Three years after September 11, there are still foolish people (in the Middle East and elsewhere) peddling grotesque scenarios about what "actually happened" on that day. And the silly book 11 Septembre 2001 : L'effroyable imposturede by Thierry Meyssan was a best seller in France and Middle East, among other places (it claims among other things that no plane hit the Pentagon--Le Monde did an investigation of his theories and proved the absurdity of his claims). The latest in this regard is an article today by Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah in Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat in which he asks why no "honest, precise, and impartial judicial" investigation of Sep. 11 was conducted. And he adds (that famous grotesque scenario) that information about "Jews who had prior knowledge of it" was ignored, and he refers to Jewish workers who did not go to work that day. I do not know how this crazy story started, or who started it. But I was having lunch more than a year ago in Beirut at the house of Lebanese publisher Talal Salman, and former minister (and current presidential aspirant and head of the Maronite League) Michel Iddi was also there. He is considered, to my consternation, something of an expert on Zionist and Israeli affairs. And he started talking to me about Sep. 11, and also mentioned that no Jews died on Sep. 11. I protested and said that this is outright crazy, and that many Jews did indeed die, and that the New York Times published bios of the victims and I recommended that he buys that book. He was not convinced. I got so angry at him, and he clearly was not convinced. I merely asked him: Dont you think that it sounds very stupid to believe that the Mossad would call thousands of Jews the day before Sep. 11, but then had to tell them to not tell anybody to maintain confidentiality. Fortunately, there are sober and wise people everywhere in the world (although in increasingly small numbers). One is the brilliant Islam scholar (Lebanese University professor Rudwan As-Sayyid) who has an excellent article in today's Al-Hayat. I know of no scholar who knows about Islam and scholarship on Islam more than Rudwan As-Sayyid. He turned down an offer from Harvard and other places (but he presumably makes good money as advisor to billionaire Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri). His article was originally a rebuttal to that cleric/demagogue Yusuf Al-Qardawi who was quoted last week justifying the killing of American civilians in Iraq. After clerics in Al-Azhar protested, he did what the King of Jordan is famous for doing. He quickly denied making those remarks. I was also very happy that As-Sayyid angrily mentioned the terrorist killing of the 12 Nepalese civilians in Iraq. He is correct in pointing out that they were killed by those terrorists because they were poor. Nobody would pay a ransom for them. Those terrorists in Iraq kill the poor, and spare those who are willing to pay ransoms. That is NOT resistance. As-Sayyid calls for more than condemnation of the terrorist acts by Al-Qa`idah and Zarqaqi-like groups: he calls on Muslims to resist such attacks. And As-Sayyid is credible for Muslim audiences: unlike Angry Arab, he is not some secular atheist. He is a believing Muslim who studied at AlAzhar. He warns against "suicide" becoming an "ideal and model" for the youth. He mentions Israeli killings in Palestine, and American wars, and Russian massacres in Chechna but adds that the deeds of the fanatical Muslim kooks "change the subject" and divert attention from what is going on around the world.
PS I am prompted by an email I have received from Mark to make it very clear that my views are different from those of As-Sayyid, and that he has been quite uncritical of the Saudi government or of Wahhabiyya. I am impressed with his knowledge, and agree with this article that I referred to).