00:21:50.640did he already have a lot of influence? He's written 30 books. You know, he's been around the block.
00:21:54.960Was he already an influential figure or not yet? When you first read it?
00:21:58.480He was. He was an influential figure. No question. Because you see, President Nasser of Egypt executed him in 1966.
00:22:07.520So, what he said before he died, which is a very famous quote by him, he said,
00:22:13.760our words remain dead candles with no life until we die for these words. And then they are lit and they are alive.
00:22:25.040And therefore, basically, he believed that by dying, he will seal his legend. That's why, you know, when he, you know, when he was,
00:22:35.200you know, about to be hanged, you know, they brought a, a cleric, you know, to remind him, you know, to say the words, you know, basically, before he dies, which is, you know, la ilaha illallah, like, you know, there is no God but God.
00:22:50.160So, he said, you know, to the cleric, I die, while you eat bread with that word.
00:22:58.640So, the man knew what he was doing. He was sealing his legend to make sure that his revolutionary ideas will become even more intense and more credible because he died for them.
00:23:12.380He knew what he was doing, strategic. And by the way, he was hung because he was conspired to assassinate the president. So, you know, that was one of the concerns about it.
00:23:21.620But let me ask you, when you read the book, at this time, when you first read it, you're how old, 12 years old, 13 years old?
00:23:29.980So, when you read this book the first time, 4,000 pages, what are you thinking when you're done reading it? Are you thinking this guy makes sense? I want to go bring the kingdom of God on earth. Are you thinking we should do that with the help of violence? Are you convinced at this point?
00:24:19.920You know, you know, to make sure that people who are taking taxis, you know, would listen to his sermons. It's the same thing. The cassette was the medium through these clerics were disseminating, you know, their, you know, revolutionary ideas about the fact that Saudi Arabia for them was not Muslim enough. Can you believe it?
00:24:40.660Like, I mean, I mean, for them, Saudi Arabia, which was a Wahhabist, a, you know, Salafist, closed Muslim conservative society was not good enough even. And therefore, there was the need to overthrow them, just like the Shah was overthrown. And therefore, we need to do it.
00:25:00.300I was so convinced at the time because, on one hand, I was reading this book and getting all of these ideas. And on the second hand, I was also listening to these clerics, you know, from their cassettes, listening to their lectures and sermons, talking about the need for Islamic solidarity, Islamic awakening, Islamic renaissance, and the need to go from the repetitive, the boring, the, you know, the, you know, and this
00:25:30.220lack of lack of lack of lack of dynamism, as they called it, into a more dynamic, you know, Muslim society that can actually challenge the powers of the world at that time.
00:25:41.600However, that wasn't the only reason why my radicalization, you know, happened. There was another event, you know, that also led me towards, you know, the jihad and the path of the jihad, which was the Bosnian conflict, which was, you know, raging in 1936.
00:26:00.220In 1992, at the time, I was 14. So it just started. And at that time, the, you know, my local mosque, the local charity that I used to belong to, started to collect funds to help the Muslims of Bosnia, who were, of course, subject to the civil wars, and the horrors of the civil wars that were taking place in the former Yugoslav, Yugoslav republic.
00:26:25.660Bosnia, you know, was a country where the Muslims made up about half of the population. The other half was divided between Serbs and Croat. They voted for independence from Yugoslavia. That led to the Serbs of the country declaring war on the Muslim majority.
00:26:44.000And as a result, ethnic cleansing started to take place. Now, these events were portrayed, unfortunately and wrongly, in the Saudi media and the Arab world, you know, intellectual discourse, as a war between Christianity and Islam, because the Serbs invoked Christian symbology.
00:27:08.000While in fact, they were fighting a ethnic nationalistic war that had nothing to do basically with Christianity. They were actually killing, you know, their, you know, fellow Christians who were Corwats.
00:27:23.000You know, you know, you know, of course, basically, it was sectarian based because the Serbs were Orthodox and, you know, the Corwats were Catholics, but nonetheless, like, you know, even the Corwats were subject to ethnic cleansing, and they were not Muslims, basically, they were Christians, but it was portrayed this way in our media and in our religious discourse in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world.
