older generations subscribers in the (as Arab of August world. 2020) and whose most popular However, regarding the sizevideos of the have audience, reached it must between be considered one and an two important million current views. While Hamed Abdel-Samad alongside the novel trendssuccessfully of non-belief. boasts It is also his transforma academictive credentials in the sense and that erudition Abdel- in the field of humanities and Samad—if one accepts himsocial as a freethinker—has sciences, the rising probably star of pushed Sherif the Gaber boundaries is attributed of Arab to his ability to translate religious freethinking as far as very few people before him.11 criticism into the “language of the young people” or the “language of the streets.” Another In one of their debates, Mouhanad Khorchide asks Abdel-Samad, somewhat exasper- atedly, “I really wonder howpart you of Gaber’swant to reform fame Islam lies in if hisyou courage—althoughat the same time hold livingthat in Egypt, he appears under it is not susceptible to reform.his real Which name—and kind of offer his are well-publicized you trying to make history to Muslims? of persecution at the hands of religious 12 Burying the prophet and conservativesabolishing the Qura andn the is not Egyptian reform.” state. While EvenAbdel-Samad though ducks his videos are exclusively in Egyptian the question, an increasingArabic, number he of has Arab a circle activists of supporterson the internet—especially from around theof the globe who provide his clips with younger generation—have been offering a straightforward answer: leave Islam and become a lā-dīnī (non-believer). 9 S. ah. ¯ıh. al-Buḫar ¯ ¯ı. Nihayat¯ ust.ura¯ (“Sahih al-Bukhari—the end of a legend”), Rabat: Dar¯ al-Wat.an, 2017. 10 An expression borrowed from title of one of his books: Dal¯ıl at-tadayyun al- aqil¯ (“A Guide to rational religiosity”), Cairo: Dar¯ at-Tanw¯ır, 2017. 11 3.2. Sherif Gaber: Atheist and Comedian For portraits of previous modern Arab freethinkers like Ameen Rihani, Gamˇ ¯ıl S. idq¯ı az-Zahawi¯ and Ma ruf¯ ar-Rus.af¯ ¯ı see Coury 2018. 12 Khaled Diab,According “Egyptian to atheists: his YouTube Caught between figures, Dr the Jekyll most and successful Mr Hyde”, 24creator May 2018, of atheist http://chronikler.com/reflections/egyptian-atheists-sherif- content on gaber/the. Sherif Arab Gaber internet describes in the his late own 2010s story inis “HelpSherif Me Gaber Escape (Šar Egypt”,īf Ǧābir), 29 January a young 2019, Egyptian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXMBH5mIX0 in his . twenties, who has 288,000 subscribers (as of August 2020) and whose most popular videos

9 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī. Nihāyat usṭūra (“Sahih al-Bukhari—the end of a legend”), Rabat: Dār al-Waṭan, 2017. 10 An expression borrowed from title of one of his books: Dalīl at-tadayyun al-ʿāqil (“A Guide to rational religiosity”), Cairo: Dār at- Tanwīr, 2017. 11 For portraits of previous modern Arab freethinkers like Ameen Rihani, Ǧamīl Ṣidqī az-Zahāwi and Maʿrūf ar-Ruṣāfī see Coury 2018.

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in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 2020—reads as follows: “Hello, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all humanist (insānī) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to share my thoughts about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new generation a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have when I was young.”39 Kosay started his YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remarkable pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of 100,000 views; thousands of likes and mostly favorable comments show that a considerable part of the audience is actively engaging with the content. Religions 2021, 12, 106 8 of 18 According to his own account, Kosay experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young adolescent that was triggered less by external changes than by lingering questions and doubts.40 Journalist Khaled Diab found a similar process in many of the non-believers he subtitles in variousinterviewed: foreign languages “For a and surprising have pledged number a total of atheists of over USD[…] their 4000 abandonment monthly of faith was, on the crowdfundingparadoxically, platform Patreon actually to supportthe product his effort.of an 13attempt to deepen it, understand religion better Remarkably, whileor silence most the successful doubts plaguing YouTubers their tend conscien to publishces.” a(Diab new video2017, p. every 255). Kosay turned to one to two weeks toreading keep the the audience Quran, hoping hooked, to Gaber find answers: has only di produceddn’t people 22 videosalways since say that it was written March 2016 (Sherifin Gaber clear, n.d. easily). What understandable is it that makes Arabic? him soInstea interestingd, he stumbled to his audience? on many verses that were Gaber’s early videoshard follow to understand the usual pattern and explain, of a YouTube and a great lecture; many with that his clashed informal with style his own sense of logic of talking and theand heavy morality. use of As visual he was aids, losing cuts his from faith documentary more and more, films, he and experienced memes, a phase of shock, Gaber obviously appealsanger, and to a disappointment younger demographic vis-à-vis of his “digital parent natives”s and Muslim who expectsociety aat large: Why were presentation to be entertaining.they telling us all those illogical stories about God, Creation, and Revelation?41 Why were While Gaber’sthey talking lying points to us are about similar the negative to those ofsides all non-believersof the Prophet (science, and the history,Quran? ethics, and logic), he somewhatAs much standsas he stresses out with that a strong he was commitment not raised in to an atheism intolerant, (ilh. ad¯ bigoted) religious at- with a tendency towardmosphere, scientism Kosay and expresses materialism. a strong In one intellectua clip, forl example, disaffection he tackles with liberal the and progressive “superstition of theinterpretations soul” and offers of biological Islam.42 Heand compares chemical explanationsthose who argue to the that phenomena the Quran does not promote of human feelingsviolence and consciousness. and hatred with In a seriesthose ofwho videos propag (March–Julyate the “scientific 2016), Gaber miracles” found in the focuses on convincingQuran: the both audience approaches that it isrely not on possible selective to and reconcile entirely a scientificarbitrary world-interpretations that have view with Islam. Inno doing philological this he adopts or historical a rhetoric basis. of “shock”When it andcomes “confrontation” to the questions (uslub ¯of violence towards as.-s.adma), by whichnon-believers he juxtaposes and his the own subordination rational, scientific, of women, and humanistKosay seems point convinced of view that the conserva- to the conservative Islam of the traditional religious scholars and the Salafi preachers tive and extremist14 shaykhs do have much of the textual evidence on their side. He fre- who populate Arabquently television. uses “citations”He especially in the attacks form those of shor whot video try to clips reconcile from scientifictelevision shaykhs—all the discoveries with a conservative or scriptural reading of the Quran under the label of the way from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša “scientific miracle” (al-iʿ gˇaz¯ al- ilm¯ı), a widespread exegetical tendency in contemporary 15 Islam (Dallal 2004; Riexingerrāwi (1911–1998)2011; Bigliardi to the2017 league). Like of mostly other non-believers Saudi-Arabian on and YouTube, Egyptian Salafi scholars Gaber is confident towho be ablebecame to prove famous that through the so-called television “scientific during exegesis” the 2000s. is in One fact of pseudo- his favorite references is scientific nonsense.Wa Aǧ favoritedī Ġunaym topic (Wagdi of Gaber’s Ghoneim, in the b. field 1951), of ethicsa firebr isand the preacher subordination affiliated with the Egyp- of women and sexualtian self-determination;Muslim Brotherhood he who defends espoused gender Salafi-Jihadist equality and views the after rights the of 2013 coup in Egypt. homosexuals. HeIn also the attempts clips referenced to prove by that Kosay, violence he defends in the some name of of the religion most shocking is not a practices re-intro- problem of marginal extremists but goes back to the core teachings of Islam and have duced by the so-called “Islamic State” on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence shaped the history of Muslim societies. The deeds of the Salafi-Jihadist extremists of the (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny so-called “Islamic State,” who controlled parts of Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2017, are according to Gaber not an aberration from but a true reflection of Islamic law.16

What is unique about Sherif Gaber is the use of comedy and satire as a means of 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,of non-belief. (The deceivers In several #7—the short plays,path Gabertowards stages non-belief), fictitious 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ the7 message - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ transportingﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 40 Why One I video left Islam of this #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ .characters ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ -all ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ he impersonates ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ https://www.youtube.com/conversations aboutwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. religion in which is a failure),kind, 16 “SecularMarch 2020, or https:// Islamicwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. [state]?” features a bearded and turbaned Salafist, an average ,Why a bigoted I left Coptic Islam Christian,#1—the story and aof sophisticated creation is a upper- failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ,Muslim ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - lower-class ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ uneducatedﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ 41 17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4.class intellectual discussing the notion of secularism. Another video called “A Muslim 18 TheMuslim reasons yuqabil ¯for the All ah¯spread f¯ı yawm of atheism al-Qiy ama¯and), doubtis Gaber’s in Islamic society—problems)) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ ”Judgement ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭDay of ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ on the ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ God ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - meetsﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ 42 of exegesis),most 5 May popular 2019, productionhttps://www. soyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. far with over two million views. Gaber impersonates an ,Muslim, (Why whose I left Islam confidence #12—suitable is not impaired for all times by his and limited places), 21 August 2020ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - dumb-witted ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ decidedly - 12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ ,averageﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥ 43 https://www.youtube.com/waknowledge about histch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. religion. He has just died unexpectedly and now arrives at the gates of heaven. There he meets a bossy guardian angel and runs into trouble because the Judgement turns out to be different than he expects. For example, the angel has apparently

