Ibrahim Negm – talks to Nile TV International about anti prophet film and the best way to react to it
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About this infamous movie against Islam, the innocence
of Muslims or Islam.
That was a low budget movie that was
produced in the US,
by
a number of people.
And that movie was released there and caused
anger and protests worldwide. They tended to be
violent in some countries like Libya, and the
American ambassador to Libya was killed,
as a result of what happened with that
movie. That was also broadcasted on the Internet,
and most of the people saw it, and
they really,
didn't like what they saw. And, the protests
were a result
to that movie.
There were also,
cartoons that were published that followed that movie
against holy, the holy prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, in a French magazine.
So those were a couple of instant,
and, things that needed
a pause or a halt by Muslims to
stop and think. How are they going to
react,
to instance like that? In what way are
they going to protest? Because this is a
reflection to our religion, to the Muslim religion
and also to our culture.
In that, issue we have with us doctor
Ibrahim Nick. He's an adviser to the grant,
Mufti of Egypt. Good morning, doctor Nick. He's
going to talk to us about those two
incidents. Good morning,
doctor Nick.
My first question to you is
what is your opinion of the the the
whole the whole scene that happened in reaction
to the movie as a whole? Of course,
it seems it seems like people gave it
more attention than it deserved, some people think.
So what's your opinion on this? And how
should,
the, Middle East countries, the Arab countries, and
the Muslim population,
how they how should have they reacted to
this movie?
Good morning.
It's a real pleasure,
and thank you for giving me the opportunity
to talk about this
sensitive,
delicate,
topic.
We've been living in this,
kind of atmosphere,
for almost,
more than a little more than 2 weeks
now,
since the,
11th,
anniversary of, 9 one one.
So basically, we're
we're living we've been living as Muslims
in this kind of,
episodes
for a long time.
So this is not the only incident, and
it is not going to be the last,
incident.
But,
as we're living in
a glo literally a global valley,
something that happens in the remote parts of
Japan,
we we know about it. The instant
it happens.
So basically,
this infamous,
movie that was released on the anniversary
of 911, which is
again playing,
with the sentiments,
of of people because of this tragic incident
that took place,
about 11 years ago.
It was released, and,
it it aroused so many,
reactions
by Muslims and non Muslims.
And, as you mentioned in the introduction, some
of these
reactions were unfortunately
violent. And, my assumption
is, the violence in Libya
was not necessarily
because of the, protest against the the movie.
It was, a political one,
as we know that,
Libya is has just emerged after,
dictatorship,
for so many years. So it was a
political,
move rather than
a a violent protest against the the, the
movie.
And later,
these
protests
has,
erupted in many parts of of the world.
Some of them were unfortunately,
a bit violent, especially in Pakistan,
where almost 16 people lost their lives. It
was very unfortunate.
And then we we've witnessed some a little
bit of violence in in Sana'a, in, Yemen,
as well as in Beirut.
Here in Egypt, even though,
there were some riots here and there, but,
thank God
we did not have
violence in in Egypt.
My my opinion
is that
as Muslims, we should
stay away from
reactions. And we should rather make initiatives,
and make preempt
preemptive
and preventive,
measures.
We've been sick and tired of reacting.
You know, something happens, and we react to
it. And unfortunately,
this reaction does not last
for long. And then,
again,
everything subsides. And usually it's not the right
one. Yeah. And then something,
comes up again and then we react to
it. So we should
stay away from this vicious circle, from action
and reaction,
and we should make a plan, an organized
plan,
to make initiatives,
long term initiatives of engagement,
of,
clarification,
of explanation
of what true Islam is really about. I
am I'm
I'm I'm hurt,
inside that unfortunately,
what remains in the psyche of non Muslims,
especially in, in
America and and Europe, is these type of
reactions. They forget
about,
the action, the the actual movie or the
cartoon,
depiction of, prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
What remains in the psyche of people is
the reaction, and they forget about
the action itself.
So we have to devise plans, long term
plans of engagement, of reach out, to talk
to them, to explain to them
what
Islam is really,
is all about and what the prophet Muhammad
is all about.
Right. Doctor,
if we look at this instance, those two
instance from different angles, I understand that that
happened with the commemoration of that saga of
the,
9 11.
