Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals are also heterotrophs, meaning they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance.

Most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago.

Etymology

The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animalis, meaning "having breath". In everyday colloquial usage, the word usually refers to non-human animals. Sometimes, only closer relatives of humans such as mammals and other vertebrates are meant in colloquial use. The biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects and humans.

Characteristics

Animals have several characteristics that set them apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and mostly multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and most protists. They are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking rigid cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at certain life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a blastula stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals.

Structure

With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges (Phylum Porifera) and Placozoa, animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues. These include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals. Typically, there is also an internal digestive chamber, with one or two openings. Animals with this sort of organization are called metazoans, or eumetazoans when the former is used for animals in general.

All animals have eukaryotic cells, surrounded by a characteristic extracellular matrix composed of collagen and elastic glycoproteins. This may be calcified to form structures like shells, bones, and spicules. During development, it forms a relatively flexible framework upon which cells can move about and be reorganized, making complex structures possible. In contrast, other multicellular organisms, like plants and fungi, have cells held in place by cell walls, and so develop by progressive growth. Also, unique to animal cells are the following intercellular junctions: tight junctions, gap junctions, and desmosomes.

Reproduction and development

Nearly all animals undergo some form of sexual reproduction. They have a few specialized reproductive cells, which undergo meiosis to produce smaller, motile spermatozoa or larger, non-motile ova. These fuse to form zygotes, which develop into new individuals.

Many animals are also capable of asexual reproduction. This may take place through parthenogenesis, where fertile eggs are produced without mating, budding, or fragmentation.

A zygote initially develops into a hollow sphere, called a blastula, which undergoes rearrangement and differentiation. In sponges, blastula larvae swim to a new location and develop into a new sponge. In most other groups, the blastula undergoes more complicated rearrangement. It first invaginates to form a gastrula with a digestive chamber, and two separate germ layers — an external ectoderm and an internal endoderm. In most cases, a mesoderm also develops between them. These germ layers then differentiate to form tissues and organs.

Food and energy sourcing

All animals are heterotrophs, meaning that they feed directly or indirectly on other living things. They are often further subdivided into groups such as carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, and parasites.

Predation is a biological interaction where a predator (a heterotroph that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey. The other main category of consumption is detritivory, the consumption of dead organic matter. It can at times be difficult to separate the two feeding behaviours, for example, where parasitic species prey on a host organism and then lay their eggs on it for their offspring to feed on its decaying corpse. Selective pressures imposed on one another has led to an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator, resulting in various antipredator adaptations.

Most animals feed indirectly from the energy of sunlight. Plants use this energy to convert sunlight into simple sugars using a process known as photosynthesis. Starting with the molecules carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O), photosynthesis converts the energy of sunlight into chemical energy stored in the bonds of glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆) and releases oxygen (O₂). These sugars are then used as the building blocks which allow the plant to grow. When animals eat these plants (or eat other animals which have eaten plants), the sugars produced by the plant are used by the animal. They are either used directly to help the animal grow, or broken down, releasing stored solar energy, and giving the animal the energy required for motion. This process is known as glycolysis.

Animals living close to hydrothermal vents and cold seeps on the ocean floor are not dependent on the energy of sunlight. Instead chemosynthetic archaea and bacteria form the base of the food chain.

Origin and fossil record

Animals are generally considered to have evolved from a flagellated eukaryote. Their closest known living relatives are the choanoflagellates, collared flagellates that have a morphology similar to the choanocytes of certain sponges. Molecular studies place animals in a supergroup called the opisthokonts, which also include the choanoflagellates, fungi and a few small parasitic protists. The name comes from the posterior location of the flagellum in motile cells, such as most animal spermatozoa, whereas other eukaryotes tend to have anterior flagella.

The first fossils that might represent animals appear in the Trezona Formation at Trezona Bore, West Central Flinders, South Australia. These fossils are interpreted as being early sponges. They were found in 665-million-year-old rock.

The next oldest possible animal fossils are found towards the end of the Precambrian, around 610 million years ago, and are known as the Ediacaran or Vendian biota. These are difficult to relate to later fossils, however. Some may represent precursors of modern phyla, but they may be separate groups, and it is possible they are not really animals at all.

