Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi columnist Princess Basma bint Saud bin Abd Al-Aziz Aal Saud, which aired on ANB TV on February 17, 2012:

Princess Basma bint Saud bin Abd Al-Aziz Aal Saud: The question that I ask myself now is how come the Islamist movement has arisen in all our countries. It is a very strange phenomenon that the Islamic movement is the only one capable of…

Interviewer: But this phenomenon is logical, isn't it?

Princess Basma bint Saud bin Abd Al-Aziz Aal Saud: In what way?

Interviewer: Because the Islamist opposition was the official, organized against the former regimes. When these regimes fell, along came the ready-made opposition. That was the case regarding the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in Tunisia, and in Morocco [sic].

Princess Basma bint Saud bin Abd Al-Aziz Aal Saud: True, but is this what the citizen really wants? That is the question. What the citizens hope to achieve through the revolutions is civil power – the power of the individual, of the people, and of democracy. That is what we are hearing – that these revolutions brought democracy, so that the people would have a voice.

Does the people really want the Islamist movement in its present form, in which it spreads terror throughout the world with its extremism? This is what we are seeing today in the websites and messages of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Morocco, and even in Jordan today.

The messages we are hearing are not at all reassuring, because they do not belong to moderate Islam. They are a call to extremist Islam, which has nothing to do with [true] Islam. The Prophet Muhammad brought moderation. Other religions, which exited prior to Islam, became extremist to a terrifying degree. That was why the Prophet of the Islamic nation came – in order to convey a moderate monotheistic message.

Is what we are seeing today a moderate Islam? What we are seeing and hearing today about the agendas of the Salafis, the Islamists, and the Enlightened – are they moderate? In my personal opinion, they are not moderate. Instead, they are turning toward religious extremism, which suppress freedom of any kind, even if it is called by another name.

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