Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on May 22, 2011.
Hazem Shuman: "Brothers, in all the raids of the Prophet Muhammad – in the course of ten years – less than a thousand polytheists were killed. Consider what the non-Muslims have done, so you can appreciate the compassion of Islam. The Torah describes the wars waged by the Jews, and mentions the number of non-Jews killed: 1,650,000 dead.
"What about the Christians? Only in the last century, the Catholics in Europe killed 250 million non-Muslims. That's a quarter of a billion people. In World War I, 15 million were killed. The [Christians] killed one another. The large countries – England and France – did it, civilized countries, which the secularists want us to learn from. In World War II, 55 million were killed, while there were only 15 millions soldiers. So 40 million were civilians, killed brutally, indiscriminately, and without mercy.
"When the U.S. bombed Romania, it killed 50,000. When it bombed Germany, it killed 600,000. When it bombed Japan, it killed one and a half million. When it bombed Vietnam, it killed three million.
"When the Americans reached the two Americas and encountered the Indians, historians say that they killed between 15 to 100 million human beings. It reached the point that they would bet among themselves who split an Indian's body into two with a single blow of the sword. They would bet who could give an Indian an 'artistic' blow of the sword that would make his guts spill out of his stomach. Imagine that they did such things to the Indians in the two Americas.
"The same year they discovered America, [Muslim] Andalusia fell. What did they do to the Muslims in the Inquisition courts? This is in addition to those killed by the Inquisition courts, those killed by the Italians in Libya, those killed by the French in Algeria, and those killed by the British in Palestine – not to mention giving Palestine to the Jews, as if it belonged to them. If you want to give something to the Jews, give them land in Britain, your own country. Why are you giving them part of our land?
"I'm not counting those killed by the Serbs in Czechoslovakia, Bosnia, and Sarajevo. There are many more I haven't counted, such as those killed in the seven Crusades. Brothers, if we could only calculate what they did…
"In the German civil war between Catholics and Protestants, 11 million were killed. In the Spanish civil war, one and a half million were killed. In the Russian civil war, ten million were killed. In the French civil war, four million were killed.
"These are all cases of Christians, non-Muslims, killing one another. So just think how tolerant and merciful our religion is. […]
"[In the 1960s], Charles De Gaulle held a dialogue with [Saudi] King Faisal. French President Charles De Gaulle told King Faisal that the Jews have a right to Palestine because they lived there 4,000 years ago. King Faisal told him that in that case, France belongs to Rome, because 3,000 years ago, the Romans were in France. Does every country that occupies another country [have a right to it]? Palestine is the country of the Palestinians, who have lived there since the day God created it. If every country belonged to the people who entered it, no country in the world would belong to its people.
"[De Gaulle] said: But some Jews were born in Palestine, and therefore, it is their country. [King Faisal] asked: How many embassies are there in France? [De Gaulle] said: 150 embassies. [King Faisal] asked: "What if every ambassador or embassy worker whose wife gives birth in France were to demand that France belong to him because his children were born in France? France would be lost to you.
"Charles De Gaulle was speechless, and he was so convinced by what King Faisal said that he banned the sale of arms to the Jews in those days. Brothers, dialogue is the solution." […]
