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Feb. 28, 2019 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
59:43
Delingpod 9: Imam Tawhidi
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Welcome to the Delling Pod and I am excited beyond measure about my latest guest, Aram.
I was not expecting him to meet him.
I'm in Brussels in the belly of the beast and he has been part of my group of speakers come to Brussels to kind of red pill the European Parliament.
And I first came upon him on Twitter.
He's called the Imam of Peace.
That's his Twitter handle.
And he's called Mohammed.
What's your surname, Mohammed?
Mohammed Tawheedi.
Mohammed Tawheedi.
And you are an extraordinary sight.
You look like an Iranian cleric because that's basically what you are.
What are you wearing?
Tell us what you're wearing, first of all.
Well, firstly, thank you very much for having me.
Pleasure.
What I dress in is my official uniform that I graduate with as a Muslim scholar, a Shiite Muslim scholar.
On the top of my head is my turban and my turban is basically I'm ordained with a turban by a superior Islamic authority.
In my case it was my Grand Ayatollah who ordained me publicly.
So in my official gatherings, I wear it.
Otherwise, I really enjoy my jeans, I'll be honest with you.
So I leave that for my official gatherings.
I dress in a robe.
These robes were basically introduced to Islam from Christianity.
Hence, without my turban, many mistake me for a Greek Orthodox priest.
I thought that, yes.
And they ask me, when is Easter?
All the time.
So this comes to the Arabian area from Christians.
And my Bedouin bape, I call it the overthrow that goes on top with the golden trimmings.
This basically symbolizes my heritage and my lineage.
And it's become an overthrow on top of the Islamic robe.
Beneath all of this, I wear a white, we call it dishdasha, which is the regular white dress that Saudi Arabians wear and the Arabs wear.
So this is the very official and well-known dress code for a Muslim cleric.
However, I don't know who designed this because in Arabia, it's hot and in the hot weather, this really, it's torture.
Well, black, it absorbs the heat, doesn't it?
Well, I have other colours, but I wear black because I'm sad.
I'm sad at the situation we're in.
I'm grieving right now for the situation of humanity.
Well, we're going to come on to that.
You've got to have the most extraordinary backstory, I think, of anyone I've interviewed.
And I have interviewed some very interesting people.
But you seem to have had a journey which has taken you from Islamic fundamentalism.
And you can't get more Islamic fundamentalists than a Shiite cleric, friends of the Ayatollah hominy.
Is that right?
You're part of that?
His grandson.
The patriarch of the current family.
Right.
So the guy that takes care of the family after everyone has passed away.
He's the head of the family.
And you were presumably about as fundamentalist as you can possibly get.
I would have never have stepped into this European Parliament.
Because?
Because this is a place where people make laws other than Sharia law.
This was seen by me as a place that people plotted against God.
And you believed that?
Yes, I believed it.
I would never have attended these events at all.
I would have never stepped foot in this place at all.
And would you have shaken or touched even women?
Shaken hands with them or anything like that?
No, never.
And did you consider people like me kuffar?
Look, people like you were seen by Islamists, like my former self, as completely misguided people that if I were to touch you, I'd need to go wash my hand after.
That's how impure you are.
I'm like a dog, basically.
Well, there are levels of impurity.
A dog is impure, but it's still going to heaven because a dog can't see the message of the Prophet Muhammad and reject it.
But you, on the other hand, can be warned of it and you can reject it.
So you are more impure.
I'm lower than a dog.
According to Islamists, yes.
That's extraordinary.
And tell me a bit about your, before we go on to your transformation, tell me about how you became a cleric and how much study you had to do and what your qualifications for it were.
Okay.
So, completely by accident, I never imagined myself to be a cleric.
I come from a lineage of Grand Ayatollahs.
My dad is a living Ayatollah.
I come from a lineage of people who are, you know...
We know the religion inside out.
My ancestors played a big role in the expansion of the religion.
Adi bin Hatim, the companions of Prophet Muhammad.
So I'm not new into this whole business.
I understand it completely.
I understand the structure of the religion, how religion expands.
I know the system really well.
So, this was me growing up in my father's mosque in Western Australia.
I'm basically his oldest son, so I would be in all of his meetings with other clerics.
I knew everything from finances to marital issues in the community.
I knew it all.
And when I was taken to Iran, It was in 2006, on a trip, just so we could see how our parents lived.
So we can see, you know, it's always good to use holiday periods to go back to Iran and, you know, visit the holy sacred shrines as a blessing, just like visiting Mecca, for example.
So I went to Iran, and on the side of going out to restaurants, we had Islamic lessons, very brief Islamic lessons, two hours a day just to make our trip productive.
But I fell in love.
I fell in love with the atmosphere.
The grand work for me to be an Islamist was already there.
I saw it and I was so attracted.
I quickly escalated, you know, I advanced quickly into all of its levels and I decided to stay.
And so, before that, so you mentioned Western Australia.
Were you brought up as a kind of ordinary Australian boy?
A regular man, a regular boy.
I was, you know, regular high school.
Did you go surfing or anything like that or...?
I went to the beach, areas where there were no women, because we can't look at...
Okay.
So I would go to the beach, but very isolated areas.
And because they were isolated, I would be afraid to go.
I might get drowned or, you know...
Eaten by sharks.
Yeah, so I wouldn't go to the beach because of that.
I did go fishing a lot.
Yeah.
I went a lot of fishing.
So I lived a normal life...
But very Islamic and conservative life.
So I never had any female friends.
So now I have female politicians as friends and my family are absolutely shocked.
And I never knew I was this good with women.
I know how to talk to them, honestly.
You know what?
