http://web.utk.edu/~msa/60Mins_Transcript.htm
CBS's
60 Minutes Interview with Shaykh Hamza, Imam Siraj Wahaj,
Farid Esack, Faisal Abdur Rauf Transcript
Sept 30, 2001
>>Bradley: when the
suspects in the September 11 bombings were identified as Muslims,
people who follow the teachings of Islam, president bush went to
great lengths to point out that the overwhelming majority of the
world's more than one billion Muslims are decent, law- abiding
citizens. How then is it that a religion that promises peace,
harmony, and justice to those who follow the will of Allah can
have in their midst thousands committed to terrorism in the name
of Allah? Tonight we'll try to answer that question.
Every Friday afternoon
at 1:00 p.m., imam Faisal Abdul-Raouf leads an Islamic prayer
service at the al-Farah mosque. This is not in Cairo, not Baghdad,
not Riyadh. This mosque is in downtown New York City, just 12
blocks from where the world trade center once stood, where the
U.S. government says Muslims perpetrated the worst act of
terrorism in our country's history. This area had been cordoned
off by police because it was so close to ground zero, so until
Friday, imam Faisal and his congregation had been unable to pray
here. How do you feel as a Muslim, knowing that people of your
faith committed this act, that resulted in the loss of 6,000
lives?
>>Faisal: it's painful.
When this thing first happened, everybody in the community said,
"oh, god, let this not be a person from our faith, tradition, from
our background."
>>Bradley: what would
you say to people in this country who, looking at what happened in
the middle east, would associate Islam with fanaticism, with
terrorism?
>>Faisal: fanaticism and
terrorism have no place in Islam. That's just as absurd as
associating Hitler with Christianity, or David Koresh with
Christianity. There are always people who will do peculiar things,
and think that they are doing things in the name of their
religion. But the Koran is... God says in the Koran that they
think that they are doing right, but they are doing wrong.
>>Bradley: there are now
more than six million Muslims in the United States, more than the
number of Episcopalians, or Lutherans, or Methodists, or
Presbyterians. Islam is now this country's fastest- growing
religion. After Friday’s service, we talked with some members of
the al-Farah mosque. So the average American, if you say "Islam,"
what do they think?
>>Congregant: when I
think trouble... The average? The average American, they think
trouble, terrorism. Terrorism, yes. Fear. And you know what? I
think all of us wish to speak to all... Every American and tell
them, hey, we are American, and we're Muslims. We're not
terrorism.
>>Bradley: explain for
someone who doesn't know, who doesn't understand your religion in
the simplest term.
>>Congregant: in the
simplest term, Islam says that human life is the most sacrosanct,
and there is no way that Islam would allow a suicide mission, and
would allow the killing of innocents.
>>Congregant: Islam
means a submission to god. It also means peace to a lot of people,
which is what it means to me. "Islamic terrorism": I mean, those
two words have no meaning to me as a Muslim.
>>Bradley: but Muslim
terrorists, in the name of Islam, have struck against the United
States time and time again. Osama bin laden, the prime suspect in
these latest attacks, is also thought to have been responsible for
the car bomb attack in Saudi Arabia that killed five Americans;
the attack on the u.s.s. "Cole," which killed 17 sailors; the
deaths of 18 U.S. army rangers in Somalia; and the bombings of two
U.S. embassies in east Africa that killed 224 people. We met with
four of this country's leading Islamic religious leaders to talk
about this wave of terror, including the most recent attack at the
world trade center and the pentagon. Imam Siraj Wahaj of Brooklyn,
did you think Muslims could have committed this?
>>Wahaj: no, just from
theological process, Islam doesn't only talk about the ends, but
also the means; that however angry you are, you couldn't do
anything like this. You couldn't kill innocent people.
>>Bradley: imam hamza
yusuf of california:
>>yusuf: it's prohibited
in Islam to torture animals. It's prohibited to kill animals
without just cause. So the idea of killing human beings, innocent
human beings, is anathema to muslims. They're deeply shocked by
it.
