At the beginning of Ramadan this year, the Egyptian satellite channel CBC showed the series “Faten Amal Harbi”, whose launch passed without controversy, but within a few days the series received a great deal of controversy and criticism, and to a degree that sometimes exceeded what The series "The Choice 3", which turned into a subject for ridicule and "memes" on social media, won him.The author of the series "Faten Amal Harbi" is the Egyptian journalist "Ibrahim Issa", and because of him he received a scathing attack that led to complaints against him before the Public Prosecutor. The series came at a critical time in Issa's career, as the man was subjected to an unprecedented wave of attack after his statement, before Ramadan, that the Al-Isra and Al-Miraj incident was nothing but a myth without a historical basis.
Following his statement, some loyalists to the regime, such as MP "Mustafa Bakri" criticized Issa under the dome of Parliament, and journalist Majdi Al-Jallad came out of his isolation, for nothing but accusing Issa of being funded by networks that fight Islam.
Issa has always attacked the sheikhs and the clergy, and even previously denied the Isra and Mi’raj incident in December 2020 without a “trend” mentioned. However, the escalation of criticism makes us ask the following question: Who is Ibrahim Issa really?
How did it start and what did it end?
Why did he move from the political struggle to the "pseudo-enlightenment struggle"?
A natural journalist
Ibrahim Eissa graduated from the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University, but he started his journalistic career early in the school year, when he published a student newspaper that was published among the students of his school.
After a series of humble beginnings, he won the professional shift with which he began his actual career when he joined the editorial team of the famous “Rose Al-Youssef” magazine in 1987. Then Issa resigned from the magazine after three years as a result of his refusal to oppose the invasion of Kuwait, and he moved between several unwritten experiences. She had success, so he resorted to writing novels, and during that period he published a novel “Describing what can be called a beloved,” “The Naked,” which was banned from publication, and “Mary’s Last Transfiguration.” He also published several books such as “The Blood of Hussein” and “Turbans.” and daggers”, “Sex and the Scholars of Islam”, and “War in the Niqab”, all of which are titles that exude the direction of their content and the orientation of their owner.
In 1995, Issa was offered an opportunity to lead the editor-in-chief of Al-Dustour newspaper, but he did not stay there for long, as he caused its closure in 1998 due to the publication of a letter attributed to the Islamic Group threatening three well-known Christians in Egypt, "Naguib Sawiris" and "Rami Lakah". and "Raouf Ghabbour", and then Issa returned to the path of novels and literature.
In 1999, Issa published the book "Threatened with Death", in which he declared his hatred for everyone who represented religion in the form of sheikhs or men of legal science, and even chose to attack the closest sheikh to people's hearts at the time, Sheikh "Muhammad Metwally Al Shaarawy", and he did not differentiate between him and any sheikh. Another, despite the official approval of Shaarawy, compared to the sheikhs affiliated with the currents of political Islam.
Throughout the nineties, then, Ibrahim Issa's hostility to everything that is generalized and Islamic, regardless of the accompanying political stance, became clear.
The book "Ideas Threatened by Destruction" sparked a limited controversy when it was presented. It did not gain acceptance with the publishers. Therefore, Issa started looking for a job opportunity for seven years after publishing his book without finding his goal, and he entered a cycle of professional failure and psychological frustration, as he told himself in His interview with the English-speaking "Cairo Magazine".
During those years, Issa tried to obtain a license to publish several newspapers, but his attempts were thwarted time and time again.
Issa tried to write for a small local newspaper under a pseudonym, but the security services quickly became aware of this, and the newspaper was confiscated and closed.
The message, then, was clear from State Security: Ibrahim Issa crosses the red lines drawn for political journalists under Mubarak's rule, and he must be silenced or the newspaper in which he is published should be silenced. As for religion, let him speak as he pleases.
Issa found that his path was blocked in political writings, so he was forced to search for his livelihood through another way, especially as he faced financial difficulties during that period, and only hosting him in the United States to give lectures and workshops at several American universities such as “Georgetown” and Berkeley, and there he was able to seize the opportunity and meet his friends who helped him.