If you're raised just in a male society, basically a religion that's completely masculine in all of its affairs that concern life, and all of a sudden you become a reformist, and this is what?
2015.
I've only been socializing with women since 2015.
How did you pick up the skills?
I don't know.
God gave them to me.
I have no idea.
God must have given them to you.
I can sit with a female politician, help her on policies.
I give advice.
They receive me well.
Other imams might not dare to do that because they're shy or just don't know how it's going to go out with speaking to a woman.
And I say this, I want the listeners to know that women play a big role in today's politics, in Western politics.
If you can't speak to a woman, you're basically preventing yourself from access to at least 80% of the world's parliaments.
But I can almost see, even though I don't obviously have your background, I can almost see when you went back to Iran, why it might have appealed.
I mean, you come from a distinguished lineage, number one, so you've got this in the family.
Going all the way back to Mohammed?
Companions of Mohammed.
Companions of Mohammed.
Okay, so that's pretty impressive.
And you must have thought, well, okay, I'm going to go all the way.
I'm going to wear all the kit.
I'm going to be the highest of the high.
And if you're a man, Islam's quite a good deal, isn't it?
You're the superior sex you get.
Everything is set for you if you're a man.
You are guaranteed a happy life and afterlife.
Because you're a man.
What's not to lie?
I know.
And so you studied, how long has the study appeared?
I began in 2007.
They call it Muqaddamat, the basics of the religion.
That goes on for three years.
And then they have the intermediate levels, where you study jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, all of these lessons.
And then they have the advanced lessons.
I was ordained as an Imam in 2010 and I never really planned to be ordained but the Grand Ayatollah told me that you're coming tomorrow and you will be ordained as an Imam tomorrow publicly.
And it was 2010, it was in July and I was shocked.
Usually, imams get told that next year, this time, you're setting your test, you will be ordained as an imam.
So they have time to prepare for it.
They start wearing the white robe, getting out of the jeans and the pants lifestyle, starting to grow a beard, just getting used to the atmosphere.
I went from jeans in the afternoon, next morning I'm an ordained Imam, never to wear jeans ever again in my life in Iran.
It was such a big transition for me and it was an order by my Grand Ayatollah and my teacher.
He said, you have to be ordained tomorrow.
That's how hopeful, and he saw me as an asset for the religion.
It's a waste that you are just walking around like this.
You've got this charisma, you can speak, you can get people, recruit people into the seminary.
We need you out there to represent this clerical system.
And how big a deal is it to be an imam in Iran?
You're wearing the prophet's clothes.
Right.
So what I'm wearing is...
You're basically royalty.
Well, look, royalty in every sense, except it's not written that it's royalty.
But everything for you is free in Iran.
Everything for you is free.
Name it.
What is it that you want?
It's free.
So when you hail a taxi, you probably don't even need a taxi.
You probably get limousines.
No, no, no.
It's not to that extent.
Taxis are private.
But what I mean is healthcare free, education free.
Clerics don't go to the army.
Right, yes.
It's obligatory for Iranians to join the army.
So for two years, if you're a cleric, you don't have to go to the army, right?
So this is what I mean.
Which would have been a big appeal during the Iran-Iraq war, when thousands of young men...
Even now, Iran looks like it's going through another war with all of its nuclear threats and so on and so forth.
So if anything happens, if you're a cleric, you don't have to worry about anything.
And do you get to eat very well as well?
Of course.
I'm very thin, by the way.
I'm skinny right now.
When I was in Iran, I was somewhat fat.
Right.
And are people...
Is it pure respect or is it a mixture of respect and fear?
No, it's respect.
Right.
It's respect.
I'll tell you why.
I don't want to completely wipe out the aspect of fear.
There is fear from the clerics that are in power.
So you have a cleric that's a politician, appears in parliament.
People respect them out of fear.
But then you have a cleric such as myself, who's not in politics, just walking down the street.
But when he's addressed, he's addressed as...
Sir, your eminence.
I'm just buying a bag of cucumbers and your eminence.
The amount will be this much.
Absolute, let's say, respect and honor for the clergy.
And that comes from the purity of the people.
People are religious and they see you and they trust that you're doing God's work.
Right.
A bit like Catholic priests in Ireland in the, you know, back in the day.
Right.
Yeah.
And are you allowed wives?
I am allowed four wives.
Wow.
Permanent.
I'm allowed unlimited wives temporarily.
I am allowed concubines.
And I'm against all of it, even though I'm allowed all of it.
That is extraordinary.
I think people are going to be gobsmacked by that.
Well, I'll be honest with you.
So, let's set the foundation first.
I am against polygamy.
Yeah.
So, I believe one wife, that's it.
But religion allows me for permanent.
And there are two types of marriages in Islam.
One's permanent and one's temporary.
So you can marry a lady for 50 years.
One hour.
Right?
The ISIS type of marriages, the sexual jihad, where women give themselves to the jihadists to help them satisfy themselves so they can focus better at jihad.
Yeah.
So they get married two, three hours a day.
So a Muslim man is allowed four permanent wives.
All Muslim men?
All Muslim men.
Okay.
So it's not just a perk if you're a cleric?
No, no, no.
All Islamic denominations have permanent marriage, temporary marriage, and different types of marriage.
Right.
There are 50-something types of marriages in Islam.
All of them have a different reason.
Some are for taking care of the martyrs' daughters, some of them are taking care of the widows, some for the orphans.
Different types of marriages and different types of procedures for several societal reasons.
But in general, a Muslim man is allowed four wives permanently, unlimited amount of temporary wives, literally unlimited, so five million if you could.
You can marry five million wives.
Temporarily, right?
All at the same time, yeah?
I'm not saying one after the other.
It's all at the same time.
You're allowed.
