Here starts the auto-generated transcription of The Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and 9/11: Dr. Nabeel Jabbour – Part 2:
In the studio, we got the privilege to have, Nabil Jabbour Mhmm. Doctor Nabil Jabbour, who’s expert on fundamentalism. Yeah. Islamic fundamentalism. That’s his That sounds better.
Yeah. Fundamental Islam. Islamic fundamentalism. Craziness. I mean, that’s what he did his doctorate on.
Yeah. So and, he is a, a Christian, Arab Christian. Arab Christian born in Syria. Syria. Right.
Lived in Lebanon. Right. So he definitely has this insider’s perspective that, we get to listen to. It’s pretty awesome. Right?
Hey. But we, just a kind of a technical thing. We just wanted to apologize for some of the sound quality. Just sometimes recording is not as, smooth as it as it needs to be. Basically, what it comes down to is Howard wasn’t here, and, he said the sound would be fine.
Just go for it, and I messed the whole thing up. Apparently, I just realized that I’m the sound engineer. Yeah. I don’t know why he just now realized that. I’m pretty sure that was in the, initial agreement.
Right. Right. With the agreement, what have you. The the fact that he knows sound and I don’t. But, anyhoo, so, just Just bear with the the audio.
You’ll get used to it and we’re getting some software clean it up. And Right. So if you just listen if you listen to part 1 and you were just, like, man, this audio quality was, you know, suffering, I’m gonna re upload it, corrected, fixed, polished, made it a little bit prettier. It’s gonna be definitely much easier to listen to. So if you wanted to listen to it again, have at it.
If you if you skipped it because it was just too hard to listen to, then listen to it again. And then we’re gonna do the same thing for all the rest of the podcast because we believe the content is so important. We’ve been sitting here for the last 2 hours working on the, sound quality due to my not knowing anything about Sam. Right. Hey.
I’ll admit it. I’m wrong. I’m wrong. But I’m not going anywhere. So this is, the I mean, hopefully, the sound quality would be pristine Yeah.
From here on out. From now on, if Howard’s on vacation, I am due. Right. So Alright. Let’s get to it.
Yep. So, a little bit of a preview of what what’s happening. So or a little bit of a of review of what happened in the last podcast. So we’re following, following the story of Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutb.
Right. And then, he basically gets to the point where he is, hanged. 1960 6 In Egypt. Khutab is hanged in Egypt. He refuses to recant for writing, milestones.
Right. Which was passed out in pieces from prison. Mhmm. And it has become the the the textbook. Yeah.
I’d say the premier text. Right. Of fundamental, Islam at this point. Right. And so now this is where our story picks up.
We’re going beyond Qatub and moving on to Right. I think he ended last week with the question was, was there anyone there that was influenced by the death of Sayyid Qutb? And that’s when doctor Jabbour mentions the, blood of the martyrs. Right. To see the church.
Right. When we talked about the Islamic view was Right. What was it? The it nourishes the roots. Right.
The tree. The tree Right. Of Islam. So, yeah, there is a one one guy in particular that was present and greatly impacted in somebody that you’ve all heard of. Whether or not you recognize his name or not, you’ve heard of him.
Right. And, something just to say before, it’s like, I really enjoy the way, Jabil Nabil. Nabil. Javor, just kind of breaks it down into a story. Like, you’re following these guys’ lives and kinda seeing how all these, ideas are formed and how it’s gained momentum.
Mhmm. And I I you know, I what surprised me is I think I actually did have kind of this feeling of, sadness, when Goethb was hanged in just in my mind. I think because I kind of I I kinda know where he was coming from in the beginning where, you know, he really just wanted to be close to God. Right. Right?
And then he is encounter he encounters all of these, you know, these injustices and how it it it kinda mars him. Yeah. And there’s a common denominator, that I’m just now noticing here after studying these fellows for a while. We’ll we’ll talk about it after we get through all of the sort of biographical approaches and looking at everybody, but there’s a common link here that that I didn’t notice until here recently. And, it’s it’s prison time and and suffering while they’re in prison for their belief systems.
And that sort of creates almost, nativism. Right. Well, it takes what might be started off as a reforming idea, and then taking that into a fanatical idea. Right. Because even though Sahid could have never did anything, fanatical, his, certainly, his text is what is producing a lot of Right.
