| 00:01 | | Some Salafi scholars go so far as to say that France is the prostitute of Europe. |
| 00:05 | | France is really the archetype of a country that is either to be Islamized or to be left. |
| 00:10 | | We even have debates among ourselves. Can we support a French soccer team? |
| 00:15 | | What puts the cherry on the cake are laws that for them are directed squarely at Islam. |
| 00:20 | | The problem is neither communal nor other. |
| 00:25 | | For them, France has a problem with Islam. —Bruno Guillot, you are an expert |
| 00:29 | | on radical Islam essentially because you are one of its former apostles. |
| 00:33 | | You spent years preaching Salafism and converting Christians. |
| 00:37 | | Today you bear witness to what you have seen. Can you tell us who you are? |
| 00:40 | | My name is Bruno, I’m from Belgium. |
| 00:44 | | Formerly, my name was Soulayman, Soulayman Abou Issa, literally son of Issa. |
| 00:50 | | I was born in Charleroi, in a city not very far from Brussels. |
| 00:55 | | I converted to Islam at a very young age, at the age of 15 and a half, more or less. |
| 01:00 | | Basically, I had no interest in converting to Islam or even in any other influence. |
| 01:07 | | I come from a French family. My father is a passionate lover of France. |
| 01:14 | | I didn’t necessarily have Muslim friends, etc. But I ended up developing a love for soccer |
| 01:20 | | during the 1998 World Cup, etc. and found that I have extraordinary qualities. |
| 01:26 | | So I enrolled in a school specializing in that. |
| 01:29 | | And when I had to go through the stage of being semi-professional |
| 01:34 | | to get to professional status, my father completely ruined my dream. |
| 01:40 | | At that time, I was 15 years old, 15 and a half. |
| 01:43 | | And it was at that moment that I withdrew into myself. |
| 01:49 | | And I ended up hanging out with people from the neighborhood, Moroccans, |
| 01:53 | | with a Moroccan migration background. |
| 01:56 | | And at that time, I was right in the middle of the month of Ramadan, where I saw the atmosphere, |
| 01:59 | | I saw the mosque, I was invited to the mosque, etc. etc. |
| 02:03 | | So I rapidly got caught up in a mechanism. |
| 02:07 | | One is inevitably quickly impressed by group prayers, by the family aspect, |
| 02:14 | | by the fact of eating together, by the fact of praying together, by the fact of having moments. |
| 02:19 | | I’m from a family that is Catholic but not at all practicing. |
| 02:25 | | So there was a complete, total lack of spiritual direction. |
| 02:30 | | At the time, my dad and my mom were not on very good terms. |
| 02:34 | | So there were no sparkling Christmas celebrations, etc. |
| 02:40 | | Then I arrive in a family where almost everything is consistent, |
| 02:44 | | everything is good, the warmth, etc. |
| 02:47 | | I’m 15 and a half, I’m disappointed, I’m slightly depressed at the time, if I may say so. |
| 02:54 | | All the ingredients were there to convert to Islam in a flash. |
| 03:00 | | Then there is the very proselytizing side of some Muslims. |
| 03:05 | | So they’ll say, ‘Yes, buddy, you’re a Christian, you know, in truth, |
| 03:08 | | the Bible is completely false,’ etc. |
| 03:11 | | So they gave me cassettes, videocassettes at that time. |
| 03:15 | | And at 15 and a half, you don’t necessarily have the |
| 03:18 | | intellectual capacity to be able to do real research. |
| 03:21 | | So I quickly converted. That is to say that, unlike in many branches of Christianity, |
| 03:27 | | in particular Catholicism and Orthodoxy, where we see that there is really a catechism, |
| 03:32 | | a baptism that really takes time, etc. In Judaism, there is a trial period lasting several years. |
| 03:37 | | In Islam, there is just the attestation of faith. |
| 03:40 | | So you attest that there is no divinity worthy of worship other than Allah alone, |
| 03:43 | | and that Muhammad is his messenger, his servant. |
| 03:46 | | And you’re Muslim. So just expressing the intention, but only in light of these words, |
| 03:52 | | by saying them and believing them, makes |
| 03:55 | | the person a full-fledged Muslim, who must therefore fulfill the obligations, etc. |
| 04:00 | | So really, converting to Islam is something that happens immediately. |
| 04:04 | | At the time I spoke those words inside a mosque in the Charleroi region, |
| 04:09 | | I’d been in contact with Islam and Muslims for maybe three weeks. |
| 04:13 | | But there is really a target today, we could say, |
| 04:18 | | a passion, a real desire to convert, by people who themselves |
| 04:22 | | sometimes do not practice religion. |
| 04:27 | | But it’s a bit of a case of conscience, where one says to oneself, I may not practice, |
| 04:31 | | but at least I have brought someone to religion, so I benefit from these good actions, too. |
| 04:36 | | I quickly realized that there were a lot of inconsistent statements |
| 04:41 | | between this mosque and that mosque, and it disturbed me very, very quickly. |
| 04:44 | | So I said to myself, I might as well learn Arabic, |
| 04:47 | | and I might as well make the effort that the imams are incapable of making. |
| 04:51 | | When you go to the mosque, the Koran is in Arabic. I didn’t understand it; it annoyed me. |
| 04:56 | | You almost don’t feel Muslim enough, |
| 04:59 | | and it’s a bit like something mystical, you can’t really touch it. |
| 05:03 | | I said to myself, not only will I touch it, I want to take it and I want to teach it to people. |
| 05:07 | | After maybe two or three months of conversion, I already had in my head |
| 05:10 | | a plan to go to an Arab-Muslim country. As it happened, it was Egypt. |
| 05:16 | | When I decided to leave, I prepared my mom, when I was 16 and a half. |
| 05:21 | | I prepared my mom by saying when I’m 18, I’m going to get married, |