And you're allowed concubines.
You're allowed to take women after an invasion and make them yours.
Mohammed, I'm going to convert.
I mean, this is just too good a deal.
But I'm not supporting this.
I'm just explaining what the laws are.
That's extraordinary.
Okay, so this was the religion that you became more intensely part of when you became a cleric.
I think people are now dying to know what it was that changed you.
What happened?
The death of my family members after ISIS took over.
This was in...
2014.
In Iraq?
Yes, I was studying in Iraq.
Right.
So my journey went from Iran, advanced studies were in Iraq, from 2013 up until the end of 2015.
Whereabouts in Iraq were you studying?
Karbala.
Karbala is the holiest Shia Muslim city in Iraq.
Right.
And you've got Najaf.
And they are one hour, 30 minutes away from Baghdad.
Right.
So when ISIS took over in Mosul, that's just next door to Baghdad, I was literally...
Two hours away from ISIS. So you could have been got at any time.
Because they're Sunni, aren't they, ISIS? Yeah.
So you as a Shia cleric would have been a target.
Many Shia clerics were beheaded on the way, on the highways, because of their turbans and the cars and the taxis.
They would stop the taxi, behead the cleric, and kill the rest of them.
But the clerics had to be beheaded.
Why is that?
Because that's how...
It's a tradition in Islam that when you conquer an area, you behead the enemy.
It's the highest form of achievement that you dismember them.
And the tradition in history was to put the head on the spear and carry it as a symbol of victory.
So what were you thinking when you were in Kabul and you saw ISIS advancing?
Well, I was asleep one day, and the speakers of the holy shrine, which basically broadcast to every corner, when the shrine has prayers or supplications, the entire area hears it.
That's how loud the microphones are.
The announcement was made that ISIS has taken over Mosul.
Which nobody was expecting.
No one was expecting.
And you know, it takes one betrayal for Baghdad to collapse.
If Baghdad collapses, the whole country is gone.
So my next thought was, okay, where's the airport?
I'm going out of this country.
Baghdad airport was shut down.
So there's only one airport left, Najaf.
And these guys were launching RPGs from the bushes...
Onto all airplanes flying.
So Qatar Airways, Emirates, all these planes that would fly to Australia stopped their planes to Iraq.
So you were stuck?
I was stuck.
But I managed to get out through the Egyptian airlines.
I had to go to Egypt and then to Australia.
Right.
Only because I had an Australian passport.
That saved me.
You mean, because presumably you had cleric friends.
Were they in trouble?
Cleric friends can't do anything in Iraq.
Iraq is not a theocracy.
Right.
A cleric in Iraq is a regular citizen.
Right.
Maybe in the Holy City they've got some advantages, but if you're in an airport and you're a cleric, so what?
But if you're an Australian citizen, you've got a priority.
So you managed to get out.
Thanks to the Australian passport.
But your uncle did not.
My uncle was a general in the Iraqi army, and he was one of the first people to be burnt alive by ISIS. Faris, his story is in my book.
Why did they burn him alive?
Because that's how they deal with people they classify as traitors.
So there's a whole scale of punishments and tortures and deaths.
So traitors get burned alive.
Yes.
So when they burnt the Jordanian pilot in the cage, they considered him a traitor?
Correct.
Because when they establish their caliphate, they expect all Muslims to join.
If you're a Muslim and you don't join, then you're rejecting the call of God.
Presumably you as a Shiite wouldn't even count as a Muslim.
They consider you a heretic.
Is that right?
That's a definite.
That's a given.
So Shiite Muslims, they don't count as far as they're concerned.
They all get killed.
Is that right?
All of them get killed.
The Wahhabis and the Salafis, they have a jurisprudential ruling that if you behead 10 Shiites, you can have dinner with the Prophet Muhammad in paradise.
And this is where I mock them and say, it sounds like your Prophet has a restaurant up there.
But this is extraordinary.
I mean, hearing you say this stuff, you obviously know your subject inside out.
I think most people who are not really familiar with Islam just gobsmacked that this kind of, well, is it medieval?
It's almost pre-medieval.
It's like something from the Dark Ages, these values.
Right, so Khomeini, when he made the 1979 Iranian Revolution, he executed 30,000 people in his first trial.
Everyone that worked for the previous government was to be killed, be it a chef, a taxi, cleaner.
If you were on the payroll of the previous government, you were going to get executed.
So people complained to him and said, you know what, you're taking Islam back at least 100 years.
And he said, I want to take it back 1,400 years.
So when you say medieval, these guys are working in a way to bring Islam all the way back.
To what they see as its purest, the good old days kind of thing.
Exactly.
Right.
And you believed that too, in a way, when you were in your peak cleric phase.
I did believe so, yes.
I believe that we need to return and live how our ancestors lived in Mecca.
Wow.
So then you had this conversion, and how did you get to hear about your uncle, by the way?
Well, I have a big tribe in Iraq, and there was this huge mourning season and funerals, and it was just because I had to go collect his body, his remains.
Did you?
Yes.
So I saw everything, like...
It hit me so hard that my family members were being killed.
It was just so shocking.
And I said, come on.
This can't be the truth.
Muslims killing Muslims like that.
Sometimes you hear about it, but it doesn't really register in your mind unless you go through it.
And this is what I always say about Iraqi politicians.
Iraqi politicians that, you know, are very lenient with extremists, with terrorists, you know, they imprison ISIS terrorists and they let them out after a few months.
These guys will never learn until something happens to them or their children.
Then they'll wake up.
I really don't know how to describe it, but it's a shock that you get that the world is no longer worth it.
You don't want to continue living your life the same way you do.
And when I returned back to Australia, got out of this whole mess...
