My Year Inside Radical Islam (21 page)

Pete took me aside after the lecture. Although I didn’t want word to get out that Amy was staying with me, he knew. “Bro, why don’t you have that woman come up to the Musalla?” he asked. Pete never referred to Amy by name. “We can do a
nikah
ceremony right here. Then you won’t have to worry about being around a woman you’re not married to, and all the sins that come with that.”

The
nikah
is the Islamic marriage ceremony. It instantly struck me that Pete was right. Amy and I could have two different wedding ceremonies, a Muslim ceremony and a Christian ceremony. We could do the
nikah
now. It would cost her nothing, and would ensure that I was right with Allah.

I snuck off to another room and called Amy. When she answered the phone, I told her that I loved her and wanted to marry her. Those statements were vague, and were things she already knew. In her sweet, shy Carolinian accent, Amy said that she felt the same way.

“Well, why don’t we get married?” I asked. “Why don’t we get married now? You can come up here, we can have an Islamic marriage ceremony, and then everything between us will be okay in God’s eyes.” As I moved deeper into Islamic fundamentalism, I became worse at explaining myself. My demand that we have our Islamic wedding ceremony immediately was completely unexpected, and I never really justified it.

There was a long pause. Unlike when I asked Amy to marry me back in January, this was an awkward pause. Finally, Amy said that she’d think about it, but didn’t really feel comfortable. I told her to give it serious thought, that it was very important to me.

This wouldn’t be our last discussion about an Islamic wedding ceremony.

A few days later, I walked into the main prayer room to make
salat.
Abdul-Qaadir and Dennis Geren were there. Abdul-Qaadir peered down at my ankles, then said, “Roll your pants legs up two inches.”

“Why?” I looked over at Dennis’s ankles and he proudly showed me that his pants were already rolled up a couple of inches.

“I’ll tell you later,” Abdul-Qaadir said.

I was puzzled, but complied. Abdul-Qaadir, Dennis, and I prayed. It was the height of summer in Ashland, the time of year when I loved to thank Allah for all the beauty he instilled in his creation. The prayer room’s windows offered a peek at the green grass outside, the lazy traffic on I-5, the mountains beyond that. But this year I was far less interested in the world’s beauty. The only beauty I cared about was the beauty of the hereafter. To get there, I didn’t need to appreciate the aesthetics of a warm summer day; I needed to follow Allah’s rules.

When we finished our prayers, Abdul-Qaadir said, “There is a
hadith
where the Prophet,
alayhi salaatu was salaam,
told one of his followers, ‘Have your lower garment halfway down your shin; if you cannot do it, have it up to the ankles. Beware of trailing the lower garment, for it is conceit.’ This was a serious issue for them. As Prophet Muhammad,
alayhi salaatu was salaam,
said in a
sahih hadith,
⁷
‘The dress that is under the ankle is in the Hellfire.’ ”

Dennis nodded with satisfaction. He was improving as a pupil.

And so was I. After that conversation, I dutifully checked before each prayer to make sure that my pants legs came up above the ankles.

Unique among the Muslims I was close with in Ashland, Abdi and Mary didn’t mind Amy’s presence in my life—nor did they mind her presence in town.

One day, Amy and I went out for a meal with Abdi and Mary at an Indian restaurant in nearby Medford. I was somewhat reserved during the meal, interested in watching Abdi and Mary’s interactions with Amy. They treated her like family, like a dear friend whose presence couldn’t make them happier. It was just like things should be when you go out with friends: easy conversation, a bit of humor, no feeling of being watched and judged. I actually found the ease of our meal together odd.

Before we finished eating, I asked them about things I should make sure I did with Amy while she was in town. Mary suggested that we head to Southern California, and I take her to Disneyland. Amy had never been there, and it sounded like a nice idea.

H
aram, ya sheikh!”

Pete shouted that at me in the middle of a phone call we were having with Sheikh Adly. Dennis and both of Pete’s sons were also in the office. He was chastising me in front of them for doing something that was impermissible Islamically. What I had done was begin to play a game of Freecell (a Solitaire-type computer card game).

