According to this Reuters.com article, he sure has, saying "Life is meaningless without the considerations of faith, love and inherited history in our nation." The article itself says, "[Hussein] spends much of his time reading the Koran and has become a devout Muslim in captivity." Of course, having learned at least one iota, and hopefully more, of the history of Iraq with Hussein as it's dictator, I tend not to believe that Hussein has become anything close to being a person strong in his faith in Islam. In fact, I feel that Saddam attempting to do one or both of two things:
1) Attempting to display piousness in the face of overwhelming evidence of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity and his own people, in an attempt to gain some sort of leniency.
2) Become a martyr for jihadists/Arabs/Iraqi insurgents/et. al.
Now, both options are perfectly understandable from his point of view, but the second one is the only one that really matters. After all, he is also quoted as saying, "My brother, love your people, love Palestine, love your nation, long live Palestine." I'm not an Islamic scholar, but his hatred of Israel, in my mind, does not automatically make him a devout Muslim, especially considering his own behavior in regard to his barbarous rule of Iraq. What I'm afraid of though is that by putting on a show in front of the world that he IS a devout Muslim who hates everything American, Israeli, etc. will endear him to Islamic terrorists across the world. The extended, and probably unavoidable, nature of his impending trial are NOT helping his possible attempt at becoming a martyr to the groups mentioned above. Hopefully the trial will emphasize his crimes, rather than give him a platform for one last fist-shake against the Great Satan.
But I'm not going to hold my breath; we'll see in six weeks or so.
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