My Year Inside Radical Islam

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

  The angry side of Dennis was on display more frequently than the compassionate side. One thing that made him angry was current events. While I was often skeptical of Idris Palmer’s e-mail purporting to detail injustices inflicted on Muslims half a world away, Dennis’s first reaction was not skepticism but anger. It wasn’t just that he was certain that the injustices described in these e-mail messages had really occurred; it was as though they were happening before his eyes.

  Another thing that made him angry was fellow Muslims who he believed were distorting Islam. Sometimes he’d get angry because they were too liberal; other times deviant practices and beliefs caught his ire. We both thought that Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam had little in common with real Islam—but I was never able to muster the anger toward them that Dennis did.

  To me, one of the pamphlets that Al Haramain distributed perfectly encapsulated Dennis’s vituperative attitude toward the Nation of Islam. Appropriately enough, Idris Palmer wrote it. The title was The Nation of Islam Exposed.

  The pamphlet argued, in heated language, that Farrakhan wasn’t a Muslim and the Nation of Islam’s doctrine was not Islam:[I]t is an error to oversimplify the issue by denouncing Farrakhan’s racist diatribes while playing down Farrakhan’s God-is-a-man and Prophet-after-Muhammad beliefs. Racism has very little to do with the issue. Sure, racism is contrary to Islamic principles and Islam rejects it. However, the deviation of Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan are [sic] MUCH more serious than racism. It is the sin which Allah DOES NOT forgive. If Farrakhan would leave his man-is-god and prophet-after-Muhammad beliefs, but was still a raving racist, he would be much better off than the other way around! Let me say very clearly, that there is NO ideology on the face of this earth which could be farther from Islam than that of Louis Farrakhan. NONE!

  I wouldn’t have used the same heated language, but agreed with the substance of his argument. There were two key tenets in the shahadah, the declaration of faith that makes one a Muslim: there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger. The Nation of Islam fell short on both counts. They didn’t believe that there was no god but Allah: they held that God had lived on this earth in the person of W. D. Fard. And while the Nation of Islam believed that Muhammad was a prophet, he had specifically claimed to be Allah’s final prophet. Believing that Elijah Muhammad was also a prophet thus seemed to violate the second part of the shahadah.

  Al-Husein and I disagreed in our approach to the Nation of Islam. Whenever we discussed them, I’d criticize their theology as un-Islamic. But al-Husein saw a deeper, political purpose behind the group. Once, in college, we were driving back from a community event in downtown Winston-Salem that dealt with racism. Another Wake Forest student in the car asked about the Nation of Islam. As I was explaining how its theology took it outside the fold of Islam, al-Husein politely interrupted. “Don’t you think it’s really all about opposing racism?”

  “That is a large part of what the group is all about,” I said. “But they also claim to be Muslim, and there’s an objective standard you can use to see if they are.”

  When I finished writing my honors thesis, I sent it to al-Husein, who went to Harvard Divinity School after Wake Forest. Because this had been a small point of contention between us, I was interested to see his reaction. The thesis went into detail about why the Nation of Islam wasn’t actually Muslim, but also acknowledged that the group’s appeal lay in its willingness to take a stand against racism in America. The thesis urged more traditional Muslim groups to take a similar stand.

  After reading it, al-Husein sent back an e-mail that began with the word “alhamdulillah,” Arabic for “all praises due to God.” (It is a word that Muslims use when they receive compliments or accomplish something of significance. It is a word of modesty: this is not my accomplishment, but rather God has allowed me to do it.) While the thesis took a definitive stand about the Nation of Islam’s heterodox theology, al-Husein praised it for being compassionate at the same time. He added in the e-mail that he wasn’t sympathetic with the approach of Idris Palmer’s pamphlet because Palmer lacked any empathy for the Nation of Islam and its adherents. Al-Husein’s praise, at the time, made me feel a glow.

