In a recent Friday sermon, Egyptian cleric Sheikh Talaat Zahran, a professor of humanities at Alexandria University, said: "When France saw that there were six million Muslims on its land... they began to fear that the Muslims would storm their democratic system, and would take over power and become ministers. That is why they plotted this trap, losing some lives, just like America lost thousands of lives when the Twin Towers were destroyed."

Following are excerpts from the sermon, which was delivered on November 20, 2015 and posted on the Internet.

Talaat Zahran: You have all heard about what happened in France. ISIS members carried out some bombings, killing some soccer fans in a stadium. They also attacked people in a theater, killing some of them. How has Islam and the Muslims benefitted from this? What good has this brought upon Islam and the Muslims? It has only served to further distort the image of Islam.

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Indeed, this organization and its mother organization, Al-Qaeda, are Western-made. They were established by America and the West, in order to harm Islam and the Muslims and to conspire against them. The infidels are spending enormous sums for this purpose.

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As I've said, the French and others built and funded these organizations. Otherwise, how did the ISIS members get all these weapons? Where do they get all these funds on which they live? First, the [West] helped them to flee from the prisons in Syria and Iraq, and made them join training camps, in which they received weapons, and then the [West] started carrying out theatrical bombings on them, in which they drop weapons, ammunition, and supplies for ISIS, in order to help them kill the Muslims.

[ISIS] kills only Muslims. They ignore the pagans. When France saw that there were six million Muslims on its land, and that they are preaching to join the belief in Allah, they began to fear that the Muslims would storm their democratic system, and would take over power and become ministers. That is why they plotted this trap, losing some lives, just like America lost thousands of lives when the Twin Towers were destroyed. They did all of this using ISIS members.

Even if France had mobilized armies, and sent planes, tanks, and supplies, it would not have benefitted – the West would not have benefitted – as much as it benefitted from the deeds of people who belong to Islam.

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