There was a huge opportunity for me to make change and to counter these extremists.
And, you know, that's when I began to surface on the media because I was saying things that resonated with the majority of citizens.
The left attacked me.
They made me even more popular.
So how do, first of all, how do Muslims view you?
Well, look, this isn't a very intense interview or anything.
I'm going to speak to you very frankly.
Because I like to be myself.
I can put a show here for you and tell you that this is how they view me, this is how they should.
No, I'm going to be very honest with you, okay?
The clerics, the majority of them agree with me.
They visit me in my house.
State intelligence, no.
We have feasts.
We smoke hookah together.
No problem at all.
The clerics.
Some of them, not all of them.
This is Shiite clerics, obviously.
And Sunni.
And Sunni as well.
And Sunni clerics.
Some clerics, when they're not around other clerics, tell me, we love how you roll.
We love how you can just sit with a female politician, you know, blonde, blue eyes, take a picture with her and just post it on Facebook and say, in your face.
They love that.
They say, we like how you can go in public and just smoke a hookah like it's your culture and you don't care what people think.
We like how you do golden trimmings and you don't care what people say.
We like that.
Some clerics want to do that, but they can't because they depend on the mosque to give them a platform and income.
And if they do that, they'll get booted out.
So that's one side of the clergy.
Then you have the directors of the centers.
Who will not give me a platform, but will come to me for donations and will ban clerics that speak against me in the mosque.
So, they're somewhat sitting on the fence, but they lean towards me.
Then you have the people who are completely against me, I don't bother with.
But you have the community.
Now, in the Muslim community, this is what's funny.
Some men, and look, when I say some, I'm talking, you know, out of 1.8 billion Muslims, some would be like a few million, right?
So, a minority of men support me publicly in the Muslim community.
And then you have those that don't support me but don't attack me because they see that, hey, he's got a point, but we don't want to do that.
We want to stay conservatives.
Then you have the group that attack me, which I don't bother with, but then you have the females.
The majority of my support base comes from women.
Well, you do surprise me.
Right.
Now, let me tell you why, okay?
Right.
There are certain reasons for that.
The first reason, and this is very obvious, okay, this guy supports women's rights.
We like what he says.
You know, we like this guy.
We're going to listen to his lectures.
We'll follow him on social media.
We'll defend him in our gatherings.
That's basically it.
That's one side of the women.
Then you have the women that like strong men, right?
The extremists, the reason why they present this masculine vision of the beard and, you know, they go weights and they like to be strong and we are this...
Women like that.
Muslim women see that.
This reminds me of the stories of the companions of Muhammad.
This is what Muhammad's army would look like, right?
Big beards and strong men, muscles.
And then Tawhidi comes along.
Screw all of you.
You guys are extremists.
I will run the show.
I'm going to do this.
These women, they get really excited.
They do.
They see this guy as the brave one.
And it might sound very childish, but this is the reality of Muslim females.
If you come up as a cleric with guts, that's very attractive for them.
Yes.
Well, that's what Osama bin Laden said.
When people get to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, people will choose the strong horse.
So that's where my support base comes from.
These women that look at their husbands, why can't you be like this guy?
You've got it made.
Or they go to the mosque and their imam is giving them a boring lecture.
Why can't he talk like Imam Tawheedi, for example?
Imam Tawiri speaks about science, speaks about evolution.
You're not telling me stories about Noah's Ark, what lizard was on, what lizard wasn't on.
Nonsense.
We're in the 21st century, right?
Talk to us about politics, what we should do with Trump, what's happening.
They like that.
So you've explained to me two things.
First of all, you've indicated why it is that so many women...
Muslim women were prepared to drop everything to go and join these crazy jihadists in hellholes like Raqqa.
And also you've explained in a way, I think, there's a weakness within the West at the moment in the way that feminism has emasculated men.
And I imagine that Muslim communities must look at the West with a certain degree of disdain.
We laugh at them.
Like I said, I am not someone that speaks to insult.
I want to be very clear.
We laugh at the white man.
Yeah, I bet you do.
We laugh at, not you personally, but we laugh.
You know, to me, when I go on Twitter and I see people speaking about gender neutral this or that...
I laugh.
What empty society are we dealing with?
Don't you have anything better to talk about?
You know, people are getting chopped up just next door, right?
Different continents.
People are being butchered, murdered.
And you're telling me, oh, if I don't wear pink on this day, I'm a bad boy.
What nonsense is this?
So, this whole feminist issue, I give no attention to, right?
Feminism is garbage, in my opinion.
Yeah.
A real woman will know her worth.
A real woman doesn't need me to put on a pink hat and start yelling in the middle of the street.
Real women are like your grandmother, for example.
Your grandmother would laugh at this new generation.
She certainly would.
Both my grandmothers would.
Real women don't need this wave of nonsense.
And also, you know, these women of the West today...
I don't understand how their image of man operates.
I don't know how their minds operate.
So to them, a man is a guy that wears tight, skinny pants, puts on a pink hat, has tattoos, colors his hair green or whatever.
That's their ideal guy.
And look, I don't care if I sound racist or if I sound controversial.
Look, I will raise my daughter...
Telling her that a real man is someone that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger and that guy in that feminist rally is not a real man.
I will tell my daughter if that guy comes and says hello to you, you block him immediately.
That's what I will do.
And I don't care if that's wrong.
The feminists might even call that child abuse.
I don't care.
I will tell my daughter if he's a man who looks like a man, then you say hello to him.
But if he doesn't look like a man, Then don't even bother.
Now, I have a big question for you here.
In fact, I think this is the $64,000 question.
You've presumably read, you know the Quran backwards.
Have you memorised it?