Aside from them, most known animal phyla make a more or less simultaneous appearance during the Cambrian period, about 542 million years ago. It is still disputed whether this event, called the Cambrian explosion, represents a rapid divergence between different groups or a change in conditions that made fossilization possible.

Some paleontologists suggest that animals appeared much earlier than the Cambrian explosion, possibly as early as 1 billion years ago. Trace fossils such as tracks and burrows found in the Tonian era indicate the presence of triploblastic worms, like metazoans, roughly as large (about 5 mm wide) and complex as earthworms. During the beginning of the Tonian period around 1 billion years ago, there was a decrease in Stromatolite diversity, which may indicate the appearance of grazing animals, since stromatolite diversity increased when grazing animals went extinct at the End Permian and End Ordovician extinction events, and decreased shortly after the grazer populations recovered. However the discovery that tracks very similar to these early trace fossils are produced today by the giant single-celled protist Gromia sphaerica casts doubt on their interpretation as evidence of early animal evolution.

Groups of animals

Porifera, Radiata and basal Bilateria

The sponges (Porifera) were long thought to have diverged from other animals early. They lack the complex organization found in most other phyla. Their cells are differentiated, but in most cases not organized into distinct tissues. Sponges typically feed by drawing in water through pores. Archaeocyatha, which have fused skeletons, may represent sponges or a separate phylum. However, a phylogenomic study in 2008 of 150 genes in 29 animals across 21 phyla revealed that it is the Ctenophora or comb jellies which are the basal lineage of animals, at least among those 21 phyla. The authors speculate that sponges—or at least those lines of sponges they investigated—are not so primitive, but may instead be secondarily simplified.

Among the other phyla, the Ctenophora and the Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish, are radially symmetric and have digestive chambers with a single opening, which serves as both the mouth and the anus. Both have distinct tissues, but they are not organized into organs. There are only two main germ layers, the ectoderm and endoderm, with only scattered cells between them. As such, these animals are sometimes called diploblastic. The tiny placozoans are similar, but they do not have a permanent digestive chamber.

The remaining animals form a monophyletic group called the Bilateria. For the most part, they are bilaterally symmetric, and often have a specialized head with feeding and sensory organs. The body is triploblastic, i.e. all three germ layers are well-developed, and tissues form distinct organs. The digestive chamber has two openings, a mouth and an anus, and there is also an internal body cavity called a coelom or pseudocoelom. There are exceptions to each of these characteristics, however — for instance adult echinoderms are radially symmetric, and certain parasitic worms have extremely simplified body structures.

Genetic studies have considerably changed our understanding of the relationships within the Bilateria. Most appear to belong to two major lineages: the deuterostomes and the protostomes, the latter of which includes the Ecdysozoa, Platyzoa, and Lophotrochozoa. In addition, there are a few small groups of bilaterians with relatively similar structure that appear to have diverged before these major groups. These include the Acoelomorpha, Rhombozoa, and Orthonectida. The Myxozoa, single-celled parasites that were originally considered Protozoa, are now believed to have developed from the Medusozoa as well.

Deuterostomes

Deuterostomes differ from the other Bilateria, called protostomes, in several ways. In both cases there is a complete digestive tract. However, in protostomes, the first opening of the gut to appear in embryological development (the archenteron) develops into the mouth, with the anus forming secondarily. In deuterostomes the anus forms first, with the mouth developing secondarily. In most protostomes, cells simply fill in the interior of the gastrula to form the mesoderm, called schizocoelous development, but in deuterostomes, it forms through invagination of the endoderm, called enterocoelic pouching. Deuterostomes also have a dorsal, rather than a ventral, nerve chord and their embryos undergo different cleavage.

All this suggests the deuterostomes and protostomes are separate, monophyletic lineages. The main phyla of deuterostomes are the Echinodermata and Chordata. The former are radially symmetric and exclusively marine, such as starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. The latter are dominated by the vertebrates, animals with backbones. These include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

In addition to these, the deuterostomes also include the Hemichordata, or acorn worms. Although they are not especially prominent today, the important fossil graptolites may belong to this group.

The Chaetognatha or arrow worms may also be deuterostomes, but more recent studies suggest protostome affinities.