Pete had wanted me to sit at the computer while he spoke with Sheikh Adly, in case he needed notes taken. They had been talking for a while, and no notes were needed. While waiting for Pete to finish up, I opened up the Freecell application and started a game. That’s when Pete yelled,
“Haram, ya sheikh!” Haram
—it is prohibited.

Yunus, Yusuf, and Dennis stopped what they were doing. Their attention turned to me and Pete. We had Sheikh Adly on speakerphone, and Pete said, “Sheikh Adly, one of the brothers here is thinking about playing a card game on his computer, and he wants to know if it’s
halal
to play this game.”

“No, it is
haram,
” Sheikh Adly said. “It is
haram
to play cards and gamble for money.”

Pete didn’t want to leave any doubt, though.
“Ya sheikh,”
he said, “our brother here wants to know if it’s
haram
if he isn’t gambling for money, if he just wants to play his game on the computer but there’s no money at stake.”

Behind me, I heard Yunus say, “It’s idle time.” Ever the brash young man, he wanted to jump in with an answer. I almost laughed when he said that. In Islam there was a prohibition on idle time, on wasting your time when you could be studying the Qur’an and
ahadith
or doing other things that are pleasing to Allah. But I almost laughed because Yunus would fritter away his own time: watching TV, playing military games on his computer, sitting in the office and making meaningless conversation. But despite all of his own wasted time, he would cheerfully denounce a few moments of Freecell while waiting on Pete.

“It’s
haram,
” Sheikh Adly said to Pete. “There are human faces on the cards and that is against the teachings of Prophet Muhammad,
alayhi salaatu was salaam.
And playing the cards is idle time, which is also against Islam.” I saw Yunus smirk out of the corner of my eye.

I closed the game of Freecell. Yunus and Yusuf left the office. My interaction with Pete had been a spectacle for them, a somewhat charged confrontation that was resolved when I closed the game.

Though I wasn’t happy with the way the interaction went, it would be a long time before I’d again take up Freecell. The game was a temporary diversion: its value paled in comparison to the need to be right with Allah.

I took Amy to Disneyland in mid-July.

Just like the rest of that summer together, the trip was not without its drama. I was still pressing her on the
nikah
ceremony, having trouble understanding why she wouldn’t accede to it. It seemed to me that it wouldn’t cost her anything, and would make me feel better about our relationship. I didn’t understand at the time what is now obvious: Amy didn’t want to submit to a religious ceremony that she didn’t understand, didn’t think was necessary, and meant nothing to her.

The stress that Amy’s refusal caused me was palpable. “I think that we’re sinning in our time together,” I said during the long drive to Anaheim. “All I want is for us to have this ceremony and then this won’t be a concern anymore. At all.” Amy didn’t reply, but she had made her view clear when I first broached the subject of a
nikah
: she didn’t share my religious beliefs, and didn’t think we were in a constant state of sin. Trying to give her some incentive, I added, “This would probably make Pete happy. He might even give me time off for a honeymoon.”

Amy wasn’t persuaded. We weren’t having premarital sex; she didn’t understand why I viewed our relationship as sinful. “What do you think would be okay?” Amy shot back. “Sitting on the porch together holding hands?”

I didn’t answer. She meant the remark sarcastically, but I wasn’t sure that even that would be acceptable. After all, if we were holding hands, our skin would be touching.

I was amazed by Amy’s ability to put aside the awkwardness of the moment and enjoy our time together in Anaheim.

From the moment we entered the theme park and began our stroll down Main Street, U.S.A., I loved every moment that I spent with Amy. We strolled through New Orleans Square together, watched a street band perform, and ventured into Disney’s Haunted Mansion. We took a jaunt through the pioneer days at Frontierland, circled the small lake in the middle of the theme park in the three-story
Mark Twain
Riverboat, munching the whole time on fried cinnamon-sugar churros.

More than the whimsy of our time together in Disneyland, the break from Al Haramain made a difference. It was as though I was back in college with Amy, with nobody watching over me to make sure my behavior comported with proper Islamic conduct. Visiting Disneyland is like taking a trip into the imagination, and part of the imagination for me during that weekend was being whisked back to a world where my own moral reasoning mattered, where I didn’t have to be constantly on my guard, where I didn’t have to worry about whether people should really be killed for leaving Islam.

