Tortured in Afghanistan – Gitmo – Innocent Man chooses Forgiveness – Guards Accept Islam

guarding the guys who did 911 I us and this recently you had Spike Lee come under I don't know if you've heard of Spike Lee the the Bible you can see repeatedly Jesus talks about the one bought by the way Harvard University has several prosecutors in Guantanamo military prosecutors who resigned from Guantanamo saying that even according to military law, the stuff that we have here I didn't train for this. This is a kangaroo court wants you to watch this and this is actual most stuff.

On 911 on the 25th anniversary of 911, and the but what has caused you now to be so forgiving? Do not allow that hatred and animosity to cause you to be unjust to was get more producing atheist? No, the opposite Assalamu alaikum greetings apiece, welcome to the deen Show. I'm your host. And is that time of the year never forget, we're going to be talking about the events that happened that created the slogan. We're going to talk about a little bit about Afghanistan. And someone who is in the midst of all of this got wrongfully detained and taken to a place that I want you to imagine being in this place, this torture chamber of a place and now at the end being free of any charges and

having an showing such a forgiving heart to forgive those that oppressed you torture you. And now you're on the D show to share your experiences your stories and help us understand more around this event of the never forget and the Afghanistan and much more here on the deen show. salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Brother while a como salam, Ramadan, God, peace be with you. Please be with you, too, brother. How are you doing? My brother? I'm doing well. And of course, it's a pleasure to be on this show. I've watched it many times. And I've heard of it for many, many years. So glad to be on it.

Everybody's saying, you know, when these topics come up, we'll get Where's most of them beg, you got to get them on the program. This is the man and we finally got him on Hump Day.

Have you ever heard this slogan never forget? Yeah, of course, many times, all in relation to September 11. American soldiers actually who used to come to Guantanamo, used to say that they were before they came to Guantanamo, were first taken as part of their mission to kind of hype them up to ground zero. And then to come to Guantanamo and be told that you are in a very important mission here guarding the guys who did 911 I, us. And that's what they were made to believe, until, of course, they saw that after decades of torture, interrogation, intelligence gathering and law enforcement agencies presence, not a single person, even to this day, as we speak, has been

convicted for anything to do with 911. in Guantanamo, that's a shocking statistic, bearing in mind, that after the Nazi war crimes tribunals in World War Two,

toward the deaths of millions of people, people were prosecuted within the year. So it tells you the kind of justice system is entirely broken.

Now, for those people that don't know, you actually spent what was it three years unjustly? in Guantanamo Bay? Is that correct? Yeah. So I spent two years in Guantanamo. But prior to that I was actually held in the background detention facility, which is in Afghanistan, which of course, you may have all heard that recently was freed by the Taliban and is no longer in, of course, US custody.

So essentially, this,

this this, this imprisonment of mine,

has now

amazingly, and shockingly, whatever you want to call it found that members of the Taliban were in prison with me in background and tortured, and incentive Guantanamo, were actually sent and our leaders and our ministers in the Afghan government.

Now, I want you to, for everybody out there, I know this is a very sensitive subject for a lot of people. And people would rightfully so if the main narrative, what they've been told was true. But what if now, are you going to fall into a state of cognitive dissonance? You know, when truth comes to you, if there's now things put into perspective, if now, it's not everything that you've been told for it to be? Let's start with this from here. Tell us I started off with never forget, this might be a shock to a lot of people. But there's a new slogan, I don't know if you've heard this one. And what are your comments on it?

Well,

stop using Muslims as the scapegoat. What do you think of this new slogan? I mean, it's it's really powerful. It is. I don't know who's putting that out. But yes, you're right Muslims, when 911 wasn't a Muslim thing, some Muslims have been involved in it. But just like, do we really want to say I mean, the response to nine

Was that an American thing? Was that a European thing? Was that a? Whose thing? Was it? blanket accusations against people are a dangerous, dangerous road to go down? And if 911 I know the number, I actually know the exact number of people that died on September 11. It wasn't 3000 it was 2976 people. Why is that important? Because every single dead life mattered. How many people died as a result of the response to 911, which we still don't know. And here's the pun. We don't come and they don't count. Is it hundreds of 1000s, or 10s, of 1000s. And millions, doesn't matter, because that's the damage that we were prepared to inflict on the Muslim world, and simply not care about the lives

that would be shattered as a result of that or taken.

We've often repeated that when you look at Islam, anybody who studies Islam, calling the human being to have a direct connection with the creator to heavens and earth, calling to justice to peace, for a person to live a morally upright life, nothing to do with such atrocities, such oppression, Islam is totally clear of any such acts. This is clear Islam cause the human pain to spread peace in the world, not in justice and chaos. So now and then, but now, what happens when you have for instance, you have so many people like for instance, recently, you had Spike Lee, come under? I don't know if you've heard of Spike Lee, the actor?

The director, I'm sorry? Yes, the director, he's come out. He's come under some fire now. Because he was doing a documentary, I believe on HBO. And he was talking to some of these architects and engineers and others. And just question he said, we got questions about this building seven that fell, right. Here's this if people haven't seen it, this what we're talking about.