00:27:45.000So, suddenly, we are not only collecting funds to help, you know, the Muslims there withstand the onslaught of the Serbs, suddenly, we started to see people from our community, including a teacher of mine at school, who was a math teacher from an affluent family, would travel there with a member of the Bahraini royal family.
00:28:09.000Both of them would die there over the summer of 1992, and fighting alongside the Bosnians against the Serbs, and suddenly, you know, we started to hear that, you know, a few words put together in one sentence.
00:28:24.240Jihad, jihad, martyrdom, and sacrifice, all in one word, and suddenly, the Bosnian conflict, which was raging, you know, 3,000 miles away, where, you know, was in fact present in our own classroom, because our teacher is missing, you know, our math teacher is missing, but he was killed in action in Bosnia.
00:28:47.520He's a Saudi, you know, he's a Saudi, you know, from the Saudi desert, has nothing to do with the lush European mountains of the Balkans, but that Islamic solidarity and that sense of Islamic duty towards oppressed Muslim minority, more or less ignited that need in him to go and fight the jihad.
00:29:08.320So I was asking myself, so I was asking myself, if my teacher can't do it, why can't I?
00:29:13.880And two years later, when I became 16, the catalyst for that event happened when one of my friends, even though he was three years my senior, he was actually going to join the jihad in Bosnia.
00:29:29.860I learned from his brother that he was leaving, so when I was going to his home, you know, to say goodbye, I ended up knocking at his door, and instead of saying goodbye, I was saying, I want to come with you.
00:29:44.600And I remember, like, I mean, he was, you know, even though he was 19, you know, he himself was young, but he was telling me, since I'm 16, I just became 16 four days ago, you know, since you're 16, you can't go, like, and I mean, jihad is not a picnic.
00:29:56.680He was telling me, amen, for God's sake, you are only 16. Do you know what jihad is? You know, people will not just only die, they could actually get wounded, bullet holes, amputations.
00:30:08.160You know, you could step on a mine and lose your leg. You know, it's not a picnic. Do you think the jihad needs you?
00:30:15.460I remember what, you know, that my answer changed his mind and changed my own life.
00:30:21.420And I said to him, Khalid, I know that the jihad doesn't need me, but I need it. I want to go. You know, I need it for my own betterment.
00:30:32.940I don't want to be a spectator on the, you know, you know, on the seats, basically watching the caravan of history passing me by, wishing that I, you know, made my own, you know, writings on the pages of history.
00:30:46.300You know, I wanted to be part of it. I don't want to be a spectator anymore. That's it. And that changed his mind and he decided to take me with him.
00:30:55.240And two weeks later, we were in Vienna, you know, on our way to Bosnia.
00:31:01.260During your time as a, you know, when you went to Bosnia and as well as once you joined Al-Qaeda, what are some things you witnessed yourself?
00:31:07.840Well, where to start? Like, you know, I mean, I think the right question is what didn't what didn't I witness, you know, in the sense like, and I mean, you see everything once you are in a war, a brutal war like Bosnia.
00:31:20.020I mean, you see mass graves, you see the child remains of villages, you see destroyed mosques, destroyed churches, you see, you know, prisoner exchanges where instead of seeing prisoners, you know, who are wearing military uniforms and, you know, big, you know, hairy men, instead you see children being exchanged, you know, basically.
00:31:41.340Like, I mean, who were, you know, in the camps, you know, being held prisoners, you see young 14 year olds who were held for two years as captives.
00:31:50.500And you hear the horror stories basically of them being gangrene, you know, you see a lot of this because of the hatred, the deep hatred that was beneath the surface between the communities there.
00:32:02.580And this is a warning to many people across the world, you know, is never hate so intensely and never love so intensely.
00:32:14.620You never know who will be your enemies one day and who will be your friends one day.
00:32:18.940Moderation and everything basically is the key towards longevity of any society.
00:32:23.300You know, so this is exactly what I've seen, you know, and of course, basically, you know, when we went to Bosnia, we were four, we left Bosnia, we were two, because we buried two of our, you know, friends back.