But also, don't you think that they exactly
know there are well educated people with a
cultural background,
I mean, from the west that already know
what is Islam, the reality of Islam? Don't
you think that we should also put the
blame according to some political analysts who came
up to say that,
while the United States have its share also
in what's happening because they for for a
long time now, they have been acting as
an incubator for,
the fundamentalist
and the
extremism and this type of culture,
and they have been feeding it. Mhmm. And,
that was a reaction to a long years
of,
under
the table policy that have been going through.
So how do you,
think, this is if you can correct me.
I I partially agree with you that, there
are, a lot of,
people to play to blame. Especially,
in my understanding,
this whole saga,
or this recent saga and the saga of,
911
was,
political rather than religious.
So,
politics
played a major part in the making of
these,
sagas,
the
past one and the recent one.
But I am more concerned
about
lay people
who do not know much about Islam. Of
course, so many people are well educated,
but they know very little. I I lived
in the States for
more than 12 years,
studying there and teaching at the university and
dealing with with the,
the community at large. I visited so many
churches,
synagogues, universities,
lecturing.
And I found that even though
we are living in, the information technology
age, but this, this information technology age has
made age has made us ignorant of each
other.
We are at the mercy of,
now the computers and iPads
and,
and, laptops.
And we often,
take these tools as our window to the
world. We lost the engagement.
And that's
why I think,
what is at risk now is that we
have
failed to engage the people, especially non Muslims
at large, the layman people. I understand that
also,
the the,
political
interest groups
have a lot to to to to be
blamed,
because they have,
fueled
the
the the fire of of of this saga.
But
as a person coming from, Darul Ifta and
from Al Azhar,
I tend to
blame myself first,
because we have not
adequately engaged
these people. We have not adequately
done our homework
of reaching out, of spreading awareness.
I'm not much
so much interested in
the other areas and the other fronts because
this is not my prerogative. My prerogative
is to
play my role in engaging people in in
in raising their awareness about Islam. I understand
that there are
other
areas
that should be tapped as well and,
and, the decision making authorities should also
make this a priority. Otherwise,
we are verging into,
clash,
of civilizations
as some of
the political analysts,
have
predicted a long time ago. You're touching on
a very important point, and that's the role
of the Muslim world, and especially now the
role of, Islamic entities.
What do you think the role should be
now in reaction to this movie and in
reaction to the ignorance that has that,
that's, has risen,
according to Islam. So what should we be
doing to
transfer the good picture, the good depiction of
Islam and prophet Mohammed, peace be upon? I
think the, our role should be
divided into 2 major roles.
The first one is corrective,
which basically to engage people whenever something inaccurate
comes in the media.
We should immediately
take a measure by correcting it, by contacting
this media outlet. And this what what we
have been doing actually.
We have sent letters to the editors in
in many
newspapers recently because they have
said something inaccurate about,
Islam and Muslims.
So we have to be in the forefront.
We should not wait around.
When something inaccurate comes, we should contact this
media outlet, be it TV or print media
or anything.
Right away, we correct things.
But still the, major,
role that we should be
playing
is preventive.
Spreading awareness,
reaching out,
talking about,
the the the true Islam,
because,
as you know, a layman,
would not distinguish
what is credible teachings of Islam from the
self acclaimed,
teachings of Islam.
So we have to be
engaging
more and more,
talking to them, spreading awareness,
and telling them
that,
if you have a question, come to us.
And that's why,
one of the unique,
things that, the Grand Mufti did was to
make a state of the art website in
Dar al Ifta.
It is,
www.dar
alif
ta.org,
in
8 languages.
Wow. Okay. Eight languages.
European,
as well as some of the, Asian, languages.
Because we have substantial,
Muslim,
countries
in South Asia.
So we need engagement, and we need
to do more of,
awareness campaigns.
This is a really good start though. Yes.
Eight languages. Yes.
We have to
break the cycle of talking to ourselves.
We have to talk to the people. We
have to reach out.
Our target audience is not,
90,000,000
Muslims
and Christians in Egypt. Our target audience is
6,000,000,000 people. We have to broaden this vision.
We have to understand
that,
we are living in a global valley. We
cannot just talk to ourselves. We have to
talk to the people. We have to talk
to the world at large.
Right. Doctor Meghmeh, let us go back to
the layman in the street that you that
is a very important,
part of, the picture.