So they're just questioning and again, we're not into conspiracy theories. And we don't have much time for this. But there's obviously there's a lot of questions that were unanswered to him. So he was just raising these questions, and he got attacked viciously by the media. And then there is, again, almost 4000 architects and engineers who are raising the same question about this building seven that wasn't hit by a plane. But if this falls apart, everything else falls apart. What are your comments when you see stuff like this? And then one more thing you have, for instance, David, Ray Griffin, you have this. And we're talking about this now, because it's that time of the year. So

all the evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 911 was subject to criticals scrutiny appears to have been fabricated David gray Griffin, this is a Christian also, professor. What do you think, is that 911 was going to happen, and it was going to happen because there was intelligence that the United States intelligence agencies, the CIA, FBI, all knew, and within their intelligence, they knew something was happening. They just didn't know what was gonna happen. The reason why they thought something was happening is because something did happen before and that was the Tanzania bombing embassy bombings of the US Embassy in Tanzania, in Dar Salaam. And Nairobi, in Kenya, there

were embassy bombings in the man in Saudi Arabia, there were bombings of US military facilities, there was the hitting, there was the strike by Al Qaeda against

the USS cold. So there was there was something there was a tension, there was a deep tension that existed. And when we look at 911, we got to look at, even if we disagree, vehemently disagree with the targeting of civilians and killing innocent people have nothing to do with this war, and have nothing to do with these targets have nothing to do with the concept of Islam. What we could say is that

what were the reasons for 911? There were some reasons that the people who did 911 said they did it for

1000 Somalis diasporic dikes, for example, on the day of the Black Hawks, we remember the 19 Americans in the film, The Black Hawk Down, and as a footnote at the end of the film, you're told 1000 Somalis died there in their own homes by American soldiers. Your we told also that after the invasion, the first invasion of Iraq, Madeleine Albright said that it was okay that it was a price worth paying that 5000 children were dying in Iraq as a result of this medical sanctions on Iraq.

You can see the kind of continued support of of the United States of, of the State of Israel and occupation and so this is why the guys at Outrider said they did it. So something was going to happen because it was already happening, and whether the questions that need to be asked about how the building will

was bought out or not? Whether the American government knew something about it, whether they exploited it and so forth, it may be possible. And I'm not saying it's beyond the realm of possibility. But what this does is that if we question it too much, it says that there wasn't going to be a response to American wars around the world for the past decades. And that simply wasn't true.

So what do you when you when you see this is the main thing when people see just right before their eyes? I don't know if you're into that a lot of people are into this. Was it Chris magic or Chris angel? You know, I'm talking about these people who do magic tricks.

But when you see this, this is that building that they're talking about? And it's like, you don't have to go down that dark rabbit hole or you know, dark hole of trying to like piece the puzzle together. But people are just asking, like, hold on, this is a building and and get hit by plane and it just falling. Like, hold on. Just look at it again. Like

what

points that you're making? Not Not me, not me. No, no, not yet. Not this is what experts, engineers, scientists, former presidential candidates, family members, they're asking a question. So we're just like, we know,

we know Islam is free of this. And any Muslim that let's say if a Muslim, did do some horrific act, you cannot judge Islam, but action of some lunatic or some person that's just like, you can't judge Christianity by the KKK, etc. But, yeah, I mean, I have a friend that I met is a fantastic character. He was actually the janitor, who had the keys for both Twin Towers, and was able to go into both. And he, what was his name? Yeah, he was William Rodriguez. Rodriguez. Yes. So he, he received an award for saving so many lives. by President Bush himself, Bush actually handed him the award of protecting lives. But he says I mean, this is his own view. He says that he had explosions,

he said right below was the building has six sub levels of basement B, one, B two all the way down to B six, I was on b1, the explosion came from B two and B two and B three. That's how we felt it. Now I work in the building cars for 20 years, I would know exactly the difference between an explosion coming from the bottom and one coming from the top this one game from the bottom. And prior to the playing here in the tower. It didn't think that the whole story was being told properly. And he was also part of a organization which included many family members who wanted the truth. So it's not that I don't deny what may have been done. It's just that I believe that I just

believe something was going to happen. And the reasons behind that something on 911, on the 25th anniversary of 911, it's still important for us to kind of explore them, because

American was going to face something for the amount of people that had killed in the Muslim world, from some organizations somewhere. And that's the hard part to actually get to grips with.

Our main thing here is us and over 1.8, almost 2 billion human beings who live this beautiful way of life, who by the way, Harvard University, has a quote up on his wall on one of the beautiful verses of justice, where God Almighty saying oh, you who believe stand out firmly for justice as a witness to God, even if against yourself. This is in the Harvard University. So if a way of life that is about justice, it cannot be trying to wreck havoc on earth and those people who go ahead and take advantage of the situation and now you're driving and you see these signs never forget many people are like those moslems now Islam and then they try to capitalize and try to divide us and try to you

know, spread hate and misinformation. There's even

another verse in the Quran, which is, it's beautiful and it and it kind of complements the verse that you mentioned, and it's called the

kunafa woman in light Shahada because when I he reminded

me a lot earlier pomellato editable, aka relatable I love this verse. It says, Oh, you believe standards, we're just witnesses for Allah. And do not allow your animosity or hatred of a people to cause you to do them and injustice to be just that is closer to God consciousness. Now that's essentially telling you what the prophets Elijah did with his enemies. So you can imagine like hynd and all these other people who would try to put who rip the hope of the heart of Hamza out and tried to eat his liver and

plot and scheme against the Muslims. When he came into power. Mecca was conquered with in a bloodless way there was nobody was was killed, and nobody was tortured. Nobody was no vengeance. He said those famous words that Joseph Yusuf Ali Salaam said

To his brothers, though they have thrown him in prison and had him locked away and thrown away from his family for many years. He says to them, let a three boil a chameleon, there's no vengeance upon you, this day, it her boyfriend omotola go for you offering this is this is the essence of Islam to not even if your enemy even if those you despise, even if those you are engaged in hostility with

harm you, you're supposed to rise up and say, that do not allow that hatred and animosity to cause you to be unjust towards them. And that is the beauty within the Islamic texts that found me becoming close to and friendly with and becoming friends with several of my former gods in, in America in Guantanamo, who were part of the machinery that had abused me and continue to abuse me, but through their humanity and through our connections,

short and through little acts of humanity that they showed me. We are still friends, they still visit me we work together, we campaigned together. And this is one of the great blessings of Allah. And some of them I will tell you the brother is that some of them became Muslims, some in Guantanamo, some of the some men, some women, some black, some white, some Hispanic. And

this was again, it showed to me that not all every single American hated all Muslims. In fact, some of them found Islam because of Guantanamo.