00:32:36.740I mean, the number of the volunteers who came from all over the world were about 900, we buried 350 there.
00:32:43.940So, so, so basically, like, I mean, the life expectancy was really short for anyone who was there.
00:32:49.600I was wounded in action there, you know, basically, although it was a mild one, I, you know, basically have seen for my eyes, like, you know, as a 16 year old, things that, you know, well, a 16 year old shouldn't have witnessed, like, you know, but then what made me resilient is that I've seen the 13 and the 14 and the 11 and the nine year olds, you know, basically, who've seen the horrors of all being more resilient.
00:33:13.240And that basically gave me hope, you know, basically, that if they can put up with it, if they can go through it, then I can.
00:33:22.920I mean, let me ask you, first time you met Osama bin Laden, how old were you?
00:33:26.260Well, it was just before my 18th birthday, it was August, the first week of August of 1996, you know, so I was about to become 18 in about maybe like, I mean, five weeks, six weeks.
00:33:41.360You know, by that time I was in Afghanistan, you know, the whole scene shifted now, Bosnia was over, the war was over there.
00:33:50.080And on the advice in Bosnia, where I met him, on the advice of the mastermind of 9-11, Khalil Sheikh Mohammed, when he came to visit us in Bosnia, his advice was go to Afghanistan, get training, you know, prepare for the next phase of the war, the camps are reopening.
00:34:08.480So I followed his advice after a brief detour to the Caucasus, and I ended up in Afghanistan in 1996.
00:34:16.700So two months after my arrival, or three months, I would think, Osama bin Laden returned from Sudan, where he was in exile there, to Afghanistan.
00:34:27.480And, you know, where we were training, in our training camp, his location was only 45 minutes' drive away.
00:34:35.380So we heard that he was asking around if there are any people from the Arabian Peninsula.
00:34:43.300He never wanted to say Saudi Arabia, you know, because he always believed that the House of Saud was illegitimate.
00:34:49.100So he was saying the Arabian Peninsula.
00:34:52.020So, you know, 14 of us decided to go and see him.
00:34:56.420And when we went to see him, he was a guest at a compound that belonged to one of the warlords of Afghanistan.
00:35:07.800And I remember when we entered the compound, we saw so many people who were Egyptians and some people from Sudan, Libya, Algeria, as well as himself, originally from Saudi Arabia.
00:35:29.680You know, you see, the problem is many people, when they ask me the question, how was it, you know, their first time, you know, seeing Osama bin Laden?
00:35:37.320And people expect me to say, oh, wow, it was so impressive.
00:35:40.500And the reason is because everyone in the world, everyone in the world, their impression of Osama bin Laden is that neat white turban with the, you know, white, clean, well-ironed robes, you know, looking so, you know, clean and tidy.
00:35:59.740And, you know, that wasn't how I saw Osama bin Laden the first time.
00:36:04.460He wore very creased robes and an Arabic headscarf over his head that was not at all seeing an iron for weeks, actually.
00:36:12.040And he looked really disheveled and as if, basically, he was just lucky to escape with his life.
00:36:18.040So, you know, the first impression wasn't the best impression, to be honest.
00:36:21.960But, nonetheless, you know, when we sat in front of him, all 14 of us, and, of course, he had his lieutenants around him, including Abu Hafs al-Masri, who was his deputy.
00:36:34.820We sat in front of him to understand why he returned back from Sudan.
00:36:39.960Of course, he was betrayed by the Sudanese leadership and expelled.
00:36:44.920But, nonetheless, he spoke about the divine mission that he is, you know, embarking on, the divine path laid in front of him.
00:36:57.880Because he was believing that it was destiny, it was faith that brought him from Sudan all the way back to Afghanistan to enact God's plans in the old ancient prophecies of Islam regarding the armies of the black banners, you know, and the victorious vanguard sweeping from Afghanistan all the way to Jerusalem, all the way to the Arabian Peninsula, you know, paving the way for, you know, the fictional Imam Mahdi.
00:37:27.560You know, which is a messiah figure in Islamic imagination, in order, you know, to fill the world with justice after it was filled with injustice.
