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Authors: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

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BOOK: My Year Inside Radical Islam
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“I’ll still have facial hair,” I said. “It’s not like I’m going to shave my goatee off or anything.”
“But Allah gave you this hair on your face for a reason. Allah gave you hair on your
whole
face. Why would you shave it off? Was Allah’s creation not good enough, so that you have to change it?”
I had no response. I didn’t see how shaving the beard could be considered changing Allah’s creation. But argument was futile. Charlie shook his head sadly, his eyes downcast. This was very serious for him.
So serious, in fact, that he told Dawood. In the late afternoon, Dawood entered the office with two books for me. One was a pamphlet called
The Beard . . . Why?
The other book I had already seen. Dawood had put yellow tabs in a new section of Muhammad bin Jamil Zino’s
Islamic Guidelines for Individual and Social Reform.
Dawood probably realized how presumptuous this seemed because, for the first time, he spoke to me in something other than a booming, confident voice. With a soft, somewhat apologetic tone, he said, “Bro, I’m just trying to help you. Let me know if we’re pushing too fast.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad that you’re helping to educate me about Islam.”
I couldn’t believe that shaving off my scruff had turned into such an ordeal. After looking through both books that Dawood had given me, I made up my mind. My decision wasn’t swayed by religious argument, but by how silly the whole affair seemed.
I told Charlie that I would shave off the scruff. I made a point of promising that I’d immediately grow out my beard after that. He seemed disappointed, sadder than usual.
It was my first little rebellion. And like most rebellions, it was doomed to failure.
Sheikh Adly conducted a question-and-answer session almost every night, where people would ask theological questions and he’d render a verdict. That night, someone asked Sheikh Adly about the need for a beard.
Sheikh Adly said that having a beard was absolutely required. He quoted a
hadith
: “The Prophet,
alayhi salaatu was salaam,
cursed the men who intend to look like women.” Shaving the beard, Sheikh Adly explained, makes a man look like a woman and so strips him of Allah’s mercy. When he said this, I noticed some of the others—Charlie, Dawood, Dennis Geren, and Pete—glancing over at me, trying to see what effect the words would have.
I stuck around until half past nine that night. As I headed for the door, Dawood, Charlie Jones, and Pete took me aside. “I hope you’ll consider Sheikh Adly’s words before you decide to butcher all your facial hair,” Dawood said.
Before I could respond, Pete began a rapid-fire interjection that was far more ambitious. “Bro, what you gotta do when you meet the reporter is wear your kufi and a
thobe
[a long, shirtlike dress worn by Saudi men, usually made of white cotton]. You’ll look so much like a Muslim that the reporter can’t ignore it even if he
wants
to.” Pete saw this interview as yet another opportunity for
dawah.
“Pete,” I said, “I don’t even wear a
thobe
when I’m here in the Musalla. Why would I go to my interview in one?”
“At least wear your kufi, bro,” Pete said. “You want that reporter to know you’re a Muslim, and you want newspaper readers to read the story and say, ‘Wow! If
this
guy’s a Muslim, I can be a Muslim, too! ’ ”
On the drive home, I decided that I wouldn’t shave before the interview. As with most of our decisions in life, my choice wasn’t based on any single factor. On the one hand, Charlie was right: my only goal was to please Allah, and not anybody else. But another factor, which I tried to downplay to myself, was the inevitable condemnation of my coworkers if I did shave off the scruff.
When I met
Mail Tribune
reporter Bill Varble in a coffee shop off C Street for the interview, he looked puzzled—but not as puzzled as his photographer, who had the unenviable task of making me look presentable for the newspaper. I wore khakis, a blue-and-white-checkered button-up shirt, a kufi, and a few days of scruff. In short, this was not what they expected when they heard that a local resident was a national debating champion who had been selected to represent the United States in a series of debates in Europe.
When the article came out, it featured two photos. My face didn’t even appear in the main photo, which was just a shot of my hands gesturing to punctuate a point I made during the interview. My face did appear in a much smaller picture in the lower left-hand corner of the piece. And in that photo, it was shrouded by shadows.
