My Year Inside Radical Islam

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

  Al-Husein didn’t share my sense of intimidation. He took the microphone after Charlie and spoke into it with a slow, gravelly voice. “To me, the Muslims in the Middle East are bigger kufar than those in the U.S.,” he said. “When I look at the Middle East, I see people who aren’t practicing Islam even though they live in the Muslim world. I see people pushing for a version of sharia law that puts women in an inferior position. I see people who want to destroy personal freedoms. That is in itself a distortion of true Islam.”

  Sheikh Hassan turned to Dawood Rodgers, a beefy man who trained horses for a living, and asked him to explain. Dawood picked up the microphone, turned to al-Husein, and said, “Brother, I used to believe the way you did. I used to think that Middle Eastern Muslims had it all wrong, and that they were missing out on the true, progressive Islam.” His voice oozed with sarcasm when he said the words progressive Islam. “But, brother, when I learned more about the faith I realized—”

  Sheikh Hassan cut him off. He didn’t want Dawood to explain why al-Husein was wrong. All he wanted was a simpler explanation of al-Husein’s statement. Sheikh Hassan apparently didn’t understand what al-Husein had said.

  When the statement sank in, it kicked off an extended theological debate between Sheikh Hassan and al-Husein. The room was packed when they started, but the worshippers trickled out as the debate progressed until only a handful remained.

  I found the debate mesmerizing. It was reassuring to see how comfortable al-Husein appeared to be while debating Sheikh Hassan. I was reminded of something else that al-Husein had told me about Islam: qualifications were not as important as a person’s ideas. Even a child could be right about a theological point, while an imam could be wrong.

  I noticed that Sheikh Hassan never actually answered al-Husein’s arguments. Instead, he was satisfied with his assumption that he had found the true Islam, and that everybody who disagreed was delusional. His lack of respect for al-Husein’s arguments was typified by an exchange where al-Husein brought up the Moroccan author Fatema Mernissi, who has cast doubt on the authenticity of certain ahadith that place women in a subordinate position. When al-Husein mentioned Mernissi, Sheikh Hassan said, “There are good, sound scholars who answer her arguments. You should read them so you can understand the problems with her.”

  I was struck by that reply: there are answers to her argument and you need to find them. If Sheikh Hassan couldn’t articulate those answers, how did he know that Mernissi was wrong?

  Sheikh Hassan ended up leaving before al-Husein and I did. Out of politeness, we walked him to the door. As he stepped outside, Sheikh Hassan waved his hand at the valley. The green peaks surrounding us had always epitomized peace and beauty to me, but to Sheikh Hassan they were an object of scorn. Putting in a final word, he said, “You’ll be compromised if you stay in this kafir country. Just look at all these homosexuals. ”

  It would not be the last time I met Sheikh Hassan, but the shock of these parting words never left me.

  Despite Sheikh Hassan’s hateful views and scornful tone, the debate was fairly civil. There was no yelling. Sheikh Hassan addressed al-Husein in his soft voice throughout, always looking away from us while he spoke.

  And while Ashland’s Muslims—or at least, those who seemed to comprise the Muslim community’s inner circle—apparently agreed with Sheikh Hassan, Dawood sat on the floor with us after the sheikh left. We drank heavily spiced mint tea.

  I told Dawood that I was having trouble perfecting my salat. The Islamic ritual prayers are difficult to master because they consist of a series of physical positions—standing, bowing, kneeling, prostrating— as well as prayers in Arabic. When I mentioned this, Dawood gave me a small saddle-stapled booklet detailing how to pray. It included illustrations showing the positions that the worshipper should take, along with transliterations of the Arabic prayers.

  In the end, the exchange between al-Husein and Sheikh Hassan reinforced my view that the moderate interpretation of Islam had more intellectual force. If a learned sheikh couldn’t answer the arguments of a college student, what hope did the radicals have?

  Later in al-Husein’s visit to the West Coast, we drove up to the state of Washington to visit some of my old friends. This was the only time that al-Husein and Mike Hollister would meet face-to-face.