| 05:25 | | I’m going to leave, you won’t be able to stop me. |
| 05:28 | | I set the scene like an entrepreneur. |
| 05:33 | | And in my head, that’s really how it was supposed to happen, and that’s how it happened. |
| 05:37 | | My appearance changed, everything changed; no one recognized me anymore. |
| 05:43 | | I didn’t recognize myself either, but for me, that’s what I had to become, |
| 05:48 | | to become absolutely, there was no other solution than that. |
| 05:53 | | I dressed in what is called a kamis, a djellaba; |
| 05:58 | | it’s really traditional Maghreb, it’s a single piece |
| 06:03 | | or two pieces that rise above the ankles. |
| 06:08 | | The Salafi cannot wear a garment that goes below the ankles |
| 06:12 | | because it’s considered as being in hell, in the fire. |
| 06:15 | | I had a beard that was never trimmed. You have to let it grow, |
| 06:21 | | since the prophet of Islam orders us to let it grow completely. |
| 06:26 | | A hat, of course, when we are in Saudi Arabia, |
| 06:29 | | we wear the rotara [?] the Saudi garment, and we try to make sure |
| 06:33 | | that even for men, no garment is tight, that the buttocks are not visible etc. etc. |
| 06:38 | | And for women, of course, because I was married, it was the full veil, |
| 06:42 | | the Salafi usually recommend that, and I was from that school, |
| 06:48 | | where the face and the eyes are covered. She was more or less the same age as me. |
| 06:53 | | She also converted to Islam at that time. |
| 06:56 | | We got married because it was a bit of a convenience for both families. |
| 07:00 | | And then about our plans to leave, she had the same dream as I did. |
| 07:05 | | She went from a completely light veil to a full veil in Belgium. |
| 07:12 | | So we had a lot of anxiety in the hospitals, in the mutual insurance companies, |
| 07:16 | | in mutual insurance funds, etc. Because they’d ask her to lift [her veil]. |
| 07:20 | | Bruno or finally Soulayman did not impose anything at all. |
| 07:23 | | Did not impose going there, did not impose this or that. |
| 07:26 | | She was, I like to say, to use this expression, more engaged than I am. |
| 07:31 | | Women, and that’s really what I’ve noticed in these environments, are more extremist than men. |
| 07:38 | | At that moment, I hated, I hated France. I hated it deeply. |
| 07:43 | | Although I knew it was a country that I had strongly in my heart, |
| 07:48 | | whether from a historical, cultural point of view, etc., I completely hated France. |
| 07:53 | | My father held it against me. My first trip was to Cairo, Egypt. I had just had my daughter. |
| 08:01 | | So again, I got married very quickly, I converted very quickly, I got married very quickly, |
| 08:05 | | I left very quickly and I had a child very quickly. So I enrolled in a center |
| 08:09 | | called Merkez al-Ibaanah. It’s a Salafi center in Cairo. |
| 08:12 | | Then I returned to Belgium, I studied in Brussels in Salafi mosques. |
| 08:17 | | And then I was accepted at the University of Medina in 2009, 2009-2010. |
| 08:22 | | So the university of the second holy city of Islam, after Mecca. |
| 08:26 | | Everything was accelerating, everything was becoming concentrated. |
| 08:29 | | In Saudi Arabia and more precisely Mecca and Medina, everything revolves around religion. |
| 08:35 | | But you need to know that it is one of the few, |
| 08:38 | | if not the only, university that recruits internationally. |
| 08:41 | | In fact, the University of Medina is funded by the Saudi state |
| 08:45 | | and the goal is clearly to Islamize populations, whether they are Muslim, |
| 08:53 | | but in particular Western populations. |
| 08:57 | | Then to send those students back to Europe, to France, etc. There are really a lot of them. |
| 09:02 | | There are more or less 20 students, 15 students, 10 students from France each year who leave. |
| 09:07 | | Here in Belgium, it’s 4-5. So truly to be selected for the University of Medina, |
| 09:13 | | it’s first of all a holy grail for Muslims, but it’s also extremely difficult. |
| 09:18 | | The school manuals are also Salafi. And so when I arrived, I was already at a certain level |
| 09:23 | | and they managed to detect that and to say to themselves, he will go faster than the others, |
| 09:27 | | he will learn faster than the others. That will be a good asset for us, so we’ll accept him. |
| 09:30 | | So they accept me on the spot. Normally, between acceptance and the time you move, |
| 09:36 | | it takes a year or so. Then from a purely theological and Muslim point of view, |
| 09:41 | | it is an obligation for Muslims to call non-Muslims to convert to Islam by all means. |
| 09:49 | | Some Salafi scholars go so far as to say that France is the prostitute of Europe. |
| 09:54 | | And that’s really the message that is conveyed right up to the professors of the university. |
| 10:01 | | Some even teach in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. |
| 10:05 | | So, governmentally speaking, that’s how the game is played. |
| 10:08 | | We, the Belgians, are often a little bit sidelined. No one knows us. |
| 10:11 | | We’re a small country. we are known more for chips and potatoes, fries and chocolate. |
| 10:18 | | But France is really the archetype of Islamophobia. |
| 10:23 | | The archetype of the country either to Islamize or to leave. |
| 10:28 | | There are even debates among us. |
| 10:32 | | Can we support a French soccer team? Can we support the Marseille Olympics? |
| 10:38 | | It’s not, in the end, an alliance with the unbelievers. |
| 10:41 | | You need to know that 90% have converted to Islam. |
| 10:44 | | So they’re French. I have known people who have names like Sébastien, Flavien and Christopher. |
| 10:52 | | Secondly, because France has always been intrinsically linked to the Church, |