>>Bradley: while Islam
forbids the killing of innocents, in this 1998 interview, bin
laden justified the u.s. embassy bombings in africa, saying every
american man is our enemy, whether he is a soldier or a taxpayer.
As for the women and children who died, he says women and children
die every day in palestine. In a statement last week, bin laden
called for a jihad or holy war in the name of allah.
>>yusuf: I would say
that he has no legitimate authority, that an Islam jihad can only
be declared by legitimate state authority. And this is accepted by
consensus. There is no vigilantism in Islam. Muslims believe in
state authority.
>>Bradley: you think
he's a vigilante?
>>yusuf: absolutely,
absolutely. All muslims are guided by the words of islam's holy
book, the koran, which is believed to be the word of god, and
explains how muslims should lead their lives. It also says
fighting should only be in self-defense, a fight in the way of
allah against those who fight against you, but be not aggressive.
And the koran forbids suicide. They cannot bring any textual
evidence from the koran, from the traditions of the prophet, to
prove anything that justifies what they've done.
>>Bradley: so then it's
outright aggression?
>>yusuf: it's outright
aggression.
>>Bradley: it has
nothing to do with Islam?
>>yusuf: that's my
belief.
>>Bradley: so if the
people who are responsible for this are followers of Islam, how do
they justify this?
>>yusuf: there is no
justification. But how do christians have to justify christians
who kill people at abortion clinics? Many of the terrorist
activities in this country are actually done by extremist
christian elements, and I don't think anybody in the mainstream
christian world would see that as anything other than a serious
aberration. Unfortunately, because of our ignorance in this
country of Islam, we see these type of things, and there is an
assumption that somehow Islam condones this thing.
>>Bradley: it is the
Islamic belief in the afterlife that could be an incentive to die
in the name of Islam. According to the prophet mohammed, the next
life is paradise, offering forgiveness.
>>faisal: in the Islamic
belief system, the next life is the primary life. The next life is
more real, more intense, and more vivid.
>>yusuf: I think that
there are people that do these things that believe that we have a
noble end, and the noble end is to bring about some kind of
conflict to wake up the Muslim world, to start a global jihad
against the evil west.
>>Bradley: and the satan
of the evil west, according to Muslim extremists, is the united
states and its culture of commercialism, which imam farid esack
equates with a religion.
>>esack: it is the
fastest- growing religion in the world, the religion of
consumerism, and everybody is being drawn into this new religion.
And if you do not buy into this, you are an outcast, you are a
heretic, and there is the hellfire of utter poverty which awaits
you.
>>Bradley: and
throughout the Muslim world, there is also strong opposition to
america's foreign policy, particularly in the middle east because
of its support of israel and economic sanctions against iraq.
>>faisal: it is a
reaction against the u.s. government politically, where we espouse
principles of democracy and human rights, and where we ally
ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.
>>Bradley: are you in
any way suggesting that we in the united states deserved what
happened?
>>faisal: I wouldn't say
that the united states deserved what happened, but united states
policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.
>>Bradley: you say that
we're an accessory? How?
>>faisal: because we
have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world.
In fact, in the most direct sense, osama bin laden is made in the
u.s.a.
>>Bradley: bin laden and
his supporters were in fact recruited and paid nearly $4 billion
by the c.i.a. and the government of saudi arabia in the 1980s to
fight with the mujadeeen rebels against the former soviet union,
which had invaded afghanistan. After the soviets pulled out, the
saudis, our best friends in the arab world, our staunchest ally
during the gulf war, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into
the newlyormed taliban regime, and then fead that bin laden and
the taliban were out of control. Bin laden's faith is a strict,
puritanical form of Islam called wahabism, which was founded in
the 18th century in saudi arabia, and is now that country's
predominant ideology.
>>vali nasir: wahabism
tends to produce increasingly that kind of stark view of what is
right and what is wrong.
>>Bradley: vali nasir, a
Muslim and a professor of political science at the university of
san diego, is an expert on Islamic extremist movements.