  Their meeting was less eventful than I thought it might be. There was some religious debate but no fireworks, no arguments that were clean kills for either side. I still liked Mike, but more than ever it seemed that the strong connection we once had was fizzling. I feared it would eventually be lost.

  Al-Husein and I also visited another friend of mine from high school, a woman named Tami Garrard who lived in Port Angeles, Washington. While in Port Angeles, we went camping near a beach with Tami and some of her friends.

  At one point during the camping trip, al-Husein and I were angry at each other. The passage of time makes me forget the reason for our fight, nor is it particularly important. Two people with personalities as strong as al-Husein’s and mine are bound to clash from time to time. I was struck, though, by what happened after we fought.

  We walked down the sandy beach for a few minutes. Eventually we found a piece of driftwood large enough for both of us to sit on. Al-Husein wordlessly pulled out his prayer beads, then started chanting Allah’s name. Recognizing the same kind of loud dhikr that I had taken part in the night I became Muslim, I instantly joined. We chanted for more than twenty minutes, with al-Husein taking the lead in setting the words and pace. By the time we finished, I didn’t feel any more anger toward al-Husein; all I felt was the comforting presence of the Almighty.

  Al-Husein slowly got up from the driftwood. “Do you know what you learned today?” he asked.

  “What?”

  The fact that I was an only child gave special significance to al-Husein’s next words. “You learned how to be a brother.”

  When I returned to Wake Forest in January 1998, I did so as a full-fledged campus activist. I realize now that, by taking me outside of myself, the beginnings of my activism had propelled me toward Islam. And on my return to campus, my Islamic faith drove my activism.

  Al-Husein and I used the term jihad to describe our political activities. To us, this was the “greater jihad.” The concept of a greater jihad came from a hadith in which Muhammad, on his return from a battle, said, “We are finished with the lesser jihad; now we are starting the greater jihad.” The implication was clear: military fighting is less important than the battle against the evils within oneself. Later, when I became radicalized, I would scoff at the idea that a greater jihad even existed.

  But at Wake Forest, al-Husein and I saw our activism as the greater jihad. It always amused us when another student took our use of the word jihad in the wrong way, thinking it meant terrorism or holy war. We would explain—patiently yet condescendingly—that jihad was Arabic for “struggle,” and we were engaged in a struggle for social justice.

  My biggest idea for creating social change was coalition-building between Wake Forest’s various minority student groups—groups like the Black Student Alliance, ASIA, the Gay-Straight Student Alliance, and the Islam Awareness Organization. (Knox’s group, VOICE, proved to be stillborn.) I thought these groups’ common bond of being minorities at Wake Forest was enough for them to work together and become the most powerful political bloc on campus.

  Although this coalition represented a patchwork of agendas, I tried to make sure that my activism was consistent with my faith. The area where this was most difficult was the work we did on behalf of gay students. Even as a progressive Sufi, I knew that Islam didn’t exactly endorse homosexuality. So whenever someone questioned me about it, I’d appeal to a higher principle: “Regardless of whether I believe that homosexuality is a sin, gay students are entitled to human rights.” If pressed, I’d admit that Islam held that homosexuality was wrong—but that didn’t change the need to combat discrimination.

  Al-Husein had a different take. I
once heard him tell a woman student that homosexuality wasn’t haram (forbidden) in Islam, but that the faith regarded it as something to be avoided. He explained that homosexuality should be avoided not because it’s morally wrong, but because society is prejudiced against gays. People should avoid homosexuality so as not to subject themselves to such a stigma, al-Husein said.

  I thought he was trying too hard to appeal to his audience. “Come on, al-Husein,” I said, “doesn’t our faith have a stronger position on homosexuality than that?”

  To my surprise, something was stirring in me. A desire for a stronger version of Islam, a kind of theological clarity at odds with my liberal principles.

  Shortly after returning to Wake Forest in January 1998, I met Amy.

