Dr. Tawfik Hamid explains that Jihadism directly emanates from petro-Islam, i.e., the increase of wealth of Saudi Arabia and their promotion of Wahabism and Salafism (from the late 1970's), and not the existence of Israel, established in 1948 without inspiring a global Jihad phenomenon.
When he was in medical school, Dr. Hamid was himself an early participant in an Egyptian terrorist group, along with Dr. Zawaheri, now the #2 man in Al Qaeda. Here he is interviewed on the British show, "The Critic's Corner" about his book, "The Roots of Jihad."
Born in Egypt to a secular Muslim family, Tawfik Hamid joined the extremist Islamic group Jamma'a Islameia, when he was a student in medical school. In his studies he was learning to heal, but in his thoughts, as he says, he "dreamed to die for Allah and to share in terrorist acts." His colleague in these formative days of the terror movement was Dr. Al Zawaheri, then an acquaintance with whom Tawfik used to pray, and now the number 2 person of Al Qaeda.
Eventually Dr. Hamid questioned the hatred and impulses to violence that participation in extremist Islam was fomenting within him. He became a physician, specializing now in medical education, and also a scholar of Islamic texts. When he began to preach in Mosques to promote a message of peace instead of violence and hatred, however, he himself became a target of the Islamic extremists who had been his friends. They threatened his life, forcing him and his family to flee Egypt, and then Saudi Arabia. As Dr. Hamid says "The powers of darkness were overwhelming and I was forced to emigrate with my family to the West seeking freedom."
Dr. Hamid appears at Pepperdine University on February 13th.
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