Correct.
What's it called when you've memorised?
Half of.
Yeah.
So you've memorised the Quran, you know all the hadith, you know everything about Islam.
Okay, so the problem we've got in the world today with fundamentalist Islam, are these people following the correct and true path of Islam?
Or is there a way of interpreting the Quran and the Hadith which moves away from this kind of intolerance and extremism?
Okay, the language of the Quran was revealed in the language of the people.
So it's not just any Arabic, it's the Arabic that the Meccans spoke.
And because it's the Arabic that the Meccans spoke, other Muslims who do not come from Mecca or Arabia need an interpretation.
Right.
There are metaphors.
There are stories.
There are indications.
There are hidden meanings.
These need interpretations.
And because of the interpretation...
Extremists take advantage of this.
So, when the Quran says, kill the disbeliever, According to the language of the Meccans, the disbeliever meant the tribe of Quraysh that put Muhammad in exile and made him flee his own city Mecca, went to Medina.
They are the disbelievers.
There was no other disbelievers.
So it was a local row.
Yes.
There was no other disbeliever.
The Christians are believers.
In Islam, the Christians are people of the book.
People of the book, yeah.
So the Jews are people of the book.
Right?
They're not disbelievers.
What was Muhammad before Islam?
Didn't he believe in the messages of the prophets before him from Abraham?
He was a man of Abrahamic faith.
So he can't be called a disbeliever.
No one in that region was a disbeliever.
The disbelievers were the idol worshippers of Quraish.
The extremists come and say, no, the disbelievers means Trump and Israel and Queen Elizabeth, they're the ones.
You see, that's what I mean by interpretation.
It's man-made.
And I oppose the man-made concept in religion.
I don't oppose my law.
I oppose the man-made interpretations.
Right.
But yours, presumably, is quite a minority position, isn't it?
It's a minority, but don't forget...
It's a minority only because the majority of the adherents of this belief system don't speak English.
Yes.
So, let me give you an example.
Dubai is a Muslim country.
Westerners love Dubai.
I mean, honeymoon, skydiving, business, whatever.
They love it.
Dubai is basically the same interpretation as my faith.
Look, Dubai and Saudi Arabia are best friends.
The same beheading in Saudi Arabia is frowned upon in Dubai.
It's frowned upon in Kuwait.
These are Muslim countries that share my belief system.
Oman, the Sultanate of Oman, for example.
You see, so not all Muslims are the same.
So my interpretation is welcoming.
I go to Kuwait often, I go to Dubai, go to Abu Dhabi, go to Oman.
I lived in Oman.
With my preaching, no one said a word to me.
Because they're all like that.
But if I went across the border to Saudi Arabia, I'm finished.
I'm beheaded.
I'm done.
Yeah, you would be.
It's all about interpretations.
So yes, Kuwait, Oman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, compared to the entire Muslim world, is a minority.
But when you look at them, they're not really a small minority.
They're a large minority.
Why don't we hear about them?
Because the focus isn't on them.
The American media focuses on Saudi Arabia's Islam.
They don't focus on Kuwait.
Kuwait also funds mosques.
They also fund universities, right?
But how come nobody focuses on them?
Because their mosques are the peaceful ones.
You're saying encouragingly that you believe that we can get along, that Islam is not incompatible with a peaceful life in the West.
The majority of Islamic teachings based on man-made interpretations are not compatible with any society, even Muslim societies.
Muslims butcher each other in Muslim countries.
So clearly there are some interpretations that don't even sit well with other Muslims, let alone non-Muslims.
But there is a large part of Islam that is compatible with every society.
And that is the part that says, respect everyone.
Respect the laws.
The problem with this part is that it's not preached that much.
It's not funded.
Because there's no wars that come from it.
Hillary Clinton, when she wants to campaign, she doesn't campaign in the peaceful mosques.
She campaigns in the extremist areas.
All the extremists vote for Hillary.
They will never vote for Trump.
Why is that?
Because there's a common agenda.
The left, I've noticed this, the hard left seems to have united with extremist love.
Antifa are in league with.
Well, that's a bit dangerous, isn't it?
Because both of them see the establishment as the enemy.
Right.
So they're prepared to put aside religion talk and all this values and difference of culture.
If you can get the numbers out, we've got your back.
It's all about numbers.
Right.
And these elite, the elite left, they don't care about Antifa.
They don't care about any of them because they're protected.
It's greed.
Hillary knows that no matter what happens to America, she's protected.
She's got her security, her house, no mortgage, no problem.
She'll never die hungry.
She doesn't care if the world goes on fire.
And that's why she will do anything to bring in these illegals, bring in extremists, as long as they can vote for her democratic party.
So what do we do?
How do we...
Because I think we're all...
I mean, here we are in Brussels.
My first thought when I come from Brussels is Molenbeek.
I think about, you know, all the kind of terrorists and ISIS people lurking.
I don't feel safe.
But it's the same all over Europe and probably in America even.
How do we get out of this situation?
Well, firstly, I think politicians with spying.
We need politicians with spying.
So hit builders and people like that?
I disagree with him, but I will tell you what, he loves his country.
We need people like that in their countries.
I'll give you an example.
If we had people like Geert Wilders in Iraq, ISIS wouldn't have come in.
Would have come in.
You can't have open deserts with Saudi Arabia.
Iraq has an open border with Saudi Arabia.
Najaf, the holiest city, is connected to the deserts that go straight to Saudi Arabia.
How do you have that?
How did ISIS come?
Have you seen those American drone footage of ISIS white pickup trucks that are just walking and driving in line of 100, 200 cars?
Yeah.
Where do they come from?
If we had a wall between Saudi Arabia, could they come?