13 See https://www.patreon.com/SherifGaber (accessed on 9 September 2020). Patreon is mostly used by artists and producers of creative internet content in order to invite donations and subscriptions by their audience. Although other YouTube activists of non-religion also use Patreon, Gaber so far seems the only one who earns a significant amount of money through it. 14 Deutsche Welle Arabic, Shabab Talk, 14.06.2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLBwgBs6oZc, 28:22. 15 á Ì (The fable of the miraculous scientific accuracy of the embryology of the Qur‘an) 25 April 2016, https://www. à@Q®Ë@ ú ¯ Jm. '@ áK ñºK PAj. «@ é¯@Qk youtube.com/watch?v=qQXjyuxpNdE (Are the “pegs of the mountains” a scientific miracle?) 2 May 2016, https: ?ùÒÊ« PAj . «@ ÈAJ.m.Ì'@ XAKð@ Éë //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IAPPvDs8qg . 16 (Does ISIS represent Islam?), 5 September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKYLS6XOxs0. ÐCB @ÉJÖß «@X Éë 17 (Secular or Islamic?), 28 October 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db56vgzAsc8. ? éJ ÓC@ Bð éJ KAÒÊ« 18 éÓAJ ®Ë@ ÐñK é<Ë@ ÉK.A®K ÕÎÓ(A Muslim meets God on Judgement Day) 28 January 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1AKpD49KmQ. Religions 2021, 12, 106 9 of 18

never heard about the famous Hadith that whoever says “There is no God but God” will be allowed to enter paradise right away. Instead, he demands proof of good deeds. A third video of the same type features two men trying to convince an atheist to join their monotheistic religion based on worship of the God “Renos” and his friend “H. amada”¯ 19 (a common nickname for “Muh. ammad”). The conversation passes through the expected points of discussion between devout Muslims and non-believers. The atheist refuses to believe in a God whom nobody has ever seen and who cannot be described in rational terms. He suspects that the Prophet H. amada¯ might have written the Book himself, considering that nobody was there when he first received it and that parts of it read like an expression of his whims and desires.20 The believers then contend that the Book’s beauty and wisdom proves its authenticity and has persuaded “400 Russians and 67 North Koreans” to join the Religion. However, the atheist remains unimpressed and points out that the Book contains plenty of illogical and unscientific sentences. Next, the believers contend that atheism is a materialistic worldview that does not recognize any moral rules, while the atheist retorts that reason provides a sufficient foundation for morality. Finally, the discussion reaches the issue of creation. The atheist contends that the existence of the world does not logically presuppose the existence of a God who created it, even less so of a God who “loves and hates” like human beings. Sherif Gaber’s plays are open to interpretations on different levels. As any type of comedy and satire, they work with the tools of exaggeration and innuendo and play with the repressed emotions and taboos of the audience.21 The open blasphemy involved Gaber’s portrayal of the Judgement Day and the “Renos and H. amada”¯ parody is a tool of provoca- tion that has much in common with Abdel-Samad’s irreverent portrayal of the Prophet, but the theatrical enactment gives it an additional edge. Gaber’s believing critics—who are at least as numerous and vocal as his supporters—correctly point out that the religious types he impersonates and the things they say about religion are grotesque caricatures that do not represent a deeper understanding of Islam.22 Indeed, one might question whether Gaber’s stark juxtaposition of various figures representing his own atheistic point of view and a parade of devout morons and bigots can deliver an intellectually compelling criticism of Islam as such. Needless to say, the atheist always easily wins the argument. On a different level, Gaber’s satire can also be read as a biting commentary on so- cially existing religion, in which case it becomes hard to deny that his figures—however exaggerated—are taken from real life in Egypt and the Arab world. People like them can be witnessed in religious debates on television on a frequent basis, and they constitute a constant source of anxiety for Arab non-believers who are considering to “come out” about their non-belief.23 On this background, they can easily relate to the scenes enacted by Gaber. For the non-believers who make up his large group of fans and admirers, Gaber’s plays have a potential of catharsis and self-assurance: First, they allow them to have a good laugh about social situations that are filled with awkwardness and anxiety in their own imagination or experience. Second, they symbolically reverse the balance of power, which is heavily tilted in favor of the religious conservatives in real life (Jackson 2018; Diab 2017, pp. 244–93; Whitaker 2017; Schielke 2013, p. 647). In Sherif Gaber’s parallel universe, the atheist confidently deflects the arguments and threats of the believers and proves his own

19 . (A sheykh calls an atheist to the veneration of a deity) 19 February 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG6 éËB @ èXAJ.« úÍ@ YjÊÓ ñ«YK qJ 4EUUxOj4. 20 A somewhat distorted allusion to the story of Zaynab bint Gaˇ h. š, which is frequently mentioned by Arab non-believers, cf. (Abdel-Samad 2015, pp. 127–32). According to the Quran (Q 33:37), God personally decreed Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab, thereby changing the rule that Muslims could not marry the former wives of their adopted sons. 21 For a more detailed analysis of the use of humour among Arab atheists, see the contribution of Lena Richter in this special issue. 22 For example, Ahmad Buhayr¯ı. { !} (07) (“Know it with your intellect” (7) A sheykh calls an atheist to . . É®ªËAK. èñ¯Q« Yg@ñË@ éËB @ èXAJ.« úÍ@ YjÊÓ ñ«YK qJ the veneration of a deity). 24 March 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkIifQdSjKA. 23 According to numerous accounts collected by journalists, non-believers face hostile reactions from relatives, friends, and acquaintances on a daily basis, and many more have probably been choosing to keep their real convictions to themselves. See (Jackson 2018; Whitaker 2017, pp. 77–98; Diab 2017, pp. 244–93). Religions 2021, 12, 106 10 of 18

intellectual and moral superiority. Even Heaven is on the side of the non-believers: In the Judgement Day scenario, it turns out that God has just been watching a video of Carl Sagan, an American science popularizer with avowedly naturalist and agnostic convictions—and He enjoyed it greatly!24

3.3. Adam Elmasri: A Deist Alternative to Atheism? While the shock-and-confrontation style of Hamed Abdel-Samad and Sherif Gaber is probably one of the keys to their social media fame, there are other paths to success as well. On the basis of the well-known accounts of Arab Atheism, the Egyptian Adam Elmasri (a pseudonym), may appear as a rather untypical Arab non-believer. He was not born into Islam, but into Coptic Christianity, and he does not declare himself an atheist (mulh. ¯ıd), but describes his own beliefs as deist (rubub¯ ¯ı). Since the start of his YouTube channel in October 2017, he has been able to gather an audience of over 60,000 subscribers, and more than a dozen of his videos have crossed the threshold of 100,000 views. Thousands of favorable comments and questions under his videos also reveal that his message motivates a high degree of engagement among his audience. From his videos, it is possible to put together a fairly detailed intellectual and religious biography of Adam Elmasri. Doubtless, Adam’s ability to verbalize and explain the com- Religions 2021, 12plex, x FOR intellectual PEER REVIEW and emotional process of becoming an unbeliever is one of the strengths 7 of 20 of the channel. Adam was born in the late 1970s in Cairo and grew up in Egypt as a Coptic Orthodox Christian.25 He describes his former self as a committed believer who enjoyed mass and spiritualsearcher, retreats a spiritual at monasteries person without (a common religion or practice God, like among some of Coptic his German Orthodox acquaintances believers) and livedwhom hishe describes daily life favorably “in the in company his autobiography? of Jesus (Abdel-Samad Christ.” As an2010, adolescent, pp. 17–36, 230–33) he became engagedOr has in he religious become an dialogue agnostic or and an acquiredatheist? He a does great not deal say. ofProbably, knowledge “freethinker” about would Islam through readingbe a fair and description. attending This discussion also makes groups sense be withcause Muslims. it is precisely He the graduated tradition fromof Arab free- college in Egyptthinking and worked that allows for a him while to be as at a the graphics center of designer. debates with Adam’s people departure from a variety from of intel- Christianity onlylectual occurred and religious after he trends, migrated many from of whom Egypt seem to a to Western appreciate country him as ata critical the age interlocutor. of 27.26 He had alreadyLooking reached at histhe thirties“guest list” when, of Abdel-Samad’s after enrolling channel, in a humanities-based there is the Egyptian BA Aḥmad program of BiblicalSaʿd Studies,Zāyid, who he appears came to in realize a series that of episodes “religions in 2019, are justis a university a human lecturer invention and fellow and that there isYouTuber no such thingwho runs as revelation.” a popular channel Adam on describes the “history his departureof ideas” and from calls religion himself a “humanist.” In 2017, Abdel-Samad travelled around France and Morocco to meet a number as intellectually liberating—stressing the enlightening effect of philosophical reasoning of Maghrebian intellectuals and give them the opportunity to promote their published and scientific knowledge—but also as emotionally painful. works. Among the people he interviewed are Muḥammad al-Musayyaḥ, a historian and In several videos,researcher Adam in pre-Islamic explains whyand rejectingearly Islami religionc manuscripts,; has not turnedsecularist him philosopher into an and atheist stricto sensuAmazigh. He describesactivist Mu himselfḥammad as ʿA aṣīld,a-d¯ Raš¯ın¯ıī,d someoneAylāl, author who of does an iconoclastic not follow book any about al- religion, and a deistBu (rubub¯ ¯ı), a believer in some sort of “first mover” (musabbib awwal) or creating force (quwa ḫaliqa ).27 Some of his educational videos describe Adam’s open-ended search for alternativeā philosophicalrī and his Hadith ways collection of thinking9; and aboutSaʿīd N God.āšīd,28 whoseA major books reference promote seems a rationalist to be the best-sellingstyle of “Conversations Islamic faith.10 Finally, with God” there series is Mouhanad by American Khorchide, author professor Neale of Donald Islamic theology at the University of Münster (Germany), with whom Abdel-Samad has also held several public debates about “whether a reform of Islam is possible” and with whom he has published a common book on the same matter (Abdel-Samad and Khorchide 2017). Significantly, none of these guests are professing non-believers and some, like Mou- hanad Khorchide, Aḥmad Sa’d Zāyid, and Saʿīd Nāšīd, are even avowed Sunni Muslim believers. Rather than the promotion of atheism, the main aim of Abdel-Samad’s channel 24 . (A Muslim meets God on Judgement Day) 28 January 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1AKpD49KmQ, 13:40. éÓAJ ®Ë@ ÐñK é<Ë@ ÉK.A®K ÕÎÓ seems to be the creation of a virtual “intellectual salon” for freethinkers from all over the 25 ( ) . (Who is Adam el-Masry (formerly known as ‘the ø QåÖÏ@ ÐX@ ñë áÓ A®K.A IkAJ.ËAK. ¬ðQªÖÏ@ ?àAK XB@ Ñk. AîArab-speakingE ú æË@ èAJ®Ë@ èYë @ XAÖworld,Ïð including the Western diaspora. The aim that Abdel-Samad shares Searcher’) and why this channel that attackswith the his religions?) guests and that 8 Aprilmotivates 2018, them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1WuH0 to collaborate with him is to demolish religious 6qFhA; . (A must-watch video for every Christian who iJ ÖÏ@ ¼QK Am ¬QªK ð@ àAÖß B @ ¼QK újJ Ó É¾Ëdogma éKYëA andÓ áÓreplace YK.B ñK certaintyYJ ¯ with doubt and open inquiry—freethinking in its traditional left belief or knowns anyone who left Christ),sense. Finding 20 September an alternative 2018, identityhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwHukFZbUEs and philosophical answers to existential questions Ì á outside religion,(In Seven on Years—a the contrary, comment do onnot the appe journeyar as ofa central some atheists issue. Regarding and why they the age of XAm B @ ú Í@ @ñîDK@@XAÖÏð áK YjÊÖÏ@ ªK. éÊgP úÎ« J ÊªK- J ©J. ú ¯ ended up with atheism), 11 February 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MByY2ilG08Abdel-Samad and his circle of guests—uniform. ly middle-aged and above, this might be 26 Adam Elmasri, video-interview with the author, 16 Augusta message 2020. that has a stronger appeal among the older generations in the Arab world. 27 (How the moralHowever, argument regarding for the existencethe size ofof Godthe fallsaudience, short), 25it must February be considered 2020, https://www.youtube. an important current é<Ë@ Xñk. ð HAJ .K@ á« éJ ¯CgB@ éj. mÌ'@ Qj . ªK J » com/watch?v=fWhj_m5-dnU. alongside the novel trends of non-belief. It is also transformative in the sense that Abdel- Samad—if one accepts him as a freethinker—has probably pushed the boundaries of Arab 28 At the beginning of his YouTube career, he used the pseudonym al-ba¯hit (“searcher”), probably a deliberate double-entendre between the two freethinking as far. ¯ as very few people before him.11 meanings of the Arabic term bah. t: religious-spiritual search and scientific research. ¯ In one of their debates, Mouhanad Khorchide asks Abdel-Samad, somewhat exasper- atedly, “I really wonder how you want to reform Islam if you at the same time hold that it is not susceptible to reform. Which kind of offer are you trying to make to Muslims? Burying the prophet and abolishing the Quran is not reform.” While Abdel-Samad ducks the question, an increasing number of Arab activists on the internet—especially of the younger generation—have been offering a straightforward answer: leave Islam and become a lā-dīnī (non-believer).

