Farag Foda (Arabic: فرج فودة [ˈfɑɾɑɡ ˈfoːdæ, ˈfuːdæ]; 20 August 1945 – 8 June 1992) was a prominent Egyptian professor, writer, columnist,[1] and human rights activist.

[2] He was assassinated on 8 June 1992 by members of the Islamist group al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya after being accused of blasphemy by a committee of scholars (ulama) at al-Azhar University.

In the early 1980s, Islamic radicals assassinated president Anwar Sadat and attacked Coptic Orthodox churches, homes, and shops.

He specifically criticized leading Islamist figures such as Anwar al-Jundi—who had praised the secularist, anti-Muslim Brotherhood regime of Gamal Abdel-Nasser in a 1965 book—and Muhammad al-Hayyawan—a Muslim Brotherhood leader who had attributed the 1988 Armenian earthquake to God's punishment of the 'atheist' Soviet Union, but offered no explanation for the equally deadly 1990 earthquake in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[4] In a column in October magazine shortly before his death, he lamented that "the world around us is busy with the conquest of space, genetic engineering and the wonders of the computer," while Muslim scholars concern themselves with sex in paradise.

The two gunmen had reportedly been "monitoring Farag Foda’s movements and watching his house in al-Nuzha area in Heliopolis for several weeks".

[7] In a statement claimed responsibility for the killing, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya accused Foda of being an apostate from Islam, advocating the separation of religion from the state, and favouring the existing legal system in Egypt rather than the application of Shari’a.