| 10:56 | | born of the church etc. |
| 10:59 | | And it’s well known that through Clovis and others, France has also repelled Islam. |
| 11:08 | | And so that inevitably creates a specific status for France, the colonization — |
| 11:14 | | right? — of Algeria, etc. So all these subjects are intertwined, |
| 11:19 | | politics, religion, theology, spiritual, materialistic things. |
| 11:23 | | There’s this blending — and what accentuates it, what puts the cherry on the cake, |
| 11:28 | | for them, at least, are the laws directed squarely against Islam. |
| 11:33 | | The problem is neither a community issue nor anything else. |
| 11:38 | | For them, France has a problem with Islam. |
| 11:42 | | Salafism, if you just take the etymological term, Salaf means predecessor. |
| 11:47 | | It is in fact the understanding of the Koran in light of the first generations of Islam. |
| 11:52 | | Salafism does not care about politics. |
| 11:55 | | If it is not Sharia, he does not put his nose into it. |
| 11:58 | | There is a fundamental principle among Salafis called ‘al wala wal bara’; literally, it means |
| 12:04 | | loyalty and disavowal. You ally with the believers |
| 12:08 | | and everything that revolves around the believers, |
| 12:14 | | whether it is practices, clothing, the manner of speaking, etc. |
| 12:19 | | And you disavow the unbelievers. |
| 12:22 | | You disavow all systems outside Sharia. |
| 12:25 | | So when a Salafi leaves Europe, it is not just to better practice his religion, of course. |
| 12:30 | | But it is above all because he hates the unbelievers. |
| 12:33 | | We cannot congratulate a Christian by saying Merry Christmas, for example. |
| 12:37 | | We cannot for example, use expressions that are specific to the unbelievers, |
| 12:43 | | dress in clothes that are specific to the unbelievers, |
| 12:46 | | have haircuts that are specific to the unbelievers. |
| 12:49 | | Which means that at some point, we end up hating everyone. |
| 12:53 | | Does that tell you anything about names like Brahim Abdeslam, Samy Amimour, |
| 12:56 | | Abaaoud, Laachraoui, Bakraoui? |
| 12:59 | | Yes. Yes. All of them are people who used to hang out with each other, |
| 13:04 | | go for tea together and share their ideas. |
| 13:07 | | You should know that Molenbeek was basically |
| 13:10 | | not a bastion of terrorism any more than any other municipality. |
| 13:13 | | There are municipalities in Brussels that are worse than Molenbeek. |
| 13:17 | | But simply, at some point, it was possible to pray in completely clandestine mosques. |
| 13:24 | | And this is where, sometimes, it was not rare to encounter this kind of people. |
| 13:29 | | I happened to have met Salah Abdeslam not in a mosque, but in the neighborhood. |
| 13:36 | | There was also another one called, well, he called himself that, |
| 13:39 | | at least previously, he was on quite a few Belgian TV channels, |
| 13:43 | | he called himself Jean-Louis le Soumis [the Submissive]. Then he sent people to Syria. |
| 13:47 | | He went into the neighborhoods of Brussels to distribute leaflets against democracy, etc. |
| 13:53 | | Because he considered democracy to be the devil. |
| 13:57 | | Well, this kind of individual, they were common in Brussels. |
| 14:02 | | We — at the time I was starting out in Salafism — we saw them |
| 14:06 | | just like that, wandering in the streets. |
| 14:09 | | Molenbeek, which is basically a neighborhood, in my time, |
| 14:14 | | in the years 2004, 2005, 2006, there were mosques in cellars. |
| 14:21 | | Everyone knew it. There were some truly weird people. |
| 14:26 | | The majority of these people frequented places. |
| 14:30 | | And people, and the police or others, or even politicians, |
| 14:34 | | knew for a fact that they represented a danger. |
| 14:38 | | For the majority, it’s not a surprise. And we, who are from radical environments, |
| 14:45 | | radical Islam, etc. etc., we’ve known it for a long time. |
| 14:48 | | When we see their names appear as the headline for |
| 14:52 | | the 8 o’clock evening news, we almost feel like saying to ourselves, only now, |
| 14:56 | | finally, they did something. Well yes, it makes sense. |
| 15:00 | | And then comes Bataclan in 2015 and we are all astonished. |
| 15:04 | | Then comes Zaventem [airport attack] in 2016 and we are all astonished. |
| 15:09 | | Why did you choose to leave Islam in 2016? You were a recognized imam, |
| 15:12 | | brilliant, you have an exceptional background, you graduated |
| 15:15 | | from the University of Medina. You were being counted on to convert the unbelievers. |
| 15:18 | | It was a cascade of factors. |
| 15:21 | | But the first was my pilgrimage to Mecca. |
| 15:26 | | I had really placed a lot of hope on this pilgrimage, for it to be a spiritual springboard, etc. |
| 15:34 | | It was a fiasco. A lot of deaths, horrible behaviors, things that I never expected to see. |
| 15:43 | | And the fact of having been a few centimeters from death, |
| 15:47 | | you could very easily see people urinating in front of everyone, |
| 15:52 | | see women doing number two in front of everyone, pushing and shoving are commonplace. |
| 15:58 | | You try to touch the black stone in Mecca, so you hit people. There are even rapes |
| 16:02 | | that happen sometimes. You know, when hundreds of thousands of people behind you |
| 16:08 | | put pressure on you to move forward, it’s enough for a mechanism to derail. |
| 16:14 | | That’s what happened that year. And so there I saw children, children who were dead. |
| 16:21 | | I saw mothers who were trampled. I started to feel sick. |
| 16:25 | | I told myself that I’m going to pass out, and if I passed out, |
| 16:28 | | I knew that it would be the end of me. |
| 16:31 | | Fortunately, I managed to — I don’t know through what miracle — to get out of it, |
