Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheik Da'i Al-Islam Al-Shahhal, which aired on ANB TV on September 27, 2007:

Sheik Da'i Al-Islam Al-Shahhal: This is the problem with the media. Even if I say 200,000 times that these [terrorist] acts are wrong, and that targeting civilians and innocent people is wrong, will this resolve the problem? The thing that may resolve these problems is stopping the injustice inflicted upon the [Islamic] nation, conducting dialogue, and giving this nation at least some of its rights. But this does not happen and there is total injustice. You and others are always asking me about [the bombings] in London, Berlin, New York, and so on. Why don't you ask if this injustice against the Islamic nation will ever cease, so that [Muslim] youth will no longer be used wrongly for such operations? Whoever drives in the nail should be held responsible.

Interviewer: In the West, they raise questions about this. In the West, they say that someone born in Britain has nothing to do with the injustices inflicted upon people in Yemen. They raise significant questions with regard to Islam in this matter.

Sheik Da'i Al-Islam Al-Shahhal: The problem is that some people think that Islam is like the racial or nationalist ideologies, or that it is materialistic, like they sometimes accuse the Islamic public. This is not true. Perhaps deprivation and social injustice play a certain role, but the main issue is this great religion, which the Muslims glorify. The sanctity of the Prophet Muhammad is violated from time to time at the highest levels and with the support of the top leaders in the West. This is what is happening now in Sweden, and what happened before in Denmark, Belgium, and elsewhere.

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The Muslim cannot accept such things. If it is forbidden to make anti-Semitic remarks, shouldn't it be forbidden to talk against the greatest prophet and man in history, as any reasonable person would admit?

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Whoever knows the difference between Sunni Islam and Shiite Iranian Islam knows that it is only natural for that so-called Iranian Islam to desert Sunni Islam. It is only natural. The experts anticipate such a thing. I, and others like me, do not expect the Khomeinistic Islam to act justly towards Sunni Islam, let alone to support it.