WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- American Muslim groups expressed outrage over comments by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who called the prophet Mohammad "a terrorist."
In an interview with CBS news program "60 Minutes," Falwell said, "I think Mohammad was a terrorist." The network released a partial transcript of the interview Thursday. The Baptist minister's comments occur in a segment about American conservative Christians' political support for Israel.
Falwell said in the interview that he has concluded from reading Muslim and non-Muslim writers that Islam's prophet "was a -- a violent man, a man of war."
"Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses," Falwell says. "I think Mohammad set an opposite example."
Asked to comment on the interview, Falwell said he had been asked whether he considered Mohammad a terrorist and "I tried to reply honestly."
Other conservative Protestant clergy also have made critical comments about Islam and Mohammad since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They include Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son and successor, TV evangelist Pat Robertson and leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.
In response to Falwell's remarks, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, said Friday: "Anybody is free to be a bigot if they want to. What really concerns us is the lack of reaction by mainstream religious and political leaders, who say nothing when these bigots voice these attacks."
Falwell was widely criticized last year after he said on Robertson's TV show that pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals and civil liberties groups had secularized the nation and helped the Sept. 11 attacks happen.
"These attacks on Islam and Prophet Mohammad not only reveal utter ignorance of history, but also reflect on the paranoia of these evangelical leaders who just cannot see Islam as a major American religion with over 7 million followers in the United States," said a spokesman for the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group representing more than a dozen Muslim groups in North America.
Islam is the second-largest religion in the world with more than 1.3 billion followers.