  I was helping to coach the debate team. On the way to the first tournament of the year, in Carrollton, Georgia, one of the new Wake Forest debaters caught my eye. Her full name was Amy Powell, a second-semester freshman. Amy had a rare beauty that was matched by a powerful intellect. She stood five feet four with blue eyes and long, light brown hair that fell halfway down her back. She wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt over her T-shirt, along with blue jeans and a black beret.

  To get Amy’s attention, I winked at her. She smiled in response, a smile that radiated warmth. We had a long talk on the van ride down to Carrollton, and over the next couple of days I asked some of the Wake Forest debaters about her: Amy seems cool. What’s she like? Is she dating anybody? Happily, I learned that she was single—and seemed interested.

  When the tournament ended, I made sure that Amy and I were put in the same van for the ride back to Winston-Salem. We sat next to each other in the backseat. Our conversation was halting, but the eye contact said everything. When I looked straight into her eyes, she gazed back unblinking and unhesitating. Eventually we stopped trying to talk. Our lips met in a long kiss that communicated far more than talking ever could.

  Amy and I began dating shortly after our first kiss. She quickly became a constant presence in my life.

  We learned that both of our names meant “beloved,” and soon that was what Amy and I called each other: Beloved.

  Amy was three years younger than I was, born in 1979. She grew up in eastern North Carolina, in a town that was about the size of Ashland called Elizabeth City. It was a rural town with an expansive waterfront, a short drive from the Outer Banks. Although Amy was raised Presbyterian, her parents weren’t big churchgoers, and she was never baptized. Religion wasn’t very important to her when we started dating; the fact that I was Muslim didn’t faze her.

  At the time, Amy didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. Both of her parents were doctors, and she thought about medical school. She also toyed with ideas like becoming a veterinarian, lawyer, professor, or journalist.

  The aspect of Amy’s personality that stood out most at the time was that she was incredibly low-key. This would take on increasing significance in the future.

  Almost every night Amy would make the trek to my dorm on the north end of campus. There was much to share. I made Amy learn to love The Simpsons, and in return she tried to teach me calculus. She would stay up until all hours with me and al-Husein, listening to our ruminations.

  Amy and I had dinner together almost every night, usually macaroni and cheese or some other simple dish that college kids often make. Sometimes we’d watch TV or a movie. Often we’d just do schoolwork. But even if that’s all we did, I loved having her around—being able to chat with Amy, to lean over and kiss her. Soon it was hard to remember what things had been like before we were together.

  Al-Husein and I went to Turkey over spring break in March 1998. He was still teaching me new things. This time around, I learned that I could get Wake Forest to fully fund a dream trip to the Islamic world. We received a grant to study Sufism in Istanbul. (During my semester abroad in Venice I traveled to North Africa on my own, but Wake Forest did not foot the bill.)

  One night, we returned to our low-end hotel after prayers in an ornate mosque down the road and I flopped down on the hard, lumpy bed, writing in my journal. Although she was half a world away, I found myself thinking of Amy. I mentioned this to al-Husein.

  He remained silent for a moment, then said in a soft voice, “Let me ask you something. Is she a comfort to you?”

  “Is she a comfort to me?”

  “Yes. Is she a comfort to you?” Al-Husein paused, realizing that his question wasn’t sinking in. In an atypical effort to be understood, he said, “In a hadith, Prophet Muhammad said that wives should be a comfort to their husbands.”

  I thought for a short time. “Yes,” I finally said. “Yes, I think she is a comfort to me.”

  Because of my religion, my passion for social justice, and my college debate background, the topic of my honors thesis came naturally. I wrote about the rhetorical differences between Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and more traditional Muslim groups in appealing to the African-American community.

  The mosque I attended in Winston-Salem was part of the Islamic ministry of W. D. Muhammad. W. D. Muhammad, the son of longtime Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, had led his followers from the Nation of Islam’s old black-nationalist teachings toward traditional Islamic practice. As I researched for the thesis, I found my respect for him growing.