Wow, that's amazing. Didn't this janitor also this is the last man out who you said heard these explosive. Then he also Is it true that he acts I saw a video of him taking his Shahada accepting Islam. Is that true? Yeah, I was there with him on the day when he announced the Shahada. So I was I was, you know, WD privileged. I was with him in, in South Africa.

And, and I remember just going and meeting with him and talking with him, and he's a guy that's full of life. And he said that he accepted Islam, because when he wanted the Muslim board and said, asks the questions that he did, he said he was so welcomed,

not because of the questions he was asking, but because of this guy had earned the Hero Award from President Bush. He's a lifesaver. He's doing what the Koran says, woman. Yeah. Okay. And NASA, do you mean that whoever saves a life, it is as if saved the entirety of mankind. So he is that embodiment you associate Islam with with terrorism and killing, etc, etc. But the numbers of people who actually care about saving life in the Muslim world are far greater. And that is something that we need to focus more on.

That's, that's amazing, him to accept Islam submission to the Creator, not the creation that pure monotheism the way of life of Jesus, Moses, in the last and fundamental problem, Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon that's for the audience to really stop and think, well, the media is trying to create a hysteria to chase you away from Islam. When people such as these guards and others who truly look into it, they end up accepting Islam, you should be scratching your head, say, should I look into this a little bit deeper, and really open my heart and mind? Amazing. I said, let me tell you, brother, that there was this, this young sister, she contacts me on Facebook, right? And she,

she's got a picture of a hijab on. And she said, Brother, you were in Guantanamo. So yeah, I was she said, so was I. And then I said, both there were no females in Guantanamo as prisoners. She said, I wasn't a prisoner. I was one of your guards. And I was just wow, blown away. At that point that she said, Look, I want you to tell the other brothers, the other prisoners and yourself that I first learned about Islam in Guantanamo. As a practicing Christian, I felt that when I had some problems in life, I turned to I couldn't turn to God properly, because I was too busy turning to boys, to alcohol to drug sometimes, to depression. But then I saw you guys in the worst possible state cut

away from your family, from your children, from your wives and so forth. And the weak amongst you became stronger from the presence and the support of the of those who were stronger. And it didn't matter what background they were didn't matter whether they were black, or white, whether they were Arab, non Arab, or Pakistani, or Uighur or Turkish. It didn't matter, you won body. And that sowed the seed that seed was sown in my heart with love for Islam. I went back to the United States of America researched more, and I took my shirt. So that's just one story. I can tell you have several others I've come across and it is it's a blessing because when I told this story to some young

brother in Sudan, who was released from Guantanamo, he said to me, that if my imprisonment of six years and the torture that came with it, led to that moment of that girl, accepting Islam, then every moment of that torture and abuse was worth it.

So panela for that

audience that is watching in when you heard this word Shahada. This is that testimony of faith that there's nothing worthy of worship except the creator that heavens an earth God Almighty, the creator Allah, and that Muhammad just like Jesus, Moses, Abraham was a messenger Muhammad has been the last. So when we when we talk about torture, when we you talk when we talk about being in the squid tunnel Bay, and you mentioned innocent, I mean, okay, it's one thing you got people who are convicted, and now there's evidence against him, but you were released, there was no evidence. You were there was evidence that you were in it and you are in you're innocent, you're exonerated of any, any crimes.

Is that correct? So let me just explain how it goes in Guantanamo. And anybody who lives in a western country generally understands that you're when you're suspected of a crime, you're arrested, you are taken to a police station, your question your giving you your rights, I think in America equal the Miranda rights here, you're given you a right to silence, you're given the right all sorts of rights, you are given the right to legal representation. And if you are sent on remand, or put in your mind, in prison, you have access to all the most basic things like phone calls, television, newspapers, radios, food, canteen, association with other prisoners, all of those things that are

normal to you, and you have access to the legal system, which is the most important. None of those things existed in Bagram, Guantanamo or anywhere else, despite the fact that we were being held by the United States. So what this means is that, according to the law, everybody is innocent until proven guilty in Guantanamo, everybody's guilty until proven innocent. And that is why over 800 prisoners were held from over 40 different countries. And

not a single one has been released because of a of a legal proceeding because they were presented in court. Some of them have made plea deals and then come back home. And those cases have been overturned by the countries where that where those with a person came from, meaning that that those convictions were not saved. They're not sound they were based upon torture and evidence and so forth. So Guantanamo is a place that is outside of the law.

There is no law. There's no legal system that there are several prosecutors in Guantanamo military prosecutors, who resigned from Guantanamo saying that even according to military law, the stuff that we have here, I didn't train for this. This is a kangaroo court. And I've resigned and said I cannot be part of this is, in fact, if you've recently seen the film about called the Mauritanian, which is starring Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch and others about the Mauritanian captive, who was in Guantanamo for 14 years and tortured.

The character played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who was a colonel actually changes his view, he comes to prosecute mahamudu, because he believes this guy was involved in 911. He afterwards finds out through the terrible torture that mahamadou faced, that actually, this guy's innocent. And so he turns from being a prosecutor that supports the concept of Guantanamo, to somebody who opposes it. And this has been the story of many people in Guantanamo. Now, that's what I want you to do as an audience. member, imagine you now being in this situation, you're innocent, you didn't do it, you have nothing now that you have a clear conscience, but now, you're stuck in this kind of situation.

Imagine that don't just look at somebody's color skin tone their religion now and think like, Oh, those are, you know, less human than us. And those are the people that took these towers. And now, look, the evidence was clear that

even when you say you didn't do it, they don't even tell you what is it that you're supposed to have done. There is no it, there isn't a on this place, at this place, at this time with this person with this intent. You did this crime that doesn't exist. It's simply we have what how people ended up in Guantanamo was based upon when george bush said to the rest of the world, you're either with us or with the terrorists, most of the countries around the world, they got scared, they got terrified. And they started picking people up based on false and weak intelligence, for money. In Afghanistan, for example, millions of leaflets were dropped all over Afghanistan that offered bounties of $5,000.