What, are you going to take cars down in tunnels?
That's not going to happen.
Right?
So if we had conservatives in the Iraqi government that say, you know what, we want a proper immigration policy, we want a proper border, none of this would have happened.
You sound like you might be a bit of a Trump fan.
Well, I'll tell you what.
I am not an American.
I don't vote in America.
I couldn't care less who the ruler of America is, who the president is.
But I will tell you this.
We have some psychos in the Middle East that need to be afraid of the president of the United States.
Obama.
That guy was off the rails.
Obama gave Iran, he did Iran the biggest service.
You know, there was a hidden secret that Obama did.
Obama brought 2,500 Iranian officials from the regime and gave them citizenships.
And it was buried by the media.
And you know how we found out?
When Ayatollah in Iran came on television and said, yeah, we liked Obama better.
We thank him so much.
He took 2,500 and gave them all citizenship.
So you've got 2,500 senior Iranian officials.
The son of the vice president of Iran studies in Iran.
And his mother, who's the vice president in Iran, walks on the American flag.
Really?
Publicly.
Oh my goodness.
She's the one behind the painting of the American flag on all the stairs and all the footsteps and universities.
Wow.
And Obama gave him citizenship.
It was part of the nucleus.
So you mean you've now got this kind of network of Iranians working against the interests of America?
Of course.
Whoa.
Of course.
I think a lot of Americans will be shocked by that.
I'm not imagining things.
These things exist.
Look at Pompeo, Secretary Pompeo, what he's doing.
The Iran file.
Look who's opposing it.
Iran has a Congress in Washington, D.C., the National American Iranian Congress.
There are these lobby groups, not in America, like the Council on Care.
Right.
Terrorists.
Do you think they're terrorists?
I don't think.
I know.
They're designated terrorists.
The UAE has designated them as a terrorist organization.
But America hasn't designated them terrorists.
No, it's not a big issue.
Who cares if America doesn't recognize them as terrorists?
Does America not approve of the UAE now?
Are they not allies?
If I am an ally, if I'm a country, and I'm an ally with you, and you tell me this group is a terrorist organization, that's it, that's finished.
I have to say, the Islamic world must consider us to be a bunch of pusses.
Look, I will tell you this.
The Muslim world does not take the West as seriously as they did.
And I'll say this.
In the Middle East, London was a big issue.
London is like the queen of all cities.
So females would be named London, France, France, America.
They would name their daughters these countries.
Really?
Because of how amazing these countries were.
And London, you know, London.
Where are you studying London?
Where are you going to honeymoon London?
London was like the main area.
Now, and I don't care if I sound racist, now...
You've got a Pakistani mayor in London.
Look, I know about multiculturalism.
I know, and I support multiculturalism.
But if you tell a guy from Kuwait, who every Pakistani in Kuwait is a servant, Pakistanis in Dubai have no rights, and you still want them to respect you?
No!
They won't.
Look, let's flip it around.
You're British.
Do you ever think you can become a mayor in Saudi Arabia?
I think not, no.
It's impossible, you don't even have to think about it.
Definitely, no.
Even Dubai, even the most secular Muslim countries such as Lebanon, you as a British man, you will never be elected.
Why?
Because the Middle East believe that if you don't have a tribe, if you're not from that area, you can never be the leader there of anything.
You can't even be a president of Indonesia unless you're from Java, unless you're Javanese.
So why is it that the West doesn't register well with the mind of the Middle East?
What?
Pakistani?
What?
These guys come polish our shoes?
He's there, the mayor?
How does that happen when they see him on TV? It doesn't register.
This is a perspective that we very, very rarely get, which is why you are a godsend, really.
I don't care if I'm called racist.
I'm telling you the fact.
This is what it is.
If Sadiq Khan goes to Dubai and tells them he's the mayor of London, they will laugh at him.
Look, they'll respect him diplomatically.
But once he leaves, they're like, this guy really believes he's the mayor of London.
You were saying in your talk this morning that there is rampant racism within the Muslim world.
Tell me about the different attitudes in the different countries.
Okay, so in Iran, if they want to call you dumb, they'll say Arab.
Right.
So if you do something wrong, you drive on the wrong side of the road, you drive too fast, too slow, they'll come next to your car and say, for example, Arabi, are you Arab?
If you're in Iraq and you do something wrong, they will ask you if you're a Kurd.
Are you that dumb?
Are you a Kurd?
What's wrong with you?
Both countries, Iran and Iraq, would also say, are you Indian?
So they refer to the Indians as dumb people and they'll say Hindi.
Or if they are speaking a sentence and you don't get them, you don't understand them, they say, why don't you understand?
Am I speaking Indian?
You know, that's the language of the dumb to them.
India and Pakistan don't like each other.
Lebanon and Syria don't like each other.
Egypt and Jordan don't like each other.
So the racism...
And the Iraqis don't like anyone.
So the racism amongst the Muslim countries is so clear, it can never be denied.
Where are you all on Israel?
Look, I support Israel having a state.
I do.
I do.
But Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel.
And presumably, where would most Iranians stand on this?
Iranians don't support the Iranian regime.
Ah, they don't.
They don't.
What percentage?
Because Iran is a Shia government and Shia Muslims don't have anything to do with Palestine.
It's a Sunni site.
It's a Sunni mosque.
It's a Sunni area.
Okay.
So before 1979, Shia Muslims didn't care about Palestine.
Right.
Look, the claim is the Jews took the land.
Yeah.
Even if that was true, it's not Shia land.
So the Shias don't care, really.
So why is Iran committed?
It was Khomeini.
Khomeini came with this Sunni model.
He came with the Sunni model.
