Q: Imam Hy­dal, are you of the opin­ion that Trinidad and To­ba­go is in dan­ger of be­ing run over by Is­lam­ic ex­trem­ists?

A: (Paus­ing a few sec­onds at the Port-of-Spain cham­bers of an at­tor­ney on Thurs­day morn­ing) Well, I am not too sure about con­sid­er­ing it...

OK. Be­fore you com­plete your re­sponse, can you give us a few of the ba­sic fun­da­men­tals of Is­lam?

Very well. There are five pil­lars of Is­lam: faith in Al­lah an un­seen God, prayer, fast­ing dur­ing the month of Ra­madan, pil­grim­age to Mec­ca (ha­jj) and char­i­ty. We be­lieve in the Holy Prophet Muham­mad-up­on whom be peace-is the last mes­sen­ger of God that was sent to mankind.

There are sev­er­al Is­lam­ic groups com­pet­ing for turf, as it were in Trinidad and To­ba­go as is in­deed the rest of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Doesn't this give the im­pres­sion that the faith is not re­al­ly unit­ed?

It is com­plete­ly unit­ed in the sense of an or­gan­i­sa­tion, it is unit­ed in terms of its phi­los­o­phy and every­body un­der­stands its ba­sic tenets as I have pro­vid­ed a while ago. But one of the prob­lems (fur­rowed brow) with the his­to­ry of Is­lam in this coun­try is that when our fore­fa­thers came here they came from In­dia. Their knowl­edge of and prac­tice of Is­lam ac­cord­ing to the In­di­an tra­di­tion is what had been hand­ed down to us.

In re­cent years, Ra­bi­ta (a Sau­di Ara­bia-based in­ter­na­tion­al Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tion) held a con­fer­ence and a num­ber of young Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have gone to that coun­try in or­der to learn Ara­bic in par­tic­u­lar. And hav­ing come back with their new­ly ac­quired knowl­edge, each one seems to think they know Is­lam bet­ter than the oth­ers, so that some of the old­er Imams who have been trained around that gen­er­a­tion who came from In­dia, some­times are ig­nored even though they have the ex­pe­ri­ence.

You said the faith­ful are unit­ed in the ba­sic tenets of Is­lam, so how come some groups take a more ag­gres­sive stance some­times tak­ing up arms and so on in the name of Al­lah, and oth­er Mus­lims say the Ko­ran does not pro­vide for that kind of vi­o­lent ac­tion?

This re­lates to what I just said. Our fore­fa­thers came from In­dia with a very docile Is­lam in the sense that those who went to the Mid­dle East met cer­tain groups who are very mil­i­tant in their un­der­stand­ing of Is­lam, in a very im­por­tant as­pect of Is­lam known as Ji­had. But our view is that the ma­jor­i­ty of Mus­lims in Trinidad and To­ba­go ac­cept that Ji­had means a strug­gle, an in­ter­nal strug­gle for us to achieve bet­ter­ment of our spir­i­tu­al val­ues and so on.

Oth­ers ar­gue that Ji­had could al­so mean the phys­i­cal and some­times vi­o­lent ac­tion in de­fense of their re­li­gion or per­ceived per­se­cu­tion?

Yes. I was com­ing to that. That is a less­er Ji­had in the sense that it is not true Ji­had but peo­ple, be­cause of per­se­cu­tion in the Mid­dle East, that has be­come the fore­front of Ji­had. It has been used as a weapon par­tic­u­lar­ly to fight against those whom they feel have op­pressed them.

But does the Ko­ran give them the right to take up arms to over­throw a de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment?

The Ko­ran gives you the right to de­fend your­self with arms but it does not give you the right to over­throw any gov­ern­ment. It ab­hors re­bel­lion. I say that in my Khut­ba (ser­mon) every Fri­day and Mus­lims will de­fend them­selves in what­ev­er way. In the days of the Prophet it might have been the sword but in to­day's world bombs and guns are be­ing used.

Does your or­gan­i­sa­tion sanc­tion that as­pect of de­fend­ing your re­li­gion?

No we do not, def­i­nite­ly don't, be­cause we be­lieve the Ji­had of this age is with the pen and that is why I do so much of writ­ing and host a ra­dio pro­gramme.

Get­ting back to the first ques­tion, I was view­ing a pro­gramme on the IBN net­work last night and the ques­tion asked was whether this coun­try was a breed­ing ground for ex­trem­ists, and sur­pris­ing­ly the ma­jor­i­ty of callers said yes. Do you share that view?

(An­oth­er con­tem­pla­tive pause) I have had ex­pe­ri­ence in 1983, when we had a con­ven­tion in Mara­bel­la and four bombs went off, 14 peo­ple were in­jured so there­fore I know what it is to feel that kind of vi­o­lence. No­body has been held. We have our sus­pi­cions but noth­ing came out if it. In 1985, a Mus­lim mis­sion­ary who came here from the In­ter­na­tion­al Ah­madiyya move­ment was as­sas­si­nat­ed in Freeport. Noth­ing came out of that al­so. My feel­ing is that if full in­ves­ti­ga­tions were done in­to those two in­ci­dents, 1990 may not have come about. I felt that was the train­ing ground for what would come lat­er.