For each person, imagine Afghanistan as a very poor country. $5,000 is like, you know, a couple of years earnings that you at that time, you just hand the person over if you think I don't know this guy he might be never seen him before he could be suspected not from this country, I can add myself $5,000. And that's how the majority were handed over. And so just so you understand, America had to do something it was we understand the world understands that they had to get the people who did it and prevent any more attacks, but 911 and the response to it didn't do that what it did is create a different world where the law didn't exist.

Hold on. So you're saying that let's say someone had a feud with a family member or a neighbor. This is a great app.

sunidhi for those people, like, let's say, who didn't have this justice in their heart who didn't fear God love God, or whatever the case, they just had this malicious intent, they can go ahead and say, for this person that they hated, yeah, this guy, you know, he's a terrorist. He's one of the they could he can get the money. So several the US politics, I don't have a politician, but military, from the military, have actually admitted this, that this happened in multiple cases. And not only that, even it was even worse as a US policy when they invaded Afghanistan and came along, who's the Taliban? Any guys, two groups of people have got like a feud between each other. And

Afghanistan is a feudal society, the majority people live in rural areas, not in the cities, like most western countries, and they have a system that it's it's a feudal system, literally, where if somebody has beef with another guy from across the road, that guy's son will have beef with that guy's son, and it will last for generations sometimes. So there are recorded cases of people literally handing over another person or saying that he's Taliban. And then somebody the US soldiers raiding that person's house,

because they've got intelligence that this guy's Taliban now it's just like the War on Terrorism really, nowadays, when you say, oh, that guy's a terrorist, the Assad regime calls, Freedom Fighters or those who are protesting terrorists, the Chinese Chinese government calls the wiggers terrorists, the Indian government calls, Muslims, they're terrorists. So everybody used that label, because the United States used this language of the war on terror, to to get anybody that you might not like in one way or the other, were they involved in crimes against the United States, were they harming and killing Muslims? That doesn't really matter. Because you now have to play to an audience that you've

created and said, we're going to go out and get the bad guys, and we're going to win. And we're going to, you know, excuse my Landry when it kicks on us,

Afghanistan, now everything is about Afghanistan in the news, what do you have to say about Afghanistan, which is a country that was invaded? And if you look at it, this is an innocent country had nothing to do with what people were claiming that certain people did. And now you have a whole country that gets invaded. It's a terrible, terrible thing. You know, the United States knew what had happened to Afghanistan over the past two decades. They understood I know, I'll give you one example. I was held in Bagram prison with a young man, his name was Sharif. He had been poisoned by the Americans because they accused him of being Taliban. And he said to the My father was buried

alive outside the Bagram prison right here, where you're holding right now, right outside these gates, my father was buried alive by the Soviet Union forces, do you think that his son is going to submit and bow down to the USA, when his father wouldn't bow down to the USSR? That kind of tells you, it gives you an idea of what's in people's minds, that they, there are people, nobody likes to be occupied, nobody likes to be invaded. And this occupation and America knew this better than anybody else, because America supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets, you know, it's famous. But America didn't kind of realize that the same people that fought you are going to fought the

Soviets were going to fight you back then or their children up, because that's just the nature of occupation. Nobody likes it, no one's gonna accept it. Now you want to be friends want to talk when have diplomatic relations. That's cool. And that's in the end what they had to do. Anyway, they did talk to the Taliban, in fact, not just the Taliban, but five senior members of the Taliban who are with us in Guantanamo, went on to begin the negotiations. They talked with Mike Pompeo that President Trump even had a phone call with one of them with Mullah brother, who's now the deputy head of Afghanistan. And five of those members are released from Africa from Guantanamo are now

ministers get this their ministers in the new Afghan Government. guys were held in Guantanamo, tortured, abused, stripped, naked, vilified, called the worst of the worst, are now, diplomats, they are now ministers in the government. And you have to ask yourself, you could have had negotiations right in the beginning, what was the nest? Why did you need to kill so many people? Why did so many people have to die? was not life sacred? It do not America? Does not America think that life is sacred just as much as Muslims are supposed to? I mean, life is sacred beyond that to all. But why is it that some lives are more sacred than others? And this is a fundamental question we have to ask

ourselves as people of faith or no faith that where are we going with creating all these weapons brother, I just tell you, in Afghanistan, they drop bombs. I kid you not. Some bombs weighed 15 tons. When I was there, there was a 15 ton bomb. It's called a daisy cutter. Sounds like a lawnmower but it's a people mower. There was another bomb they dropped to think in and around.

Trump's time this was a 22 ton bond. Just think about that a bond that was 22 times it's these are the largest weapons conventional weapons dropped outside of being nuclear weapons. And and it tells you that our capacity as human beings for mass destruction

knows hardly any limits and somebody has to come people of faith, people of understanding people of justice, people of diplomacy, and wisdom and really say, you know, you were saying, you know, let's not forget, look, what we've got to say is no more. That's what we got to say no more.

It reminded me of a verse in Isaiah in the verbatim Word of God Almighty, the Quran when you talk about life, and the sanctity of life where chapter five verse 32, or God Almighty Allah is saying saving one innocent life, they often repeat verses that we hear is as if you save the world, right? killing one innocent life is if you kill the world like so we know in Islam, how valuable life is and a person with no Muslim wants to come on the Day of Judgment with innocent blood on his hands, because this is one of the first crimes that a person will be judged for, for murder for taking innocent life. And not a true Muslim wants to stay far away from

doing any crime against an innocent human being. Right, brother, absolutely. Just Just look at what look just look at Rock. Look what happened in Iraq. We Western say we the West, invaded Iraq, as a result direct result of invading Afghanistan. So not only were we not satisfied with Afghanistan, we tortured people into give giving false information, false evidence that al Qaeda was working with Saddam Hussein, they weren't. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq. before the invasion. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And so what happens is Al Qaeda then because of the invasion comes into Iraq. And then they meet with Saddam's former

cabinet members, and other than they formed this group and this group, the world knows what this group is. It's ISIS. ISIS is born in the dungeons of Abu Ghraib. And camp Booker, Camp Walker was run by the same guy who ran Guantanamo Bay, General Jeffrey Miller, who I remember seeing him several times when, when we were in Guantanamo, he went off to run detainee operations in in upper grade. Now you've got to ask yourself this question. ISIS claimed to be people of God, and so do many American soldiers. I mean, I used to see them all the time with the Bibles and you know, they're not like saying the UK or in other parts of that people, just kind of more atheistic around

these places. But these are people of League really People of the Book, they will read the book.