3.2. Sherif Gaber: Atheist and Comedian According to his YouTube figures, the most successful creator of atheist content on the Arab internet in the late 2010s is Sherif Gaber (Šarīf Ǧābir), a young Egyptian in his twenties, who has 288,000 subscribers (as of August 2020) and whose most popular videos

Religions 2021, 12, 106 11 of 18

Walsch, who is considered a representative of New Age or non-religious spirituality.29 Quite different in style are a number of carefully produced “short films” that highlight the emotional, personal side of non-belief and the search for answers to existential questions.30 Considering the effort that must have gone into them, they seem to be closest to Adam’s heart and personal aspiration. However, regarding the number of views and comments, his audience clearly prefers Adam in his role as a hard-hitting, witty and academically informed critic of religious dogma. Most of his videos, as well as his most popular ones fall into this category. Their general style is that of an educational lecture, but Adam Elmasri’s eloquent rhetorical style and consistent use of colloquial Egyptian Arabic also inspire a degree of informality. Adam’s videos are split between those attacking specific Christian and Islamic dogmas, such as the resurrection of Christ or the inimitability of the Quran, and those that criticize teachings that are in some way common to Islam and Christianity. Adam’s treatment of Christianity is clearly focused on the Egyptian context and goes right to the core of the most commonly held religious beliefs and practices among Coptic Orthodox Christians (Voile 2004; Heo 2018). In one of the first videos of this kind, he challenges the claim of the Coptic Orthodox Church that it has preserved the authentic original doctrine of Christianity. He describes the large variety of Christian teachings from the very beginning and argues that, from a scientific point of view, there is no such thing as the original Christian doctrine.31 Even the compilation of the Gospel, he argues, was subject to a great deal of historical accident. Subsequently, Adam Elmasri published a series of clips that challenge and debunk “Christian miracles”: the widely celebrated Marian apparitions in Zaytun¯ (1968) and in other places across Egypt; the Holy Fire miracle experienced by Orthodox Christians every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; miracles of healing attributed to the Virgin Mary or famous Arab Christian saints.32 In addition to this, Adam’s channel also offers a series of more scholarly lectures on the history of Christianity. While Adam originally started out with the aim of offering a rationalist and historical- critical commentary on Orthodox Christianity and an introduction to non-belief, he quickly got drawn into the already raging YouTube rivalry between propagandists of Islam, mostly of the Salafi tendency, and Arab non-believers. His commentary on Islam was triggered by audience reactions and debates, rather than by a pre-conceived agenda.33 In his replies to viewers who welcome his radical criticism of Christianity and use it as an occasion to

29 ½KAJ k Q ªK Y¯ - éK QåJ.Ë@ t' PAK ú¯ Ñëð Q.»@ - ÈA®KB@ Ñëð. (The illusion of separation—the biggest illusion in the history of mankind—this might change your life) 18 May 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0da6P6sn4k; (A journey within the mind of God—first episode—how does God ? éK@X á« ºK Éëð éËB @ É@ñJK J » - úÍðB@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - éËB @É®« ú¯ éÊgP communicate and how does he reveal himself?), 13 December 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1euaBn_VdHo. 30 (The atheist believer—a short film about the right belief), 13 August 2018, iJ jË@ àAÖß B @ á« Q ¯ ÕÎ J¯ - YjÊÖÏ@ áÓ ñÖÏ@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZF7MdygR6g. - Q ¯ ÕÎ J¯ - èAJ mÌ'@ ¼Q Circus of Life—Short film. 25 July 2019; . (A new experience—rescue for everyone who struggles with àAK XB@ áÓ h. ðQjÊË ½Ë@ éÊgP ©Ó é«@Qå ú¯ úGAªK áÓ É¾Ë - èAg. AJÓ - èYK Yg. éK.Qm.' their journey of doubt towards leaving religions), 16 September 2019; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeFs0qB5i38. 31 ( ) (The greatest illusion in the history of early Christianity and the proprer apos- úÍñQË@ àAÖß B @ð éJ j ÖÏ@ èA t' PAK ú¯ Ñëð Q.»@ úæ»XñKPB@ Õæ ®JÖÏ@ tolic/orthodox faith), 6 November 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vTg8kodW0 ; 32 é¯@QmÌ'@ð ©¯@ñË@ á K. Ñ¢®ÖÏ@ ÉJ.k. É®K èQj . ªÓ - úÍðB@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - éJ j ÖÏ@ H@ Qj . ªÓ » (Unveiling the miracles of Christianity—first episode—the miracle of the displacement of the Muqattam hills between reality and fable), 27 December 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=SfU73PA5cIE. ?¨@Yg Ð@ èQj . ªÓ ,Z@PYªË@ H@Pñê £ - éJ KA JË@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - éJ j ÖÏ@ H@ Qj . ªÓ » (Unveiling the miracles of Christianity—second episode—are the apparitions of the Virgin Mary miracles or deceit?), 17 January 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= pEbKhAJsT60. PñJË@ I . é¯@Qk Y®ÖÏ@ PñJË@ Ñëð - éJËA JË@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - éJ j ÖÏ@ H@ Qj . ªÓ » (Unveiling the miracles of Christianity—third episode— the illusion of the holy light on the ‘Saturday of Light’) 18 April 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdFm8BhD29E. ZA®Ë@ H@ Qj . ªÓ - éªK.@QË@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - éJ j ÖÏ@ H@ Qj . ªÓ » (Unveiling the miracles of Christianity—fourth episode—miracles of healing), 4 September 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZCEDk_F4w. 33 Adam Elmasri, video-interview with the author, 16 August 2020. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

but only requires us to “live together in human kindness.”38 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 40 3.4. Kosay Betar: Agnosticism and the Question of Coexistence 7 (The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019, Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0 A shared characteristic between Adamis a failure), Elmasri 16 ( AdamMarch Elmasri2020, https:// n.d.www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4.) and Kosay Betar ,late 2010s,(Why I is left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ the ﺗﺭﻛﺕ of ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ﬁgure - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ YouTube1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ emerging ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ Qus.ayy B¯ıt.ar)¯ (Kosay Betar n.d.), another41) the more nuanced approach towards beliefhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. and unbelief that does not construe them as The He reasons for the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ .country ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ a Western ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ in ﻓﻲ lives ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ who ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ twenties ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭpolar opposites. Kosay is a Syrian42 in his describes himself as a self-taught “agnostic”of exegesis), (la-adr¯ ¯ı )5 withoutMay 2019, any https://www. claim to philosophicalyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. or ,Why I left Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ conversationsﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﬁctional ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ lectures - 12 and ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ entertaining ﻣﻛﺎﻥacademic erudition. His videos consist43 in in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-descriptionhttps://www.youtube.com/wa of his channel—as oftch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. August 2020—reads as follows: “Hello, I’m Qus.ay B¯ıt.ar¯ from Damascus, Syria. [ ... ] I love and respect all humanist (insan¯ ¯ı) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to share my thoughts about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new generation a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have when I was young.”39 Kosay started his YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remarkable pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to