With­out in any way try­ing to pro­nounce on the guilt or in­no­cence of those de­tained, are you sur­prised over the threat on the lives of the Prime Min­is­ter and some of her Cab­i­net mem­bers?

With my own ex­pe­ri­ence which I have just re­lat­ed, I wouldn't say I was sur­prised. What I am sur­prised about is try­ing to un­der­stand the mo­tive. In the case of 1983, I un­der­stand what would have prompt­ed those bomb at­tacks be­cause there were Is­lam­ic sects who were to­tal­ly against us. I how­ev­er, feel such an act to­wards the State must have some po­lit­i­cal mo­tives but I can­not say def­i­nite­ly un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed.

One the­o­ry is that Mus­lim schol­ars from In­dia and Pak­istan have or are in­flu­enc­ing the growth of Mus­lim mil­i­tants or ex­trem­ists in this coun­try?

(A doubt­ful coun­te­nance) I am not of that opin­ion be­cause most of our schol­ars go to the Mid­dle East, not to In­dia or Pak­istan.

Don't we have schol­ars from In­dia and Pak­istan com­ing here?

Very rare. The con­nec­tion I feel is more in the Mid­dle East.

Have you drawn this to the at­ten­tion of the lo­cal au­thor­i­ties?

(Shrug­ging his shoul­ders) They do not lis­ten to us. For ex­am­ple, when the mat­ter of the IRO came up.

What pre­cise­ly was that?

Since 1986, we ap­plied to the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion and we were told in no un­cer­tain terms that we were not Mus­lims among oth­er rea­sons that they came up with, and that if we were ad­mit­ted oth­er Mus­lim groups would pull out of the IRO. A sort of apartheid rul­ing as far as we're con­cerned. We ap­plied twice af­ter that with the same re­sult.

How come if you prac­tice the five fun­da­men­tals of Is­lam you are not con­sid­ered as Mus­lims in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

It has to do with ide­o­log­i­cal rea­sons. You see our founder had in­di­cat­ed he had re­ceived a rev­e­la­tion from God and some peo­ple be­lieve he claimed to be a prophet which he de­nied in 1890. Sec­ond­ly, the thing that caused the re­al prob­lem is that he had stat­ed he was the sec­ond com­ing or the re­turn of Christ that he came in the spir­it of Christ. The Mus­lims in this coun­try be­lieve that Christ is alive and he would come back. We do not sub­scribe to that.

And you are not go­ing to change that be­lief in or­der to be ful­ly ac­cept­ed by your fel­low Mus­lims?

Oh, I am sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly mind­ed. As long as some­body is dead they can­not come back. (Chuck­ling) It has not hap­pened in the his­to­ry of mankind. It is just not pos­si­ble.

A con­tentious is­sue in Is­lam is the un­equal treat­ment of women par­tic­u­lar­ly in this age of gen­der equal­i­ty. Women are not al­lowed to pray to­geth­er with the men in cer­tain mosques?

Well, we do not sub­scribe to that po­si­tion at all and that is one of the things they have been against us for; and in our mosques there are no bar­ri­ers. We mix, we in­ter­min­gle, and we have func­tions in which they par­tic­i­pate. In fact, the pres­i­dent of our or­gan­i­sa­tion is a woman.

Imam Hy­dal, I am hear­ing some un­der­ground grum­blings about strong dif­fer­ences, to use a mild term, in the prac­tice of Is­lam be­tween Afro-Tri­nis and In­do-Tri­ni Mus­lims?

Clevon, you must un­der­stand that Afro-Tri­nis were con­vert­ed in­to Is­lam, it is not that they were born in­to Is­lam and like in any oth­er re­li­gion once you are con­vert­ed you be­come a zealot.

Are you sure you don't want to change that rather strong word?

It is a very strong word, yes, but that is what has led to what we are see­ing to­day...the 1990 is­sue. That is what has led...Be­cause if you look back care­ful­ly, you would see all of them are con­verts and even what we are see­ing now they are con­verts to Is­lam, many of them. They went to shed off all that they have learn from Chris­tian­i­ty. They want to make sure they be­come more zeal­ous rather than zealots if you want to use that word.

You are aware Imam, that this might open up a hor­net's nest?

I am a con­tro­ver­sial per­son (laughs aloud) so I have no prob­lems with that. And what I see and hear on the ra­dio and tele­vi­sion pro­grammes in this coun­try is not what I would do as a Mus­lim. We are peace­ful peo­ple and we try to live in per­fect har­mo­ny with oth­ers.