You ask yourself here, how are people of God claiming in the name of this such savagery? The savage overlay, the savagery of bombing mosques, the savagery of dropping 1020 or 22 ton bombs, the savagery of cruise missiles, the savagery of beheadings, the savage of kidnap the savagery of rape? What on earth are you doing? saying this is in the name of the Most Merciful because this is the name of Allah subhanho wa Taala of Allah out Rahman AR Rahim, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful, His mercy supersedes everything Chronicles My Mercy supersedes my wrath. And here we are acting in his name as Muslims, Christians and other people in the most merciless way known to mankind. I don't

understand that.

Well, Subhan Allah, this is truly something that's for people hearing about this for the first time and, you know, to really reflect over many of the things that you're talking about. Tell us share with us, you mentioned about some of the many of the guards now I had one guard, also who shared his his story about seeing many of the the people there, the prisoners, and how he would go out. And he was very unhappy, he'd be drinking, you know, he'd be just chasing contentment in life. He didn't have it, but then he would see these people in these situations. They're reading this book that he's hearing the odd and they're they're just their faith is just increasing like he It was really

strange to him. And eventually he also this is Terry holbrooks I don't know if you've heard of him. Yeah, of course, he's a good friend of mine. We've traveled together and done events together and we're doing an event together on on on on September 11, reflecting upon this point in time together to two former Gods very hot books, Steve wood, and myself and monks would pay for those who was held in quanta for 14 years. So if you do want to know about more about that, just tune into the cage

social media and you'll you'll see that at eight o'clock UK time. But yeah, these look I gotta tell you, brother, these, these soldiers for Muslims and non Muslims that I came across it with decent

I have to tell you after everything that I face, torture, abuse being separated from my family, these soldiers, men, women, black, white, Hispanic, East Coast, West Coast, mid Midwest, and whatever. They made the difference. They made a big difference. And I will never forget the acts of humanity that they

showed me just as I will never forget the acts of brutality. Others carried out against me. But, you know, these guys, they were, they would bring a smile to my face when I was depressed. And I'd be in solitary confinement most of this time so that I would see nobody else no other Muslim. There was a period of time and one time I didn't see another Muslim for two years, and the only ones I saw were the soldiers. Some of them sometimes would sneak in a DVD player and show me I don't know if you've seen the film snatch, but it's hilarious. You got to watch it if you haven't seen it already. He bought in a DVD player. And he showed me the film snatch and we sat together. I'm in my cage. He's

outside. We sat together watching it laughing.

Another time an American soldier. Remember, she's from the US Virgin Islands. She She bought me a Cadbury's creme egg. And she said, Look, I know this is made in the city of berming. Because that's where the Cadbury's factories and that's where that's where I'm born and raised them. And that's where I am right now. Which is Look, I got you this just to remind you, I couldn't tell her that I don't like Cadbury's creme is in fact, I can't stand the thing. But it was an act of humanity. She gave it to me, I ate it and, you know, swallowed my pride and the egg. They do little things someday, once he bought me a little piece of fish. I didn't even proper fish, like for years. And he

caught it in Guantanamo, cut it fried it, and then I hate it and bought it to me. Give it to me, like

don't tell anybody and make sure nobody knows Give me the right, give me the foil back. And I didn't know who he was. I don't I don't know him. I've never met him. I'm never gonna see him again in my life. But he was these kinds of people. They'd sometimes bring me information they do Google searches on me and find out what's going on about my campaign, my father doing a campaign here, and it come back, some of them crying in tears, saying I didn't join up for this. I didn't come join up to abuse a person and to be involved in this. So whatever I can do to make your life better I will do and

you know, these guys I because of them because of these guys. I left Guantanamo, not hating America. They were the reason why.

While this is amazing, when the human side comes out when the connection is made between humans, you don't suppress that.

This is just truly amazing. I want I want to get your reaction to this. You have so many people doing what's called the hunger strike. Did you participate in anything like this?

No, the hunger strike. I wasn't involved in the hunger strikes.

Have you ever I want I want you to watch this. And this is actual most stuff.

Oh,

ah,

please, please, please, please, please, please don't

know.

In the end, he was

can you give us a breakdown? Like what what was actually

what what is this procedure? really painful to watch? Mostly I wasn't subjected to this because I wasn't involved in longest trial because I was in solitary confinement time when they were happening. But of course, I spoke to many, many former Guantanamo prisoners who were already involved in them, they were leading them. And I I've still to this day, you've got to see what happened was most definitely and I I do respect him for what he did, because that's a very painful thing to go through. That's not even a fraction of what the guys had to go through. So the problem that when they when they

force feed you the hunger strikes. First of all, the reason for the hunger strikes was that the Quran was being abused, desecrated by some of the soldiers and the prisoners were being physically and sexually violated. And of course, the most important potently

They wanted some access to legal redress, and they weren't getting any of these things. So they, there was a mass hunger strike that took place, and it lasted on and off. But you know, for the period of Guantanamo was open.

The process of trying to force the prisoner to ingest food meant that they will be tied to a chair so they hands on like in with no step was shackled to a chair and the head was shut was bound to a post in on the chair that's connected to the chair. So you can't move your head to the biggest problem that they have to insert this tube into your nose, that you're moving your head and you're turning around left and right. So they need to be able to immobilize your head as much as possible, your legs are, of course tied down as well. And then there's a tube the tube as a plastic end, that's pushed into the nose and then forced into your throat and then eventually into your stomach.