  The Nation of Islam was founded by W. D. Fard (after whom W. D. Muhammad was named), a carpet salesman who lived in Detroit. Although W. D. Fard’s teachings were steeped in Islamic themes, much of what he taught was actually anti-Islamic, merely designed to appeal to what he thought blacks wanted to hear. The most well known of these teachings was that the black race was the world’s original race, and that whites were a race of devils created by an evil scientist. But far more deviant from an Islamic viewpoint, Fard taught that he was God. This was contrary to the faith’s strict monotheism.

  Elijah Muhammad was Fard’s star pupil. On leaving Detroit in 1934 for parts unknown, Fard left him in charge of the fledgling religious group. Under Elijah Muhammad’s leadership, and with the help of national spokesman Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam grew into a powerful organization. At its height, it had eighty-seven temples scattered across the country. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, W. D. Muhammad inherited the leadership—even though many members thought that Louis Farrakhan would claim the top post.

  W. D. Muhammad proved to be a religious man who was committed to true Islam. When he took the Nation of Islam’s reins, he transformed it. He first initiated smaller reforms designed to bring the group’s practices in line with those of the worldwide Muslim community, such as prayer five times a day and fasting during the lunar month of Ramadan rather than December. Eventually he also abandoned the group’s racist teachings and its elevation of W. D. Fard. These changes angered Farrakhan and prompted him to create a splinter group, also called the Nation of Islam, devoted to the old black-nationalist theology.

  Eventually W. D. Muhammad abandoned his group’s organizational concept entirely. He told his followers to give up any labels that set them apart from the worldwide community of believers, and to think of themselves simply as Muslims. This left Farrakhan as the only one with a group called the Nation of Islam. I was impressed that although W. D. Muhammad could have gained so much power by fostering the Nation of Islam’s old teachings, he voluntarily moved the group in a different direction. In doing so, he seemed motivated solely by his devotion to God.

  I would later work with other Muslims who had a very different view of W. D. Muhammad. Despite his sacrifices, I would learn that he was viewed as a heretic, and even worse, in some circles. But at the time I wrote my honors thesis, I had no idea how hatred could spring from seemingly small doctrinal differences. And at the time, I had no idea that I would eventually come to see these small doctrinal differences as momentous.

  Amy and I often hung out in al-Husein’s dorm room. Amy intuitively recognized how important al-Husein was to me. She hadn’t known me before I became Muslim, back when I felt
isolated from the world. But she could tell that al-Husein was both a brother and a mentor.

  Amy was quiet in general, and this was even more pronounced when we were around al-Husein. And who could blame her? Al-Husein and I would bandy about concepts related to a religion that was alien to her, and were enraptured by our own revolutionary political ideals. Amy was still a work in progress. As was once the case for me, she was still finding her own way politically, spiritually, and socially. I didn’t push my political ideas on her, but always conveyed how important they were to me. One night I got an e-mail from Amy describing her political awakening. She wrote that she hadn’t thought much about issues like discrimination and inequality before, but was coming to see their importance. Her e-mail said that she didn’t want to have her head in the sand. I was so heartened after getting the e-mail that I called al-Husein and read it to him aloud.

  Sometimes al-Husein could push too far with Amy. She had a T-shirt that said, “Drink your coffee. There are people in India sleeping.” Al-Husein did not see the humor in the shirt. “There are people doing a lot more than sleeping in India,” he said. “There are people without houses, people living in abject poverty, people without food or running water.”

  Al-Husein didn’t get the joke. It was a play on the line that American parents are known to say to their kids: “Eat your peas. There are people in Africa starving.”

  Despite that, it would be a long time before Amy wore that shirt again.

  Mike Hollister’s wedding was an intimate affair. I returned to Bellingham at the beginning of the summer of 1998 to be one of his groomsmen. Mike was marrying Amy Childers, whom I had met during my last visit. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from our first encounter. It seemed that all she could think about upon meeting me was that I wasn’t Christian.

  But when I touched down at Bellingham’s airport, I found that she at least had a sense of humor. Amy and one of her bridesmaids waited in the airport with a fake limo driver’s sign that said Daveed. It was a funny touch for an airport with only one gate.