A lot of it today. And I think that the fact that he wrote this in prison, which is a crazy stark contrast from the letters that Paul is writing in the New Testament from prison. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And and, you know, something that I think about that, that, these guys who are writing, you know, their their thoughts in prison, they must be thinking, is this worth me suffering for?
Do I believe this so much that I’m willing to actually lose my life and in the end you see Sayaka to do that? I mean he gives up his life Right. Refuses to recant. And and we’ll see now the impact of that on this particular young man. Right.
So without further ado, here we go. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know.
So after the death of Sayid Qutb, there’s this guy, Ayman al Zawahiri, who’s the current leader of Al Qaeda. How does the death of Sayyid Qutb affect, or does it have an effect on Aiman al Zawahiri? Aiman Zawahiri was a university student when in 1966, when Sayyid Qut was hanged. Actually, the uncle of Aiman Zawahiri, the brother of his mother, was the lawyer of Sayyid Qutb. To start with, this lawyer was the student of Sayyid Qutb, and later on, his became he became his lawyer.
And so can you imagine this lawyer every day coming back home to the extended family after spending several hours with Sayed Kotb in prison listening to him, and he comes and tells the extended family detailed stories about Sayed Qub and what he perceived about him as a a pure Muslim who really loves God and wants to do the will of God. And so Aiman Zawahiri will sit and listen to these stories and absorb them, and with time, Sayyid Qut became more and more one of his biggest heroes. And so then, when Sayyid Qut was hanged in 1966, Ayman Zawahiri was leading a cell group, secret cell group, at the university, and they were he was discipling these these guys using the book Milestones, which was a banned book. So he has a direct impact on Zawahiri’s life? Big time.
Okay. So how does Al Qaeda come to be? What is the the beginnings of sort of Zawahiri’s movement from being a student to where he is today as the talking about 1966 when Al Qaeda came into existence in the 19 nineties. Okay. There is a long period of time.
So during, the early seventies, a movement started at the universities in Egypt called Algamahat al Islamiyah, where more and more students, the the men were growing beards, women started more and more covering their hair and wearing the hijab. Even an niqab, which shows only the eyes, started appearing in Egypt. And Aiman Zawahiri was very much involved in the in this movement at the universities. Okay. And so do these movements come out of a certain theological school that come in Basically, they were influenced by Islamic fundamentalism and more specifically by Sayyid Qut and Hassanal Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So the death of Sayyid Qutb and the death of Hassanal Abana did nothing to stop these movements at all. The fire. Fueled the fire. On that country. Okay.
So what what gets Zawahiri and Bin Laden? Where do they come into play? Because eventually, they’re the beginnings. This comes later on. I am Anzalwahiri finished his, medical school and became a physician, actually, a surgeon.
And but he was more of involved in religious activities and politics, Islamism, political Islam, than practicing medicine. And with time, he started an organization, or he was involved in an organization called Jihad Organization, and he was, well, in close ties with people who assassinated president Sadat, in 1981. And during the court proceedings, he was, of course, arrested along with many others. And during the court proceedings, when the press was allowed to enter the court and witness the events, because he was able to speak English. He was bilingual.
He became the spokesman of the prisoners, and, they were tortured by the police. And, so his fame internationally started during these court proceedings when he was the spokesman of the prisoners. Wow. So how does he go from prison? Did did they were they attempting to, give him the death penalty as well?
No. But something important happened. When he was imprisoned, an incident took place where an officer in the prison slapped him on the face. Mhmm. Right away, he slapped him back.
This is unthinkable in an Egyptian situation. So he became known as the man who slapped back. So he started becoming famous and recognized as, you know, somebody different by the prisoners. And then, so he was tortured more than the others. His most painful experience was he betrayed his closest friend.
He cooperated with the police by telling them, of a way that they can arrest him. Yeah. He abandoned his own friend. Yeah. Wow.
Because the torture was unbearable, so they pro they made him promises that if he will help in the arrest of this famous Muslim fundamentalist, who was a very close his perhaps one of his closest friends, they brought this man after the arrest and put him in the same cell with Aiman Zawahiri. Oh, my. Yeah. So one of his most painful experiences that he wrote about by saying that, the most difficult thing in life is to be, the cause of betrayal Mhmm. Of somebody who who is a very close friend.