| 16:34 | | but it was a shock. Then there is the fact that my daughter, my dear daughter, |
| 16:42 | | was twice asked for in marriage. The first time by a Saudi when she was seven years old, |
| 16:46 | | and the second time by a European from Belgium. |
| 16:49 | | I knew that in Salafi Islam, it was not a problem |
| 16:53 | | from the point of view of Sharia, but living it is something else. |
| 16:57 | | The executions that can be seen in Medina, in the public square, |
| 17:02 | | are something that many don’t know about. But when you cut off a hand or a head, |
| 17:08 | | it’s in a public place. It’s God’s justice, of course; for Muslims it’s Sharia, |
| 17:14 | | but seeing it, again, is shocking. And the thing that really put an end to these doubts |
| 17:22 | | is the death of my dad. |
| 17:25 | | I had always considered my dad, I will use the term, as a dirty unbeliever. |
| 17:33 | | I thought of him as being in hell, by God’s justice, because he deserved it. |
| 17:38 | | At the time, he returned to Catholicism, which I did not understand, which I fought. |
| 17:43 | | I tried to convert my father to Islam. |
| 17:46 | | I made every effort, I deployed all the evidence, in quotation marks, but nothing worked. |
| 17:52 | | In the end, I realized that my father left with a serenity, |
| 17:57 | | an unexpected strength. |
| 18:00 | | He told me, don’t be afraid, don’t worry, He is with us, don’t worry. |
| 18:04 | | And at the time, you don’t necessarily realize all that. |
| 18:07 | | There is a rule of jurisprudence that says in Islam, |
| 18:11 | | ‘Al-hukmu ala al-shayy’ far’un an tasawwarah.’ |
| 18:15 | | It means, the judgment of a thing depends on our conception. |
| 18:19 | | And deep down, we tell ourselves, isn’t that the purpose of a life? |
| 18:23 | | To say to ourselves, we made mistakes, we tried to fix a little bit where we could, |
| 18:27 | | and then leave in peace. I had the image that my father was going to go through |
| 18:31 | | atrocious suffering, that the angels were going to slaughter him, |
| 18:34 | | that God was going to punish him, etc. |
| 18:37 | | And in the end, it was he who told me, do not be afraid of death, etc. |
| 18:41 | | The conception of a God who will constantly punish, |
| 18:45 | | a God who will constantly make man fall, a God who guides and who leads astray, etc. |
| 18:50 | | will give a certain hardness of heart. Even if we may say He loves you, |
| 18:55 | | the fact of loving under the condition of doing something or not doing something, |
| 18:59 | | means that we still have, despite everything, this fear, this fear that takes over the love of God. |
| 19:06 | | And then it hits the heart. And it’s really that element where I said to myself, |
| 19:11 | | in the end, wasn’t he right? Wouldn’t all this have to be questioned? |
| 19:16 | | Didn’t I convert very young, very quickly, without necessarily being able |
| 19:22 | | to do the research that I could have done at that time? |
| 19:25 | | I would try to question it a little bit. It was very, very difficult. |
| 19:28 | | So I reviewed the Koran, etc. etc. |
| 19:32 | | And there, I really focused on the subject of the crucifixion of Christ. |
| 19:36 | | Because beyond belief and doctrine, I came across a new concept, which is historical proof. |
| 19:42 | | In Islam, we believe, because we have to believe. |
| 19:46 | | There, I said to myself, we believe, OK, but it is provable. |
| 19:49 | | The existence of Christ is attested to by 99% of historians. |
| 19:54 | | And his crucifixion is also attested to by 99%. Even if we can’t do it Islamically. |
| 20:01 | | And that’s how, one thing leading to another, I ended up abandoning Islam first, |
| 20:06 | | and then accepting Christ in my life. |
| 20:10 | | But then, what differentiates a Salafist, as you have been, from a jihadist who takes action? |
| 20:15 | | They have identical visions of Sharia. |
| 20:19 | | What you saw in Raqqa, in Syria, the crucifixions in public places, that are Quranic, |
| 20:24 | | because crucifying those who commit disorder on earth is clearly mentioned in the Koran. |
| 20:29 | | The fact of cutting arms, of stoning women, etc. etc. |
| 20:33 | | Every Salafist, how to say it, every Salafist is inevitably, at some point, |
| 20:38 | | not yet, for the moment, at the level of being a jihadist. |
| 20:43 | | But the difference there is between the subdivision, between a Salafi called peaceful |
| 20:48 | | and a Salafi called Jihadist, is that the peaceful Salafi thinks that the Muslim rulers |
| 20:53 | | in the Arab-Muslim countries today, even if they are |
| 20:57 | | next to the plague, they nevertheless remain Muslim. |
| 21:00 | | They say to themselves, ‘We are under their authority, |
| 21:04 | | and they have not launched an offensive jihad.’ So the peaceful Salafi is peaceful |
| 21:09 | | only because there has been no call from the Muslim ruler. |
| 21:13 | | While the Salafi Jihadist considers the Muslim authorities of today to be apostates. |
| 21:21 | | That is, they are unbelievers. So as they are unbelievers, they set themselves up as caliphs. |
| 21:28 | | Hence the fact that Daesh had Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. |
| 21:31 | | Al-Qaeda had Osama bin Laden. Twice, I almost went over to the other side. |
| 21:37 | | I never had a family that was very close to me. |
| 21:40 | | I was 7,000 km from my family; I didn’t care. |
| 21:43 | | And so from there, you say to yourself, you have nothing to lose. |
| 21:46 | | Things aren’t going well with your ex-wife, because religion does not solve everything. |
| 21:52 | | There is the behavioral side, etc. |
| 21:55 | | You come across texts where you say to yourself, it would not be so bad to do something. |
| 22:02 | | Then you see on television what is happening in Palestine, etc. It gets you worked up. |