>>nasir: it's more
likely to support the kinds of violence that the majority of
muslims don't believe their faith actually supports.
>>Bradley: osama bin
laden grew up a wahabi in saudi arabia, and has turned that
extreme vision of Islam into a terrorism network that has backed
the taliban government in afghanistan, and has adherents in
violent fundamentalist movements in more than 20 countries. At the
core of wahabism is saudi arabia, which spends hundreds of
millions of dollars promoting this ideology, which forbids any
form of music, dance, or movies. Those who drink alcohol can be
flogged, and anyone who commits adultery can face execution. When
you say that saudi arabia is the ideological center of gravity for
Muslim extremists, Muslim fanatics...
>>nasir: well, because
saudi arabia has been exporting its vision of Islam, has been
investing in religious institutions, education systems, movements
that promote its vision of Islam, and has contributed enormously
to ideologization and fanaticization of Islam all the way from
malaysia to morocco.
>>Bradley: and how does
that view of Islam promote violence?
>>nasir: well, it makes
it more likely that, given the crises that are rampant in the
Muslim world, it's much easier that a militant, fanatical
interpretation of Islam becomes the basis for launching movements
that are increasingly turning violent.
>>Bradley: but is there
a big leap from that to an act of terror?
>>nasir: there is a
leap, but the issue is that that helps legitimate an act of
terror, that helps recruitment for an act of terror. What saudi
arabia is doing is not promoting terrorism, it is promoting that
climate.
>>Bradley: one of the
ways the saudis have been promoting that climate is to finance
religious schools, many of them on the pakistan- afghanistan
border, where young muslims from around the world go to be
indoctrinated in the strict tenets of wahabism. Iman farid esack
was one of them. He spent eight years in a seminary, where he was
given lessons not only in Islam, but also in urban warfare and the
ultimate sacrifice.
>>esack: the notion was
that death in the path of god was the highest of our aspirations.
>>Bradley: what is the
basic philosophy that was taught in seminaries like the one you
attended?
>>esack: I think that
there is sense of a very literal understanding of the faith and a
profound sense that if we adhere to the literal understanding of
the faith, then we will be saved. But then there's ao a sense that
we are the only ones in the world that really matter, and that
other people in the rest of the world, particularly people who do
not share our faith, they do not matter.
>>Bradley: do you think
that teachings like that have contributed in any way to the
proliferation of extremism and even terrorism in the region and
from the region?
>>esack: yes. I
certainly... I have no doubt about it.
>>Bradley: we wanted to
talk to the saudi government, but its embassy in washington did
not respond to our request. Last week, the saudis broke off
diplomatic relations with the taliban. And now the united states,
in the words of president bush, is in hot pursuit of osama bin
laden and the taliban forces harboring him in afghanistan, a
prospect that frightens Muslim leaders in america.
>>yusuf: if we're going
to go into the Muslim world for more collateral damage, more
bombing, more death, more destruction, the creation of more
extreme conditions, we're not going to win a war on terrorism.
We're going to in fact exacerbate the symptoms.
>>esack: so the way in
which the united states and its allies in the world today go about
and dealing with this crisis, that will really determine for a
very, very long time the nature of whether fundamentalism will
grow and whether it rears its many, many ugly heads.
>>Bradley: you said
earlier that you point the finger at u.s. policy, I think, as an
accessory to the crime, is that right? Let me point the finger at
you for a minute. What have you personally done to denounce Muslim
fundamentalist beliefs that inform these terrorists?
>>siraj: ed, if you're
asking the question, have we as muslims done enough, no, I don't
think we have. We should do more. And I think one of the lessons
of this tragedy is to do something. The question is, what do we as
a Muslim world-- 1.2 billion muslims-- what do we do now to make
it a better world?
>>Bradley: correct me if
i'm wrong, but isn't it the responsibility... Does not Islam, does
not allah require that muslims police their own religion and rid
theelves of extremists?
>>yusuf: yes,
absolutely. It's an obligation for muslims to root them out. And I
think it is a jihad now for the muslims in the Muslim country to
rid themselves of this element.