Ecdysozoa

The Ecdysozoa are protostomes, named after the common trait of growth by moulting or ecdysis. The largest animal phylum belongs here, the Arthropoda, including insects, spiders, crabs, and their kin. All these organisms have a body divided into repeating segments, typically with paired appendages. Two smaller phyla, the Onychophora and Tardigrada, are close relatives of the arthropods and share these traits.

The ecdysozoans also include the Nematoda or roundworms, perhaps the second largest animal phylum. Roundworms are typically microscopic, and occur in nearly every environment where there is water. A number are important parasites. Smaller phyla related to them are the Nematomorpha or horsehair worms, and the Kinorhyncha, Priapulida, and Loricifera. These groups have a reduced coelom, called a pseudocoelom.

The remaining two groups of protostomes are sometimes grouped together as the Spiralia, since in both embryos develop with spiral cleavage.

Platyzoa

The Platyzoa include the phylum Platyhelminthes, the flatworms. These were originally considered some of the most primitive Bilateria, but it now appears they developed from more complex ancestors. A number of parasites are included in this group, such as the flukes and tapeworms. Flatworms are acoelomates, lacking a body cavity, as are their closest relatives, the microscopic Gastrotricha.

The other platyzoan phyla are mostly microscopic and pseudocoelomate. The most prominent are the Rotifera or rotifers, which are common in aqueous environments. They also include the Acanthocephala or spiny-headed worms, the Gnathostomulida, Micrognathozoa, and possibly the Cycliophora. These groups share the presence of complex jaws, from which they are called the Gnathifera.

Lophotrochozoa

The Lophotrochozoa include two of the most successful animal phyla, the Mollusca and Annelida. The former, which is the second-largest animal phylum by number of described species, includes animals such as snails, clams, and squids, and the latter comprises the segmented worms, such as earthworms and leeches. These two groups have long been considered close relatives because of the common presence of trochophore larvae, but the annelids were considered closer to the arthropods because they are both segmented. Now, this is generally considered convergent evolution, owing to many morphological and genetic differences between the two phyla.

The Lophotrochozoa also include the Nemertea or ribbon worms, the Sipuncula, and several phyla that have a ring of ciliated tentacles around the mouth, called a lophophore. These were traditionally grouped together as the lophophorates. but it now appears that the lophophorate group may be paraphyletic, with some closer to the nemerteans and some to the molluscs and annelids. They include the Brachiopoda or lamp shells, which are prominent in the fossil record, the Entoprocta, the Phoronida, and possibly the Bryozoa or moss animals.

Model organisms

Because of the great diversity found in animals, it is more economical for scientists to study a small number of chosen species so that connections can be drawn from their work and conclusions extrapolated about how animals function in general. Because they are easy to keep and breed, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans have long been the most intensively studied metazoan model organisms, and were among the first life-forms to be genetically sequenced. This was facilitated by the severely reduced state of their genomes, but as many genes, introns, and linkages lost, these ecdysozoans can teach us little about the origins of animals in general. The extent of this type of evolution within the superphylum will be revealed by the crustacean, annelid, and molluscan genome projects currently in progress. Analysis of the starlet sea anemone genome has emphasised the importance of sponges, placozoans, and choanoflagellates, also being sequenced, in explaining the arrival of 1500 ancestral genes unique to the Eumetazoa.

An analysis of the homoscleromorph sponge Oscarella carmela also suggests that the last common ancestor of sponges and the eumetazoan animals was more complex than previously assumed.

Other model organisms belonging to the animal kingdom include the mouse (Mus musculus) and zebrafish (Danio rerio).

History of classification

Aristotle divided the living world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), in the first hierarchical classification. Since then biologists have begun emphasizing evolutionary relationships, and so these groups have been restricted somewhat. For instance, microscopic protozoa were originally considered animals because they move, but are now treated separately.

In Linnaeus's original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata, whereas the various other forms have been separated out. The above lists represent our current understanding of the group, though there is some variation from source to source.

See also

Ethology

Animal colouration

Animal rights

Fauna

List of animal names

List of animals by number of neurons

Lists of animals

References

Bibliography

Klaus Nielsen. Animal Evolution: Interrelationships of the Living Phyla (2nd edition). Oxford University Press, 2001.