| 22:08 | | I remember, I have scenes when Daesh began to become known in 2014-2015. |
| 22:17 | | That year I was in Tangier, Morocco. I remember that I was with friends who are Salafis, |
| 22:23 | | who told me, wait, wait, wait. We must not say that they are heretics. |
| 22:26 | | It is possible that they are right. It is possible that he is a legitimate ruler. |
| 22:30 | | And if he is legitimate, that he will launch jihad. |
| 22:33 | | And that is the big problem, when we’re talking about the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 22:36 | | But in fact, what the Muslim Brotherhood does, it is the very principles of Islam. |
| 22:40 | | That is to say that when Islam is in a position of weakness, it has a certain behavior. |
| 22:43 | | What prevented me is simply my children. |
| 22:47 | | I love them, I love them so much that for me it was inconceivable to leave them. |
| 22:54 | | But despite everything, there are two times where I almost went over to the other side. |
| 23:01 | | We are in 2025 and you are publishing a book, ‘Adieu Soulayman [Goodbye Soulayman], |
| 23:05 | | Itinerary of a Salafist Imam’, retracing your dive into the highest spheres of radical Islam. |
| 23:10 | | Why have you waited so long? —For several reasons. |
| 23:13 | | The first is that I avoided persecution, death threats. |
| 23:18 | | The fact of speaking about Islam is always a very, very tendentious subject, very, very sensitive. |
| 23:23 | | I have friends who are in the S files [security threats] and who are part of terrorist cells, etc. |
| 23:29 | | So inevitably, when you are an apostate from Islam, in Salafism, |
| 23:35 | | it is clear and precise, the one who changes his religion, his sentence is murder. |
| 23:39 | | And they’ll literally want to cut his head off. |
| 23:42 | | Until I received letters where I was made to understand that I was going to be beheaded. |
| 23:47 | | Any good apostate will tell you that from one day to the next, |
| 23:50 | | everything can fall apart and they’re aware of it. Salman Rushdie and others. |
| 23:56 | | It is enough to have a fatwa on your head and that’s it, |
| 24:00 | | it’s like a bounty in a Western |
| 24:04 | | that will put him to death and will get the divine reward. |
| 24:08 | | Why do it now, today, knowing the risks I run? |
| 24:13 | | For the love of man. For the love of my neighbor. |
| 24:16 | | Because I think it’s a scourge for society. |
| 24:19 | | I’m really talking about radical Islam. It’s also a scourge for Muslims. |
| 24:24 | | I also think I’m doing them a service. |
| 24:27 | | Because to be able to dismantle radical Islam with the sources of radical Islam, |
| 24:31 | | I think that’s the best way to destroy the problem at its root. |
| 24:35 | | The fact of having a voice, of speaking the language, of knowing the Koran, etc. |
| 24:40 | | It has a different impact than some local Frenchman |
| 24:45 | | who can barely pronounce an Arabic word and who will be completely discredited by Muslims. |
| 24:49 | | In May, the Ministry of the Interior published a report documented by the intelligence services |
| 24:53 | | on the entryism of the Muslim Brotherhood in France, |
| 24:56 | | thus pushing Emmanuel Macron to ask the government for new proposals to better fight |
| 25:00 | | against Islamist entryism in France, judging that those presented |
| 25:04 | | by the Ministry of the Interior were not up to the gravity of the facts exposed in the report. |
| 25:08 | | In 2014, after your pilgrimage to Mecca, you wrote a thesis on the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 25:11 | | Can you tell us who they really are? |
| 25:14 | | The Muslim Brotherhood, what we call Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood, we all know |
| 25:17 | | that it is a group that came into being in the 20th century under the banner of Hassan al-Banna. |
| 25:24 | | Hassan al-Banna, who is part of the family of Tariq Ramadan, |
| 25:28 | | or rather Tariq Ramadan is part of his family. |
| 25:31 | | Hassan al-Banna wanted to do what is called al-Islahiyya, |
| 25:36 | | that is to say, he wanted to reform, a kind of Protestant Reformation within Islam. |
| 25:42 | | He tried to get people back to the basics. This rule is very, very simple. |
| 25:47 | | It says exactly that the end justify the means. “Al-ghayat tubarir al-waseela.” |
| 25:53 | | And it is based on the understanding of this rule that the Muslim Brotherhood |
| 25:59 | | would adopt a behavior that is totally different from traditional Salafism. |
| 26:04 | | So, what is the objective of Muslim Brotherhood? The Koran is our legislation, our constitution. |
| 26:12 | | What they want is a theocratic state. What they want is a state where Sharia reigns. |
| 26:17 | | They will not say it like that, but it is quite normal. First, because the ends justify the means. |
| 26:22 | | And secondly, because they practice dissimulation. Europe is their hunting ground. |
| 26:27 | | That is to say, at the beginning, they start in the catacombs of society. |
| 26:32 | | Then they go up, up, up, up. Once they have a democratic legitimacy, |
| 26:36 | | they are democratically able to say, to do, to forbid and to force. |
| 26:43 | | If they consider that the beard is an obligation for them, |
| 26:46 | | since traditional Islam gives the man the obligation to wear a beard, well, |
| 26:52 | | they will either shorten it, or even remove it, totally. |
| 26:57 | | They will recommend, even if, deep down, they want the veil |
| 27:03 | | to be allowed in schools, but they will use fatwas to say |
| 27:09 | | it doesn’t matter, go to school anyway, as Yusuf Qaradawi did. Let the girls go to school, |
| 27:13 | | it doesn’t matter; they take off their veil and put it on when they leave school. |