00:37:38.080Now, he saw, by the way, Osama bin Laden was great at reading minds.
00:37:44.300He would basically look at your face and will see, you know, whether you are a believer, a skeptical, you know, whether you, you know, are really going along with the flow or are you not like exactly like, I mean, understanding what he's saying.
00:37:59.520So he looked at our faces and he could tell that some of us were really skeptical, you know, really, are we the, you know, fulfillment of the prophecies.
00:38:10.340So he said, you might see us right now as a bunch of refugees, you know, people basically who just arrived, you know, escaping and lucky to be escaped with our lives.
00:38:22.820You know, it was a miracle, actually, that we made it without being caught, you know, here in Afghanistan.
00:38:27.500But he said, remember that when the Prophet Muhammad, he escaped Medina, sorry, he escaped Mecca on the night of his migrations and flight to Medina.
00:38:41.220While he was escaping, the Arab tribes were hunting him and the Arab knights were, you know, hunting him because basically they wanted to win the bounty on his head.
00:38:51.460And one of the Arab knights, when he finally approached him, his horse fell, broke his legs, and he was tumbling on the ground.
00:39:00.000So he thought that Muhammad used one of his magic tricks.
00:39:03.840So he said, you know, you know, to the Prophet, I can't let you just go to Medina.
00:39:52.620So 16 years later, you know, that Arab knight was actually wearing, you know, the crown and the bracelets of the Persian emperor after the conquest of Tassipan.
00:40:03.200And I think in the year 636 AD or 637 AD.
00:40:08.720So Osama bin Laden used that incident to say, never, ever underestimate what we can do here.
00:40:16.900We can change history if we believe in ourselves the same way that the Prophet did.
00:40:21.440Ironically, he did change history when his operatives slammed those airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the U.S.
00:40:31.300So this is the mindset of Osama bin Laden, the combative, fanatical, believing mindset of Osama bin Laden just days after he arrived into Afghanistan from Sudan.
00:40:48.220Next to me, his knee touching my knee was a man called Abu Ubaid al-Makki.
00:40:55.140Abu Ubaid al-Makki, a young Saudi bespectacled with thick glasses, two years exactly, on the 4th of August of 1998.
00:41:04.060Two years after that, he was so mesmerized, of course, by Osama bin Laden's talk.
00:41:10.240He went on to drive the van to the American embassy in Nairobi.
00:41:17.440So, and that, of course, exploded with, you know, a considerable number of casualties.
00:41:24.800You know, 220 plus people were killed, including 12 Americans, and as well as 5,000 people wounded.
00:41:34.140So this is the effect of fanatical, eschatological, prophetic words that Osama bin Laden, you know, basically delivered into our minds, you know, basically.
00:41:47.940And they had the effect of toxins, you know, they were toxic.
00:41:52.340That's the guy that was sitting right next to you that drove the van into the American embassy in Nairobi.
00:42:00.580From your, you know, research on him and knowing him, now, over the years, you've had access to a lot of different information yourself, and you've done your own research.
00:42:22.300Because I just looked up an article while you were speaking, how Khomeini read the book that Saeed wrote three years after he was assassinated.
00:42:32.120And in 1984, even in Iran, he sent some postcards showing the frowning face of Saeed behind prison bars before his execution.
00:42:57.640For him, Saeed Qutb was the inspiration because he is the first to call for an Islamic revolution by the masses.
00:43:07.560It never happened before in Islamic history.
00:43:10.040Throughout Islamic history, you know, and just to let you know, for example, Muhammad was, in fact, the last cleric, you know, if we can, you know, use this word to describe him, to be the ruler of a society because his successors after that were never from the clergy or the class of the clergy.
00:43:31.680You know, Abu Bakr was a merchant, you know, the first caliph.
00:43:34.380Umar was a merchant, Othman was a super merchant, actually, and Ali was a judge and a warrior.
00:43:41.320And if you look at, you know, all those who followed in the dynastic, you know, empires like the Umayyads and the Abbasids and the Ottomans, they were all dynastic rulers, you know, without any, you know, clerical or let's say basically religious, you know, upbringing themselves.
