American Islam scholar Reza Aslan detained by Israel intelligence at border

American Islam scholar Reza Aslan was detained by Israeli intelligence services when entering the country from Jordan, in a harrowing hours' long ordeal.

کد خبر: ۸۲۵۴۸۷

تاریخ: ۲۴ مرداد ۱۳۹۷ - ۰۹:۴۱

Aslan said Shin Bet officers threatened that the author would not see family, as they were separated from his children for two weeks.

"We can make it so you don't see your kids for a long time," Aslan said the officers told him at the time.

The officers questioned his Iranian background and made a series of chilling threats against the scholar, who has written a number of best-selling books on religion, including No God But God and Zealot.

"The Shin Bet lady - who already knew everything about me and my family's journey around the world  - began with 'You think because you're a public person I can't do whatever I want with you?'" Aslan wrote on Twitter.

"I was floored. This is how interrogations begin in police states."

He was the quesioned about his father's past work in Iran, where Aslan was born.

"The questions got dumber and more surreal: 'Who did your father work for in Iran?' I don't know. I was 7 when we left. Oh Mr Scholar! You can tell me everything about the Ottoman Empire but you don’t know your own father’s history?'" he said.

"For the record I am not an Ottoman scholar."

He said after hours of questions, the Shin Bet officer at the Jordan border crossing, threatened his family.

"In the end, after hours of this, she warned 'I may let you into Israel but, who knows, I may not let you out. I will keep you here and kick out your family. It depends on you. You would miss your kids yes?'"

"That my friends is the classic police state trick. Iran has perfected it," he said, after a series of tweets.

Aslan wrote that he was encouraged to give his account of the detention, after Jewish-American writer Peter Beinart this week was detained at Tel Aviv airport and questioned on his political views.

"The session ended when my interrogator asked me, point blank, if I was planning to attend another protest," Beinart wrote.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu later apologised to Beinart about his ordeal, saying his detention was an administrative mistake and that all were welcome to Israel.

Visitors from the Arab and Muslim world are frequently detained questioned at the Israel border, according to Haaretz, with many turned away.

Palestinians who lost their homes following the creation of Israel are nearly always barred from the country.