| 27:17 | | The Muslim Brotherhood likes to instrumentalize pretty much everything, and the veil is part of it. |
| 27:21 | | It’s really to say, it is your right, etc. etc. |
| 27:25 | | But behind that, there is a will to go in the direction |
| 27:30 | | of the patriarchy of man. Islamically and under Sharia law, the woman |
| 27:35 | | must wear a veil from the moment she reaches puberty, |
| 27:40 | | and the legal guardian has the obligation to veil the woman. The legal guardian, |
| 27:43 | | it can be the husband, it can be the brother, etc. So it is not a fable to say that the veil |
| 27:48 | | is sometimes forced or imposed. Now, we see a lot of young girls who wear it of their own accord, |
| 27:54 | | with the contradiction of being completely made up, etc., which makes no sense |
| 27:57 | | from an Islamic point of view, but precisely because they do |
| 28:03 | | not realize that they are part, they are pawns in the political milieu, |
| 28:08 | | Islamophobia, claims of Islam, etc. |
| 28:12 | | That is to say, the woman must veil herself because she will tempt the man. |
| 28:18 | | So she must protect the eyes of the man. She is obliged to wear a veil, |
| 28:22 | | which is not the case with a cross or anything else. |
| 28:25 | | The act of putting a cross around your neck is a utensil, it is an accessory. |
| 28:29 | | That is to say, there is no injunction either from Catholicism or from the Bible |
| 28:34 | | to say that you have to show something. |
| 28:38 | | Christ, he had a completely different approach. |
| 28:41 | | He said, if your eye causes you to sin — he really used a fairly strong metaphor — |
| 28:47 | | pluck it out and cast it away. |
| 28:50 | | It is not the other that you should veil, it is you who are the problem. |
| 28:53 | | The Muslim Brotherhood says to itself, OK, Sharia is the goal. |
| 28:58 | | So how do we reach Sharia through democratic politics, even if that’s wrong? |
| 29:01 | | Buying a house on credit, we know well that it is forbidden in Islam, |
| 29:04 | | but in your case it is an obligation. |
| 29:09 | | There is no obligation to buy a house, we agree. |
| 29:12 | | So in this way we buy neighborhoods, in this way we buy mosques, |
| 29:16 | | in this way we build centers. |
| 29:19 | | And the French absolutely must understand that behind these beautiful smiles, |
| 29:28 | | behind this tolerance that we give them, there is a will to spread Sharia. |
| 29:34 | | I prefer a declared enemy to a hidden one. I prefer a Salafi |
| 29:41 | | who will have nothing to do with this European society, |
| 29:44 | | who may spit on it morning, noon and night, but has only one desire, |
| 29:47 | | and that is to leave it, to someone who is inside it and who tells you yes, |
| 29:50 | | there is no problem if we are French, even if it may be true, |
| 29:56 | | but who deep down has this principle of the ends justify the means. |
| 30:00 | | All the things I am telling you right now are teachings from books. |
| 30:05 | | These books are sold in Parisian book stores as I speak, and in ones in Brussels. |
| 30:10 | | And when Tariq Ramadan speaks of a moratorium, |
| 30:13 | | the goal is simply to justify that something supposedly needs a moratorium |
| 30:18 | | because it is necessary to educate the Arab-Muslim countries first |
| 30:21 | | with a moratorium in order to go to cessation. No, no, it must be stopped right away. |
| 30:26 | | So as far as the moratorium is concerned, it’s a rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 30:29 | | It is to say for the moment we cannot. And since we cannot, we’ll put it aside. |
| 30:33 | | It doesn’t matter. We’ll come back to it later. We’ll just put all this aside. |
| 30:37 | | We make the West believe that we can we can walk with them etc. |
| 30:41 | | But the day they devote themselves to that which they have the power to do — |
| 30:44 | | the end goal of all this is Sharia in its strictest sense. |
| 30:51 | | If the radical Muslim today is calm, soft and into pacifism it is just due to a lack of ability. |
| 31:00 | | The day they have this ability, and this is what is proclaimed |
| 31:03 | | in their books, the day they have this ability, |
| 31:06 | | the offensive jihad becomes a deadline for them, a solution. |
| 31:09 | | And we see what happened in Egypt, what the Muslim Brotherhood did, |
| 31:12 | | the damage that was done in Egypt. |
| 31:15 | | The fact of seeing them as being very kind, very open-minded etc., |
| 31:19 | | for me as an expert of their texts and their fundamental principles, |
| 31:23 | | it’s nothing but a ruse. It’s nothing but a ruse. |
| 31:28 | | And if it’s true, it’s nothing but a contradiction. |
| 31:31 | | I think that the majority of Muslims and Muslimas more specifically, |
| 31:34 | | are very young. They are not necessarily ill-intentioned. Sometimes they feel rejected by society, |
| 31:38 | | which is emphasized by the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 31:41 | | The Muslim Brotherhood likes to get involved in politics, |
| 31:44 | | but also in emotional matters, to make use of conflicts. |
| 31:47 | | A Muslim will inevitably support Palestine, because for him, |
| 31:52 | | one of the holy places of Islam is there. This ideology is |
| 31:56 | | that Hamas is the flagship of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. |
| 32:01 | | Muslims, to be able to appropriate or to re-appropriate Islam, |
| 32:07 | | if I may say so, they must understand what is being done to them. |
| 32:12 | | The problem is that France, as a country, as an institution, |
| 32:17 | | as a community, is obliged to legislate laws according to that etc. |
| 32:23 | | So Muslims take it personally, but in truth there is nothing personal. |
| 32:26 | | I really think that you have to put water in your wine. |
