Former Radical Dr. Tawfik Hamid: A Look ‘Inside Jihad’

Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a physician and former radical Islamist, author of “Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam,” dispelled the myth that all jihadists come from the impoverished, or uneducated fringes of Muslim society today as a guest on Breitbart News Daily.

Hamid discusses his conversion to radical Islam as a medical student and his occasional meetings with al Qaeda leader-to-be, Ayman al-Zawahiri, when he was still a promising doctor.

During the interview with host Stephen K. Bannon, Hamid also explains he abandonded radical Islam after he was recruited to kidnap an Egyptian police officer and bury him alive beside a mosque. Hamid says his “human conscience” rejected the idea and told him “something was wrong here,” as far as the interpretation of Islam he had come to embrace.

Hamid looks at jihad from the inside out, explaining the 13 steps, or “tactics” employed along the road to radicalization from productive member of society, to jihadist when “one’s desire to serve God is misdirected.”

“You think, as a young Muslim, that by doing this you are serving God because of the religious teaching and the religious authorities that teaches you such barbaric values as an integral part of the religion,” said Hamid. “You go through brainwashing tactics that includes  suppression of your critical thinking, that includes creation of hatred toward the others,” he added.

Hamid points out that the root causes of radical Islam are in fact embedded within the religion and are being taught by the bulk of “mainstream” Islamic teachers, as that’s where most of the funding can be found. At the same time, he discusses reform movements and cites the Internet as key in empowering younger Muslims to reject the well-funded traditional branch of the religion that fuels extremism.

“The West has failed to address this issue in an unbiased manner,” insists Hamid, in large part owing to political correctness, which prevents basically all serious discussion, or criticism of Islam.

The entire in depth and highly informative interview can be heard below. Hamid maintains his own website here: TawfikHamid.com.