00:43:59.140You know, so therefore, you know, the idea that Islam, you know, or Islamic societies should be ruled by those who basically are clerics or members of the clergy is an anisma to the Islamic spirit itself.
00:44:14.140Um, and this is why, you know, the, um, you know, the Sayyid Qutb is the first to break away from that, you know, to break away from the idea that, uh, the Islamic or the Muslim masses should obey their secular rulers,
00:44:31.140that the Muslim masses, that the Muslim masses have no right to deploy violence against the state, that only the state has the right to deploy violence and the protection of the state from enemies within the society and from outside.
00:44:46.120And so he broke away completely like, you know, I mean, he, you know, he thrown out all of these, uh, you know, conventions, uh, you know, outside of the window altogether, and decided to come up with an ideology that is similar to communism.
00:45:02.160You know, in other words, basically he appropriated Islam in a communistic fashion because he was actually a communist before to revolutionize it in a way that enables the masses, the individuals to carry out arms against the state in order to replace it and to bring about, uh, Islamic sovereignty.
00:45:24.560You see, you see, if you look at, um, you know, uh, Shia Islam, jihad is almost absent there because jihad is only the prerogative of the imam.
00:45:34.300And since the imam is absent, therefore the, um, you know, the jihad is absent for Sunni Islam, there are two kinds of jihad, you know, the defensive jihad, you know, if your society is overwhelmed by enemy, you know, take up arms and defend yourself, self-defense, that's understood.
00:45:53.560However, the offensive jihad, the, uh, conquest jihad, which unfortunately many Muslims feel ashamed of and try to brush it under the carpet, you know, and say, oh, it doesn't exist.
00:46:06.660I'm sorry to say that, you know, but thousands, you know, of books basically, like, you know, explain the concept and it exists there.
00:46:13.040I mean, and there is nothing to be ashamed about conquest.
00:46:16.360I mean, every empire did it, you know, throughout history from the Romans, you know, basically to the Byzantines, to the Chinese, to the Indian empires and Incas and Aztec and, you know, British and French empire, everyone did conquest.
00:46:49.640Now, Sayyid Qutb came, after all these years, after 1,350 years of solid theology, to come and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, we have a third kind of jihad, a school jihad of Tamkin, or the jihad of sovereignty.
00:47:06.800The sovereignty jihad, to restore Islam to sovereignty, to the position where it belongs.
00:47:11.940So, I mean, you know, just like with suicide bombings, just like with many other aspects of modern jihadism, there is a clear departure from the old agreed-upon Islamic principles, you know, you know, and, uh, you know, this is why, like, you know, when people say that modern-day jihadists, like, you know, basically are really, you know, having twisted many of the interpretations of Islam, it is true, to some extent, actually.
00:47:41.240Because they did actually invent quite new forms of theology, just to justify the revolutionary ideas that they are, you know, basically, um, supporting and propagating.
00:47:54.740Would you, would you consider yourself a Muslim today?
00:48:48.460Um, basically, like, you know, I mean, um, the writing wasn't great, um, you know, basically,
00:48:54.020but he based his, uh, writing on, you know, basically a, uh, a story that was, uh, happened during the time of the Prophet.
00:49:02.720Then he took it and took extreme liberty with it in order, basically, to embellish it with imagery and with intrigue and with, um, you know, um, how can I say, like, you know, representation of Arab society at that time.
00:49:17.360Um, you know, uh, but, you know, I didn't, you know, while I didn't find it, um, you know, basically like a great book, you know, basically, um, that's why I always used to say that, uh, the biggest, uh, you know, supporter of Rushdie was always Imam Khomeini because his fatwa actually sold the book for him.
00:49:37.700Khomeini made Salman a multimillionaire, but, uh, go back to it.
00:49:42.280So, you know, you've, have you seen Bill Maher when he goes and debates Muslim and he goes back and forth and he says, you know, 75% of Muslims are good, but 25% of our extremists.
00:49:51.940And I don't know if you've seen that before when they go back and forth on that debate.
00:49:55.760Are you, are you insinuating or suggesting that the fact that the extremists are a by-product of post-Sayed and what he wrote pre that it was a very peaceful religion.
