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. Interviewer: WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE SEVENTEEN YOUNG MEN BEING ARRESTED? WHAT DID YOU THINK, WERE YOU SURPRISED?
Muhammad Heft: I guess I wasn't really surprised. I knew especially the last few years that CSIS and the RCMP obviously with their big budget and the way they were questioning the Muslim community, they were obviously looking and trying to be vigilant in the way they were keeping an eye on the way things are going in the Muslim community, especially pertaining to people who might be with the extremist ideologies.
So, I wasn't really surprised. And knowing some of the people and what they were saying, I thought to myself, at least they're the perfect scapegoats, whether or not they're guilty of it, God only knows, but definitely there was a mentality problem within some of the individuals.
Interviewer: YOU KNEW ONE OF THE BOYS [FAHIM] THAT WERE FIGHTING QUITE WELL BECAUSE…
Muhammad Heft: I wouldn't say quite well. I've debated him before on the topic of Jihad and he's come to one of our classes before and I've bumped into him several times but, I knew his ideas because many of the brothers that are with our organization [P4E Support Group] had had contact with him and knew his views very well. So I, I knew what he was, what he was talking about.
Interviewer: SO THE DEBATE THAT YOU DEBATED ON, WHAT WAS THE CONTEXT OF THAT?
Muhammad Heft: Well, he was just believing that it was permissible and it was a, what we call a martyrdom operation of September eleventh, and I was telling him that it hasn't even been proven that September eleventh was actually done by nineteen hijackers. That was just the alleged story of the U.S. government. All I tried to explain to him is whoever did it was wrong…His view was that, he had a DVD he was handing out, that it was glorifying the nineteen alleged individuals, that they were all Shuhada or died as martyrs, and they were and involved in a successful martyrdom operation and that was something to be praised…
And then I started to just talk to him about how we haven't even proven that the people who had actually did it were Muslims. It's only the alleged nineteen, and then I told him plus we don't believe it's permissible in Islam, and then he just started talking about Jihad and what's going on over the world and I agree with him that the Muslims are having battles all over the world in legitimate oppression and there's legitimate reasons to fight Jihad in some places in the world, but it wasn't legitimate for us to bring our grievances to the civilians here in North America. And so we argued back and forth, and I was basically trying to be nice to him, hoping to win him over because I had already known his beliefs through some of my friends who have talked to him.
Interviewer: AND YOU WERE DEBATING FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, LIKE DID ANYONE COME UP AND SAY, TAKE HIM ON?
Muhammad Heft: No, there was, a few of our guys there and we were just, there was about fifteen people and there was only about a group of five or six there that were debating, but other people were sort of moving away because they got scared.
A lot of people don't trust CSIS. They, they think that CSIS is going
to set them up or make up a story about them, so they didn't want
to be standing there
listening …
Interviewer: SO, WHAT ABOUT THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY GENERALLY? YOU SAID TO ME YOU THINK THEY ARE IN DENIAL. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY ARE IN DENIAL ABOUT?
Muhammad Heft: Denial that the possibility exists of these guys having extreme mentalities and actually wanting to follow through with something. And I think it just, they just assume that the kids are growing up here in Canada, they're going to be okay, even though we don't spend the time educating them about their religion. I don't think that the parents understand what they're up against when they send their kids to public schools because most of the Muslims here are first generation, so they actually were educated overseas, and the schools here, they've sent their children to are, are completely different.
Interviewer: AND WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENS TO THEM IN THOSE SCHOOLS?
Muhammad Heft: Well, a lot of them lose their religion and, and some of them actually come back. They end up finding their religion much like a convert. They actually revert back to the straight path and what happens is they see themselves after they start praying as possibly a community leader, because the majority of Muslims don't pray five times a day.
What happens to them is they get a little bit arrogant, they start to think that they're a leader, they don't have much knowledge, and then they end up starting to spread that, you know, possibly their own ideas rather than the ideas of what the traditional scholars have already laid out for us."
So, once they start to practice a little bit what happens to them is they get a little bit arrogant, they start to think that they're a leader, they don't have much knowledge, and then they end up starting to spread that, you know, possibly their own ideas rather than the ideas of what the traditional scholars have already laid out for us.
The vast majority Wahabis are law-abiding citizens. But, the mentality does come from their do-it-yourself Islam…
Interviewer: WHAT ABOUT MUBIN SHAIKH? HOW HAVE THEY RESPONDED TO HIM AND WHAT WAS YOUR
FEELING ABOUT WHAT HE DID?
Muhammad Heft: I support him in his view wanting to keep Canada safe, but the fact that
he took payment for it really undermines his integrity in the Muslim community
because they're always going to question whether he did it for money
and whether he actually pushed these guys to do it.
Whereas, if he did it for free, then people might have said okay, well maybe he was really doing it for the sake of God, and he really put himself on the line without any monetary gain, and so I just feel that he would have been better off not taking any money.
I have been cooperating with authorities in Canadian government for a few years but only in keeping Canada safe, but at the same time, I called them to Islam and I have my integrity.
If CSIS does something wrong, I'm not going to defend them. I still believe it's quite possible that this whole story was made up. I believe there could be somebody on the inside, but if I was an employee for CSIS, I couldn't tell you that.
Interviewer: I ACCEPT THAT BUT SOME PEOPLE DID TRY TO CHANGE, CERTAINLY FAHIM'S
MENTALITY, YOU DID.
Muhammad Heft: Yeah, no, I understand but I mean, maybe the timing was wrong. If Fahim
was really planning on doing something, I'm in support of them arresting
him. What I'm not in support of is somebody sitting in a circle and
listening to what Fahim is saying without correcting him.
Interviewer: YOU SAID IT'S NOT YOUR COUNTRY. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?
Muhammad Heft: I just mean that the values that I carry as a Muslim, maybe some Canadians share some of our values but the vast majority of Muslim values are not carried by all Canadians.
We don't believe in gambling, drinking alcohol, premarital sex, we don't believe in homosexuality, and some of these things are being passed in the government as being legal.
However, we have the choice of leaving the country and living in a country where shares more of our morals and values, so I don't think you're going to see me as the Prime Minister of Canada any time soon because the vast majority of Canada, doesn't actually believe that we're following what they would consider to be the best way of life.
Interviewer: YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU THINK THERE'S A DANGER FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING DOING ABOUT THIS, ABOUT THE DANGER OF YOUNG PEOPLE BEING CORRUPTED IN THIS FASHION?
Muhammad Heft: Well, we have halakat [religious educational circles] now. We try to run monthly conferences, but our intention is to open a centre for youth allowing them a place where they can come, they can learn, they can have things, we call it a place to stay, a friend, moral support, financial support if they need it, but more importantly, the basic Islamic teaching is to keep them away from extremists…
There's very few organizations that have places open to the youth and if they do have them open to the youth, they only let them play basketball but they're not teaching them…they're just trying to sort of distract them with the entertainment of Canadian society, whether it be video games or sports, but we should combine the two.
Runs:
41:45