And they feed you with some liquid drink, which probably is not here in the UK, but we became

familiar with it in the US in US custody called ensure. And then they pour this, they push this in, and they they they force it into now you twist and you turn, you try to get it out. And sometimes when you swap it most of it's a little bit more sanitized. But what happens really is that it's covered with blood. with, you know, mucus, with spit,

there's a lot of a lot more pain involved. And they'll do it repeatedly multiple times during the day. And sometimes they have got so many people to put through because so many people on hunger strike, they using the same tube with the same blood and the same snap on it and all of this. And it's a deeply brutal process, which they wouldn't even use Halo, they wouldn't even use in the 1970s against the IRA, hunger strikers in Britain, Irish Republican hunger strikers they wouldn't do that.

And the reason was they didn't want the prisoners to die because the president dies, then America looks bad. Look, these guys died in your custody. So

that was the method forced them to remain

to kind of remain alive or to exist, at least

help us understand how many people are there right now that are free of any charges? But they're still there? Why? Why is a human being if he's free? To go? Pretty much but he can't go?

Very, very good question. So we have, we have about 10 to 11, who are working on different charges. Amongst them is somebody called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who's allegedly after 20 years, he's not been convicted.

The mastermind of the 911 attacks, there are others who are involved in different attacks against us who are facing different charges, problem with contrive to convict them is that because many of them were severely tortured,

the US essentially shot themselves in the foot, they could have easily taken them to US Court prosecuted them and put them away. But because torture evidence is not admissible in American courts, you can't use any of that evidence. So what they've done is created an alternative system in incontournable, called the US military commissions, where they're trying to prosecute these guys, but they can't do it. It's taken 20 years, and they still are unable. So that leaves the rest. So there are 39, in total 11 of those who are facing these kind of different types of charges. But the mudrick majority's, this six will have been cleared by Biden to be released. There are I believe

another number. I'm not sure exactly how many four or five, who are also cleared from last time, they're still sitting in prison. They're cleared by all the US Department of Justice Department of Defense, FBI, CIA, and beyond why they're being sent not being sent home or released. Because you know, 20 years, what differences another year or two or three gonna make, that's the attitude. And then there's some a category called the forever prisoners, which is bizarre. What is a forever prisoner forever prisoner is somebody that there's not enough evidence to charge, but it's been deemed too dangerous to release. Now, bearing in mind, we're talking about 20 years later, when the

Taliban are in back in power. And you release all of these guys, big level characters, and so forth. And you're saying these guys are too dangerous to release, On what basis on the basis of a court or a court decision of a law? On what basis so you've got this black hole that would never be accepted anywhere on us mainland or even by the US allies, which still exists. And as a result of that the majority of the 39 people in Guantanamo are innocent.

Do you know much about this? half a billion dollars that was spent creating these fake terrorist videos, what was the purpose of taking money like that taxpayers money and spending it on

videos like this. Do you know about these videos that were created fake the fake terrorist videos? Yeah, I did hear about that. Again, I would like to say that I was shocked. But I'm not shocked at all There is a machinery there's an media machinery that is being pushed by people who want to have endless wars, who profiteer from these endless wars, who get money to become rich, by demonizing people, by saying that they are all terrorists, we need to be afraid of all of them. If we securitize our language and our country and our borders, then I get more money, because I get the contracts or I, I gained from from this and I become the expert. And I can say

that such threats exist. Now, nobody's saying threats don't exist, there are threats everywhere, all the time, at any given time around the world. That's just the world we live in which we live in. And I believe if we followed our faith, more, adhere to our faiths,

more religiously than those threats, we would be able to minimize them. But the problem is people are away from faith. People are away from dogma or God consciousness, people are away from

integrity, and being good people on based upon that religious integrity. And as a result of that, greed. Greed creates hubris, arrogance. And the desire for more is what's propelling this industry and I call it the the War on Terrorism, the terrorism industry, the Islamophobia industry, because you get rich from it, you make a lot of money.

And you can see this in the media, you can see this, as you said, the stories released fake stories, you're prepared to live. You know, one of the biggest things about any faith is, is to be able to be truthful. One of the best things about the noble Prophet peace be upon himself moments or lesson is that he was known as the truthful as a mean, the trustworthy, you can trust this man, even if you're his enemy, you can trust him with whatever you tell him, you tell him a secret. You give him good, you give him money, you know that, even if, if you're opposed to even if you're fighting against him, he's not gonna lie against you. He's not gonna make up stuff. And where it's such a, such a

world where truth doesn't matter. What matters is winning. And somebody needs to change that because

you will have to answer in this life or the next you'll have to answer to the people or you have to answer the creator of the people. You take your choice.

Can you paint a picture of when people you talk about taqwa human God consciousness, when people go to many of the universities, or universities, college students, they get exposed to a lot of the partying and, you know, a lot of debauchery that's out there, the hedonism and whatnot, and they ended up losing themselves, many end up turning towards atheism. Now contrast that with being put in this situation, innocently being charged, you know, of horrendous terrorism charges, you know, and now you're innocent, you're innocent, you're exonerated and whatnot, you would think, you know, many people would just turn away from God they was was getting more producing atheist. Now, the opposite.

How's that? That's actually really it's a really good question, isn't it? That's it. That's a fundamental question of human beings that why am I here for I tell you that once and it's the fascinating it's once and Allah subhanaw taala, he brings you sometimes guidance from places where you don't expect and help. Once I was very, very down in my faith, I was really down in my religion, and I've been in isolation for quite some time, and I didn't know when this is gonna end. And an American soldier came along. And he said to me, you know, at times of physical practicing is a Southern Baptist and he said, you know, at times of difficulty, people say, Yeah, oh, Lord, oh,

Lord, and he said this with a southern drawl, which I'm not gonna try to replicate. But he said,

people say, oh, Lord, why me? Why me? What did I do? And he said, Oh, Lord, what are they said, Oh, Lord, why not?

