CAIRO (AP) — Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a prominent Egyptian scholar once accused of apostasy for his contemporary interpretation of Islam, has died. He was 66.
Officials at the Cairo hospital where Abu Zeid had been receiving treatment for the past two weeks said he died Monday from a brain infection. A close friend, Gaber Asfour, also confirmed Abu Zeid’s death.
Abu Zeid came to the public eye in 1995 when Islamist lawyers filed a suit against him, demanding he divorce his wife because his writings insulted Islam. A court ordered Abu Zeid to divorce, and the couple refused and fled Egypt for fear of being attacked by Muslim fundamentalists.
The case outraged secular Arab intellectuals, who saw it as an attack on freedom of expression.
Abu Zeid later appealed the ruling and won, but remained abroad, spending most of the last fifteen years in the Netherlands.
Born in 1943 in a village north of Cairo, Abu Zeid obtained a doctorate in Islamic studies in 1981 and took a job teaching Arabic studies at Cairo University a year later.
Instead of the traditional literal interpretation of the Quran, Abu Zeid used contemporary methodology, including linguistics, to interpret Islam’s holy text.
His writings on Quranic studies, especially his renowned book "A Critique of Religious Discourse," drew the wrath of Muslim fundamentalists who accused questioning the Quran’s divine origins and therefore being an unbeliever.
In an interview in 2000 he said: "I would like to tell the Muslim nation that I was born, raised and lived as a Muslim and, God willing, I will die as a Muslim."
Abu Zeid was buried Monday in his home village in the Nile Delta.
He is survived by his wife, Ibtihal Younes, who lectures on French literature at Cairo University.