And we take if we take a flashback
into other instance, similar instance, and with other,
problems like that, we remember,
Martin Scorsese did the movie, The Last Temptation
of Jesus Christ. Yes. He imagined that, Jesus
Christ got married and had children,
and then came Mel Gibson later on, several
years,
and he did that movie, the the passion
of Jesus Christ. And there was a war
a very strong reaction from the Jewish,
community. And,
but the people the world the world the
world community
received that
with tolerance.
But when this movie came,
people did not receive it the right way,
I mean, the world community.
But let us be,
I mean, frank and take things that, would
look at reality and look at things as
they happened. It was because the reaction was
not proper.
I again, I know I Again, I'm building
on what Reem said.
What is what should be done on your
part?
I beg to differ in this point,
what you have raised that,
well, in the other,
depiction of,
movies depicting the prophet Jesus, peace be upon
him.
Why the reaction was,
tolerant and why our reaction is not,
tolerant.
Because of three things. Number 1,
the the the other movies were real,
drama, were
real art.
But this is That's true. It's it's it's
garbage. It's a piece of garbage, really. And,
without exaggeration, this is not my opinion. This
is the opinion of of,
experts in the entire,
world. Right. It's clear that it's a very
low budget movie. None of the actors are
very serious. It's it's a mockery. Okay. So
that's that's number 1.
And,
number 2, it's it's,
the the difference in paradigm.
In the West,
there's a paradigm.
Here, there is a different
paradigm.
In the West, they the paradigm basically,
was into
taking the sacredness
out of everything. So
the entire world,
including,
scriptures,
prophets,
were regarded as something relevant,
relative,
not sacred.
So but here, still we have remnants
of sacredness. We we retain
the the sacredness.
We we we view that the entire creation
is a creation of God.
We view that the the line of prophets
are regarded as the best model
to be emulated,
and we view the prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, as as an integral part of
our Muslim identity.
And And he is supposed to be. Yes.
And and Should go so everybody should respect
that. Yes. It's a change of paradigm.
What we have failed to convey to the,
to the Western,
people
is basically this,
utter respect
of our religious traditions and our religious symbols
and our prophet,
peace be upon him, and in this case,
all the prophets.
Because any
ridicule of a previous prophet is also a
ridicule
of our prophets. So
we fail to engage them by explaining to
them that, yes,
in your paradigm of thinking,
you have succeeded
a bit
in taking the sacredness
out of everything,
including your religious
scriptures, including your religious figures.
But
listen, guys, we have
a, a a a tradition in which we
utterly love our prophet more than ourselves.
And any ridicule
or any
Offence.
Offense
against our prophet is something that should not
be taken lightly.
So this is this is the second
reason
why,
it's the the case is different. It's a
change of paradigm.
It's it's a it's a paradox of paradigm,
so to speak.
The third reason
is that as as you have mentioned and
also as you have mentioned in the introduction,
it was an overreaction
because of
it was made,
or it was,
being politicized.
So it is not the religious
aspect that was,
in the making. It was
rather the political aspect, especially
the the context in Libya,
which was the bloodiest
because,
of,
ambassador,
Kress,
was murdered. Even
Yes. Press ambassador?
Kress. So so basically,
the the it was highly politicized.
It was not a religious debate, and I
I still believe that it is more political
than religion.
The the my last comment on this part
is that the majority
of sane,
wise people in the entire world
are
supportive
of us.
It is only a French
few, a French minority
who are making the noise. But unfortunately,
this minority
is taking
the lion's share in the media outlets.
Mhmm. They That's that's the problem.
They
they take the podium.
And what we are trying to do and
what, His Excellency,
His Eminence, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, is
trying to do is to reach out
in the western,
media outlets.
We have made a major interview with Reuters.
Yesterday, we made a major interview
in the, AP, Associated Press,
And we had a piece published in the
Washington Post, in Taggester Spiegel,
in, Sontag, Zeitung in Switzerland. So that we
can get our message across to the world.
To the world That's what we're trying to
do. In their
media outlets, not in the local ethnic
media outlets where we are, again,
talking to ourselves. We have to
reach out. Right. Doctor Ebrahim Niggem, adviser to
the Grand Book of Egypt, thank you so
much for being with us. Unfortunately, we're running
out of time, but it was a fruitful
conversation. We really benefit from it. Thank you
so much. Thank you. And, now we're gonna
go to a really quick break with Dina
Eunice. She's going to show us around the
Abu Dhabi Temple.
We're gonna find out what she has in
store for us, and we'll be right back
with more on the breakfast show.