Knut Schmidt-Nielsen. Animal Physiology: Adaptation and Environment. (5th edition). Cambridge University Press, 1997.

External links

Tree of Life Project

Animal Diversity Web - University of Michigan's database of animals, showing taxonomic classification, images, and other information.

ARKive - multimedia database of worldwide endangered/protected species and common species of UK.

Scientific American Magazine (December 2005 Issue) - Getting a Leg Up on Land About the evolution of four-limbed animals from fish.

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name	Graeme Base
birth date	April 06, 1958
birth place	Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom
nationality	British- Australian
occupation	Author, Illustrator
spouse	Robyn
notableworks	Animalia (1986)
website	http://www.graemebase.com }}

Graeme Rowland Base (born 6 April 1958) is an Australian author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, Animalia published in 1986, and third book The Eleventh Hour which was released in 1989.

He was born in Amersham, England but moved to Australia with his family at the age of eight and has lived here ever since. He attended Box Hill High School and Melbourne High School in Melbourne, and then studied a Diploma of Art (Graphic Design) for three years at Swinburne University of Technology at Prahran.

He worked in advertising for two years and then began illustrating children's books, gradually moving to authoring them as well. His first book, My Grandma lived in Gooligulch, was accepted by the first publisher he sent it to.

Base resides in Melbourne with his wife Robyn and has three children.

Notable works

My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch (1983)

Animalia (1986)

The Eleventh Hour (1989)

The Sign of the Seahorse (1992)

The Discovery of Dragons (1996)

The Worst Band In The Universe (1999)

The Water Hole (2001)

Truck Dogs (2003)

Jungle Drums (2004)

Uno's Garden (2006)

The Discovery of Dragons: New Research Revealed(2007)

Enigma (2008)

Watts, J. The Art of Graeme Base (2008)

The Legend of the Golden Snail (2010)

An exhibition was created based on The Waterhole and displayed at the National Museum of Australia.

Adaptations of Base's works

The Sign of the Seahorse was adapted as an opera with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2001. My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch was adapted as a play by Gooligulch Productions. The play premiered at the Chookahs! Kids Festival (Melbourne) in 2006 and is touring country areas in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Animalia has been made into a television series (Animalia), and also is one of the most sold books around the world. Base was an executive producer for the series, and also composed the opening theme music with Yuri Worontschak.

Animalia was made into an iPhone and iPad app in 2010. Published on the iTunes app store by AppBooks and produced by The Base Factory. An iPhone app based on Jungle Drums was released by Inyerpocket in 2008.

References

External links

Graeme Base Official Art Gallery website

Author Profile at Penguin Australia, including list of Graeme Base's awards

Trailer for the upcoming Animalia animated television series

Video: Graeme Base discusses writing and illustrating children's books

Graeme Base's You Tube Channel, including a demonstration of his Animalia iPad application and the Augmented Reality feature of The Legend of the Golden Snail

Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Australian illustrators Category:Australian children's writers Category:English emigrants to Australia Category:English illustrators Category:English children's writers Category:Swinburne University of Technology alumni Category:Writers who illustrated their own writing Category:People from Amersham Category:People educated at Melbourne High School (Victoria)

name	Ahmed Subhy Mansour
birth date	March 01, 1949
birth place	Abu Harair, Kafr Saqr, Sharqia, Egypt
death date
resting place coordinates
residence	Northern Virginia
nationality	Egyptian
ethnicity	Arab
known for	Islamic advocate for democracy and human rights.
education	B.A (Highest Honors; 1973), M.A. (Honors; 1975), Ph.D (Highest Honors; 1980)
alma mater	Al-Azhar University
occupation	Islamic scholar and cleric
title	Sheikh Dr.
boards	International Quranic Center; Americans for Peace and Tolerance; Free Muslims Coalition
religion	Islamic Quranist
misc	}}

Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour (also Ahmad Subhy Mansour and Ahmad Subhi Mansur), born March 1, 1949, in Abu Harair, Kafr Saqr, Sharqia, Egypt is an Egyptian-born noted Islamic scholar and cleric, with expertise in Islamic history, culture, theology, and politics. He founded the small Egyptian Quranists sect that is neither Sunni nor Shiite, was exiled from Egypt, and lives in the United States as a political refugee.