One of the other worshippers who occasionally showed up at the Musalla was Mahmoud Shelton, a white convert with a long beard and turban—the garb and look of the Prophet. Mahmoud already stood out to me because he was a smart guy. He had earned an undergraduate degree in medieval studies from Stanford, which wasn’t typical of the other worshippers at the Musalla. (He would later write a book called
Alchemy in Middle-Earth
, which analyzed the Islamic elements of
The Lord of the Rings.
) His appearance reminded me of the Naqshbandis with whom I had taken my
shahadah.
I struck up a conversation with Mahmoud in the foyer by the front door. I told him briefly about how I had come to convert to Islam, and mentioned that I took my
shahadah
in Italy. “I know some Muslims in Italy,” he replied with a sharp, inquisitive smile. “Who did you take your
shahadah
with?”
Normally a venture like this (“What Muslims do you know in Italy?”) is a lark. But I named some names, and—sure enough—Mahmoud knew them. His smile broadened. “Those brothers are so full of life!” he exclaimed.
Dennis Geren was sitting within earshot. Mahmoud turned to him and said, “Apparently Daveed took his
shahadah
with some of the Muslims I know in Italy!”
“That’s interesting,” Dennis said. He didn’t say anything negative, but neither did he say anything positive. To my surprise, I was actually embarrassed when Mahmoud mentioned that he knew the Muslims with whom I took my
shahadah.
I realized that I wasn’t content to simply avoid saying positive things about the Naqshbandis. I didn’t want Ashland’s other Muslims to know the route I took to come to Islam.
Dennis left the room a few seconds later. When he was out of earshot, I said to Mahmoud, with a half-smile, “I thought you might be a Naqshbandi.”
Mahmoud took a furtive look around to make sure nobody else was listening. “If I were you,” he said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t say that word too loudly around here.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I had that part figured out.”
“You obviously catch on quickly,” he said.
“Well, it’s good to know that you’re friends with some of the brothers I took my
shahadah
with.”
“Yeah,” Mahmoud said, “it’s good to see other Muslims here who are a bit more . . . open-minded about some of these issues.”
“We should get together sometime and talk a bit more.”
“Yeah, we could grab coffee, talk about Islam . . . make loud
dhikr.
” Mahmoud finished his sentence with a mischievous smile. Even bringing it up was a minor act of rebellion.
I nodded noncommittally.
Was loud
dhikr
really an act of
bida? I wondered. Already, just a month into my tenure at Al Haramain, I wanted nothing to do with forms of worship that were theologically questionable. Although I liked Mahmoud and wanted to talk with him more, I wanted no part in loud
dhikr
for which he had such an affection.
I thought back to when I had chided al-Husein for telling another Wake Forest student that homosexuality wasn’t forbidden in Islam, just something to be avoided so as not to subject yourself to society’s stigmas. At the time, I was surprised to find myself longing for a strong version of Islam that clashed with my liberal principles. Was I starting to find this stronger version of the faith?
I missed Amy.
I must have reread the letter that she sent me along with the photographs of her December trip about a dozen times. And I’d often go through my old Wake Forest e-mail account, reading through messages that Amy had sent months ago. She wasn’t a flowery writer, but had her style. It was obvious from reading her e-mail messages how much Amy loved me. I loved her, too, deeply.
We spoke often. Even our phone etiquette suggested that this breakup wouldn’t last. We’d call each other Beloved on the phone, the nickname we’d long had for each other because of our names’ shared meaning. Sometimes we’d end phone calls with an “I love you.” And while there’s plenty of platonic love in the world, this wasn’t it.
When I looked at Dennis Geren, I saw the man whom other members of Al Haramain’s inner circle wanted me to develop into. Dennis was older than me and hadn’t graduated from college—but, unlike me, he readily accepted the theological teachings that were passed along to him. Dennis had been Muslim for less than a year, less time than I had been in the faith. But he was regarded as more theologically mature because he gleefully embraced the conservative teachings of which I was skeptical, and resented Muslims who differed from him.