Well, they put them together in the prison, and that man tried to escape, and he got shot and killed. And he he probably feels responsible for the death of his friend? Yeah. Later on, he was released from prison, so he knew that life in Egypt is not safe anymore. Mhmm.
So he, he left and started, working in with the Red Cross as a physician in, Peshawar, Pakistan. Okay. Osama bin Laden in at the same time moved from Saudi Arabia, from Jeddah, you know, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Peshawar, and that’s where they met for the first time. So what is what is drawing all of these people from all over the Arab world to Peshawar at this point? That’s a very good question because at that time, the Russians were in war, with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
And, many, Muslim fundamentalists were volunteering to join, Muslim fundamentalist groups that are willing to fight the Soviets, the atheists. They looked at them as atheists. And so it was the best training situation for Muslim fundamentalists in warfare. And so the city of Peshawar was full with Muslim fundamentalists. People can buy weapons, and, you know, and at that time, the CIA was empowering some of those groups, and they were perceived as mujahideen during president Reagan’s time.
And, later on, they felt betrayed that America who was helping us stand against us. Yeah. I mean, I’ve read some of the articles that talk about, the Russians are the the disbelievers. And so, you know, the Americans are are the Christians and the Muslims are coming together to fight against the disbelievers. And then once the Russians are gone, you know, America has no connection and a lot of those those mujahideen are now the biggest problem for the United States.
You reminded me of something very important, Trevor. At that time, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Mhmm. And, the United States government offered Saudi Arabia assurances that they will protect Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden had, at that time, a big number of mujahideen who are available, who were trained in in guerrilla warfare against one of the biggest armies in the world, the Soviet Army Mhmm.
And they believed they conquered them. And so he came to the royal family in Saudi Arabia, and his father, the father of Usain bin Laden, was the owner of a huge company that built palaces and mosques in Saudi Arabia and closely connected to the royal family. So Osama bin Laden came to the royal family and said, don’t invite Americans to defend you. We will come. The mujahideen will come from Afghanistan, and we’ll defend you.
Of course, they didn’t listen to him. They listened to, the United States government, and so Osama bin Laden felt that the government of Saudi Arabia betrayed Mohammed the prophet by allowing foreigners to exist in in Saudi Arabia. And just thinking about it from their their theological lens, it’s as though god gave them this victory against the Russians, and then the Saudi Arabia wouldn’t trust god to give them victory against Right. Wow. Somebody was mentoring Osama bin Laden at that time, a Palestinian imam.
His name is Azam, a z z a m. And Osama bin and Aiman Zawahri, at the same time, wanted to influence Osama bin Laden. So every now and then, he’ll write a paper and show it to him, and through these papers, he was influencing his thinking. Azzam was assassinated at one time, and some people think that, Aylman Zawahiri was behind it in one way, but he denies it. And, during the funeral time, he was there praising Azzam.
From that time on, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri became close friends. Osama bin Laden provided the money and the contacts, while Ahmad Zawahiri provided the leadership of Al Qaeda, and they formed this organization called Al Qaeda, and Arabic means the base. It used to be called Al Qaeda, the solid base. They dropped the word solid and kept the word base. And Aiman Zawahiri became man number 2.
So out of 12 men on the leadership team that Osama bin Laden was heading, 9 of them were Egyptians, and they were the men of Aiman Zawahiri. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And this week’s sponsors are. Zweimer Center. Zweimer Center.
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Very nice. The Swimmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims. The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. So we have the the Muslim brotherhood with Hassanal Bana, which we talked about, before. We have Saeed Khutb, and then we have Zawahiri in Azzam and now Bin Laden.
And Bin Laden and Zawahiri become sort of the the figurehead is Bin Laden, of course. He has the money. He has the connections. And all of this kinda happens in Peshawar fighting on you know, not technically on behalf of the United States, but we kinda look back now and see in cooperation with the United States against the Russians. So what does, what is Al Qaeda’s strategy from the beginning?
Their strategy was to force America to overextend itself, because the more it extends itself in territory, the weaker it becomes. So when America finally became the enemy of Al Qaeda, the by the way, the primary enemy has always been Israel. Okay. Explain that a little bit in more detail. What do you mean the primary enemy?