Mansour was an advocate for democracy and human rights in Egypt for many years, during which time he was isolated by Islamic extremist clerics and persecuted by the government. He was arrested and served time in prison for his liberal political, religious, and social views.

In May 1985, Mansour was discharged from his teaching and research position due to his liberal views, which were not acceptable to the religious authorities who controlled much of university policies and programs.

Mansour sought and was granted political asylum in the United States in 2002. He has served as a visiting fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, and at the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.

Sheikh Mansour was fired from Al-Azhar University after expressing his hadith rejector views. One of Mansour's fellow Islamic scholars at Al Azhar University Sheik Jamal Tahir took up the same Quran alone stance.

Biography

Mansoor received his junior middle school education in 1964, and ranked second in the Republic on the national exam. He graduated from Al-Azhar Secondary School, in Sharkeya, Egypt, in 1969, and ranked fourth in country on the national university entrance examination. He then attended Al-Azhar University in Cairo, a prestigious Sunni religious university. There he studied Muslim History, earning his B.A with Highest Honors in 1973, his M.A. with Honors in 1975, and his Ph.D with Highest Honors in 1980.

He founded a small Egyptian sect the Quranists, who believe: the Quran is the sole source of Islam and its laws (they reject hadith, or reported traditions of Muhammad), is comprehensive and completely sufficient in itself, was revealed to Mohamed to clarify all controversial and mysterious religious issues, was Mohamed’s only tradition and he was ordered to abide by it alone, and Islam is the religion of peace, mercy, justice, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. Its fundamental principles put it squarely at odds with those Muslims who follow the principles of the Wahabists and other Islamists who consider the central tenet of Islam to be a requirement to wage violent jihad.

From 1973–80 he was an Assistant Teacher and Lecturer, from 1980–87 he was Assistant Professor, of Muslim History in the College of Arabic Language at Al Azhar University.

In May 1985, Mansour was discharged from his teaching and research position in Egypt due to his liberal views, which were not acceptable to the religious authorities who controlled much of university policies and programs. Because of his unconventional scholarship, Al-Azhar University accused him of being an enemy of Islam. He was tried in its canonical court, and expelled March 17, 1987. In 1987, beginning with his arrest on November 17, and in 1988 he was imprisoned by the Egyptian government for his views, including his advocacy of religious harmony and tolerance between Egyptian Muslims, Christian Copts, and Jews.

In 1991–92, he worked with Farag Foda to establish a new political party in Egypt, Mostakbal ("The Future Party"), dedicated to a secular democratic state, and to defend the Christian Egyptians. Foda was assassinated in June 1992.

From 1994–96, he was a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, which worked to protect Egyptians from human rights offenses. In 1996, Mansour established a weekly conference at the Ibn Khaldoun Center – headed by Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim – in order to discuss Islamist dogma, religion-based terror, and other issues. It functioned until June 2000, when the Center was closed down by the Egyptian government and Ibrahim was arrested.

Mansour sought and was granted political asylum in the United States in 2002.

From September 28, 2009 to September 27, 2010 Dr. Mansour served as a Fellow at The US Commission on International Religious Freedom. From September 7, 2010 to May ,2011, Dr. Mansour served as fellow at The Woodrow Wilson Center.

Quranists

In the U.S.

He and his sons operate the Quranic Center in Northern Virginia, which includes an Internet site in Arabic and English. On its website at www.ahl-alquran.com, the organization is republishing dozens of Mansour's books and hundreds of articles he has written over the years.

Since arriving in the United States in 2002, Mansour has held a number of academic posts. In 2002, he was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, where he wrote on the roots of democracy in Islam.

The next year, he received a visiting fellowship at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program.

In October 2004, he said that the leaders of the Muslim organization behind a new $22 million mosque in Roxbury tolerated "hateful views", and harbored extremists. In 2004 Daniel Pipes lauded him for speaking out against Islamists.

In 2007, The Washington Times reported that his teachings have earned him dozens of death "fatwās" from fellow Muslim clerics, the punishment of Apostasy in traditional Islam.