And this reminded me of a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam who said, that either habibollah have to, for the teller who, when Allah loves a servant, he tests him. So the majority of the prisoners that I've come across, yes, faith goes down and based upon your ability to do good deeds or not. But the majority of the prisoners that I've met the overwhelming majority of persons Not only did their faith increase, their taqwa increased, they became better people. They memorize the court, many of them memorize the whole Quran. I remember the day when I remember I sort of adopted that largest chapter in the Quran. It was it was in the background. It was the happiest day of my

life because I was very slow to memorize the Quran

and you'd see people

in prayer and prostration, being that sometimes you know, in situations where you'd expect that there's going to be great hostility, just a smile. And it reminds you of the, the Hadeeth, or the saint of the noble Prophet peace be upon him, when he said, at the bus something once he started smiling, in the face of your brother, is an act of charity. And you'd see people like being abused, and they smuggling. And

I'm not gonna say this, there was not lots of tension and clashes between the prisoners and the guards, they were plenty, those lots, especially in the early days, lots of abuse, as well. But after a period of time, people start to

turn to and remember who they're supposed to be representatives of, that we as Muslims, we, as human beings are supposed to be representatives of something far greater in this life. And then that has a different effect than if you speak to even some of the soldiers who met people like that. They will tell you that they don't those individuals had a life changing effect on them.

Is there any plan? They've talked about it, but do you see anything in the future that they're going to close this Gizmo facility? I believe that Joe Biden and what he's the overtures that he's given, suggests that he wants to close Guantanamo, that it's a very dark chapter in the history of the United States of America. And it's still not over, you know, America, for all intents and purposes, has withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban have won that there's just no way that that it's a defeat.

And Biden had to do that.

Knowing that he'd get attacked by the Hawks, he even got attacked by by Trump's supporters and people on Mike Pompeo, who met with the Taliban who talked to the title who actually began the process. So people are gonna attack you regardless. But it's the right thing to do. You have to stop the war, you have to stop the killing there is it's pointless. So if that can stop, then the byproduct of it, which was the Guantanamo tortures, and the program that began this dehumanization of people that needs to stop to there's no sense in doing one and not doing the other.

And the last few minutes that we have just a few more questions, have you gotten a chance to connect and talk to some of these conservative Christians, and now they always, you know, use this pre tax. You know, Islam, those people, they hate our way of life, you know, the people out there who are living in a cave, that's why we got to be over there. They just hate our way of life. This is always that you know, mantra that's repeated. Have you got a chance to connect because we do have a lot in common, you know, people who believe in a creator, look, we love Jesus peace be upon them. We want to live a morally upright, we have so many things in common. But now, this is the thing that is

usually used to separate us this hate and fear, you know, that's created. And usually this misinformation has spread about Muslims in Islam, have you gotten a chance to connect? I'm trying to look behind me, excuse me, but I can't see where it is at the moment. But I have this Bible, right, I have this Bible that was given to me by Southern Baptist soldier in Bagram prison. And it is an American military Bible, it's kind of got like a combat colors on it. And he gave it to me thinking that perhaps I might become a Christian. But I read it to strengthen my faith, and also to point out to him that there are some similarities and differences. But in the end, even though you may think

of the Trinity, for example, we as here in the Bible, you can see repeatedly Jesus talks about the one God, the one creator, being the son of man, referring to all human beings, as the Bible does in various aspects to as the sons of God and so forth. So there was this kind of theological thing I tried to explain to them. But of course, it was, there was some of the prisoners who were quite upset seeing me read the Bible for thinking, Oh, why are you entertaining that but I said, Look, this is inspired by Allah by God, and we are from the same direction. So

remember, we were in a place that had the Afghan Mujahideen had become famous for fighting communists who didn't believe in anything. So of course, there's always been a place at which there's been where Muslims and people of faith will come together. Look, for example, in China, what's happening right now to the weavers that somebody just now told me that, you know, with the Americans, it was brutal, and the war on terrorism has been brutal, and there's no doubt about that. But with China, it's far, far worse because what you've got is people who don't believe in a faith at all of government that don't believe in any faith completely atheistic trying to force and remove

the faith from the hearts of the weaker people. So when I took So here, we there's a confluence between us and we a convergence rather, between us and people have looked at the

including these conservatives, who are Christians and so forth, that this isn't necessary. This isn't about Islam, or you hating Islam. This is about are you true to your faith? Are you true to your principles of your faith? Are you true to the principles? You know, after all the Koran says, All people have the book you are, you're nothing, unless you hold on to the principles of the books that you follow. And that's that that's it. That is it, isn't it? If we followed if the world followed the principles, the divine principles of the Creator, then we, by necessity would be better people more have more color, more God consciousness we all would have.

And I've heard many, many people say that it's that I don't have a problem with somebody who disagrees with me or my religion and thinks their religion is better. Just hold on to yours. Be true to yours, but don't allow greed and animosity, and arrogance.

to dominate you, just because you happen to come from a country that's more powerful. Don't let that happen.

Yeah, that's a great reminder for the people who say they love Jesus, where if you follow him, he says, Love your neighbor as you love yourself, right? So he's preaching and teaching this message, as you say, of love. So where's the love when you torturing someone, and you're doing the most unjust things to them, and but what has caused you now to be so forgiving?

You know, that first that verse I kept on coming across the board, I mentioned, oh, evil, believe Santa was just witnesses for a lot of God, and do not allow your animosity or hatred of the people to to allow you to do them and injustice be just that is closer to God consciousness. I forgive those who sought forgiveness from me, I don't have the right to forgive those who abused somebody else other than me. But that's not my right. And so I, I forgive anybody who's asked for it, and I will embrace them. I'm happy for it.

And that's been that's been my practice. But just as passionately, I hold to account, governments, states, individuals, organizations, who've been involved in these abuses.

