Ibn Warraq ( Arabic: ابن وراق , literally “the son of a paper maker”; born 1946 , Rajkot , British India , now India ) is the pseudonym of an English-speaking writer and publicist of Pakistani descent, one of the most active critics of Islam . One of the founders of the .
| Ibn Varrak | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 1946 |
| Place of Birth | Rajkot , British India |
| Citizenship (citizenship) | |
| Occupation | writer , journalist |
| Language of Works | English |
| Debut | “ Why am I not a Muslim " |
Gained worldwide fame as an author of books:
- “ Why am I not a Muslim " (Why I Am Not a Muslim) (1995),
- “ The Origin of the Qur'an: Classical Essays on the Holy Scriptures of Islam " (The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book) (1998),
- “The Question of Historical Muhammad " (The Quest for the Historical Muhammad) (2000).
Alias
The pseudonym "Ibn Varrak" ( Arabic. ابن وراق , literally "the son of the paper- maker ") is used because of the writer's concern for personal safety. The name refers to the skeptic scientist of the 9th century Abu Ise al-Varraq . Warrack took the pseudonym in 1995 when he completed his first book, titled “Why I'm Not Muslim.”
Until 2007, Ibn Varrak preferred not to appear in public and not to be photographed for publications. This was due to his fears for personal safety, as well as his desire to travel in order to see his family in Pakistan without the risk of being denied a visa. Recently, he participated in public debate, and for the first time his face became known to the general public [1] . Despite this, his appearance in public is usually accompanied by a large number of police.
Biography
Ibn Varrak was born in 1946 in the city of Rajkot, British India, in a Muslim family. A year later, the family moved to Karachi , the capital of independent Pakistan . His mother died when he was a baby. In one of the interviews, he stated that “he studied the Arabic language and read the Koran in his youth in the hope of becoming a follower of the Islamic faith” [2] . His father decided to send him to a boarding school in England in order to avoid the grandmother’s attempt to impose on his grandson an exclusively religious education in the local madrassah . After arriving in the UK, he saw his father again when he was 14 years old. Father died two years later.
Although Ibn Varrak always felt like a skeptic, in his youth he had an identity crisis in which he briefly opened himself to Islam. In the end, however, skepticism prevailed, and he turned to philosophers such as Benedict Spinoza , Immanuel Kant , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and David Hume [2] .
By 19, he moved to Scotland to continue his education at the University of Edinburgh , where he studied Arabic and Persian with professors Montgomery Watt and . After earning a degree in philosophy from the University of London, Warrack taught for five years at elementary schools in London, and then at the University of Toulouse in San Francisco.
In 1982, he moved to France with his wife, opening an Indian restaurant. He also worked as a courier in a travel agency [3] .
In 2007, he participated in the Conference on Secular Islam in St. Petersburg (Florida) along with such famous critics and reformers of Islam as Ayyaan Hirsi Ali , Wafa Sultan and Irshad Manji [4] . The group issued the so-called St. Petersburg Declaration, which called on world governments, in particular, to reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, a clerical form of government and securing an official status for any religion, as well as not allowing prosecution for the so-called “ sacrilege ” and “ apostasy ” , in accordance with paragraph 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [5] .
He was also a speaker at the UN conference “Victims of Jihad” along with such critics of Islam as Bat Yeor , Ayyaan Hirsi Ali and Simon Deng [6] .
Bibliography
- Ibn Varrak. Why am I not a Muslim . - Prometheus Books, 1995 .-- 428 p. - ISBN ISBN 0-87975-984-4 . With a foreword by
- Ibn Varrak. The Origin of the Qur'an: Classical Essays on the Holy Scriptures of Islam . - Prometheus Books, 1998 .-- 420 p. - ISBN 1-57392-198-X .
- Ibn Varrak. Question of historical Muhammad . - Prometheus Books, 2000 .-- 554 p. - ISBN 1-57392-787-2 .
- Ibn Varrak. What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary . - Prometheus Books, 2002 .-- 600 p. - ISBN 1-57392-945-X .
- Ibn Varrak. The way out of Islam: apostates speak out . - Prometheus Books, 2003 .-- 320 p. - ISBN 1-59102-068-9 .
- Ibn Warraq. Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. - Prometheus Books, 2007 .-- 300 p. - ISBN 1-59102-484-6 .
- Ibn Warraq. Which Koran ?: Variants, Manuscripts, and the Influence of Pre-Islamic Poetry. - Prometheus Books, May 1, 2007 .-- 450 p. - ISBN 978-1-59102-429-3 .
- Ibn Warraq. Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy. - Encounter Books, 2011 .-- 286 p. - ISBN 1-59403-576-8 .
- Ibn Warraq. Sir Walter Scott's Crusades & Other Fantasies. - New English Review Press, 2013 .-- 259 p. - ISBN 978-0-9884778-5-8 .
- Ibn Warraq. Koranic Allusions: The Biblical, Qumranian, and pre-Islamic background to the Koran. - Prometheus Books, 2013 .-- 463 p. - ISBN 9781616147594 .
- Ibn Warraq. Christmas in the Koran: Luxenberg, Syriac, and the Near Eastern and Judeo-Christian Background of Islam. - Prometheus Books, 2014 .-- 805 p. - ISBN 978-1-61614-937-6 .
- Ibn Warraq. The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology. - New English Review Press, 2017 .-- 396 p. - ISBN 978-1943003082 .
Notes
- ↑ Mentioned at the start of this interview Archived October 28, 2011 on Wayback Machine .
- ↑ 1 2 Der Spiegel : Islamkirtiker Ibn Warraq "Dieser Kalte Krieg kann 100 Jahre dauern"
- ↑ Priya Abraham, "Dissident voices," World , Vol. 22, No. 22, June 16, 2007 (accessed January 1, 2014; archive available at Archived November 11, 2013. )
- ↑ ISIS | Center for Inquiry
- ↑ Institute of Religion and Politics (Link not available) . Date of treatment October 22, 2008. Archived November 24, 2007.
- ↑ Ibn Warraq 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights Archived on July 6, 2008.
Links
- Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society
- The Unofficial Ibn Warraq Site
- Stephen Crittenden interviews Ibn Warraq for the ABC , 10 October 2001
- Profile at islam watch
- Ibn Warraq: How to Debate a Muslim
- Holy War , Chris Mooney on Ibn Warraq for The American Prospect , December 17, 2001
- Statement by Ibn Warraq on the World Trade Center Atrocity
- Ibn Warraq appears on Shire Network News Podcast (part 1)