At the Muslim world, almost 1,700,000,000 Muslims in the world, they belong to different countries, different ethnicities, different colors, but for things all Muslims tend to agree about. Whether they are in Pakistan or Nigeria or Lebanon or United States or Canada, they tend to agree on 4 things. Number 1, God is 1. Mhmm. Secondly, Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Number 3, the Quran is their holy book. Number 4, Palestinians experience injustice, and the West turned a deaf ear to their grievances. Is this part of the establishment of the Muslim brotherhood? Is that there in the very beginning with the creation of these movements in order to fight on behalf of the Palestinian injustice that they that, you know, whether real or perceived that they see this as an injustice and that’s why these groups begin? We assume in the west that Muslims’ biggest need is freedom, and democracy.
And reality, what they’re looking for is justice. So it’s 2 different paradigms. We have our paradigms. We assume that their biggest need is freedom and democracy. In their in their case, they believe that their biggest need is justice and security.
These are the 2 big things for Muslim countries. And I think part of the problem we’re experiencing in the Middle East and the Arab world is difference in world views and difference in perspectives. So they see injustice committed against the Palestinians, and it has been going nonstop since 1948, and there are events that prepared for that event. And this, they see as the longest injustice in history for any nation on earth. We don’t often think of it in those terms.
You’re right. We we look at the Muslim world and we think they need democracy. They need freedom in our worldview. In their worldview, it just seems like we’re looking at 2 completely different Yeah. Ways of life.
Yeah. So thinking back to the beginnings of Al Qaeda and their strategy to, have the United States overextend itself, what are some of the things that they begin doing to implement that strategy? For instance, the US coal was hit by a boat full with, explosives, and this was during the last year of president Clinton. They wanted very much America to attack them, but they didn’t. America did not do that.
And so they felt, like, a sense of, defeat and pessimism that what they were hoping to accomplish was not accomplished. So they started doing planning for something bigger, something Yeah. That will be, you know, kind of demand a response. News, big time. And so they they recruited people to come from Europe, like one of them is Muhammad Atta.
Muhammad Atta was living in Germany, and he is an Egyptian. And he saw Germany full of cathedrals, but no Christians practicing a relationship with god. So he saw the empty shell of Christendom rather than a living relationship with Jesus Christ. And in 1982, he was watching the news, and, he saw Israel invading Lebanon, South Lebanon. And he got so angry that he wanted to become a fundamentalist.
So he went to mosque and started asking, how can I have training in Afghanistan? So he found a somebody to help him, and he went to Afghanistan and got the training along with others. And they were given orders to do a certain thing at the right time. So they came to the states, and, they were, you know, by more they spoke more than one language. They trained some of them trained as pilots.
And the 9 the 2,000, and 1 attack took place in on 911. And this was the the event that would demand a response? Yeah. And that response took place with the invasion of Afghanistan 3 weeks after the events. I personally think I wish the US administration had a different approach rather than go for a regime change in Afghanistan, removing the Taliban.
If they immediately hit Al Qaeda on the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, it could have presented better results in terms of demolishing the core of Al Qaeda at that time, which was relatively very small. Instead, they wanted to do a regime change, and we’re still stuck with the consequences of that time. By the way, president Bush, at that time was grooming somebody who was a moderate leader called Masrud, who was being prepared to become the new president of Afghanistan, but Ayman Zawahiri organized an attempt to assassinate him through 2 people who played the role of journalist, Arab journalist, and 1 the photographer had explosives in his camera. Instead of the video, they had explosives. And these 2 men committed suicide, and at the same time, killed Mas’ud.
So the guy who was groomed to become the new president was assassinated by Aiman Zawahiri’s men. So Al Qaeda doesn’t I’m I think I remember at this point, there was great hope that Al Qaeda was dismantled, but it sounds like they just grew. They escaped. They escaped and even multiplied. The of course, you have Al Qaeda core, and then you have Al Qaeda Aspired, and Al Qaeda affiliates.
So the core of Al Qaeda was on the borders at that time during the 911 event. Mhmm. If America hit right away, the whole world was sympathetic with the United States. Instead, they prepared for a war that takes time. And, by that time, all these people escaped from that place, and it became a different objective.
