Mr. Daniel Pipes, welcome to our interview for A9 TV channel.
If you come to the point where we have clashes in the Middle East,
what is the root of the problem right now, if you go deep into the history?
My understanding is that the Christian-Muslim relationship in pre-modern times,
the first 1,000 years from 600 to 1600, was particularly difficult.
Had modernity not come from Europe, but for example from China,
it would have been a lot easier for Middle East Muslims to adopt modern ways.
But it came from Europe, and that was a painful experience.
And certainly the Ottoman Empire would be a good example.
Just very reluctant to learn from Europe.
Whereas, say, Japan, they were eager to learn from Europe.
There was no hesitation.
But the legacy of difficult Christian-Muslim relations made it difficult from the start.
So, for example, in Istanbul, if I remember correctly,
the first printed book using printing technology was in 1495 in Hebrew.
The first Turkish printed book was in 1825, 330 years later.
And that's a symbol of the reluctance, the difficulty in learning from Europe.
And that, I see, is ultimately the cause for the volatility and the difficulties that the Middle East is going through today.
I see anti-Semitism, which is a focus on Jews as the danger to the world, especially evil, as being a Christian phenomenon,
coming out of the nature of Christianity, the very complex relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
It is not a Muslim phenomenon.
Muslims traditionally, pre-modern Muslims, didn't pay much attention to Judaism or to Christianity or to Hinduism.
Weren't interested. Didn't know about it. Not interested.
Saw these as incomplete religions of not great interest.
It was only about two centuries ago, with the introduction of European ideas, Christian European ideas, to the Middle East,
that one saw the beginnings of anti-Semitism in the Middle East.
The specific date is 1840 and the Damascus affair.
It grew and it grew. And so now, because of Israel, Zionism, the Middle East is the center of anti-Semitism.
But I see it as, I hope, a temporary phenomenon due to circumstances that is not part of the Islamic religion.
It is an import from Europe. And I hope with time when that import no longer fills a need, that it will reduce, its role be reduced and it will more or less disappear.
If their understanding, the extremist understanding is like that, away from the understanding, the democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, of any view, as it is mentioned in the Quran.
If the ideology of such extremists are away from the message of the Quran, then, as you said, it will be an extreme environment for any kind of people, away from democratic values.
Extremism is extremism, yes. I do see an evolution in Islamism. On the one hand, a phenomenon like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Shabab, Boko Haram, extreme, extreme, extreme.
On the other hand, the emergence of individuals and groups that are much more moderate. I mean, they're still Islamists, but they're more moderate.
I used to think that Islamism had to be a totalitarian ideology. Now I see it doesn't really have to be. I mean, again, using the communist analogy, it used to be Stalin and Mao and the like.
Now it's modern Vietnam and modern China. These are not the same. It's communist still, but it's not. It's not really communist. It's changed. You can live a decent life in China now in a way you could not under Mao.
And I think there's the possibility of the evolution of Islamism into something that is not as radical and extreme as what it has been in the past.
If you think about the fabricated sayings of Prophet Muhammad, fabricated hadith, let's call it, is causing this radical ideology, the dark mindset of terrorists.
If we get rid of all those and the pure message of Quran will be left as it was lived in the time of Prophet Muhammad, will that be a peaceful environment, Islam as it is to be?
I certainly think that the hadith, which are huge in number, hundreds of thousands of them, create the opportunity for a more extreme understanding of Islam. Yes.
Yes. And de-emphasizing the hadith is probably a good step forward.
I think modern historians have shown that the hadith emerged in the third century history in response to the needs of the time.
And we're the Sil Sila, they're not really serious.
Yeah.