As soon as the American trip ended, Issa returned to Egypt and tried to publish a cultural newspaper, which was not allowed to be published.
Once again, Issa resorted to novels, publishing the novel "The Killing of the Great Man" about the death of the head of one of the imagined countries, but it did not gain literary popularity and was technically weak, so that he began distributing copies to sellers and publishing houses himself before confiscating them.
During this period, the literary texts of Jesus proliferated, most of which were weak and weak, and below his usual level in political writing, as it seems that they were written in a hurry, such as “He has gone away” and
A paragraph from the book "Threatened with Death" published in 1998.
Kiss of life from TV
Issa remained a fugitive who did not know where or how to write. Neither the newspapers received him nor the cultural field accepted him, and his books remained on the shelves, until a businessman gave him the kiss of life in 2001 when the Dream satellite channel was launched, which hosted him on its screen as an announcer for a political program entitled “On the Coffee.” For two years, the program gained great fame until the channel was pressured to stop the program, which actually happened in 2003. Instead of entering the crypt of disappearance again, the audience suddenly found themselves in front of Ibrahim Issa while he was presenting religious programs on the same channel, such as The “Index” program, which dealt with the early days of Islamic history, and “Al-Ra’a’yan” about the biographies of Abu Bakr and Omar, and “The Two Adorables” on the biography of the two ladies Aisha and Fatima Al-Zahra, then the “God knows best” program, similar to the “The Road to Karbala” program on the Bahraini Shababeek channel.
In the article. Ibrahim Issa Al claims that he is a religious thinker. In 2009, he presented a program called “The Road to Karbala” on the Bahraini Shiite channel Shababeek. pic.twitter.com/Kz171LZ7wf
— Ahmed Mohey (@ahmed__mohey) December 29, 2015
The scene was strange. Jesus, who was not known to have any readings or writings in the religious field, and even attacked everything related to Islam, suddenly appeared in order to introduce people to the Companions and the Prophet’s biography as if he was a man other than a man.
However, the situation was not exactly the case. With scrutiny, we find that what distinguished the religious programs of Jesus at that time was a regulating thread that the viewer could notice in the first minute of all his programs, which is that he relies on specific narrations in the narration of the events of the major strife among the Companions deliberately exaggerating the catastrophe and mistaken by the Companions.
In this context, the correct Issa mixed the subject with the proven one, until his opponents accused him of being a hidden Shiite, and dozens of articles were written warning against his Shiiteness and secularism at the same time.
Issa did not want from these religious acts other than to intensify his presence among viewers after the ban on his political programs and writings, which he revealed in one of his meetings when he was asked about the purpose of his religious programs, and he replied, “There is no goal, what happened from the beginning is that after the program was stopped.” On the coffee’ In 2003, I switched to presenting Islamic history programs after closing the door to current history programs, because my programs succeed to the point that they stop, and Islamic history programs are just a ploy so that my presence remains on the screen and people communicate with me.”
Cairo magazine's interview with Ibrahim Issa in 2005, and the cover reads, "The last laugh... How Egypt's most controversial journalist came to the fore."
Issa succeeded in his "stunt" indeed, and was able to penetrate the Egyptian viewer's awareness to a large extent, so his limited journalistic fame expanded thanks to his program on Dream and his religious programs, then his various programs such as the comedy program "Hamra" and the film program "Faraja".
After his fame reached those horizons, the Egyptian politician "Ayman Nour", the head of the Al-Ghad Party under establishment at the time, offered him a job in the party's newspaper. Issa agreed, but the newspaper was soon closed in conjunction with the arrest of Ayman Nour, so Issa returned to the newspaper "Al-Dustour" in 2005. After it was re-launched with a foreign license, he headed with it the editor-in-chief of "Sawt Al-Umma" newspaper.
Over these years, Ibrahim Issa's topics have revolved around political reform, as he tackled hot issues such as corruption, the file of succession to Gamal, the son of President "Mohammed Hosni Mubarak", the political role of the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasserites, the "Toshka Project", and the employment of retired military personnel in high positions. , and other issues that occupied public opinion at the time.