34 In a nutshell: (Why I did not embrace Islam and consider the Qur’an), 19 November 2018, https://www.youtube. ?à@Q®ËAK. Q.J«@ ÕËð ÐCB @ JJ«@ ÕË @XAÖÏ com/watch?v=t4NQQyI_VdY. 35 Adam Elmasri, video-interview with the author, 16 August 2020. In a study on controversies about Islam on YouTube, Ahmed Al-Rawi(2017) notes that—across political and language barriers—the YouTube audience is strongly polarized and divided into mutually antagonistic camps: Muslims vs. Western Islamophobes, Sunni vs. Shia Muslims, and Arab Muslims vs. Arab Christians. This explains why people would wrongly pigeonhole voices with a more nuanced or previously unknown message. 36 (The legend of the Deluge—in case the theory of evolution is a mis- ? éK ðAÒË@ I. JºË@ð àAK XB@ i Éê¯ A¢k Pñ¢JË@ éK Q¢ I KA¿ à@ - àA¯ñ¢Ë@ èPñ¢@ take, does that mean the religions and their Holy Books are right?), 2 January 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug0-Pm-NZOE. ( ) (How the invention of the person of Satan/the devil developed and on its origin éJ m ¨@Qg@ Pñ¢ J » ÊK. @ éJ ÒJ ë@QK.B @ HAKAK YË@ ú¯ éÊ@ ð àA¢J Ë@ in the Abrahamic religions), 7 February 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwZkjxGPN30. 37 (God does not want this—ﬁrst episode—marriage and divorce), 25 October 2019, https://www.youtube. C¢Ë@ð h. @ðQË@ - úÍðB@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - èY» QK A« AJK.P com/watch?v=uqMifRoYfQo. 38 (God does not want this—ﬁrst episode—marriage and divorce) 25 October 2019, https://www.youtube. C¢Ë@ð h. @ðQË@ - úÍðB@ é®ÊmÌ'@ - èY» QK A« AJK.P com/watch?v=uqMifRoYfQo. 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 2020—reads as follows: “Hello, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all humanist (insānī) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to share my thoughts about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new generation a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have when I was young.”39 Kosay started his YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an Religions 2021, 12, 106 13 of 18 almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remarkable pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of his channel rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many100,000 of his recentviews; videosthousands have of passedlikes and the mostly favorable comments show that a considera- threshold of 100,000 views; thousands of likes and mostlyble part favorable of the audience comments is active showly that engaging a with the content. considerable part of the audience is actively engaging withAccording the content. to his own account, Kosay experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young According to his own account, Kosay experiencedadolescent a gradual that losswas oftriggered faith as aless young by external changes than by lingering questions and adolescent that was triggered less by external changesdoubts. than40 Journalist by lingering Khaled questions Diab fo andund a similar process in many of the non-believers he doubts.40 Journalist Khaled Diab found a similar processinterviewed: in many “For of thea surprising non-believers number he of atheists […] their abandonment of faith was, interviewed: “For a surprising number of atheistsparadoxically, [ ... ] their abandonment actually the ofproduct faith was, of an attempt to deepen it, understand religion better paradoxically, actually the product of an attempt toor deepen silence it,the understand doubts plaguing religion their better consciences.” (Diab 2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to or silence the doubts plaguing their consciences.”reading (Diab 2017 the ,Quran, p. 255). hoping Kosay to turned find answers: to didn’t people always say that it was written reading the Quran, hoping to find answers: didn’tin people clear, alwayseasily understandable say that it was writtenArabic? Instead, he stumbled on many verses that were in clear, easily understandable Arabic? Instead, hehard stumbled to understand on many and verses explain, that and were a great many that clashed with his own sense of logic hard to understand and explain, and a great many thatand clashedmorality. with As hishe was own losing sense his of logic faith more and more, he experienced a phase of shock, and morality. As he was losing his faith more andanger, more, heand experienced disappointment a phase vis-à-vis of shock, his parents and Muslim society at large: Why were anger, and disappointment vis-à-vis his parents andthey Muslim telling societyus all those at large: illogical Why stories were about God, Creation, and Revelation?41 Why were 41 they telling us all those illogical stories about God,they Creation, lying andto us Revelation? about the negativeWhy were sides of the Prophet and the Quran? they lying to us about the negative sides of the ProphetAs and much the Quran? as he stresses that he was not raised in an intolerant, bigoted religious at- As much as he stresses that he was not raisedmosphere, in an intolerant, Kosay expresses bigoted a religiousstrong intellectual disaffection with liberal and progressive atmosphere, Kosay expresses a strong intellectual disaffectioninterpretations with of liberal Islam. and42 He progressive compares those who argue that the Quran does not promote 42 interpretations of Islam. He compares those whoviolence argue that and the hatred Quran doeswith notthose promote who propagate the “scientific miracles” found in the violence and hatred with those who propagate theQuran: “scientific both approaches miracles” rely found on inselective the and entirely arbitrary interpretations that have Quran: both approaches rely on selective and entirelyno philological arbitrary interpretations or historical basis. that have When it comes to the questions of violence towards no philological or historical basis. When it comes tonon-believers the questions and of violence the subordination towards non- of women, Kosay seems convinced that the conserva- believers and the subordination of women, Kosaytive seems and convinced extremist that shaykhs the conservative do have much of the textual evidence on their side. He fre- and extremist shaykhs do have much of the textualquently evidence uses on “citations” their side. in He the frequently form of short video clips from television shaykhs—all the uses “citations” in the form of short video clips from television shaykhs—all the way way from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawall¯ı Šaʿ rawi¯ (1911–1998) to the league of mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars whor becameāwi (1911–1998) famous through to the league television of mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars ˙ during the 2000s. One of his favorite references iswho Wa gdbecameˇ ¯ı Gunaym famous (Wagdi through Ghoneim, television b. during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the EgyptianWaǧ Muslimdī Ġunaym Brotherhood (Wagdi Ghoneim, who espoused b. 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt.tian In Muslim the clips Brotherhood referenced bywho Kosay, espoused he Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. defends some of the most shocking practices re-introducedIn the clips by referenced the so-called by “Islamic Kosay, he State” defends some of the most shocking practices re-intro- on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners duced by the so-called “Islamic State” on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny that different, more moderate interpretations (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny of Islam exist and have a broad following, he mistrusts the broad influence of the “bigoted” (muta assibun¯ ) shaykhs in Arab societies, especially over uneducated people. It’s the moral . . outrage at the injustice of both the foundational religious texts—Quran and Hadith—and 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,to this and(The try deceivers to force them#7—the on path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ them ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ who - uphold7 ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ and preachers ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ the conservative scholars40 Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ .society, that fuels Kosay’shttps://www.youtube.com/ drive to dismiss the religiouswatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. tradition altogether Kosay’s attacks onis religious a failure), dogma 16 March follow 2020, his https:// personalwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. explorations along the main ,Why reasoning, I left Islam and #1—the his- story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕphilosophical ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ,criticism ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ textual 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ :above ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ paths of non-belief described41 torical inquiry. What is uniquehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. about his channel is Kosay’s thoughtful engagement with their (The faith: reasons What for now?the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ lost ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ have ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ who ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ to those ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ -essential ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ quite ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ a question that is probably42 After deciding to leaveof Islam, exegesis), where 5 May do I2019, go? https://www. What doesyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. atheism even mean and what ,do I(Why counter I left accusations Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020 ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ How ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ?can’t - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ that - believers12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝ society ﺯﻣﺎﻥ to ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥ can non-believers contribute43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYrCxLumdI.