That Palestine is ours, and if every Muslim threw a bucket of water at Israel, the whole country would flood, and all that nonsense.
Oh, I see.
So it was a political gesture rather than a religious gesture.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not ours.
Right.
It's not ours, and we don't want it.
And yet, there is, across the Muslim world, increased...
You hate the Jews.
I'll tell you why.
Because, look, the situation in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine is an Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Yeah.
Right?
But the clerics make it a Jewish-Muslim issue.
So instead of saying, look, the problem really is a matter of borders between two countries, the Israelis, who could be atheists.
Not all Israelis are Jews.
Some of them are atheists.
Some of them are Muslim.
Some of them are Muslim.
Some of them are Christian.
Some of them are different religions.
Baha'is, right?
Some of them are Baha'is.
So, instead of saying, okay, it's an Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the Palestinians, some of them are Christians, atheists, secular, whatever.
They say, no, it's a Jewish versus Muslim world, so all of us have to take a stand.
Right.
So, I don't understand how this is true.
But it's funny how it spreads.
My friend Rod Liddle, who goes on his holidays to Malaysia quite a lot, and he was saying even Malaysia, which is soft Islam, isn't it, really?
Islam-lite.
Yeah, even in Malaysia, they hate the Jews.
Just instinctively, because they've been absorbed it, I suppose.
Yeah, just hate the Jews.
It's the easiest way to empty anger and hate.
Why?
I'll tell you why.
Because the rest of the world allows it to happen.
Because there is a sort of cultural embarrassment, isn't there?
There's a sort of deference towards Islam.
Islam can get away with stuff that no other religion can get away with.
Of course.
How do you explain that?
There is nothing to explain except that the West has become weaker.
The West has become so weak and the extremists have become so strong that even me, you know, even me, I play the Muslim card a lot.
Do you?
Yes, with the leftists.
Oh, don't tell me about that.
I'd love to hear that.
No, honestly, the leftists who made this whole special treatment atmosphere, a whole special treatment card for the Muslims, need to pay for what they've done, and I use it against them.
So if I'm having an issue with a company and they're leftists, I always say, are you doing this because I'm a Muslim?
You guys are Islamophobes, and they switch immediately.
Imagine WestJet sending me an email saying, As-salamu alaykum.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
To solve a baggage damage issue.
They delayed my responses to me for a year.
And I said, you know what?
You're doing this because I'm Muslim and my name is Muhammad.
Ooh, the whole senior directors came on the case.
An airline would address me.
Assalamu alaikum.
Yeah, yeah.
So I play the Muslim card against the leftist establishments and left companies because that's their punishment for what they've done.
I suppose it's human nature, isn't it?
That you take advantage of situations and if the West wants to bend over backwards to let Islam walk all over it, then Muslims will...
Even in my debates, people ask me how many genders are there?
And I say there are only two genders.
And they say, well, that's not true.
And I say, no, that's exactly true because the Quran says so and don't be an Islamophobe.
And that's when they pull back.
Then you win.
I win immediately by their laws.
I can't tell a conservative because the Quran says so.
They'll say, well, I don't care what you say.
But a leftist can never say, oh, the Quran is not right.
Have you come across the kind of people, have you ever met the kind of people who join the Islamic State?
Have you met these people?
Never.
No, because they'd kill you, obviously.
Yes, they'd kill me and they're not the type of people I would want to engage with because they've shut their minds, they've made their minds up.
There's no hope in them.
But you must have thought about this.
Do you think that it is Islam that radicalizes them?
Or do you think it's because basically they are unemployed, dope-smoking?
No, I don't believe that.
Look, we have 800,000 unemployed people in Australia.
Doesn't mean all of them are extremists, right?
Look, unemployment has never led to blowing yourself up.
No.
It doesn't work like that.
All of these excuses that they make, oh, the societies, that's nonsense.
Maybe one or two or three a year around the world, two or three incidents globally can be as a result of unemployment.
Someone walking into the bank, can't get a loan, sets himself on fire.
Understandable.
Okay, that's unemployment.
Poverty.
Right?
But the majority of extremists are extreme.
I mean, look, if a jihadi blows himself up and then you bring him back to life and say, you were just doing that because you're unemployed, he'll be like, you know what?
Stuff you.
I wanted to go to heaven.
I'm doing this for my religion.
But nevertheless, that excuse is often made by the West.
People say, oh, but they didn't really understand Islam and they were, you know...
They make excuses for them.
Look, when people do that to me and say, oh, the West is always trying to damage the image of Islam and always showing the violent, I say, okay, show me the good.
You as a Muslim, show me the good.
Right?
So when someone says that's not true Islam, okay, then show me what is true Islam.
You show me.
If you complain about an image of Islam, then show me where the good is.
Look, there are around 500 imams in the UK. When there's a stabbing, how many do you hear and come out condemning?
About zero.
Okay.
Look, I would be happy with 50.
Yeah.
I'd be happy with 50.
For 50, I can say, okay, they don't speak English.
But at least 50 do.
How come we never hear them?
How come...
Twitter is free.
Just tweet.
Yeah.
You know, I'll retweet it.
Yeah, yeah.
Just show us that you care.
Yeah.
People don't bother.
They don't care.
Yeah.
So, for someone to say, oh, they don't represent Islam.
Okay, then who does?
If the clerics are silent, then who does?
Tell me, you know Tommy Robinson, don't you?
Correct.
I've known him since 2011.
And how do you get on?
He disagrees with me.
A lot.
I disagree with him on certain issues.
We respect each other.
And our common enemy is the Islamic extremist.
We might not agree with each other's approach, but I will always fight for his right to speak.
I disagree with him being deplatformed, attacked...
Look, everybody has their own style.