The man was a harsh critic of the Mubarak regime, which in turn accused him in several cases in which he was sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths. Mubarak soon ordered a presidential pardon for Issa in order to relieve himself of the embarrassment of arresting a famous journalist.
In the end, Issa was able to agree with the leftists and Islamists in this period, and he had strong relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, and everyone was around him in one way or another as a result of his views of freedom and democracy, before betraying everything he defended one day.
open policy door
Issa found the door of politics wide open after the January 25, 2011 revolution, and then he set out to preach his liberal democratic ideas. Paradoxically, the first political program after Mubarak’s resignation was “Ibrahim Issa’s Salon” on Al Jazeera Mubasher Egypt, which he is attacking fiercely now.
Then Issa participated with others in establishing the "Al-Tahrir" satellite channel in February 2011, in which he presented the program "Fi Al-Midan" with "Mahmoud Saad", "Bilal Fadl" and "Amr Al-Leithi", and he published the newspaper "Al-Tahrir" in the same year. And he sold his stake in Al-Tahrir TV for nearly a million dollars, as the actor "Tamer Abdel Moneim" tells in his book "Fouloul's Memoirs".
Soon, the political programs presented by Issa continued without stopping. In 2012, he had the programs “Hana Cairo” and “Ibrahim and the People” broadcast on the “Cairo and the People” channel. Then, in 2013, Issa presented the “25/30” program on the “On TV” channel. (ONTV), which lasted for two years, and also hosted the program “The Boss” on “OSN” in 2014 until it was discontinued the following year.
All of these programs dealt with political and social topics that occupied public opinion, and they rarely touched on intellectual or religious issues, and their lines were as it was in the Mubarak days: a fierce defense of freedom, democracy and social justice, and a fierce attack on everything that is Islamic.
But it seems that Ibrahim Issa’s hatred of Islamists has overpowered his love of democracy, so he turned against all his principles and supported Sisi when the events of 2013 unfolded, and then he became one of the strongest instigators of the exclusion of supporters of the political Islam movement, and even the exclusion of them from all life if possible.
At that time, attention was drawn to Issa’s support for the brutal massacre against the protesters in the Raba’a and Al-Nahda squares, where the man prepared for the massacre with all his might, even paving the way to completely eradicate the Brotherhood from society. In August 2013, he broadcast a video of a sit-in for miners in an African country. The police committed a police massacre, then demanded the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in in such a way that it required “excessive violence, resolute killing, great cruelty and psychological dehydration.”
From Sisi's arms to his feet
After Issa supported the outright killing of Islamists, he saw in the new president, "Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi" a bright hope and a window to realize his dreams. El-Sisi reciprocated his confidence. The new regime was caused by several issues, the first of which is the restrictions on journalists and publishing, then the sale of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, in addition to the muzzling of mouths and the monopoly of the intelligence services on media outlets.
In one of his episodes of the “Cairo and the People” program in 2017, Issa implicitly criticized this new transformation in the media arena, as if he was surprised that the hand of repression that he blessed extended to him as well, and then all his political programs were stopped, and Issa returned to the zero point.
And just as he did in the past, when he resorted to literary and religious writings whenever the security services stopped his political programmes, Issa issued dozens of programs and religious and literary books at that time, such as the “Disputed for Him” program on Al-Hurra TV, and the “He has what he has and what is upon him” program on Radio Nojoum F. The famous Egyptian.
Therefore, Issa moved again from the arena of political struggle to a cheap struggle that took the enlightenment as a veil for it. He is no longer adding to his bank balance, as described by the writer Bilal Fadl.
In addition to his televised programs on criticism of religion and the pious, Issa published two books, "The Blood Journey" and "The Wars of the Merciful" in 2016 and 2018, which are an extension of the book "The Blood of Al-Hussein" and his ideas about the great strife, which mostly adopted the established and Shiite narratives.