Rather than Al Qaeda, it became, regime change and, conquering a Taliban. And then from there, we see the invasion of Iraq, which, of course, is surrounded with so much controversy. At that point in time, is there Al Qaeda going on in Iraq? Because now, of course, with with Isis, we see, Iraq is where everything is is kind of being played out. And, I mean, I know that we have Zarqawi there in Iraq, but with the invasion of Iraq, how impactful was that with what we see happening today?
You mentioned Zarqawi. Zarqawi belonged to Al Qaeda, and he was in Iraq, and he was a bloodthirsty kind of person, and started fighting the Shiites. In other words, the move towards sectarianism between the Sunnis and Shiites became big time with Zarqawi. He he’s responsible for the assassination, for the killing of so many Shiite Muslims in Iraq. Furthermore, the assassination of another prominent Islamic imam who was groomed to take a position of leadership in Iraq, he also was he he, was responsible for his death.
Well, finally, America was able to kill Zarqawi, but by that time, violence escalated so much, and, in Iraq by the way, the Iraq war, one whole year before the beginning of the Iraq war, in 2,002, March in 2,002, an important conference took place in Beirut, Lebanon for the Arab League. The Arab League is a an annual event that takes place every year where the presidents and kings of the Arab world meet together to discuss their burning issues. And are are other countries involved in these discussions or is this the Arab League meets together? Okay. Arab countries.
Okay. And during that year, in 2,002, one whole year before the Iraq war, they met in Beirut, Lebanon. Every year, they meet at a different capital. That year, it was in Beirut. And, at that time, king Fahd of Saudi Arabia was sick.
He didn’t attend. Representing him was prince Abbala who is now the current king of Saudi Arabia. He was authorized with all the power of Saudi Arabia, financial and political, etcetera, and his aim was to convince all the Arab countries, the 22 countries, to commit to a peaceful relationship with Israel. It was a difficult conference. Finally, he was able to convince every one of them.
Wow. The last 2, the most difficult 2 were Libya and Syria. Finally, even Libya and Syria committed. He was so elated. Of course, he was all the time on the phone with King Fahd, telling him the progress and the news.
When the conference was over, right away, he flew to the states and went to Crawford, Texas, where president Bush was on vacation. And I assume he tried to persuade president Bush and the administration that the road to transforming the Middle East does not go through Baghdad. It goes through Jerusalem. He tried to convince them, we will help you with Saddam Hussein. We know that he is a sadist, and he is a dictator.
But the road to transform the Middle East is focused on peace between Israel and the Palestinian. If that huge challenge is solved, everything else will be easy to deal with. They wouldn’t listen to him. Because invading Iraq would have put all of that. None of that would’ve happened had the invasion of Iraq.
Yeah. That’s that’s a a really that’s a heavy moment to think about how history the world has changed from that one moment. Yeah. That one decision. Alright.
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Biblical world review. World view. Real world review. Can’t say CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. Howard, what’d you think, man?
I know that’s the first time you’ve heard that. I was there during the interview. So what’d you think? Yeah. No.
I mean, you you know, like, the first thing that kinda comes to my mind is that, man, there’s a lot of names. And Yeah. I I think for you listeners, you probably you know, if you haven’t been keeping up with this, you know, maybe you think you’re overwhelmed by the names. But I’m also really just overwhelmed by how much humanity is in this entire process of, the growing fundamental, Islam, growing into action and execution, like, how how it’s actually coming into being. And, there’s, like, stories behind it.
There’s, like, people behind it. And And I thought that was really interesting because sometimes you on the news, like, you hear a story and it’s just this execution, but you don’t know any story behind it. You don’t know what’s happened, you know, to to to bring them to this point of extreme, you know, you know, in some in some cases, sacrifice where they blow themselves up. Mhmm. I’m talking about in their worldview or their their their eyes, but, but also just, you know, extreme violence.
And there’s gotta be a story behind it because, you know, like, just we were talking about in a couple podcasts before. Well, a lot, I guess, podcasts before. But we were talking about the homegrown terrorists, like, how they go from just a normal girl that reads Harry Potter and wants to become a bride of Isis. Right. Right.
And and there’s gotta be a story behind it, and it’s really neat to hear the story of how this developed. And it really I I don’t know the word that I keep, the theme that I keep hearing about is injustice. Yeah. I thought that was definitely interesting when, Nabil says that we have our perception of what the Muslim world needs, freedom and democracy. And from what he was saying from the Muslim world view is what they want is justice and security.
