The following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian professor Abd Al-Sabour Shahin, which aired on Saudi Channel 1 on August 8, 2005. Dr. Shahin is head of the Shari'a faculty at Al-Ahzar University, [1] the most prestigious seat of learning in Sunni Islam, and is also a lecturer at Cairo University. [2] (To view this clip, visit http://memritv.org/clip/en/800.htm.)
"Our enemies weave many lies about us, which we are not necessarily aware of. For example: One day, we awoke to the crime of 9/11, which hit the tallest buildings in New York, the Empire State Building [sic]. There is no doubt that not a single Arab or Muslim had anything to do with these events. The incident was fabricated as a pretext to attack Islam and Muslims. The plan was to take over the world's energy sources, and to achieve this control by force and not by agreement or negotiations, by interests, free trade, or anything like that. This is what they wanted.
"So this incident was fabricated - and Allah knows that the Arabs and Muslims are innocent of it - in order to serve as a pretext to attack Islam and the Muslims.
"All of a sudden, after we had been accustomed to considering America a rational and balanced country... All of a sudden, it violates international conventions, cancels treaties, ignores the U.N., acts on its own accord, attacks nations, kills innocent people, and claims it has the right to do so - and all this is based on lies.
"These were lies from beginning to end, and we were not used to lying - not in policy, not in our discourse, and not in the media. Imagine what crisis the Arab and Islam nation finds itself in, in the midst of these peculiar events, which we cannot explain or believe.
"All of a sudden, we were framed for an international crime, on the basis of lies.
"I believe a dirty Zionist hand carried out this act. Zionism has taken the opportunity to escalate the war in Palestine, killing hundreds of thousands so far, while we watch from the sidelines in astonishment and ask: What's going on?"
[1] Daily Star. (Lebanon), September 15, 2004.
[2] For more on Adb Al-Sabour, see Special Dispatch No. 794, "Reactions to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's Fatwa Calling for the Abduction and Killing of American Civilians in Iraq," October 6, 2005, Reactions to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's Fatwa Calling for the Abduction and Killing of American Civilians in Iraq.