40 7 - (The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOs5 é®ÊmÌ'@ àñ¢ËAªÖÏ@ éJ K XCË@ úÍ@ K Q¢Ë@ XIEhZ0. 1 - (Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020, https://www.youtube. é®ÊmÌ'@ - ÐCB @ I»QK@XAÖÏ ÊmÌ'@ é¯ É¯ com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. 41 1 - (Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch? é®ÊmÌ'@ - ÐCB @ I»QK@XAÖÏ ÊmÌ'@ é¯ É¯ v=fZMFZvKPjX4. 42 (The reasons for the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems of Q ®JË@ É¿AÓ - ú×CB @ ©ÒJj. ÖÏ@ ú¯ ½J ºË@ ð XAmÌB @PAK@ H. AJ.@ exegesis), 5 May 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40 . 43 12 - (Why I left Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020, https://www.youtube. é®ÊmÌ'@ - ÐCB @ I»QK@XAÖÏ àA¾Ó ð àAÓP É¾Ë lÌ'A com/watch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience14 has of been20 increasing at a remarkable pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of 100,000 views; thousands of likes and mostly favorable comments show that a considera- that different, more moderateble part interpretation of the audiences of Islam is active existly andengaging have awith broad the following, content. he mistrusts the broad influenceAccording of the “bigoted” to his own (muta account,ʿaṣṣibūn )Kosay shaykhs experienced in Arab societies, a gradual loss of faith as a young especially over uneducatedadolescent people. It’s that the was moral triggered outrage less at the by injustice external of changes both the than foun- by lingering questions and dational religious texts—Qurandoubts. and40 JournalistHadith—and Khaled the conservative Diab found ascholars similar andprocess preachers in many of the non-believers he who uphold them to this andinterviewed: try to force “For them a surprisingon society, number that fuels of Kosay’s atheists drive […] theirto dis- abandonment of faith was, miss the religious traditionparadoxically, altogether. actually the product of an attempt to deepen it, understand religion better Kosay’s attacks on religiousor silence dogma the doubtsfollow hiplaguings personal their explorations consciences.” along (Diab the main2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to paths of non-belief describedreading above: the textual Quran, cr iticism,hoping philosophical to find answers: reasoning, didn’t peopleand histori- always say that it was written cal inquiry. What is uniquein aboutclear, easilyhis channe understandablel is Kosay’s Arabic?thoughtful Instea engagementd, he stumbled with aon many verses that were question that is probably quite essential to those who have lost their faith: What now? After Religions 2021, 12, 106 hard to understand and explain,14 of 18 and a great many that clashed with his own sense of logic deciding to leave Islam, whereand morality.do I go? What As he does was atheismlosing his even faith mean more and and what more, can he non- experienced a phase of shock, believers contribute to societyanger, that and believers disappointment can’t? How vis-à-vis do I counter his parent accusationss and Muslimand prej- society at large: Why were udice? How do I sort out mythey relationship telling us all wi thoseth believers, illogical both stories intellectually about God, and Creation, emotion- and Revelation?41 Why were and prejudice? How do I sortally? out my relationship withthey believers, lying bothto us intellectuallyabout the negative and sides of the Prophet and the Quran? emotionally? In one of his earliest videos,As much Kosay as take he stressess to task that the he arrogance was not raandised excessive in an intolerant, in- bigoted religious at- In one of his earliest videos,group/out-group Kosay takes thinking to taskmosphere, theof many arrogance non-believers, Kosay and expresses excessive especial a strong in-ly recent intellectua ones:l “Atheismdisaffection does with liberal and progressive 44 group/out-group thinking ofnot many make non-believers, you more intell especiallyigentinterpretations or recent more ones: educated!” of Islam. “Atheism42 He Some does compares have leftthose religion who argue merely that be- the Quran does not promote 44 45 not make you more intelligentcause or more of educated!”an emotionalSome crisisviolence haveor because left and religion ithatred is “cool.” merely withbecause Manythose atheists,who propag he warns,ate the have “scientific expe- miracles” found in the 45 of an emotional crisis or becauserienced it is “cool.”a sudden,Many superficial atheists,Quran: and he ill-digestedboth warns, approaches have conversion, experienced rely on which selective then and becomes entirely a source arbitrary of interpretations that have a sudden, superficial and ill-digestedintolerance conversion, and bigotry. which Here,no then philological Kosay becomes echoes a or source historical(self-)critical of intoler- basis. tones When that it are comes not uncommonto the questions of violence towards ance and bigotry. Here, Kosayamong echoes Egyptian (self-)critical non-believers, tonesnon-believers that too are (Schielke not uncommonand the 2013, subordination p. among 646; Andeel of women,2015). Kosay Kosay insists seems that convinced that the conserva- Egyptian non-believers, too (Schielkeatheists 2013 should, p. 646;be the Andeel firsttive to2015 respectand). Kosay extremist others insists and shaykhs that other atheists doopinions have much because of thethe textuallack of intel-evidence on their side. He fre- should be the first to respectlectual others freedom and other inside opinions religionquently because is exactly uses the “citations” lackwhy ofthey intellectual leftin the it. Heform suggests of shor thatt video being clips a believer from television shaykhs—all the freedom inside religion is exactly why they left it. He suggests that being a believer or not or not is not a matter of intelligenceway from (theḏak conservativeā Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša is not a matter of intelligence (daka¯ʾ ) but of conviction (iqtina¯ ), and people with different ¯ ʿ convictions can still respect and love) but each of conviction other. Still, (iqtin unbelieversāʿ),r āandwi (1911–1998)people have something with todifferent the impor- league convictions of mostly can Saudi-Arabian still respect and and Egyptian Salafi scholars tant to give because they contributelove each to the other. spread Still, of unbelievers sciencewho and became have logic some infamous societiesthing through important that have television to give during because the they 2000s. contrib- One of his favorite references is been intellectually stagnant forute a longto the time. spread of scienceWa andǧd logicī Ġunaym in societ (Wagdiies that Ghoneim, have been b. 1951),intellectually a firebr andstagnant preacher for affiliated with the Egyp- On a related note, Kosaya long points time. out that people whotian Muslim have left Brotherhood religion are who still es inpoused Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. search of a worldview and an ethicalOn a related orientation note, thatKosayIn they the points clips find out rationallyreferenced that peop convincingbyle who Kosay, have he left defends religion some are ofstill the in mostsearch shocking practices re-intro- and emotionally appealing.46 The path toward settling on a new conviction can be long of a worldview and an ethicalduced orientation by the so-calledthat they “Islamicfind rationally State” convincing on the basis and of emotion- traditional Islamic jurisprudence and arduous. For example, there is no teleological46 progression from religious belief to ally appealing. The path (towardfiqh), such settling as the on enslavement a new conviction of prisoners can be oflong war. and43 Evenarduous. though Kosay does not deny deism, then agnosticism, andFor finally example, positive there atheism.is no teleological Any of progressi those stageson from is a religious valid belief to deism, then agnos- intellectual stance in itself. Kosay stresses that is it important to explain these differences to ticism, and finally positive atheism. Any of those stages is a valid intellectual stance in itself. religious believers as well, in order to counteract the problem that non-believers in Arab 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/aboutKosay stresses that is it important to explain (accessed these differences 25 August to2020). religious believers as well, ilhad¯ ,that of atheism non-be (Thelievers ( .deceivers), in which Arab #7—the societies path get lumpedtowards together non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ label ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ under - the7 theproblem ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ to counteract ﺇﻟﻰ in indiscriminately orderﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ societies get lumped together40 47 Why connota- I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ negative ﺗﺭﻛﺕ with ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ most is - 1fraught ﻓﺷﻝ the ﻗﺻﺔ d), whichﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖis fraught with negative connotations.https://www.youtube.com/indiscriminatelyKosay under makes thewatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. a label lot of of effort atheism to confront (ilḥ ā common preconceptions andistions. accusations a failure),47 Kosay 16 faced March makes by 2020, a non-believers lot https:// of effortwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. to and confront to suggest the most effective common preconceptions and accu- ,suggest (Why effective I left counter-arguments.Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ to ﺗﺭﻛﺕ and ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ by - 1 non-believers ﻓﺷﻝ faced ﻗﺻﺔ sationsﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ counter-arguments. 41 For example, it is a commonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. misconceptionFor example, it (according is a common to Kosay) misconception that atheism (according and its to Kosay) that atheism and its 48 God.belief (The inIn reasons the contrast, non-existence for the spread of of God. atheism48 In and contrast, doubt in Islamic society—problems ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ of ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ materialist ﻭ to a ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙnon-existence ﻓﻲ in theleads ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ belief science ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲon - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ emphasis materialistﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭemphasis on science leads42 to a he proposes that non-believersofhe simplyexegesis), proposes place 5 Maythat knowledge 2019,non-believers https://www. above simply beliefyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. place and henceknowledge refuse above to belief and hence refuse to ,not (Whyfind a stance intellectually I left called Islam #12—suitable convincing, afor stance all times called and places), 21 August 2020ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ do ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ,they convincing ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ that- ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ find or - intellectuallytheories12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ not ﻟﻛﻝ in do things ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ believe theyﻣﻛﺎﻥbelieve in things or theories43 that ¯ ¯ agnosticism (la adrıya). Whenhttps://www.youtube.com/waagnosticism Muslim believers (lā adrī portrayya). Whentch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. disbelief Muslim as believers something portray eccentric disbelief as something eccentric or implausible, it should be pointed out that disbelief is in fact quite a common thing: Most believers only believe in one particular God and disbelieve in all the other Gods that believe (The in. achievements Another common of Arab prejudice atheists), is19the April one 2018 that, https://www.youtube.com/wat equates atheism with ch?v=jYDIvv3Jgnw; Cf. the ﺍﻧﺟﺎﺯﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻣﻠﺣﺩﻳﻥ humans ﺍﻟﻌﺭﺏ other44 (supposedly)observation anti-religious by Anthon Jackson: modern “Of ideologiescourse, there such is plenty as communism of in-group/out-group or National thinking Socialism on Egyptian atheist forums, including andoutright the crimes mockery committed of what many in their members name. see Kosay as pure concedes religious that lunacy.” (unlike (Jackson Hitler) 2018). Stalin and ,he argues(The thatdeceivers what united#7—the Stalin path and to Maowards and non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ ,atheists. - 7 However ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ indeed ﺇﻟﻰ were ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ Mao45 motivatedhttps://www.youtube.com/wa their brutal methodstch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. was their “belief in the absolute power of the state.” Political authoritarianism46 Ibid. of this kind can be accompanied with a desire to abolish religion, but it can ,to control(Belief religionand unbelief and useand it asthe a probability tool of dominance, of the existence which of God), 5 December 2019 ﺍﻹﻳﻣﺎﻥ ﻭa drive ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ with ﻭ ﺇﺣﺗﻣﺎﻟﻳﺔ combined ﻭﺟﻭﺩ be ﷲ also47 accordinghttps://www.youtube.com/wa to Kosay is the casetch?v=_hpNTYZ20ig. with the regimes of the Arab world. The most important point,48 Ibid. however, is that different from any given religion, atheism is not a single doctrine with a fixed set of books or references. There is no atheist Book that constitutes the basis of the variety of ideologies and world-views adopted by non-believers.

44 H. QªË@ áK YjÊÖÏ@ H@ PAm .'@(The achievements of Arab atheists), 19 April 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYDIvv3Jgnw; Cf. the observation by Anthon Jackson: “Of course, there is plenty of in-group/out-group thinking on Egyptian atheist forums, including outright mockery of what many members see as pure religious lunacy.” (Jackson 2018). 45 7 - (The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOs5 é®ÊmÌ'@ àñ¢ËAªÖÏ@ éJ K XCË@ úÍ@ K Q¢Ë@ XIEhZ0. 46 Ibid. 47 (Belief and unbelief and the probability of the existence of God), 5 December 2019, https://www.youtube.com/ é<Ë@ Xñk. ð éJ ËAÒJk@ ð XAmÌB @ ð àAÖß B @ watch?v=_hpNTYZ20ig. 48 Ibid. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

All of the freethinkers and non-believers covered in this survey are firm in their rejection of the sanctity of religious beliefs and dogmas and in their insistence that everybody 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,even make (The fun ofdeceivers them outright. #7—the Inpath the Arabtowards non-belief), 8 August 2019ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ and ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ criticize - them7 ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ to ﺇﻟﻰ the right ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ should have40 a (Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ inﺗﺭﻛﺕ dogma ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ religious - 1 ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔabout ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ world, wherehttps://www.youtube.com/ there is a long traditionwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. of expressing doubt nuanced, allusiveis a failure), or figurative 16 March 2020, way, https:// and inwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. small and often ‘elitist’ social circles, this is a ,Why reasons I ofleft this Islam phenomenon #1—the story remain of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ socio-economic - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ The - 1 deeper ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ .innovation ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ significant41 to be explored:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. migration and the globalization of education and media, individualism weakening (The reasons of traditional for the spread family of atheism and and doubt in Islamic society—problems ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ and ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ transition ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ demographic ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - the ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ and consumerism,42 neighborhoodof exegesis), structures. 5 May The 2019, fact thathttps://www. the phenomenonyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. also includes members of religious ,remains(Why I left to beIslam explored #12—suitable more thor- for all times and places), 21 August 2020 ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ but ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ,context ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - in this ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 12 - ﺻﺎﻟﺢ significant ﻟﻛﻝ highly ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﻣﻛﺎﻥminorities43 seems oughly. However,https://www.youtube.com/wa there is no doubt thattch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. the apparent spread of freethinking and non-belief at this particular point in history has been made possible to a large extent by advances in media technology. Only the rapid spread of social media in the Arab world and the increasing availability of low-budget broadcasting technology have enabled a new generation of Arab non-believers to move beyond the limits of book-reading intellectual circles and beyond the hostile environment of the mainstream media and begin to address—in some cases apparently with considerable success—a wider Arabic-speaking public. Beyond the general agreement on unlimited free speech concerning religion, there are important differences in style and intellectual approach. First, there is the differentiation in the protagonists’ self-description: On the one hand, there are the non-believers who see themselves as atheists (Sherif Gaber) or use the more generic term la-d¯ ¯ın¯ı plus an additional qualifier like agnostic (Kosay Betar) or theist (Adam Elmasri). On the other hand, there are those who continue to identify with the religion they were born into or refuse to declare their religious status and form whom I have suggested the term freethinkers. If people in this group use self-descriptions, these do not indicate whether they are believers or not but focus on other aspects of their intellectual stance, such as secularism ( alman¯ ¯ıya), humanism (insan¯ ¯ıya), and enlightenment (tanw¯ır). Considering the case of Hamed Abdel-Samad, it