00:50:08.280Is that kind of what you're saying, that things change dramatically after Sayed?
00:50:24.020Uh, I just said to you before that there is actually like, you know, a jihad conquest, you know, in Islam, basically, and the justification for conquest, um, within Islam itself.
00:50:32.720Um, but Islam is not a religion of war either, uh, basically, you know, it is a very, uh, what I would call a mercantile imperial religion.
00:50:42.200You know, so basically it is, you know, it basically views the conquest of new lands as an opportunity for taxation and, uh, you know, commerce.
00:50:51.340So for them, they were almost copying the Roman empire, you know, basically expansion, we need to expand because we need more citizens.
00:51:00.520We need to expand because basically this is, uh, this is our commercial destiny.
00:51:04.740Don't forget Islam was founded by a merchant, you know, a prophet Muhammad.
00:51:07.840In fact, he started his life as a merchant.
00:51:09.940Um, and therefore, and Islam basically, by the way is one of the most capitalistic, you know, free market religions.
00:51:15.840You could ever find, you know, the prohibition of taxation for, you know, the, you know, the opening of free trade, you know, that putting, uh, tariffs and, uh, trade barriers is anti-Islamic, you know?
00:51:27.120So basically it is one of those, you know, religions that actually, one of the mottos of, um, uh, one of Muhammad's disciples, when he arrived to Medina, you know, poor and destitute, when he was offered charity, he said, no, no, no, no.
00:51:42.240So this show me where the market is became a, you know, uh, synonymous with Islam as a religion of trade, but of course, a trade support with imperial force.
00:51:54.600Um, so this is how I could describe Islam in all honesty.
00:51:58.440Uh, you're not, you're not just somebody that's saying that you, uh, I don't know how old you were when you could do this.
00:52:03.860You memorize every word in the Quran, right?
00:52:06.400I was 12 by the time I, uh, finished, uh, the process.
00:52:09.640I started at the age of nine, 33 months later, basically I finished memorizing the Quran.
00:52:14.800Is that pretty common for, uh, kids at that age to memorize the Quran?
00:52:27.340I mean, in America, I don't know if one out of a thousand kids memorize every word in the U.S. Bible, you know?
00:52:32.180I mean, I don't know how many people do.
00:52:34.360Yeah, but I think the Quran is a little bit smaller than the Bible.
00:52:37.620If we put together the Old and the New Testament, the Quran has about 6,000, um, you know, uh, 236 verses, um, roughly about 140,000 words.
00:52:48.580So basically it is not that easy to, uh, not that difficult to memorize, but not that easy either.
00:52:54.460So it's still a challenging thing to do, but let me, let me go, so let's go back to Osama bin Laden.
00:53:00.880So you hear him speak, you, the guy next to you goes and drives the van into the embassy in Nairobi, you know, lives, 150 people are permanently blind.
00:53:27.320So what was the experience like when you were in there?
00:53:30.000Did you ever get close to him to kind of see how he thinks, Osama?
00:53:33.240And then what caused you to want to leave?
00:53:34.740Um, I remember when I gave my allegiance to him and joining Al-Qaeda, um, I remember he looked at me and he said that he wants me, uh, to go and, uh, to, uh, become part of Al-Qaeda's explosives, chemicals, uh, explosives, chemical and biological weapon program.
00:54:06.940What, what, who is the right material of a commander to him?
00:54:10.620Uh, well, five foot nine, you know, and above, I'm five foot seven.
00:54:14.860Um, also basically someone who is not actually wearing glasses all the time.
00:54:18.400Someone basically with a better eyesight.
00:54:20.500Um, you know, but nonetheless, basically, you know, he said, I see that, you know, you have an aptitude for math and science and, uh, you know, you will be the perfect fit for that.
00:54:29.620Like, you know, I mean, so, um, so I ended up being sent by him, uh, to a remote camp in Afghanistan, um, you know, which, uh, was run by an Egyptian, uh, former officer of the, uh, bomb squad in the Egyptian army.
00:54:45.040Um, and he was already a veteran of the Afghan jihad.