My return to Ashland signaled a return to my daily checklist beamed down from heaven. Eating: right hand only. Pants: below the knees but above the ankles. Touching: not okay for dogs or women. Sneezing? If you sneeze, say,
“Alhamdulillah.”
If someone else sneezes and says
alhamdulillah,
you reply:
“Yarhamukallah.”
(Arabic for “May Allah bless you.”) Music: forbidden. Paying interest: forbidden. The beard: required.

The rules were voluminous, but I was beginning to master them. Abdul-Qaadir helped me work on my
tajweed
(pronunciation during recitation of the Qur’an), and it, too, was improving. Earlier, I noticed that the serious Muslims in Ashland seemed to derive a great deal of personal worth from how well they followed these strictures, and would evaluate others based on their ability (or willingness) to do the same. At first I thought that was wrong. I once told al-Husein, “Other people’s faith is between them and Allah. It’s not my business to judge their Islam.” But I increasingly viewed these rules as a way to judge where my own faith stood—and to judge the strength of others’ faith as well.

When it came to following the rules, Abdul-Qaadir was head and shoulders above the rest of us. At one point, an unfamiliar car turned up the long driveway toward the Musalla. It belonged to Dawood’s parents. Dawood was still in Saudi Arabia, and they had come by to pick up some mail and other miscellaneous items for him.

Dawood’s parents were at least in their sixties. As they entered the Musalla, I carefully watched how the other Muslims greeted them. Dawood’s mom was an older lady, so was it okay to shake her hand? Pete greeted them first, with his charm in high gear. He shook her hand. Dennis Geren also shook her hand, declining to mention that he thought this was the first step toward marriage. I came next, and shook her hand as well. I stood next to Pete, and we watched while Abdul-Qaadir greeted Dawood’s parents. He shook the hand of Dawood’s father, and when Dawood’s mother held out her hand, he didn’t shake it. Instead, he fluidly placed in her hand the mail for Dawood that we had collected over the past couple of months.

“He’s smooth,” Pete whispered to me, admiringly. “Did you see that?
So
smooth.”

Late in the summer, the PBS show
Frontline
broadcast an episode about the twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that al-Qaeda carried out the year before, in August 1998. The show twice mentioned that the terrorists had received support from an Islamic charitywith offices in Africa; both times, Al Haramain’s logo flashed on the screen.

I learned of this while reviewing the daily crush of e-mail one morning. One of the messages was from Pete, and there was a video clip attached to it showing the
Frontline
segment.

Pete was livid. He called the office less than two minutes after I looked at the video clip. “Bro, did you see that clip from
Frontline?
” His speech was loud, rapid, and interspersed with Farsi curse words. “They have
no proof
that Al Haramain was involved in those acts of terror, no proof at all!” Pete had about a dozen different plans, all of which he wanted to put into effect right away. He wanted us to write a letter to
Frontline
demanding a retraction; he wanted to file a lawsuit against PBS; he wanted to immediately hire a PR consultant to repair what he viewed as Al Haramain’s now-tarnished image.

Pete came to the office later that day and we placed a call to Soliman al-But’he, an Al Haramain director who was born in Egypt but now worked in the head office in Riyadh. With the phone on speaker, Pete frantically explained the
Frontline
clip to Soliman, then asked, “These guys are completely wrong, aren’t they? There’s no way our offices in Africa were involved in these bombings, right?”

Soliman wouldn’t give a straight answer. “Brother, there are many volunteers who come in and out of our offices in Africa, who might work there for a few weeks and then move on. We can’t really know who’s gone through there.”

“You don’t
know
if people in our Africa offices supported the embassy bombings?” Pete sounded incredulous.

“No, brother, we don’t know,” Soliman said.

When the phone call ended, Pete was despondent. “We’re finished,” he said. “After this show, people are gonna think of the embassy bombings whenever they hear Al Haramain’s name. We’re through.”

“Pete,” I said, “they only flashed our logo twice, for about five seconds each time. If Al Haramain really wasn’t involved, this isn’t going to permanently change people’s view of us.”