Right. And you know what? Like, not to put a too fine a point on it. But the, you know, the idea, I think, behind injustice, I think that rings true for all of humanity. So it kind of makes it more accessible to me.
Because, like, for instance let’s go back to the American Revolution. I mean, the American Revolution was started because of a series of injustices that we believed as Americans that well, you know, as as British That’s right. Colonists. You know? But we believed that it was so unjust, you know, some of the things that they were doing, the British, motherland.
Right. Yeah. We’re doing that, you know, we felt like we needed to fight against it. I mean Right. To go to war.
Taxation without representation. Exactly. Yeah. And you have people that will rise up. And, you know, that’s what’s really interesting and and not to minimize anything that any of these people have done.
We we recognize and I think Howard and I would agree that the anybody that would take the life of another person, regardless of whatever their ideology is, that that that can be a really difficult call. Even even people that are doing it as a as a job. I’m sure it’s difficult and hard to do that. And these guys that do it out of a religious ideology, while I understand, understand, I think, where they’re coming from and I think that’s what Nabil does a good job of is helping us to understand where they’re coming from. It it really just feels like so wrong.
Yep. It never it never excuses it. It’s just so wrong. And I think back in even in our own Christian history where that’s been done, and I just think, what were you thinking? Right.
It’s just so extreme. Right. You know? Even I mean, today, you know, we we have discussions about heresy. And, you know, in Christian circles, there that, you know, once in a while, you find somebody that’s a heretic that people would call a heretic.
Right. Yeah. But nobody’s going to kill them. Not that I not that I’m aware of or at least I don’t think anybody would approve of it. Right.
Right. Not like the good old days burning at the stake. That’s the kind of the I think some people feel that way. Like, oh man, when we used to burn people at the stake, and I’m thinking, really? Right.
You that’s the good old days. I don’t know. Right. And and the other thing is that we on the other hand, we separate ourselves so much from that history that we’re like, oh, we would never do that. Oh, yeah.
That’s not that far away. Right. Exactly. So when you look at the Muslim and I’m not saying that, again, just as Trevor is saying, that it’s okay. It’s not at all.
But you look at the the the the radical Muslim, you know, that believes that terrorism is their calling or you know? They wouldn’t call it terrorism, but you know what I’m saying? The idea that they they would go to that length, you know, that’s not that far removed. No. And I think where we are.
Well, what doctor Jabbour does a good job of is humanizing people by giving sort of the backstory. And then you see where they’re coming from. And I think it’s okay. Like, okay. Let me just give a brief example.
So if I talk about the the establishment of Islamic fundamentalism and the rise of Islamic extremism within, you know, this current century and I’m giving that lecture at a church, I’m always a little bit hesitant because I’m afraid people will feel like when you tell their side of the story that you’re somehow being unpatriotic or being affirming them. Right. And I think Nabil Jabeur does an excellent job, particularly in his book, about trying to understand what are the underlying causes both, individually, you know, these people as individuals, and then also the context of which they’re in. Right. And then also the systems that are in place globally that kind of all work together to get these guys to become what they end up becoming.
And Zawahiri is a good a good example of that. Mhmm. So I mean, he I’m not a 100% sure but I believe he was 14 years old when he started, working in some of these more Islamic, extreme or fundamentalist, groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a young guy. Yeah.
So super influenced. And you can see, I thought that was interesting that Sayed Qutb’s lawyer was his uncle. Mhmm. Iman Zawahiri’s uncle. Right.
And you can see pictures. If you go online, you can type in Zawahiri and you see him now as this old man and but you can also find pictures of him in black and white and even, I believe there’s some video footage, if I’m not mistaken, of him basically protesting his being in jail as a young man. And he’s a young guy. Right. Sacrifice.
Full of fire. Right. Yeah. So, anyway, there’s a Wait. I want you to go back to what we were talking about before, like, how we’re not that far removed.
Just clear that up because, I’m thinking that, but I think it’s probably coming from a lot of our conversations of, you know, like what we would do if we were in that situation. Right? And Well, I’ve had conversations with Christians that feel like, you know, what would we do if there was a a Muslim president and he started making decisions that we didn’t agree with as Christians? And I’ve see I’ve heard some Christians and some of the things that they’ve come up with and it concerns me. Right.