| 32:29 | | What makes it difficult, what makes it seem almost impossible, to have a very |
| 32:35 | | detailed and very objective list, is that we find ourselves facing people |
| 32:39 | | who melt like an ice cube for any reason. |
| 32:42 | | It is that we must first, for me, know who they are |
| 32:47 | | and their fundamentals to be able to recognize them later. |
| 32:50 | | If we are always in denial, and say, ‘Oh yes but Tariq Ramadan |
| 32:55 | | is not a Muslim Brother because he said it on such and such a TV show’, |
| 32:59 | | we will never move forward. The question is not what he said or what he did not say, |
| 33:02 | | it’s what he’s been doing for years. |
| 33:05 | | There are a lot of NGOs and also organizations for the construction of wells etc., |
| 33:12 | | which under the guise of piety, the guise of kindness etc. |
| 33:18 | | really have this goal to promote the Brotherhood and to show |
| 33:23 | | that the Muslim Brotherhood are really the only ones who care about the Muslim community. |
| 33:30 | | So there is a lot even behind halal labeling etc. |
| 33:35 | | It is the Muslim Brotherhood generally that is behind AVS [school support assistance] etc. |
| 33:40 | | So it is almost everywhere and the majority of the Islamic bookstores |
| 33:46 | | are run by the Muslim Brotherhood and the books that are sold |
| 33:50 | | — and I would really like that someone one day would do it, |
| 33:55 | | someone from the French government, really, I really call on the French government |
| 33:59 | | to go into an Islamic bookstore and to take 10-15 books |
| 34:05 | | that we suggest to him, and to read them |
| 34:08 | | and to see what is sold on French territory. Books that clearly call to radicalism etc. |
| 34:16 | | and that have been sold for decades. |
| 34:20 | | And to give you an example, at the Islamic center of Brussels, |
| 34:24 | | when a person at the time wanted to convert to Islam |
| 34:28 | | we gave him a lot of free books. All these books are books |
| 34:36 | | of radicalism and they are distributed, they are given out just like that. |
| 34:39 | | The European Islamic Center in Brussels has for years, for decades, |
| 34:46 | | been under the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood. So at some point when I read this report, |
| 34:51 | | when I hear it, my reaction is to say yes, but we have known that for a long time, |
| 34:59 | | and it’s just the final result of decades of laxity and I would even say that this report |
| 35:06 | | sometimes tends, despite its objectivity, to de-dramatize reality. I think it’s even worse |
| 35:13 | | than that. It’s just what is visible, the visible face of the iceberg, as they say. |
| 35:19 | | I’m talking to you as someone who has lived that experience from the inside. |
| 35:23 | | Muslims, the mass of Muslims, unconditionally and I even want to say unintentionally, |
| 35:31 | | will see this as Islamophobia once again because that’s what |
| 35:34 | | the Muslim Brotherhood makes them believe. |
| 35:37 | | They make them believe that France in fact only made this report to destroy Islam. |
| 35:42 | | The question is what can we do to not get to the next 75 pages |
| 35:45 | | which will say that on our streets it’s the revolution. |
| 35:52 | | On our streets is what happened in Egypt. |
| 35:55 | | The French must understand what’s at stake, must understand that sometimes |
| 36:01 | | with the best of intentions we do the worst things. |
| 36:04 | | The next report will be much more catastrophic and chaotic than the one we have in our hands. |
| 36:10 | | For the moment we are only dealing with the issues of halal in the canteen. |
| 36:15 | | Tomorrow it may be the issue of obligation of the veil. |
| 36:18 | | The day after tomorrow it may be the issue of whether women can go out at a certain time. |
| 36:24 | | And there I would like to see those who voted for this kind of person. |
| 36:27 | | I would like to see their reaction. I am sure that they will all say, ‘we didn’t sign up for that.’ |
| 36:33 | | Because you didn’t understand what was at stake. There is the façade |
| 36:36 | | and then there is what happens behind the facade. |
| 36:39 | | The Muslim Brotherhood must not be contained, it must be eradicated. |
| 36:44 | | When I say eradicated, of course by democratic means, etc. |
| 36:48 | | But we have let it do too much. A total of 139 places of worship affiliated with Muslims of France |
| 36:54 | | are listed on the national territory. Is this for you a figure that corresponds to reality? |
| 36:58 | | I think there are certainly 139 officially, officially affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 37:05 | | If you asked me whether the majority of French mosques are Brotherhood-linked, |
| 37:09 | | I would say yes, but maybe not officially and unofficially. |
| 37:13 | | But in any case the fact of being OK with bringing in preachers or selling books, etc., |
| 37:20 | | which belong to this movement for me is already Brotherhood. |
| 37:26 | | This is the reason why, if you ask me, is Tariq Ramadan a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? |
| 37:31 | | I would tell you, of course, he’s even one of its leaders. Yet he contorts himself denying it. |
| 37:36 | | We have other examples, of course. |
| 37:39 | | For me, the Mosque of Paris is clearly part of this game. |
| 37:48 | | For me, clearly beyond their control, let’s say, to have a tolerant Islam etc. |
| 37:51 | | The big problem is that behind this image of tolerant Islam, and we want to believe them, |
| 37:56 | | we really want to believe them, but the reality is quite different. |
| 38:00 | | We know very well that behind it there is really a will |
| 38:05 | | and a belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. The preachers, the sermonizers… |