In 2008, he said of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), "The culture of CAIR is the same as Usama bin Laden, but they have two faces. Who are the moderates? You probably never heard of them, and that, they say, is part of the problem. The message of peace does not make the news." ;International Quranic Center Mansour founded and is a board member of the International Quranic Center (IQC) to further his vision of moderate Islam. His interpretation of the letter and spirit of the Quran focuses on the values of democracy and religious tolerance. The IQC sponsors research, convenes conferences, and disseminates the ideas of Mansour and like-minded advocates in the U.S. and abroad through scholarly and educational publications, Arabic and English-language websites, movies, and TV productions. Its Board of Directors includes Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

They do not identify themselves as Sunnis' or Shiites' sects but simply call themselves Muslims because they believe that the Qu'ran represents the single authentic scripture of Islam. The basic differences with the rest of the Orthodox Muslims is that they reject the Hadith and Sunna, purported sayings and traditions of the prophet Muhammad. Dr. Mansour claims about 10,000 followers in Egypt.

;Americans for Peace and Tolerance He is a co-founder and board member of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, along with political activist Charles Jacobs and Boston College political science professor Dr. Dennis Hale (an Episcopal layman). Its purpose is to "promote peaceful coexistence in an ethnically diverse America by educating the American public about the need for a moderate political leadership that supports tolerance and core American values in communities across the nation." The group is a primary critic of the $15.6 million mosque in Roxbury Crossings, which the group asserts is led by extremist leaders and contributors. Mansour said: "I visited this mosque one time with my wife. I found their Arabic materials full of hatred against America. I recognized they were Wahhabis." The Islamic Society of Boston sued him over his attacks on anti-American and anti-Semitic statements he said he read and heard inside the society's mosque. He is also a founder and board member (since October 2004) of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance.

;Free Muslims Coalition Mansour is also a board member (since September 2004) of the Free Muslims Coalition, a nonprofit organization of American Muslims and Arabs who feel that religious violence and terrorism have not been fully rejected by the Muslim community. The Coalition seeks to eliminate broad base support for Islamic extremism and terrorism, to strengthen secular democratic institutions in the Muslim world by supporting Islamic reformation efforts, and to promote a modern secular interpretation of Islam which is peace-loving, democracy-loving, and compatible with other faiths and beliefs.

;Center for Islamic Pluralism Mansour is the founder and the Interim President of Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Quranists' arrests in Egypt

In May and June 2007, Egyptian authorities arrested five leaders of the movement, including Mansour's brother, on charges of "insulting Islam", and began investigations of 15 others. Following the arrests, Mansour's homes in Cairo and Sharqia were searched by the State Security.

Paul Marshall analyzed the arrests in the Weekly Standard as follows:

"These arrests are part of the Egyptian government's double game in which it imprisons members of the Muslim Brotherhood when the latter appear to become too powerful, while simultaneously trying to appear Islamic itself and blunt the Brotherhood's appeal by cracking down on religious reformers, who are very often also democracy activists."

Mansour lamented:

"Killing people just because they are not Muslims, they have a Hadith for this. To kill a Muslim like me after accusing him to be an 'apostate," they have a Hadith for this. To persecute the Jews, they have a Hadith for this. All this is garbage. It has nothing to do with Islam. It contradicts more than one-fourth of the Koranic verses. We find Islam has the same values as the West: freedom, unlimited freedom of speech, justice, equality, loving, humanity, tolerance, mercy, everything. This is our version of Islam, and we argue that this is the core of Islam according to the Koran."

He added: "Few Americans understand that the battle against terrorism is a war of ideas. It is a war that is very different from the military in its tactics, its strategy and its weapons."

Works

Mansour has authored 24 books and 500 articles (in various newspapers and magazines, including Al Akhbar, Al-Ahram, Al Khaleej, and Al Watan) in Arabic, dealing with many aspects of Islamic history, culture, and religion. They include a history of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia; a critique of the concepts of jihad, bigotry, and dictatorship in Muslim thought; women’s rights in the Muslim world; the reform of Egyptian education; and various pieces of prose fiction and screen plays.

