Bradley: What would you say to people in this country who, looking at what happened in the Middle East, would associate Islam with fanaticism, with terrorism?
Faisal: Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. That's just as absurd as associating Hitler with Christianity, or David Koresh with Christianity. There are always people who will do peculiar things, and think that they are doing things in the name of their religion. But the Koran is... God says in the Koran that they think that they are doing right, but they are doing wrong.
Bradley: There are now more than six million Muslims in the United States, more than the number of Episcopalians, or Lutherans, or Methodists, or Presbyterians. Islam is now this country's fastest-growing religion. After Friday’s service, we talked with some members of the al-Farah mosque. So the average American, if you say "Islam," what do they think?
Congregant: When I think trouble... The average? The average American, they think trouble, terrorism. Terrorism, yes. Fear. And you know what? I think all of us wish to speak to all... Every American and tell them, hey, we are American, and we're Muslims. We're not terrorism.
Bradley: Explain for someone who doesn't know, who doesn't understand your religion in the simplest term.
Congregant: in the simplest term, Islam says that human life is the most sacrosanct, and there is no way that Islam would allow a suicide mission, and would allow the killing of innocents.
Congregant: Islam means a submission to god. It also means peace to a lot of people, which is what it means to me. "Islamic terrorism": I mean, those two words have no meaning to me as a Muslim.
Bradley: But Muslim terrorists, in the name of Islam, have struck against the United States time and time again. Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in these latest attacks, is also thought to have been responsible for the car bomb attack in Saudi Arabia that killed five Americans; the attack on the USS Cole which killed 17 sailors; the deaths of 18 US army rangers in Somalia; and the bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa that killed 224 people. We met with four of this country's leading Islamic religious leaders to talk about this wave of terror, including the most recent attack at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Imam Siraj Wahaj of Brooklyn, did you think Muslims could have committed this?
Wahaj: No, just from theological process, Islam doesn't only talk about the ends, but also the means; that however angry you are, you couldn't do anything like this. You couldn't kill innocent people.