  The difference between my honors thesis approach and that of Idris Palmer’s pamphlet left me with mixed feelings about Dennis Geren’s rants about the Nation of Islam. They were certainly a pleasant change from his rants about, say, Algeria—where he blamed the Algerian government for all the violence, completely absolving Islamic terror groups of any responsibility. Here, at least we agreed that the Nation of Islam had a non-Islamic theology. But the depth of his anger puzzled me.

  The news had just come out that Farrakhan had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Idris Palmer had distributed an e-mail addressing how Muslims should respond if Farrakhan died. The answer: there was a series of supplications we could use to thank Allah for Farrakhan’s death.

  Dennis was amused by Farrakhan’s illness. He asked with a laugh, “If Farrakhan really is a god, why doesn’t he just heal himself?”

  Dennis was mixing up the teachings of the Nation of Islam with those of the Five Percent Nation offshoot, which held that every black man was his own god. He often made this mistake. “He doesn’t claim to be a god,” I said. I wasn’t trying to stick up for Farrakhan, just correct a factual error. “He believes that God appeared as a man, but as far as I know he never claimed to be God.”

  “That’s right,” Dennis said. “God appeared as W. D. Fart.” Dennis then made a farting noise.

  “You know,” I said, “I wrote my college honors thesis about the Nation of Islam. Their theology is a lot stranger than you even realize.”

  Dennis’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yeah. They believe that the mountains were created when black scientists used drill bombs to create explosions beneath the earth’s surface. The drill-bomb explosions caused the mountains to form.” Dennis laughed. “And the end of the world will come when the black scientists return and rain down drill bombs that destroy civilization. Before they do, the mother ship will return to pick up all the black Muslims who don’t weigh more than one hundred fifty pounds, ushering them to safety.”

  Dennis was almost giddy at the thought of more ammunition to use against the Nation of Islam. I told him that I’d bring him a copy of the thesis. Inwardly, I hoped the thesis might help Dennis understand why people were attracted to the Nation of Islam; I hoped it would make him feel less hatred toward them. Clearly, the idea that my differences with my coworkers could be ironed out through dialogue hadn’t left me.

  Later that week, I brought copies of the thesis for Dennis and Charlie. It was eighty-four pages long, providing a detailed explanation of the group’s history and theology, its appeal to the black community, and the attempts of more orthodox Muslim groups to appeal to African-Americans. (I homed in on W. D. Muhammad as a more orthodox alternative to the Nation of Islam—an obvious choice since W. D. Muhammad had originally been given the Nation’s top leadership post but decided to bring his followers to more traditional Islam.)

  Dennis was excited to get the thesis, but I could tell right away that his expectations were off. “This is great,” Dennis said to Charlie. “Daveed wrote a paper that really exposes the Nation of Islam.” But it was far more than an exposé.

  The next day, I saw that Dennis had put the honors thesis aside after reading only twelve pages. He looked angrier than usual. “You’re putting W. D. Muhammad forward as the orthodox alternative to the Nation of Islam?” Dennis snorted. “There’s no way that W. D. Muhammad is an orthodox Muslim.”

  “You understand why I call him that, don’t you?” I asked.

  A couple of footnotes in the paper made clear that it used a loose definition of Orthodox Muslim. The main theological distinction that the paper drew was between the Nation of Islam and other groups that professed a more traditional view of Islam. The paper wasn’t attempting to resolve theological controversies beyond th
at, nor was Orthodox Muslim used as a term of praise.

  As I began to explain this, Charlie cut in. He shook his head woefully as he spoke. It seemed that my referring to W. D. Muhammad as an orthodox Muslim saddened him. “We shouldn’t refer to these guys as orthodox Muslims,” he said. “That’s praise they don’t deserve. Maybe they’re Muslims, but orthodox Muslims? They aren’t that.”

  He stared out the window as he continued. “Why do these guys even call themselves Muslims?” he asked, his thoughts now turning from W. D. Muhammad to Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. “I’d be fine if they just called themselves Black Nazis. But why Muslims? Why are they trying to claim my religion?”

  A few days later, Dennis showed me a photocopy of a Nation of Islam pamphlet that we had on file. A Muslim prisoner had sent it to us.