I'm a Muslim Imam, but I respect Tommy because Tommy knows the dangers of the extremists and he loves his country.
I respect people that love their country.
And I don't care about this right-wing, left-wing.
I'm not a politician.
I couldn't care less about political views.
I see a guy that loves his country.
And he hates the extremists.
Okay, I hate them too.
So if he wants dialogue, I have dialogue.
Look, the issue is, for me, being peaceful, the achievement is that I sit with people I disagree with.
People who disagree with me sit with me.
That's an achievement.
Me sitting in a mosque is not an achievement.
I'm not doing anything special.
But me sitting with a guy that completely abhors my belief system, but we still have dialogue and peace, that's an achievement for me.
So just briefly, what is your disagreement with Tommy Robinson?
Plenty of issues.
I'll give you some.
I think Tommy Robinson...
You know, just confronting, let's say, the Muslim community, when you confront them, they think they've won.
You see, the way the Muslim mentality works is that if you come to our mosque, then we are the victims.
Because you see, Islam spreads based on that we are victims, we're the oppressed.
And it converts people based on this.
It's a victim cult.
I wouldn't call it a cult, but let me tell you what happened.
Look, the indigenous people in Australia, they've been oppressed by what they call invasion, the British.
What the extremists do is that, look, They don't like us, and they don't like you.
We came here by planes.
We didn't kill your ancestors.
Come, join us.
We'll give you a sense of belonging.
So they now are converting indigenous Aboriginal Australians.
I didn't know that.
Yes.
Really?
Yeah.
So this whole victim thing, right?
So when Tommy confronts them...
Not the rapists.
The rapists deserve to be confronted.
But just a regular mosque.
Walk in there and do his thing.
They turn around and say, hey, this is a good shot.
We're under attack.
They won't say he's a journalist.
They'll say, he's attacking us.
So because he's attacking us, we're right.
And we're oppressed.
And they use that.
When people throw pork on the mosques, they use that.
Of course they do.
I can see that.
I think we all, you know, we white Westerners, we curse when one of our numbered or something stupid like that because, yeah, I understand that.
So I support Tommy going on TV, petitions, writing books, sitting with politicians, rallies, the recent one, not the EDL. I support all of that.
And you like his Quran book where he shows the Quran in the order of significance.
I haven't read that book.
I haven't read it.
But look, I support him expressing himself however he likes.
I just think that Muslims perceive things differently.
If you confront them, you may think that they see you confronting them, but in reality what's happening is that you're giving them ammo.
Okay, so how do we not give them ammo and bring them on side?
Don't confront them, but rather expose them.
So, cameras in mosques, follow imams, record them, get their lectures recorded and expose them, that does way more damage to them than confronting them.
That's interesting, although Channel 4, for example, I think, and maybe the BBC as well, have recorded with hidden cameras inflammatory sermons by imams, and it doesn't seem to have made much difference.
It doesn't make a difference because there's no follow-up.
Right.
Or it doesn't make a difference because election time, Theresa May wants to go visit that imam.
It's extraordinary, isn't it?
Yeah.
So if she's going to visit that imam...
All negative reporting on that imam is going to stop.
That's why there's no effect.
Let me tell you, in Saudi Arabia, if Saudis want to take down an imam, you've seen how the crown prince does it.
That imam that he doesn't like leaves the country before he can put his shoes on.
He'll be in exile.
Where?
In Sudan.
No exile in America, in Sudan.
And he'll be told if you leave Sudan, your family will be gone.
So are you a closet admirer of Mohammed bin Salman?
No.
No, I don't like him, but I think I see extremists taking extremists out.
Yes.
I don't mind them fighting amongst each other.
You mean you respect playing hardball in order to deal with bad guys?
I like to see extremists take each other out.
I like to see ISIS fight the rebels in Syria.
I like them to take each other out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it saves our lives and saves us energy and time.
Let me ask you one question I was keen to ask you at the beginning.
When I met you, I was very, very pleased to see that you were still alive because I do worry about you.
And you have this in common with Tommy Robinson, that you are both under constant threat of death.
How do you deal with that?
Well, me and Tommy are two different people in every way possible.
But, you know, we both get threats from extremists.
I deal with it with heavy security.
I have really good security, and I'll say this.
Israeli security?
Look, Muslims think it is.
Literally.
Many Muslims, and this is online on Facebook, and their groups, they speak.
A quick search will show that.
One guy says, if I see Tawheed, I'm going to cave his head in.
The other guy says, be very careful.
He's protected by the Mossad, protected by ASIO, protected by MI6, protected.
Be careful.
And the other guy says, Inshallah, okay, I'll reconsider.
Things like that.
If they think I'm protected by ASIO, that's really good.
Let them think that as long as they don't attack me.
But no, other than that, I do have a really good security team.
A really good security team.
Like ones that will not bother to stop.
If someone attacks me, I'm a peaceful guy.
But my security guards aren't.
So they're that type of people.
They're mean and they're ruthless and they don't care.
And they're bored.
They are so bored.
They are waiting for that one extremist to come along.
I'm telling you.
That's fantastic.
And what does happen when you go to heaven?
Do you get virgins and stuff?
Well, that's what they're promising.
I'm not interested.
What is that?
I'm not interested.
What am I going to do with 72 virgins?
Actually, they wouldn't be very experienced, would they, by definition?
Honestly, what am I going to do with 72 virgins?
Honestly, let me just rock up one day.
You imagine that you go inside a room and there's 72 virgins there.
What am I going to do with you guys?
Honestly, just get out of my face.
Yeah, I think that's a great way of ending the show.
Mohamed, it's been so good talking to you.
Thank you for the best podcast ever.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you.
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