Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif, Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on June 3, 2011:
Interviewer: "How is it that a man who is engrossed in jihad and in battles does not neglect to get married? He had a propensity for marriage, hadn't he?"
Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif: "Right."
Interviewer: "How do you account for this? How could it be that even though he was dedicated to the cause, he found time, at the age of 50, to marry a 20-year-old Yemeni woman? How do you account for that?"
Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif: "The man…"
Interviewer: "It has been said that he befriended you to get to your sister."
Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif: "From the outset, the man was operating on both fronts."
Interviewer: "What two fronts?"
Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif: "His primary front – even prior to his jihad – was the front of polygamy, believing that we must spread the notion of polygamy throughout the nation. He would quote statistics about the number of unmarried women…"
Interviewer: "He couldn’t think of anything more important than the issue of unmarried Muslim women?!"
Dr. Sa'd Al-Sharif: "This was the mother of all problems, in his view. Whenever he met someone, he would start talking to him about marriage. He would quote the Prophet Muhammad: 'Marry and procreate, so I can be proud of you before the nations on Judgment Day.' He would stress that the multitude of unmarried women is the nation's top problem. He said that polygamy was the solution and that we must shatter this barrier. He acted upon his belief and suffered a lot for it." […]
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