Daily life in the office only reinforced Dennis’s extremism. Part of the reason was that most everyone else—or at least, the others who were outspoken—shared Dennis’s outlook. Beyond that, he read a constant stream of vituperative incoming e-mail purporting to show the oppression visited upon Muslims throughout the world. Much of this came from Idris Palmer, the man whose anti-Nation of Islam pamphlet I had encountered while working on my college honors thesis, and whom Yunus had mentioned to me when we were looking at Salim Morgan’s anti-Naqshbandi Web pages.
Idris was the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Society for Adherence to the Sunnah, an organization that shared Al Haramain’s desire to promote a “pure” Islam. Idris’s e-mail covered a wide range of issues, but virtually every subject that he e-mailed about seemed to make him livid. His topics ranged from the civil war in Algeria, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to the Nation of Islam, to the moderate sheikh Hisham Kabbani accusing other Muslims of radicalism, to the court decision holding that the Boy Scouts had to accept gay scoutmasters, to the mufti of France’s distortions of Islam.
Idris’s e-mail on this last point were particularly interesting. There was an incident at a junior high school in Flers, France, where a twelve-year-old girl had been told to remove her
hijab.
When she refused, teachers at her school went on strike. Idris forwarded an article about this to his e-mail distribution list, along with a note that went into further detail. Dennis Geren printed out Idris’s e-mail and read it to me. “’The girls and their families said they were merely observing the Moslem religion but the French government and many teachers argued the scarves, as symbols of Islamic fundamentalism and the repression of women, were preventing their wearers from becoming integrated into French society,’ ” Dennis read from the Reuters news story.
He then began to read Idris’s words without noting where the article ended and Idris’s writing began: “’Indeed, the picture of Islam in France is quite ugly. France was directly responsible for fighting Islam in North Africa for one hundred and thirty-seven years, and the French have never gotten over their defeat at the hands of the Muslims, and have hated Muslims ever since. Especially after hundreds of thousands of French missionaries adopted Islam. . . .’ ”
“The article says
that?
” I interrupted.
“It’s written here,” Dennis said, showing me the printout.
“That’s not the article,” I said. “That’s Idris Palmer’s
commentary
on the article.”
Dennis shrugged. To him, Idris Palmer was no less objective than the Reuters news service. If anything, he probably thought Idris was a better source of information.
I took the printout from Dennis and read it. Idris was vexed that Muslim schoolgirls who wanted to wear
hijab
to class were opposed not just by their secular schools, but he claimed that they were also opposed by Dalil Boubakeur, the mufti of France. (A mufti is an Islamic scholar who interprets
sharia
law.) The e-mail was typical of Idris’s writing style and tone:
Some time ago I visited Dalil Boubakeur’s Paris central “mosquee”. His office is guarded by a secretary without hijab and by several armed French police 24 hours a day. He is well known in Paris for promoting what is called, “French Islam” (which equates to “no Islam”). His rulings over the years have caused major problems for any Muslim who wants to assert his or her identity in France. His “fatwas” enjoy the backing of the French government (which recognizes him as the official “mufti”), and many are directly aimed at women. For instance, he made a “ruling” in 1995 that hijab is incompatible with French lifestyle and is thus haram. This came at a time when several Muslim sisters had been expelled from school because they chose to wear hijab. He also informed Muslim fathers that if they want their daughters to be respected in France, they should prepare them to marry kufar.
In fact, I know a brother who went to the Paris central masjid [mosque] when he was in high school, and one day noticed a young lady in the masjid without hijab. The brother went to the front office and notified the director who told him, “if you want a date with her, just go and ask her.” It is not uncommon to see a bar located only one block from the mosque, full of Muslim men drinking booze on Jumuah.
Besides, it is common knowledge that the Paris mosque is not only the functionary of the French government but it is the extended arm of the Algerian anti-Islamic regime. This is the same Algerian regime which was exposed last year as being directly responsible for the massacres they have blamed on “fundamentalists” since 1992.
3
Some of the imagery that Idris conjured sounded far-fetched. His statement about bars packed with Muslim men getting drunk on
juma
seemed to be breathless hyperbole. So did the scene with the man who was trying to complain about a
hijab
-less woman in the mosque, only to be told that he could ask her on a date. An image flashed through my mind of a meddling high school kid scampering to the mosque leadership to report a Muslim sister for improper attire.
BOOK: My Year Inside Radical Islam
6.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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