Because it sounds like what they’re doing. Yeah. Because there there there’s a there’s a perception at least, and maybe even a reality of injustice. Right. Feeling as though they can’t fully be Christian and then there’s some underlying belief systems about the foundational, heritage of the country.
And so, it’s not so far to see how a person can can go from being a, you know, fundamentalist in any religious ideology, a fundamentalist to quickly having those fundamental core values, imposed upon or stepped on. Right. Or, you know, an injustice or oppressed. Right. And then you feel the need to rise up to protect.
You feel the need to rise up in order to, you know, propagate your your ideology. And so, we’ve we’ve seen it in history. It’s not that far. And I and what I meant by not that far removed is, these guys are still alive. You know, we’re not talking about 100 of years ago.
Yeah. We’re talking about 1966. Right. So anyway, Ayman Zawahiri, current leader of Al Qaeda. He was definitely the mastermind, I think, in 911.
Bin Laden was, by all means, the leader of Al Qaeda. But as far as the, you know, the real the real brains of Al Qaeda, I think Zawahiri was, was there. He’s the guy that made it happen. Right. Then Bin Laden something about him being more like a figurehead.
He had the contacts, the money. Contacts, money, charisma. Right. Yeah. The face the face of.
Right. Yeah. But Zawahiri’s, now and, you know, the things that are happening today with with Iraq and I thought that was interesting too when, doctor Dibour was talking about Iraq and Al Qaeda today. So the next episode really is when we get into what’s going on today in Iraq with ISIL or ISIS or IS depending on who you ask. Right.
So but, Zawahiri is there at the beginning. One of the things that’s interesting, I just wanna point out something that, Zawahiri said. Let me see if I have this quote here. Yeah. He says, it was after 9:9:11.
You know, he we said something along the lines of, George w Bush was addressing a joint session of congress and said Americans are asking, why do they hate us? And the response that was given let me just pull up the quote so I can get this right, is, they hate what they see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, and our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. And I think that’s what Jabbour was getting at is that we have this idea that the Muslim world needs democracy and freedom.
Right. That would solve all their problems. Right. And so, I am on Zawahiri and this was actually in response to the headscarf ban in France. Alright.
Okay? Now we’ll get in a different episode. We’re gonna talk about France, but this is just kind of leading into that. When you think of, Zawahiri, he says, about the headscarves and he’s talking about the the West, the reason that that they’re against the West. And he says, the Zionist Crusader West.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That’s all of us did, I guess. Right? Yeah.
Loaded terminology. Considers freedom sacred as long as it’s the freedom to steal the wealth of others. Wow. When freedom becomes a means of resisting the West, it becomes terrorism. The burning of villages along with their people in Afghanistan, demolishing houses over their sleeping residents in Palestine, and the killing of children in Iraq and stealing its oil under false pretext, tormenting of prisoners in the cages of Guantanamo.
Let’s see what else here. The right, the United States has granted itself to kill any human being, arrest anyone anywhere, the banning of nuclear weapons everywhere except Israel. All these crimes show the scope and the extent of its savagery and its war against Islam and Muslims. Wow. So that says a lot more than what Bush said.
Right. And, I mean, I think we all knew that there was probably more to it but if we really wanna understand where, you know, the enemy is coming from, you can because their their their message is out there. And Zawahiri has had that message and he’s been around for a while. He’s not a guy that just kinda popped on the scenes. Actually, the the Boston bomber is being, tried.
They’re they’re picking the jury right now. And whenever the the Boston bombings happened, I thought it was interesting because people were saying, where are these guys from? And they’re from from Dagestan. And the question was, nobody has ever really done anything in Dagestan that was, related to terrorism. But guess who was arrested in the late nineties in Dagestan?
Who? Aiman Zawahiri. Oh. And so they’ve been looking for something this whole time. Right?
Since the beginning of the the Muslim brotherhood and the formation of Al Qaeda and the invasion taking over of Iraq, taking over of, or Afghanistan and now Iraq, this Al Qaeda movement has been looking for one thing in particular and this is the reason, and this is next week’s episode, this is the reason why Baghdadi has claimed to be the Islamic caliphate and Bin Laden never did. Interesting. So that’s what we’re gonna hear. Next week? Yep.
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