Biography
Born in Egypt to a secular Muslim family, Tawfik Hamid joined the extremist Islamic Group GI when he was in Medical School . His colleagues in the terror movement included Al Zawaherri, then a friend with whom Tawfik used to pray, and now the number 2 person of Al Qaeda.
Eventually Dr. Hamid questioned the feelings of hatred and impulses to violence that his participation in extremist Islam was fomenting within him. He became a physician, and also a scholar of Islamic texts. When he began to preach in Mosques to promote a message of peace instead of violence and hatred, however, he himself became a target of the Islamic extremists who had been his friends. They threatened his life, forcing him and his family to flee Egypt , and then Saudi Arabia . As Dr. Hamid says "The powers of darkness were overwhelming and I was forced to emigrate with my family to the West seeking freedom."
From his insider understanding of terrorist mentality, Tawfik predicted the Sept. 11th, Madrid , and London attacks. Now his mission has become " to speak out against radical Islam, a cancer that is spreading with frightening rapidity across the globe today." His appearance on Fox TV in early 2006 and his testimony at the first major Intelligence Summit in Washington have further established him as a leading authority on global terror movements. He explains why extremist Islam is far more prevalent and poses a far more serious threat than most Americans appreciate to our economy, ecology, and national security.
Dr. Hamid, who has authored the book The Roots of Jihad , will be available for speaking engagements in the United States and Canada starting November 2006 and throughout 2007 .
The topics on which Dr. Hamid speaks include:
- The Roots of Jihad: What Americans Need to Understand to Save America
- The Mentality of Terror: Understanding Why and How Terrorists Are Proliferating in the West
- The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Views From a Concerned Arab Insider on How Israel Could Lose
- An Islamic Liberal's Plea For American Understanding of Why the World is Losing the War on Terror