  Al Haramain’s prison dawah program had become quite popular. The group was well known among prisoners for distributing Islamic literature, occasionally in the form of handsome hardcover volumes. There was a somewhat sophisticated system for doing this. When prisoners wrote requesting literature, they were sent a questionnaire designed to evaluate their Islamic knowledge. It asked a number of questions, ranging from the simple—Who is Allah (swt)?4 Who is Jesus (pbuh)?5—to the obscure—What are the ten sunan al-fitra? After a prisoner filled out the questionnaire, his answers were graded. Those who performed better would get more advanced books. As a result of the program’s popularity, prisoners often sent us long letters. (The disturbing frequency with which we received ten-page letters from prisoners borne out of their boredom produced the only pun that I ever heard Pete make: he called the prisoners a “captive audience.”) Sometimes these letters contained interesting items they had come across in prison, such as the Nation of Islam pamphlet that Dennis now clutched in his hand.

  The pamphlet tried to justify the Nation of Islam’s bizarre theology. The arguments were so bad that they were embarrassing. Almost every Qur’anic quote was clearly out of context. Particularly amusing was the claim (intended to justify the Nation of Islam’s racism) that Prophet Muhammad had been a black man, and this fact had been covered up for centuries. The claim was accompanied by a picture purporting to show that Muhammad had been black. Aside from the fact that pictures of the Prophet were haram, that “proof” was humorous because the pamphlet was a low-quality photocopy. The picture didn’t look like a person, just a splotch of black ink.

  After having a good laugh about the pamphlet, I wanted to move the conversation from ridiculing others to the deeper issues that Dennis might be overlooking. I said that racism is a real problem, and even though we sharply disagreed with the Nation of Islam’s theology, we had to be compassionate about why people are drawn to it.

  “Compassionate?” Dennis asked. “For those people who are part of the Nation of Islam and believe in black gods and W. D. Fart”—again, he made a farting noise—“you should just hand them this pamphlet and Idris Palmer’s pamphlet and let them choose. And if they choose Farrakhan’s cult, with its mother ship and W. D. Fart”—a farting noise—“then you’d punish them the way heretics have always been punished.”

  “Punish them?”

  “Yeah, let them choose true Islam or cut off their heads.”

  Daveed, if I were you I’d take your necklace off right now.”

  I bought the necklace in Chicago the previous February. Since then, I had worn it every day for almost a year. I wanted a physical reminder of my faith—similar to how my kufi served as a visible reminder, only less conspicuous—so I bought a string necklace with a metal star-and-crescent symbol on it. And now Dennis Geren was telling me to remove it.

  “Why?”

  “Last night, Yunus asked Sheikh Adly if it was okay for men to wear necklaces. Sheikh Adly said that men are not to wear necklaces under any circumstances. He said that necklaces are women’s clothing, and men shouldn’t wear women’s clothing.”

  I looked down at the necklace. Another day on the job. New and exciting points of Islamic law to discover.

  Dennis shrugged. His tone was apologetic. Far from being one of his hawkish moments, Dennis seemed as bewildered by Sheikh Adly’s pronouncement as I was. “I figured I was doing you a favor,” he said, “by telling you about it before Yunus could get to you.”

  I thought of Yunus and his arrogant young man’s way of speaking. Dennis was indeed doing me a favor. I slowly took the necklace off, crumpled it up, and shoved it into my pocket. I never wore it again.

  When the Kosovo war began in 1999, Pete walked into the office on one of the rare days that Charlie, the Hawk, and I were all there. He pressed his lips together as though deep in thought, nodded his head, and said, “You know, I think I’m for what the U.S. is doing in Kosovo. They’re actually going in to save Muslims.”

  Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević’s crackdown on the ethnic Albanian majority in the province of Kosovo, who were predominantly Muslim, precipitated the war. Many observers feared that the Serbian forces led by Milošević were undertaking a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the ethnic Albanians. This concern led the international community to try to broker a deal to end the crisis early in 1999. When Milošević rejected the deal, U.S.-led NATO forces initiated air strikes against targets in Kosovo and Serbia in March 1999 to try to protect the ethnic Albanian population.

