This letter aims to reconcile you with both your time and your religion. The choice of cutting yourself off from the world, your country and your time is not one. It is that of an individual whose sole purpose would be to serve his ego, his passions, and condemned to wither like a plant that feeds only on itself. What I hope is, at the antipodes of that, but just as much of conformism and the stupid imitation of others, to help you become aware of your true freedom of choice, far from the dictates of anyone. . A freedom full of questions, which are the only tools to sharpen your curiosity and your independence of mind.

You will not be judged by anyone, even your father or your mother. You will be judged by you, and you alone.

MB

Mohamed Bajrafil, theologian, linguist and imam born in 1978 in the Comoros, has become, since the publication of his first book, Islam de France, year I, one of the most prominent representatives of the renewal of French Muslim thought. .

https://www.editionspleinjour.fr/r%C3%A9veillons-nous-presse/

AFP (and Le Point, L'Express, La Croix, etc.), February 15, 2018
Mohamed Bajrafil, the imam who stands up against "the bigots"

Barely forty years old, he is a now recognized religious figure of an "Islam of France" which lacks it: the imam and reformist theologian Mohamed Bajrafil would like to see the Salafist "bigots" retreat like "the fachos" who poison the debate on his religion.

"Let's wake up!" Launches the title of his new book (Plein Jour editions) this teacher of Comorian origin, fine beard and impeccable suit.

"The choice of cutting yourself off from the world, from your country, from your time is not one," he told his reader in this "letter to a young French Muslim". Koran in hand, but always put back in the context of France in 2018.

In a remarked essay ("Islam de France, l'an I") after the attacks of 2015, Mohamed Bajrafil already called on his co-religionists to "enter the 21st century", to rediscover the spiritual impetus of a faith buried "under the weight of superfluous traditions".

Far be it from him, however, to despise traditional Islam, from which he comes. Born on March 25, 1978 in Moroni, capital of the Comoros archipelago, Mohamed Bajrafil owes a lot to his father, his main spiritual master, who made him grow up in Chafiism, one of the four legal schools of Sunni Islam.

Ace of Koranic recitation from an early age, he studied fikr (Islamic jurisprudence), but also Arabic grammar every day at dawn. "It helped me overcome my sleep and shaped my way of seeing the world, my relationship to reading," he told AFP. And to greedily quote some bedside authors, from Gaston Bachelard and Émile Durkheim to Nietzsche of the "Twilight of the Idols".

It was in the suburbs of Paris that he settled in 1999. Less than ten years later, he became imam at the mosque of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne). But he never made a career out of it: this singular product of the Islamic tradition and of the republican university - he is a doctor in linguistics - lives off the teaching profession, giving Arabic lessons in mainland France or teaching the geopolitics of religions in Mayotte.

And he writes, sorry to see the "abyssal ignorance" of so many young Muslims who ignore the "alphabet primer of Islam" and reduce it to a dichotomy between "halal" (what is permitted) and "haram" ( forbidden).

"You can't rule life with fatwas (legal opinions, editor's note), it's not possible! And it's never been like that, in reality. Except that, today, bigotry has won “, he laments.

He pleads for "a reform of the vision of Islam" and the interpretation of its texts to consolidate a plurality of readings of the Koran and the prophetic tradition (sunna), far from the Salafist "bigots" who claim to be heirs of the companions of the Prophet.

Facing them thrives, according to him, another "simplism", anti-Muslim this time, which affirms "the Koran says that" even "invents suras", plague Mohamed Bajrafil, quoting the polemicist Éric Zemmour. "Bigots and fachos: two sides of the same coin", he summarizes.

The light voice of Mohamed Bajrafil, which now has some impact in the media and on social networks, can it carry? In any case, it is beginning to count, faced with mosque managers who are not very representative of the young faithful, intellectuals of Muslim origin far from religious practice and discredited imams.

From there to dream of being a "grand imam of France" or even a member of a "Muslim consistory" that some people call for in the context of the refoundation of "the Islam of France" wanted by Emmanuel Macron... "Anything that is pyramidal organization bothers me", he slices, attached to the "free will of the believer" against the "hierarchization and clericalization of Islam".

But he agreed to be secretary general of the Muslim Theological Council of France (CTMF), where he rubs shoulders with some scholars gravitating in the orbit of the Muslim Brotherhood, a brotherhood accused of promoting political Islam. This earned him stubborn criticism.

He brushes them aside, emphasizing the need in the country for "a word of reconciliation" to move "from living together to doing together".

"Nothing is perfect, but it's good to live in France," he said to the attention of a Muslim youth who might doubt it.