49 4 - (Typical questions #4—do you apostasize to follow your desires?), 13 January 2020, https://www. éJ ºJ C¿ éÊJ@ ?½K@ñîD ¨AJ.KB ÐCB @ á« YKQK youtube.com/watch?v=2v1xnP_ren8. 50 8 - (Typical questions #8—why do you only criticise Islam?), 17 February 2020, https://www.youtube.com/ éJ ºJ C¿ éÊJ@ ?¡®¯ ÐCB @Y®JK@XAÖÏ watch?v=3aC4usVOAIY. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 2020—reads as follows: “Hello, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all humanist (insānī) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to Religions 2021, 12, 106 share my thoughts about religion, science16 ofand 18 logic. It is an attempt to give the new generation a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have when I was young.”39 seems likely that freethinkers find it easier to reachKosay a started degree his of YouTube public acceptance channel in and February 2018 and has published videos on an insert themselves into general debates, evenalmost if their weekly criticism base ofthrough religion 2019 is asand radical 2020. asHis audience has been increasing at a remark- that of the non-believers. However, Abdel-Samad’sable pace: apparentBetween advantageFebruary and over August the other 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel YouTubers in this area might as well boil downrose to from his being 30,000 older to 60,000, or being and in possessionmany of his of recent videos have passed the threshold of higher social capital as a successful academic100,000 and writer views; in thousands a Western of country. likes and All mostly things favorable comments show that a considera- considered, it remains an open question ifble radical part freethinkingof the audience and is atheismactively canengaging benefit with the content. from their presence in the social media to becomeAccording a more regular to his feature own account, of public Kosay debates experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young in the Arab world. adolescent that was triggered less by external changes than by lingering questions and When it comes to the intellectual contentdoubts. and the40 Journalist type of arguments Khaled Diab used, fo theund distinc- a similar process in many of the non-believers he tion between freethinkers and non-believersinterviewed: is of less significance. “For a surprising All four channels number delveof atheists […] their abandonment of faith was, into the four overlapping areas of critical thinking:paradoxically, natural actually science, textualthe product criticism of an of atte thempt to deepen it, understand religion better Holy Books, the history of religion, and philosophyor silence (ethics the doubts and logic). plaguing The kind their of conscien mix de- ces.” (Diab 2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to pends mostly on the intellectual formation andreading preferences the Quran, of the hoping individual to find protagonists. answers: didn’t people always say that it was written Abdel-Samad relies mostly on his sphere of academicin clear, easily expertise, understandable social sciences Arabic? and history, Instead, he stumbled on many verses that were plus textual criticism of the Quran and the Hadiths,hard to understand while Sherif and Gaber explain, has and the strongesta great many that clashed with his own sense of logic focus on natural science—as mentioned he isand the morality. one closest As to he a ‘materialist’was losing his conception faith more of and more, he experienced a phase of shock, atheism. Adam Elmasri derives most of his inputanger, from and historicaldisappointment and textual vis-à-vis criticism, his parent but s and Muslim society at large: Why were has a much stronger philosophical side thanthey the othertelling channels. us all those illogical stories about God, Creation, and Revelation?41 Why were There is also evidence of what Gavinthey Hyman lying has to calledus about the the “reactivity” negative sides of atheist of the Prophet and the Quran? thought to the religious culture that it rejects (HymanAs much 2017 as, p.he 29). stresses The criticismthat he was brought not raised in an intolerant, bigoted religious at- forward against Islamic theology is focusedmosphere, very strongly Kosay on the expresses scriptural a strong meaning intellectua of the l disaffection with liberal and progressive Quran and certain Hadiths and shows littleinterpretations interest in or in-depth of Islam. knowledge42 He compares of scholarly those who argue that the Quran does not promote traditions. This is quite probably a reflectionviolence of the fact and that hatred literalist with and those fundamentalist who propagate the “scientific miracles” found in the interpretations have come to dominate popularQuran: knowledge both approaches of Islam rely in on Egypt selective and and the entirely arbitrary interpretations that have Arab world in recent decades (Schielke 2015no, philological pp. 65–82). or In historical addition, basis. the most When active it comes to the questions of violence towards opponents of the non-believers on YouTubenon-believers are almost uniformly and the subordination Salafi-styled of activists women, Kosay seems convinced that the conserva- who themselves contribute to directing the debate towards the exegesis of the foundational tive and extremist 51shaykhs do have much of the textual evidence on their side. He fre- texts and excluding a large part of Islamic scholarlyquently uses traditions. “citations” in the form of short video clips from television shaykhs—all the This circumstance explains why so many videos produced by non-believers deal with way from the conservative Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša the hypothesis of the “scientific miracle(s)” (al-iʿ gˇaz¯ al- ilm¯ı) of the Quran. This genre of religious reasoning, which claims that the Quran—ifrāwi interpreted(1911–1998) into thethe properleague way—hasof mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars predicted many scientific discoveries, is awho common became apologetic famous devicethrough in television contemporary during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is Islam that is popular across different religiousWaǧd schoolsī Ġunaym and (Wagdi trends. Ghoneim, As Sherif b. 1951), Gaber’s a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- imaginary “Renos and H. amada”¯ dialoguetian shows, Muslim it is Brotherhood often the first who counter-argument espoused Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. used by Muslim believers if others questionIn the the truth clips of referenced the Quran. by Kosay, he defends some of the most shocking practices re-intro- Another topic that is amplified by current events in the Arab world, namely the spec- duced by the so-called “Islamic State” on the basis of traditional Islamic jurisprudence tacular rise of Salafi-Jihadism in Iraq, Syria and some other countries torn by instability and (fiqh), such as the enslavement of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny civil war in the years after the Arab Spring, is the issue of Islam and violence. The surveyed YouTube channels frequently refer to the views and actions of the so-called “Islamic State”

and its supporters as particularly shocking examples of religiously motivated violence. 39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about (accessed 25 August 2020). ,that the(The Jihadists deceivers themselves #7—the use path to towards non-belief), 8 August 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ sources ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ same scriptural - 7 ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ the ﺇﻟﻰ on ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔThey also claim,40 based Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - (followers ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ and - 1 his ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖjustify their deedshttps://www.youtube.com/ (verses from the Quranwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. and stories about the Prophet that this is what theis a “goldenfailure), 16 age” March of early2020, https:// Islamwww.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. really looked like. In this way, Jihadism ,rejection (Why of IIslam left Islam on intuitive #1—the moral story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ their ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ to - confirm ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ non-believers ﻗﺻﺔ foil for ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ serves as an ideal41 grounds, sometimeshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. at the cost of avoiding any recognition of less extreme theological The reasons for the spread of atheism and doubt in Islamic society—problems) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭ readings. 42 Non-believersof exegesis), on YouTube 5 May cover 2019, similar https://www. topicsyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. based on current interest, argumenta- ,their (Why opponents I left Islam and critics,#12—suitable but for all times and places), 21 August 2020 ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ so by ﺗﺭﻛﺕ to do ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ are - challenged12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ they ﻟﻛﻝ ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ or because ﻣﻛﺎﻥ tive convenience,43 these do not necessarilyhttps://www.youtube.com/wa define their positivetch?v=5fYrCxLumdI. views or core message. There is a difference between explaining why you do not believe in certain things and defining what kind of non-believer you want to be. While Abdel-Samad’s approach is mostly focused “demol-

51 On the polarization of online debates about Islam and the disproportionate inﬂuence of the more radical and extreme voices in either camp see Al-Rawi 2017. Religions 2021, 12, 106 17 of 18