  When Pete said that he was for the Kosovo war, the rest of us agreed with him. It was probably the last time that all four of us would back the United States in one of its military engagements, and soon the others’ take on the war would change. Probably the biggest factor in turning Pete, Charlie, and Dennis against the Kosovo war was a torrent of e-mail that Idris Palmer distributed featuring articles from the left-wing British press. Some of these articles argued that the air war had only accelerated the Serbs’ slaughter of the ethnic Albanians; others argued (absurdly) that the Kosovo war was in fact a “war for oil.”

  So after Pete, in his infinite fickleness, turned against the Kosovo war, he decided that he was single-handedly going to end it. Pete was one part activist, one part visionary, and one part con man. He would always come up with big, world-changing ideas that would inspire our benefactors in Saudi Arabia and convince them to devote tens of thousands of dollars. But the ideas never panned out the way Pete intended.

  He came to the office in the middle of one of his workdays and explained his plan. He wanted to put together a convoy of trucks, manned by private citizens and loaded with humanitarian supplies, that would enter Yugoslavia. Pete believed that when the convoy entered the country to distribute supplies, it would send a powerful signal: the bombing campaign had to end.

  Pete dictated a two-page letter to me that we sent to Dradana Ivanovich, the Yugoslav ambassador. In the letter, Pete framed the Serbs’ situation in much the same way as he often framed the plight of the world’s Muslims: “America’s vast military industrial complex needs to create an enemy to justify the billions of dollars spent every year to build up our vast arsenal, and the Western media has aided them in constructing the Serbians as the new threat to the West. I believe that the Serbians are good people, and that innocent men, women, and children are being killed every day during this senseless bombing campaign.”

  Pete paused after dictating this, and said, “See, I left that vague. When they read that innocent men, women, and children are being killed, they’ll think that I’m talking about the Serbs. But really, bro, the innocent men, women, and children are the Muslims.”

  The letter went on to explain Pete’s peace convoy plan:I wish to break the ice and help bring peace to the region by leading a convoy of relief trucks into the Yugoslav Federation as a statement that the hostilities directed toward the Federation should cease. . . .

  The trucks will have flashing lights on them, so that if NATO’s warplanes bomb them the world can see that NATO knew who it was hitting. I will drive the lead truck as a private citizen. The convoy will bring food and medical supplies for relief of the suffering cit
izens of the Yugoslav Federation, and the breaking of ice will also be a symbol that it is time to push the peace process forward.

  I would like to lead the convoy from Albania, because the center of hostility is perceived in the West as a conflict between Albania and the Yugoslav Federation. We would like to get as much press coverage as possible, to protect ourselves from NATO’s bombing and to dramatize the need for peace on the world stage. We will have no more than two drivers per vehicle, and each vehicle will hold food, medical supplies, and good will for all humankind.

  Of course, Pete’s idea was doomed from the start. If the Serbs ever gave serious thought to this proposal, they would certainly do a background check on Pete and the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation. What they would find would doubtless convince them that Pete’s scheme was far more trouble than it could possibly be worth.

  My favorite person in Ashland’s Muslim community was Abdi Guled. He was a tall Somali, standing six feet eight with a six-foot-ten wingspan. I was told that he used to play basketball for Somalia’s national team and was a hero in that country. If Somalia hadn’t deteriorated into lawlessness, he could perhaps be its president or hold some similarly powerful position.

  Abdi was beloved in Ashland, with good reason. He was more full of life than anybody I had met. Even his broad smile reflected the love he had for others, black or white, Muslim or non. He also had a mellifluous accent and punctuated his speech with words that most people didn’t understand, but that sounded endearing.

  Abdi’s wife, Mary Foster, was also a wonderful person. I had known her for years, as her son was a friend of mine in elementary school. (Actually, he used to beat me up, but the distinction between friend and bully sometimes erodes over time.) She and Abdi loved to travel together, and would sometimes show me videotapes of the exotic locales they had visited.