Winner of top Saudi award once said 9/11 was an 'inside job'

One of five recipients of Saudi Arabia's prestigious King Faisal international prize once called the 9/11 attacks an "inside job" perpetuated by then-president George W. Bush.

Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India and founder of Peace TV, received the award in Riyhad on Sunday for his "service to Islam." The television preacher has an English language audience of more than 100 million, and he is considered to be "one of the most renowned non-Arabic speaking promoters of Islam," The Guardian reports.

He's also known for comments he made in July 2008, when he suggested on air that al Qaeda did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. "Even a fool will know that this was an inside job," he said, before claiming that Bush was behind the attacks. In 2010, he was reportedly barred from entering Britain for "numerous comments" that showed his "unacceptable behavior."

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