ishing” religion, the others also try to spell out a positive message of their own or even provide practical advice. The fact that they openly declare a divergent religious status that is far from self-explaining in the Arab world, already puts them under a certain pressure to spell out the intellectual and ethical consequences. While Sherif Gaber, Adam Elmasri, and Kosay Betar each offer a different world-view in place of Muslim and Christian theism, they remarkably converge on ethical and social questions. All of them strongly endorse gender equality and—a much more controversial issue in the Arab world—the acceptance of homosexuality. It seems that their non-belief comes as a package deal with “progressive” social views and offers the promise of an individualistic, cosmopolitan lifestyle. An individualistic outlook also determines their views on how to deal with the vexing social and political situation in the Arab world, where freethinkers and non-believers still face widespread rejection and persecution (Whitaker 2017; Jackson 2018; Diab 2020). While the challenge of political Islam, both in its moderate and radical shapes, is too omnipresent to be ignored, Abdel-Samad is the only one who offers clearly articulated political views on current events in the Arab world. The other YouTubers portrayed here, on the contrary, avoid talking about politics almost completely. Their focus is, one might say, on strengthening their own intellectual community. They seem to believe that establishing a visible presence in the virtual public sphere is a step toward making non-belief an accepted part of the intellectual and social landscape in the Arab world. The sense of a lively and growing virtual community has certainly raised the confidence of non-believers and made them more daring in their self-portrayal and in their demands on society. In this sense, freethinking and non-belief imply an attempt to re-negotiate social and political boundaries within Arab societies at large. One crucial question for the period ahead is how religious authorities and institutions and common believers react to the challenge of non-belief and Religions 2021, 12how, x FOR believers PEER REVIEW and non-believers negotiate their relationship. However, recent studies 14 of 20 about digital media in the Arab world caution us against over-estimating the potential of emerging digital communities when it comes to challenging and dislocating deeply entrenched social and political power structures (Richter et al. 2018, p. 4). It might be a long that different, more moderate interpretations of Islam exist and have a broad following, way before the voice of Arab non-believers will have an impact on legal and constitutional he mistrusts the broad influence of the “bigoted” (mutaʿaṣṣibūn) shaykhs in Arab societies, questions, such as family law and the prerogatives of religious authorities. especially over uneducated people. It’s the moral outrage at the injustice of both the foun- Funding: This researchdational received religious no external texts—Quran funding. and Hadith—and the conservative scholars and preachers who uphold them to this and try to force them on society, that fuels Kosay’s drive to dis- Institutional Reviewmiss Board the religious Statement: traditionNot applicable. altogether. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 20 Informed Consent Statement:Kosay’sInformed attacks on consent religious was dogma obtained follow from allhis subjects personal involved explorations in the along the main study. paths of non-belief described above: textual criticism, philosophical reasoning, and histori- Data Availability Statement:cal inquiry.Not What applicable. is unique about his channel is Kosay’s thoughtful engagement with a searcher,question a spiritual that person is probably without quite religion essential or God, to like th osesome who of his have German lost theiracquaintances faith: What now? After whom he describes favorably in his autobiography? (Abdel-Samad 2010, pp. 17–36, 230–33) Acknowledgments:decidingI would to like leave to thank Islam, Karin where van do Nieuwkerk, I go? What Lena does Richter atheism and the even anonymous mean and what can non- reviewers forOr valuable has he become comments an agnostic and suggestions. or an atheist? He does not say. Probably, “freethinker” would be a fairbelievers description. contribute This also to makes society sense that be causebelievers it is preciselycan’t? How the tradition do I counter of Arab accusations free- and prej- Conflicts ofthinking Interest:udice? thatThe allows authorHow himdo declares I tosort be noatout conflictthe my center relationship of of interest. debates wi withth believers,people from both a variety intellectually of intel- and emotion- lectualally? and religious trends, many of whom seem to appreciate him as a critical interlocutor. References LookingIn at one the “guestof his list”earliest of Abdel-Samad’s videos, Kosay channel, takes thereto task is the the Egyptian arrogance Aḥmad and excessive in- Abdel-Samad, Hamed. 2010. Mein Abschied vonSaʿ Himmel.d Zgroup/out-groupāyid, Aus who dem appears Leben in einesthinking a series Muslims ofof episodes many in Deutschland non-believers, in 2019,. München: is a university especial Knaur. lecturerly recent and ones:fellow “Atheism does Abdel-Samad, Hamed. 2015. Mohamed. Eine AbrechnungYouTubernot .whomake München: runs you a Droemer.popularmore intell channeligent on or the more “history educated!” of ideas”44 and Some calls have himself left a religion“hu- merely be- Abdel-Samad, Hamed. 2018. Der Koran. Botschaftmanist.” dercause Liebe, In 2017, of Botschaft an Abdel-Samad emotional des Hasses crisis travelled. München: or because around Droemer. Franceit is “cool.” and Morocco45 Many to atheists, meet a number he warns, have expe- Abdel-Samad, Hamed, and Mouhanad Khorchide. 2017. Ist der Islam noch zu Retten? Eine Streitschrift in 95 Thesen. München: Droemer. of Maghrebianrienced aintellectuals sudden, superficial and give themand ill-digestedthe opportunity conversion, to promote which their then published becomes a source of Abdullah, Rasha. 2014. Egypt’s Media inworks. the Midst Among of Revolution. the people heCarnegie interviewed Endowment are Mu Paperḥammad. July. al-Musayya Availableḥ, online: a historian https: and intolerance and bigotry. Here, Kosay echoes (self-)critical tones that are not uncommon //carnegieendowment.org/2014/07/16/egypt-s-media-in-midst-of-revolution/hg1vresearcher in pre-Islamic and early Islamic manuscripts,;(accessed on 25 secularist January 2021).philosopher and Adam Elmasri. n.d. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamElmasriAmazighamong activist Egyptian Muḥammad non-believers, ʿAṣīd, Raš (accessedī dtoo Ayl (Schielkeāl, on author 28 January 2013, of an iconoclastic 2021).p. 646; Andeel book 2015). about Kosayal- insists that Al-Rawi, Ahmed. 2017. Islam on YouTube. OnlineBu Debates,atheists Protests, should and be Extremism the first. London: to respect Palgrave others Macmillan. and other opinions because the lack of intel- Andeel. 2015. Mawlan¯ a¯ Mis.r¯ı Mulh. id” wa-mašyaḫat lectual al-ilh. ad. ¯freedomMadaMasr inside. March religion 23. Available is exactly online: why theyhttp://www.madamasr.com/ left it. He suggests that being a believer en/2015/10/25/opinion/culture/father-egyptian-atheist-and-the-sheikhdom-of-atheism/ārorī and not his is notHadith a matter collection of intelligence9; and Saʿīd N(ḏāakšīād, (accessed whose books on 10 promote September a rationalist 2020). Bigliardi, Stefano. 2017. The ‘Scientific Miraclestyle of the of Islamic Qurʾ an,’¯ faith. Pseudoscience10 Finally, there and Conspiracism.is Mouhanad Khorchide,Zygon 52: 146–70. professor [CrossRef of Islamic] theol- Bullivant, Stephen. 2013. Defining ‘Atheism’.ogy In atThe the OxfordUniversity) but Handbookof conviction of Münster of Atheism ( (Germany),iqtin.ā Editedʿ), and with bypeople Stephen whom with Abdel-Samad Bullivant different and convictions has Michael also held Ruse. can sev- still respect and Oxford: Oxford Univercity Press, pp. 11–21.eral publiclove debateseach other. about Still, “whether unbelievers a reform have of Islam some isthing possible” important and with to whom give because he has they contrib- publishedute toa common the spread book of on science the same and matter logic (Abdel-Samad in societies that and have Khorchide been intellectually 2017). stagnant for Significantly, none of these guests are professing non-believers and some, like Mou- a long time. hanad Khorchide, Aḥmad Sa’d Zāyid, and Saʿīd Nāšīd, are even avowed Sunni Muslim believers. RatherOn a thanrelated the note,promotion Kosay of points atheism, out the that main peop aimle ofwho Abdel-Samad’s have left religion channel are still in search seems ofto abe worldview the creation and of a an virtual ethical “intelle orientationctual salon” that forthey freethink find rationallyers from allconvincing over the and emotion- Arab-speakingally appealing. world, including46 The path the towardWestern settlingdiaspora. on The a newaim that conviction Abdel-Samad can be shares long and arduous. with hisFor guests example, and that there motivates is no teleological them to collaborate progressi withon from him isreligious to demolish belief religious to deism, then agnos- dogmaticism, and replace and finally certainty positive with doubt atheism. and opAnyen inquiry—freethinkingof those stages is a valid in its intellectual traditional stance in itself. sense. KosayFinding stresses an alternative that is identityit import andant philosophical to explain these answers differences to existential to religious questions believers as well, outsidein religion, order to on counteract the contrary, the doproblem not appe thatar asnon-be a centrallievers issue. in ArabRegarding societ theies ageget oflumped together Abdel-Samadindiscriminately and his circle under of guests—uniform the label of atheismly middle-aged (ilḥād), which and above, is fraught this mightwith negative be connota- a message that has a stronger appeal among the older generations in the Arab world. tions.47 Kosay makes a lot of effort to confront the most common preconceptions and accu- However, regarding the size of the audience, it must be considered an important current alongsidesations the novel faced trends by non-believers of non-belief. and It is to also suggest transforma effectivetive in counter-arguments. the sense that Abdel- Samad—if oneFor accepts example, him it as is a afreethinker—has common misconception probably pushed (according the boundaries to Kosay) of thatArab atheism and its freethinkingemphasis as far on as science very few leads people to beforea materialist him.11 belief in the non-existence of God.48 In contrast, Inhe one proposes of their debates, that non-believers Mouhanad Khorch simplyide placeasks Abdel-Samad, knowledge abovesomewhat belief exasper- and hence refuse to atedly,believe “I really in wonder things howor theories you want that to theyreform do Islam not findif you intellectually at the same time convincing, hold that a stance called it is notagnosticism susceptible to(lā reform.adrīya). Which When kind Muslim of offer believers are you portraytrying to disbeliefmake to Muslims?as something eccentric Burying the prophet and abolishing the Quran is not reform.” While Abdel-Samad ducks the question, an increasing number of Arab activists on the internet—especially of the Theyounger achievements generation—have of Arab atheists), been 19offering April 2018a straightforward, https://www.youtube.com/wat answer: leave Islamch?v=jYDIvv3Jgnw; and be- Cf. the) ﺍﻧﺟﺎﺯﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻣﻠﺣﺩﻳﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﺭﺏ 44 observation by Anthoncome Jackson: a lā -d“Ofīnī course, (non-believer). there is plenty of in-group/out-group thinking on Egyptian atheist forums, including outright mockery of what many members see as pure religious lunacy.” (Jackson 2018). 3.2. Sherif Gaber: Atheist and Comedian ,The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019) ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 7 - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 45 https://www.youtube.com/waAccordingtch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. to his YouTube figures, the most successful creator of atheist content on the Arab internet in the late 2010s is Sherif Gaber (Šarīf Ǧābir), a young Egyptian in his 46 Ibid. twenties, who has 288,000 subscribers (as of August 2020) and whose most popular videos ,Belief and unbelief and the probability of the existence of God), 5 December 2019) ﺍﻹﻳﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ ﺇﺣﺗﻣﺎﻟﻳﺔ ﻭﺟﻭﺩ ﷲ 47 https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=_hpNTYZ20ig. 9 48Ṣa ḥīIbid.ḥ al-Bu ḫārī. Nihāyat usṭūra (“Sahih al-Bukhari—the end of a legend”), Rabat: Dār al-Waṭan, 2017. 10 An expression borrowed from title of one of his books: Dalīl at-tadayyun al-ʿāqil (“A Guide to rational religiosity”), Cairo: Dār at- Tanwīr, 2017. 11 Ǧ Ṣ ʿ ṣ For portraits of previous modern Arab freethinkers like Ameen Rihani, amīl idqī az-Zahāwi and Ma rūf ar-Ru āfī see Coury 2018.

Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 20

Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW in colloquial Syrian Arabic. The self-description of his channel—as of August 142020—reads of 20 as follows: “Hello, I’m Quṣay Bīṭār from Damascus, Syria. […] I love and respect all humanist (insānī) and moderate believers from any religion. The aim of my channel is to share my thoughts about religion, science and logic. It is an attempt to give the new gen- that different, more moderate interpretations of Islam exist and have a broad following, eration a chance to see things from a different perspective, a chance that I did not have he mistrusts the broad influence of the “bigoted” (mutaʿaṣṣibūn) shaykhs in Arab societies, when I was young.”39 especially over uneducated people. It’s the moral outrage at the injustice of both the foun- Kosay started his YouTube channel in February 2018 and has published videos on an dational religious texts—Quran and Hadith—and the conservative scholars and preachers almost weekly base through 2019 and 2020. His audience has been increasing at a remark- who uphold them to this and try to force them on society, that fuels Kosay’s drive to dis- able pace: Between February and August 2020, the number of subscribers to his channel miss the religious tradition altogether. rose from 30,000 to 60,000, and many of his recent videos have passed the threshold of Kosay’s attacks on religious dogma follow his personal explorations along the main 100,000 views; thousands of likes and mostly favorable comments show that a considera- paths of non-belief described above: textual criticism, philosophical reasoning, and histori- ble part of the audience is actively engaging with the content. cal inquiry. What is unique about his channel is Kosay’s thoughtful engagement with a According to his own account, Kosay experienced a gradual loss of faith as a young question that is probably quite essential to those who have lost their faith: What now? After adolescent that was triggered less by external changes than by lingering questions and deciding to leave Islam, where do I go? What does atheism even mean and what can non- doubts.40 Journalist Khaled Diab found a similar process in many of the non-believers he believers contribute to society that believers can’t? How do I counter accusations and prej- interviewed: “For a surprising number of atheists […] their abandonment of faith was, udice? How do I sort out my relationship with believers, both intellectually and emotion- paradoxically, actually the product of an attempt to deepen it, understand religion better ally? or silence the doubts plaguing their consciences.” (Diab 2017, p. 255). Kosay turned to In one of his earliest videos, Kosay takes to task the arrogance and excessive in- reading the Quran, hoping to find answers: didn’t people always say that it was written group/out-group thinking of many non-believers, especially recent ones: “Atheism does in clear, easily understandable Arabic? Instead, he stumbled on many verses that were not make you more intelligent or more educated!”44 Some have left religion merely be- hard to understand and explain, and a great many that clashed with his own sense of logic cause of an emotional crisis or because it is “cool.”45 Many atheists, he warns, have expe- and morality. As he was losing his faith more and more, he experienced a phase of shock, Religions 2021, 12, 106 rienced a sudden, superficial and ill-digested conversion, which then becomes a 18source of 18 of anger, and disappointment vis-à-vis his parents and Muslim society at large: Why were intolerance and bigotry. Here, Kosay echoes (self-)critical tones that are not uncommon they telling us all those illogical stories about God, Creation, and Revelation?41 Why were among Egyptian non-believers, too (Schielke 2013, p. 646; Andeel 2015). Kosay insists that they lying to us about the negative sides of the Prophet and the Quran? atheists should be the first to respect others and other opinions because the lack of intel- Coury, Ralph. 2018. Sceptics of Islam, Revisionist Religion,As much Agnosticism as he stresses and Disbelief that he in thewas Modern not ra Arabised Worldin an. London:intolerant, IB Tauris.bigoted religious at- Crone, Patricia. 2016. Ungodly Cosmologies,lectual in freedom Islam, the inside Ancient religion Near East is andexactly Varieties why of they Godlessness left it.. He Edited suggests by Hanna that Siurua. being a Leiden: believer mosphere, Kosay expresses a strong intellectual disaffection with liberal and progressive Brill, pp. 118–50. or not is not a matter of intelligence (ḏakā interpretations of Islam.42 He compares those who argue that the Quran does not promote Dallal, Ahmad. 2004. Science and the Qurʾ an.¯ In Encyclopaedia of the Qur an¯ . Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Leiden and Boston: Brill, vol. 4, pp. 540–58. ) violencebut of conviction and hatred (iqtin withāʿ), and those people who with propag differentate the convictions “scientific can miracles” still respect found and in the Diab, Khaled. 2017. Islam for the Politicallylove each IncorrectQuran: other.. both London: Still, approaches unbelievers Gilgamesh rely Publishing. have on selectivesomething and important entirely arbitraryto give because interpretations they contrib- that have Diab, Khaled. 2020. Arab Atheistsute and to theirno the philological Questspread for of Acceptancescience or historical and amid logic basis. Religious in societ When Intolerance.ies it that comes have Rowaqto been the Arabiintellectuallyquestions. May of 6. stagnantviolence Available fortowards online: https://rowaq.cihrs.org/views-arab-atheists-and-their-quest-for-acceptance-amid-religious-intolerancea longnon-believers time. and the subordination of women, Kosay seems convinced (accessed that the on conserva- 4 September 2020). Ontive a relatedand extremist note, Kosay shaykhs points do out have that much peop leof who the havetextual left evidence religion areon stilltheir in side. search He fre- El Ghazzali, Kacem. 2019. Kein Preis ist zu hoch für die Freiheit: Liberale Muslime kämpfen in ihren Ländern für sie, westliche of a worldviewquently uses and “citations” an ethical orientation in the form that of shortheyt findvideo rationally clips from convincing television and shaykhs—all emotion- the Intellektuelle kapitulieren vor ihr. Neueway Zürcher from Zeitungthe conservative, May 23. Egyptian preacher Mutawallī Ša ˙ ally appealing.46 The path toward settling on a new conviction can be long and arduous. Gunaym, Rid. a.¯ 2017. Ma¯ hiya aktar al-kutub al-ʿ arab¯ıya ta t¯ıran f¯ı awsa¯t. aš-šabab¯ al-lad¯ ¯ın¯ıy¯ın al- arab? Raseef 22. May 14. Available ¯ For example, there is ¯no teleological progression from religious belief to deism, then agnos- online: https://raseef22.net/article/103432rā (accessedwi (1911–1998) on 8 September to the league 2020). of mostly Saudi-Arabian and Egyptian Salafi scholars Hamed.TV. n.d. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnTJcc901wCa5vZQQot8fCwticism, and finally positive atheism. Any of those stages is a valid (accessed intellectual on 28 January stance 2021).in itself. who became famous through television during the 2000s. One of his favorite references is Heo, Angie. 2018. The Political Lives ofKosay Saints: stresses Christian-Muslim that is it import Mediationant in to Egypt explain. Berkeley: these differences University of to California religious Press.believers as well, Waǧdī Ġunaym (Wagdi Ghoneim, b. 1951), a firebrand preacher affiliated with the Egyp- Hourani, Albert. 1962. Arabic Thoughtin in order the Liberal to counteract Age, 1798–1939 the problem. Oxford: that Oxford non-be Universitylievers Press.in Arab societies get lumped together tian Muslim Brotherhood who espoused Salafi-Jihadist views after the 2013 coup in Egypt. Hyman, Gavin. 2017. Atheism in Modernindiscriminately History. In Theunder Cambridge the label Companion of atheism to Atheism(ilḥād),. which Edited is by fraught Michael with Marten. negative Cambridge: connota- Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–46.In the clips referenced by Kosay, he defends some of the most shocking practices re-intro- tions.47 Kosay makes a lot of effort to confront the most common preconceptions and accu- Jackson, Anthon. 2018. A Life of Pretending:duced Being Egyptianby the so-called and Atheist. “IslamicQuilette State”. April 17.on Availablethe basis online: of traditional https://quillette.com/20 Islamic jurisprudence sations faced by non-believers and to suggest effective counter-arguments. 18/04/17/life-pretending-egyptian-atheist/(fiqh), such (accessed as the on enslavement 9 September 2020). of prisoners of war.43 Even though Kosay does not deny Keysar, Ariela, and Juhem Navarro-Rivera.For 2013.example, A World it is ofa common Atheism: misconception Global Demographics. (according In The to Oxford Kosay) Handbook that atheism of Atheism and. its emphasis on science leads to a materialist belief in the non-existence of God.48 In contrast, Edited by Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse. Oxford: University Press, pp. 552–86. he proposes that non-believers simply place knowledge above belief and hence refuse to Kinitz, Daniel.39 https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar/about 2018. Die andere Seite des Islam. Säkularismus-Diskurs (accessed und 25 MuslimischeAugust 2020). Intellektuelle im Modernen Ägypten. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. ,or theories(The deceiversthat they do#7—the not find path intellectually towards convincing,non-belief), a stance8 August called 2019 ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ in things ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ believe7 - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 40 Kosay Betar. n.d. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/c/KosayBetar (accessed on 28 January 2021). disbelief(Why I left as Islam something #1—the storyeccentric of creation ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ portray ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔbelievers 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ Muslimﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ https://www.youtube.com/agnosticismwatch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. (lā adrīya). When Leihs, Nadia. 2015. Persisting Powers, Financial Shackles and Political Polarisation. The Egyptian Media System in Transition. In New is a failure), 16 March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. Media Conﬁgurations and Socio-Cultural Dynamics in Asia and the Arab World. Edited by Nadja-Christina Schneider and Carola ,Why I left Islam #1—the story of creation is a failure), 16 March 2020) ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 1 - ﻓﺷﻝ ﻗﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺧﻠﻖ 41 The Nomos, achievements pp. 61–88. of Arab atheists), 19 April 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYDIvv3Jgnw; Cf. the) ﺍﻧﺟﺎﺯﺍﺕ :Baden-Baden ﺍﻟﻣﻠﺣﺩﻳﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﺭﺏ.Richter 44 Richter, Carola,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMFZvKPjX4. Anna Antonakis, and Cilja Harders. 2018. Introduction. In Digital Media and the Politics of Transformation in the Arab observation42 by Anthon Jackson: “Of course, there is plenty of in-group/out-group thinking on Egyptian atheist forums, including The and Cilja reasons Harders. for the Wiesbaden: spread of atheism Springer, and pp. doubt 1–8. in Islamic society—problems) ﺃﺳﺑﺎﺏ ﺇﻧﺗﺷﺎﺭ Antonakis ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭAnna ﺍﻟﺗﺷﻛﻳﻙ ,Richter ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ by Carola ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ - Edited .ﻣﺷﺎﻛﻝ Asia ﺍﻟﺗﻔﺳﻳﺭWorld and outright mockery of what many members see as pure religious lunacy.” (Jackson 2018). Riexinger, Martin.of exegesis), 2011. Islamic 5 May opposition2019, https://www. to the Darwinianyoutube.com/watch?v=uc9xxsT9U40. theory of evolution. In Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science. ,The deceivers #7—the path towards non-belief), 8 August 2019) ﺍﻟﻣﻐﺎﻟﻁﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ 7 - ﺍﻟﻁﺭﻳﻖ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﻼﺩﻳﻧﻳﺔ 45 ,Brill, (Why vol. 3,I left pp. 484–509.Islam #12—suitable for all times and places), 21 August 2020 ﻟﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﺗﺭﻛﺕ :Leiden ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ - .Hammer ﺍﻟﺣﻠﻘﺔ and - Olav12 ﺻﺎﻟﺢ ﻟﻛﻝR. Lewis ﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ James ﻣﻛﺎﻥEdited43 by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOs5XIEhZ0. Schielke, Samuli.https://www.youtube.com/wa 2013. The Islamic World. Intch?v=5fYrCxLumdI.The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Edited by Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse. Oxford: 46 Ibid. University Press, pp. 638–50. ﺍﻹﻳﻣﺎﻥ ﻭ ﺍﻹﻟﺣﺎﺩ ﻭ ﺇﺣﺗﻣﺎﻟﻳﺔ ﻭﺟﻭﺩ ﷲ 47 Schielke, Samuli. 2015. Egypt in the Future (Belief Tense. Hope,and Frustration,unbelief and and Ambivalencethe probability before of and the after existence 2011. Bloomington of God), and5 December Indianapolis: 2019, Indianahttps://www.youtube.com/wa University Press. tch?v=_hpNTYZ20ig. Sherif48 Gaber.Ibid. n.d. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/c/SherifGaber (accessed on 28 January 2021). Stroumsa, Sarah. 1999. Freethinkers of Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill. Urvoy, Dominique. 1996. Les Penseurs Libres Dans L’islam Classique. Paris: Flammarion. Voile, Brigitte. 2004. Les Coptes d’Egypte Sous Nasser: Sainteté, Miracles, Apparitions. Paris: CNRS éditions. Whitaker, Brian. 2017. Arabs Without God. Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Middle East, 2nd ed. Scotts Valley: CreateSapce.