H/T to Just Journalism for finding a 2003 Ha’aretz interview with Raed Salah, the radical Islamist preacher who has become a cause celeb among the Guardian”intelligentsia” since he was detained on Tuesday by British authorities due to their concerns he would promote an extremist agenda.
The questions were posed by Ha’aretz correspondent, Jalal Bana.
JB: Was what happened in the United States on September 11 an act of terrorism or of jihad?
Salah: “Your question suggests that you want to reach an answer before we know who was behind that action. Does the United States know who perpetrated the attack? Certainly not. And it is not I who say this, but the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who declared that the U.S. does not yet have proof about whom perpetrated the attack.”
(Also, see this even more explicit promotion, by Salah, of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories relating to 9/11)
JB: Do 70 virgins await shahids – martyrs – in paradise?
Salah: “On this matter, we have proof. It is written in the Koran and in the Suna [the traditions about the life of Mohammed]. This matter is clear. The shahid receives from Allah six special things, including 70 virgins, no torment in the grave, and the choice of 70 members of his family and his confidants to enter paradise with him.”
JB: What is your opinion of the legislation now being discussed in the Knesset, which would grant Muslim women rights similar to those of Jewish women in matters of personal status?
Salah: “That bill is tantamount to a war on Islam. It is an attempt to dictate different, foreign values that are neither Muslim nor Palestinian values.”
JB: But why shouldn’t Islamic women have the right to choose whether they want their case to be heard in a civil court or a sharia court?
Salah: “There is a difference between freedom, and damage and destruction under the slogan of freedom. We are in favor of freedom for women, which preserves their religious and national identity. We are against fake slogans that are called freedom. The bill would give civil courts the possibility of intervening in every Islamic matter. What we fear is that in the future there will also be intervention [by the Knesset] in the question of the Waqf [Muslim religious trust] lands. That will be a blow to Islam and no one can know what its consequences are liable to be.”
JB: What is your opinion of homosexuality?
Salah: “It is a crime. A great crime. Such phenomena signal the start of the collapse of every society. Those who believe in Allah know that behavior of that kind brings his wrath and is liable to cause the worst things to happen. There is no solution for this, unless the individual’s faith is strengthened.”
Related articles
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- Haneen Zoabi defends anti-Semitic Islamist preacher: Accuses UK Zionist lobby of controlling British politics (cifwatch.com)
- Conal Urquhart quotes Ben White as a source in Guardian’s second whitewash of anti-Semitic preacher (cifwatch.com)
- The tangled web they weave – the eminence noir behind the “Freedom Flotilla 2″ (cifwatch.com)