Books

;Books in Arabic

#Al Sayed Al Badway: Fact versus Superstition. Cairo, 1982. #Using Religious Texts to Inform Muslim History. Cairo, 1984. #The Personality of Egypt after the Muslim Invasion. Cairo, 1984. #The History of the Historic Sources of Arabic and Muslim Fields. Cairo, 1984. . #The Fundamental Rules of Historical Research. Cairo, 1984. #The Invasions of the Moguls and the Crusaders in Muslim History. Cairo, 1985. #A History of the Cultural Development of Muslims. Cairo, 1985. #The Muslim World between the Early Stage and the Abbasy Caliphate. Cairo, 1985. #The Prophets in the Holy Quran. Cairo, 1985. #The Sinner Muslim: Common Mythology Regarding the Sinner Muslim. Cairo, 1987. #Egypt in the Holy Quran. Al Akhbar newspaper, Cairo, 1990. #The Quran: the Only Source of Islam and Islamic Jurisprudence (published under the title The Quran: Why? using the pseudonym Abdullah Al Khalifah) Cairo, 1990. #Death in the Quran. Dar Al Shark Al Awsat, Cairo, 1990. #The Penalty of Apostasy. Tiba Publishing, Cairo, 1992; Al Mahrousah, 1994; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab (The Arab Intellectuals Publishing Company), 2000; English translation, The International Publishing and Distributing Company, Toronto, Canada, 1998. #Freedom of Speech: Islam and Muslims. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Cairo, 1994. #The Al Hisbah between the Quran and Muslims. Al Mahrousah, Cairo, 1995; Al Kahera magazine, Cairo, 1996. #The Torture of the Grave. Tibia, Cairo, 1996; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab, Cairo, 2000. #Naskh in the Quran Means Writing Not Abrogating. Al Tanweer magazine, Cairo?? 1997; Al Mahrousah, Cairo, 1998; Al Mothakkafoun Al Arab, Cairo, 2000. #The Introduction (mokademat) of Ibn Khaldoun: A Fundamental Historical and Analytical Study. The Ibn Khaldoun Center, Cairo, 1999. #Suggestions to Revise Muslim Religion Courses in Egyptian Education to Make Egyptians More Tolerant. Ibn Khaldoun Center, Cairo, 1999. #Religious Thought in Egypt in the Mamluke Era: Islam versus Muslim Sufism. Ministry of Culture, Cairo, 2000. #Al-Aqaid Al-Diniyah Fi Misr Al-Mamlukiyah Bayna Al-Islam Wa-Al-Tasawwuf, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9770169919, al-Hayah al-Misriyah al-Ammah lil-Kitab #Al-Tasawwuf Wa-Al-hayah Al-Diniyah Fi Misr Al-Mamlukiyah, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9773130576, Markaz al-Mahrusah lil-Buhuth wa-al-Tadrib wa-Nashr #Misr Fi Al-Quran Al-Karim, by Ahmad Subhi Mansur, ISBN 9771243551, Muassasat Akhbar al-Yawm

Select articles

"Mediaeval theocracies in a modern age", by Ahmed Sobhi Mansour, Al-Ahram, October 15–21, 1998

"The Roots of Democracy in Islam", National Endowment for Democracy, December 16, 2002

"The False Alarm of Evangelism", April 28, 2005

"The Suicide Bomber", FrontPage Magazine, August 3, 2—5

"They ask you about the veil", November 21, 2006

"A Shackled Reformation; Egypt persecutes Muslim moderates", The New York Times, February 3, 2009

Select testimony

Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., October 25, 2005

See also

Qur'an alone

References

External links

Free-Minds bio

International Quranic Center website

Washington Times Article

Conflict & cooperation: Christian-Muslim relations in contemporary Egypt, Peter E. Makari, Syracuse University Press, 2007, ISBN 0815631448]

Category:Egyptian religious leaders Category:Egyptian emigrants to the United States Category:Jurists of Islamic law Category:Living people Category:Egyptian academics Category:1949 births Category:Muslim activists Category:Muslim writers Category:Egyptian writers Category:Al-Azhar University alumni Category:Muslim reformers Category:Islam in Egypt Category:Islam in the United States Category:History of Islam Category:Muslim pacifists Category:Egyptian refugees Category:Egyptian prisoners and detainees Category:Prisoners and detainees of Egypt Category:Harvard Law School people Category:Egyptian human rights activists Category:People from Sharqia Governorate

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