And it's important because in the pursuit of peace requires justice. It requires a balance, it requires offsetting, if you don't do that, then what you get is, is torturers. You get organizations that in the name of different religions, and different ideologies, will do things to get vengeance, not in the name of that ideology. I mean, nobody would say that in the name of democracy, we have bombed and killed over a million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so forth. Did you? Was that done in the name of democracy? democracy claim that as its price? Of course not. And in the same way, when people have killed in the name of Islam or in Christianity or Judaism,

those ideologies are free from that, generally, but when people are aggrieved, that's what they do. They walk outside of the principles that they claim to follow. And unfortunately, the rest of us get to see it.

What message do you have for those out there who are trying to live Islam, you know, they have the dunya open up for them, this whole worldly life, some are going away from making Salah, reading on living a morally upright life trying to you know, imitate the people, you know, who are out there, they shouldn't be imitating the rappers, you know, the musicians and now they're hearing your stories touching their heart, you know, because they're taking things for granted. They're taking their Deen for granted. What advice do you have for people like that? So I'm going to just without actually advising, I'm just going to tell you a little story and probably take from it what you wish

it would be pretty obvious.

I was when I was first taken into US military custody. I was taken by American soldiers and put onto a C 130 transport plane forced down, a strap was put across my legs, my my ankles were shackled. My hands were tied down my back and a strap was put right between my hands. So I was you probably seen some of those images of Guantanamo prisoners. And then there was a hood of my head. Now I noticed I couldn't see him because I've got this hood is that there's the sounds of the of the engines of the plane. There's dogs barking, soldiers swearing at us, people, prisoners screaming in pain. It was really a terrible situation to be. But look at this. This is the Lord sending somebody to remind you

of who you are even at this point. So by my left, I noticed that I wanted I knew there was somebody and I said Santa Monica. He said what? So he said Salaam Alaikum. I said well let them sit up. And it turns out that he's a Libyan guy. He's also a prisoner. Of what he says to me.

He says

Brother, as he helps in late this allotted model,

have you prayed your sunset prep?

And that just blew me away? I thought, wow. I'm thinking whether I'm going to live or die. What are these people? What are they going to do to us? I don't know what we're in that we're walking into the abyss here. And this guy is reminding me of a verse in the Quran, which says, verily, prayer was prescribed at its fixed times, Muslims, everybody knows we've prayed fixed times in the solid, Canada and Medina Keep in mind,

I said, I haven't prayed. I didn't even think about prayer. Praying was the last thing on my mind.

And he said, I think the time for prayer is cumbre. Let's pray. Now anybody who knows how Muslims pray, we pray in a particular way you raise our hands, we bow we prostrate, we sit in between, it's a fixed thing. We turn our heads.

We recite certain verses and prayers.

At this point, some American soldier notice that we're talking so he comes over to the the soldier and he puts a knife to my throat. And he says, If you speak again, I'll slit your throat.

That's really funny, right? But at this point, just as he said that, the Libyan guy on my side said, Allahu Akbar.

And he started to recite the prayer, the Lord's Prayer, as it were, that we know, in fact, they had all the opening, he started to preside. So now I'm in a state of prayer, I don't care whether that knocks at my throat.

In fact, if I die in this situation, that would be the best way for me to die in this way.

So that's how I performed my first prayer in US military custody.

hands tied, would have my head, legs shackled, screamed up now that my throat so as people you know, when you say you, you're not praying, what what's your excuse? You don't have an excuse. The only people who could have stopped the only person, the only human being that can stop you from prayers you.

Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Is there any other advice or anything else you want to leave us with? Go right ahead. Just only to you know, if you want to know more about the work that I do campaigning work that I do the we're still fighting for the rights of prisoners in Guantanamo, the rights of Muslims who have been targeted under various various anti terror legislation, and Islamophobia and so forth. And also the hand of stretching out to others and opening dialogue and discussion rather than war and hatred, please visit visit cage dot

NGO. That's my organization on the Outreach Director. And I pray that Allah grants you all that is good and success and defends you and protects you from all that isn't.

Thank you very much. Just go ahead May God Almighty Allah reward you recompense you for all of the tests and trials that you've you've gone through my pleasure, absolute pleasure, salami, Chrome Tomcat.

Alright guys, so this is a very lot could be said here from this interview, is very sad to see any human being, I mean, on both ends, you know, the innocent human beings that died. Such an evil event that happened on 911. You know, we were very sad for the family members, everybody who's experienced this, and the same time innocent people who were accused of crimes that they didn't commit. So it goes back to being just you know, this is beautiful verse in the Quran that talks about being just as at Harvard University is there it's on the wall. And it talks about, you know, being just so if you're a politician, if you're somebody in has some authority, somebody who can press a button, and

by pressing that button, you can go ahead and destroy 1000s of people's lives. Why would you do that if you're a God conscious person, if you have any humanity left in you. So hopefully, this can wake up some of the humanity and never forget, never forget that we're here for a short amount of time, that God Almighty, the creator, Allah created us for a purpose. What's the purpose? Go ahead and ask him directly alone and ask me ask him, ask him to guide you, guide you as those people who are guiding who were actually watching over this oppose a terrorist there who were exonerated and free to go. And they ended up also coming to submission as credit to the one creator that has an earth

because they were sincerely seeking and they were looking at these people who are in such a horrific situation, but they had some contentment and peace, and their faith was increasing. But they were out there drinking, partying, and they were miserable, and you're probably miserable, too. And now you're projecting that hate onto a group of people who want nothing but the best for you, who want guidance for you who really want

Want because they love for humanity what they love for themselves and they get that for Islam. So make the human connection. I, I adore you to go ahead and call us if you have any questions for the questions, one 800 662 Islam, pick up the carotid, read it for yourself visit a mosque, because we have enough hate in the world. We have enough people dividing us. Let's go ahead and unite united the worship of one and only one creator and do what their Creator wants us to do to spread peace amongst ourselves in this world and not hate and not evil and corruption. So go ahead and do something noble with your life instead of wrecking havoc and spreading misinformation and fear. So

go ahead, and we'll see you next time here on the D show. Subscribe if you haven't already, hit that notification bell and we'll see you next time until then. Peace be with you. Salaam Nick