| 38:09 | | There was this famous Hassan Iquioussen, but he was expelled recently. |
| 38:16 | | I may shock you but for me people like Tareq Oubrou etc. |
| 38:19 | | are clearly part of the Muslim Brotherhood and I have no difficulty saying so. |
| 38:25 | | There is one who was called Redazere as well. He’s a young guy; |
| 38:29 | | he also has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. These are people who generally have a nice face, |
| 38:33 | | let’s say, they speak well, they’re out there, they’re on the chat etc. |
| 38:38 | | The big problem, aside from the external influence of the Muslim Brotherhood or others, |
| 38:44 | | is really social media, because social media are an anthill for religious extremism. |
| 38:52 | | The majority of Muslim youth don’t read, don’t necessarily buy books |
| 38:58 | | and don’t go to mosques 24 hours a day. |
| 39:01 | | On the other hand, they scroll on TikTok, on Instagram, they subscribe |
| 39:05 | | to preachers, to sermonizers, they get inspired by that, they put emotional music behind it etc., |
| 39:13 | | and they forge a religiosity through a fictitious world and they don’t |
| 39:18 | | examine who they are learning from, what books they follow, |
| 39:24 | | and in the end they become completely radicalized overnight, |
| 39:31 | | and the parents are completely baffled. Today radicalism manifests itself or spreads, |
| 39:40 | | for me, by 75% or even more through social media. |
| 39:43 | | One who has been recently used by the Brotherhood is Maëva Ghennam. |
| 39:51 | | Recently she did her little pilgrimage to Mecca etc., |
| 39:54 | | and the preachers she was in Mecca with were preachers aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 40:01 | | There is also an Idriss Sihamedi, who I think was the founder of Barakacity [a Muslim NGO]. |
| 40:07 | | They are just about to launch an exclusively Islamic TV channel. |
| 40:12 | | He found refuge with Erdogan in Turkey. |
| 40:17 | | He collected nearly 15 million euros to launch a TV channel. |
| 40:22 | | Clearly, he supports the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 40:25 | | He doesn’t even hide it. He supports the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. |
| 40:29 | | But he is someone who brought together hundreds of thousands of Muslims |
| 40:34 | | from the Muslim community and he’s followed throughout all French-speaking communities. |
| 40:40 | | Sad to say, but they are all similar in the positions they take. They are pro-Palestine, |
| 40:45 | | anti-Jewish. So it’s… And then there was… OK, now he’s a little less visible |
| 40:51 | | on the French scene but at one point he was well-known. |
| 40:55 | | He was Rachid Abou Houdeyfa, the imam of Brest. |
| 40:58 | | At the beginning he was Salafi Salafi. These are really imams, |
| 41:03 | | but they are really leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood in French-speaking communities |
| 41:08 | | and they have a lot of followers. With regard to the status of women etc. he is quite radical. |
| 41:14 | | Prohibition of music, musical instruments, prohibition against shaking hands with women. |
| 41:18 | | While at the beginning it was not at all like that. |
| 41:21 | | When these people started they were very, very soft. Little by little |
| 41:24 | | when we started to give them a mosque, some visibility etc., |
| 41:27 | | they began to move up the ladder, and now they are followed by millions of people. |
| 41:34 | | Being a veil that provokes and attracts. There is certainly the fabric, |
| 41:41 | | the veil that we wear on our head, but there is also the behavior that goes with it. |
| 41:46 | | It’s not just the fabric on the head. |
| 41:50 | | The clothing should not be transparent. It must be opaque. |
| 41:54 | | We must not see the woman’s body through it. |
| 41:58 | | So everything that is leggings, everything that is a short tunic, |
| 42:03 | | well, Islam did not legislate like that. |
| 42:06 | | It is up to us to understand these two rules, to understand |
| 42:09 | | that the veil is also to cover the beauty of the woman, |
| 42:13 | | and not to unveil the beauty. There is the behavior that goes with it. |
| 42:17 | | There is an ethic that goes with it. There is a modesty that goes with it. |
| 42:22 | | There are things that are done and there are things… |
| 42:28 | | In any case, France and Europe are really in a bad state, frankly. |
| 42:34 | | Despite this observation do you feel calmer today? |
| 42:37 | | Going from Salafism to Catholicism is extreme. What lesson do you draw from this religious journey? |
| 42:42 | | How can we go from extreme hatred to extreme love? |
| 42:48 | | We have an example through Judeo-Christian writings called Saint Paul |
| 42:55 | | who made this transition precisely in a Judaism where he will end up |
| 43:00 | | stoning Saint Stephen and will himself end up being executed |
| 43:05 | | on the basis of his faith in Christ. |
| 43:09 | | I would say that I would put this first on the mystical spiritual side. |
| 43:13 | | And then a verse from the Bible which always struck me |
| 43:16 | | is this verse which says ‘Allah mahaba,’ God is love. |
| 43:20 | | And when I read this verse I said to myself, there |
| 43:23 | | is a difference between ‘God loves’ and ‘God is love’. |
| 43:27 | | Love, we can have it here and there, |
| 43:31 | | but to say that God is love means that by essence since all eternity, |
| 43:36 | | God is love. Hence the concept of the Trinity where God eternally loved the Son, |
| 43:40 | | the Son eternally loved the Father. So this philosophical concept which shows |
| 43:43 | | that there is an interaction in the unique being of God. |
| 43:47 | | So when we discover this sweetness of the divine being in relation |
| 43:51 | | to this hardness that we had, everything changes. |