Issa turned his novel “Mawlana” into a movie in 2016 in which he criticized the clergy, as is his old habit. He also wrote the script for the movie “The Guest” in 2019 where he questioned the hypothesis of the veil, and wrote the script for the movie “The Owner of the Maqam” in which he promoted a kind of Sufism In 2020, and finally came the series "Faten Amal Harbi" last Ramadan.
Recently, the Egyptian journalist "Magdi Al-Jallad" accused Issa of receiving "millions" of money in order to promote the ideas of the controversial Islamic thinker, "Gamal Al-Banna." Al-Jallad claimed that Issa was affiliated with the "clique" of Jamal Al-Banna's followers.
Abstaining from politics and moral accusations
Ibrahim Issa (European)
Issa divorced the talk about tyranny and tyranny, and no one has heard him whispering for years in criticism of the suppression of freedoms, confiscation of opinions, and the arrest of tens of thousands of innocent people, and his intellectual transformations reached the point of changing his testimony in the Mubarak case and the accusation of killing demonstrators. He orders the killing of someone and was keen on the people, after accusing him for years of being involved in the killing of demonstrators and of regularly following up on the killings and repression. Issa even denied that he saw the police kill any protester in the 2011 demonstrations.
This radical transformation raised question marks among followers and fans of Issa, as former presidential candidate "Mohamed ElBaradei" described him as the person who felt betrayed the most after the 2013 coup. But was Issa surprising in his transformations?
In fact, those close to Jesus know that he trusts only himself. He was never a man of groups, organizations, or even principles and values. Rather, his relationships weaken and strengthen according to the image in which he chooses to appear.
In one picture we find him engaged in the ranks of the left, in another we find him at the table of those with money, in a third we find him shoulder to shoulder with the men of the Brotherhood, and in a fourth we find him with the Americans against terrorism, and in a fifth with the revolutionaries against the military, and in the sixth with Mubarak in fairness to the owner of the air strike, and in Seven narrators of the lives of the great companions, and in the eighth, a narrator of the stories of blood that accompanied the history of Islam from subject and controversial narrations.
Issa's professional life was not without crude moral transgressions.
On April 20, 2022, writer Bilal Fadl recorded a clip in which he told Issa's exploitation of employees since 2006, and how employees complained about him because of the financial pressure on them.
Fadl said that he received a salary of 1,000 Egyptian pounds from the newspaper "Al-Dustour" at the time, while Issa's salary reached 70,000 pounds, which shocked Fadl at the time.
Then the same thing was repeated in 2007 when Fadl conveyed to Issa a collective complaint from the workers of the newspaper, “Al-Dustour.” He was surprised by a condescending tone from Issa, in which the latter refused to meet their demands and threatened them with dismissal, saying that he was “who made them as journalists.”
Bilal Fadl added that Ibrahim Issa accused the head of the Wafd Party, "Sayed al-Badawi" of being accomplices with the Mubarak regime to dismiss him from the newspaper, "Al-Dustour".
In the same vein, the personal accusations against Issa came. On April 7, 2022, the Egyptian journalist "Yasmine El-Gyoushi" published a post on a Facebook page in which she told how Issa prevented employees' salaries, arbitrarily dismissed pregnant women, restricted the newspaper's employees, and delayed the payment of their monthly bonuses. While he got in his bank account tens and hundreds of thousands of money.
Ibrahim Issa started as a humble dreamer, then a revolutionary opposition, then an instigator of bloodshed and a mouthpiece of power, then a pet voice working in the regime’s media institutions and following the whims of the rulers, then expelled from the regime’s favour, then a fugitive struggling against the religion that many of its defenders lie behind.
His message today is summarized in what he writes in Al-Maqal newspaper, criticizing the traditional religious discourse, as the man questions the authenticity of Al-Bukhari’s hadiths and narrates unreputable narrations about the Companions and incidents of Islamic history, and other things that he has been doing since his name appeared in the Egyptian public sphere, in addition to promoting From an anti-Islamist view, all Islamists are the same, and there is no difference between an enlightened person and a fanatic, or between my brothers and my predecessor, or between a moderate and an ISIS, and here the man meets with his rulers, and he pleads for opening the doors to ideas of renewal of religious discourse sponsored by some wings of the regime.