The beautiful thing about our faith,” Pete had told me when I first met him, “is that it’s a complete way of life. The Prophet, peace be upon him, taught about everything, down to how you eat your food and how you wipe after you go to the bathroom. Islam leaves no room for question!”
I was finding this to be the case. Sometimes the rules were difficult to remember, but I followed them dutifully.
One day in the office, I was ordering a book over the Internet. When I pulled out my credit card to enter its numbers in the order form, Dennis Geren looked over and said, “Haram!”
“What?”
“Haram. That credit card is haram. Islam prohibits the paying of interest, and you have to pay interest with credit card debt.”
I shrugged. “I always pay my bills on time. I never pay interest on this credit card.”
“A number of Islamic scholars have considered that argument, and they concluded that even signing an agreement saying that you’ll pay interest in the case of a late payment is haram.”
Naturally, I stopped carrying and using my credit card after that.
Just as I had feared, that summer was not a good time to have Amy in Oregon.
I had come to accept rules and restrictions that I once thought ridiculous. I remember how bizarre I found it when Sheikh Adly refused to be in the same room with Suzi Aufderheide, and only considered it acceptable when she agreed to have the door open with her young son just outside. But now I was beginning to reconsider my views on relations between the sexes. And sadly, my relationship with Amy was the epicenter of how these changes played out in my life.
I never saw women in the Musalla. If women were in the building, they would be downstairs. At one point, the downstairs area was undergoing extensive renovation and was basically uninhabitable, so they moved the women upstairs to the living room adjacent to the prayer room. To make it Islamically acceptable, curtains were draped over the entrances to the living room so the men wouldn’t lay eyes on the women (similar to the curtains in the back of Pete Seda’s home). But Sheikh Hassan was visiting from California that week, and protested. He said it was wrong to have the women upstairs, because one of the men might glimpse them through the curtain when he was in the foyer. Although the women grumbled a bit, they were shepherded downstairs, where they could neither hear the sermon nor pray in comfort.
By the time Amy arrived in Oregon, I wondered if it was proper to make physical contact with her, wondered whether it was okay to even be in the same room with her. As I worked through these questions, I became more distant. I didn’t think she could understand.
One day after work, Abdul-Qaadir gave a lecture about the importance of marriage. I felt that the sermon spoke directly to what I was going through—the sinfulness of modern dating, the superiority of Islamic courtship, the obligation to marry once you’ve decided that a woman is right for you.
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.
Haram, 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 dou
bt, 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.”
Pete wanted to press ahead, immediately, with a response. Like so many of Pete’s ideas, it started with a bang but ended with a whimper. I drafted a letter to Frontline on his behalf that he decided not to send because it sounded “too angry”; Pete and some directors from the Riyadh office met with attorneys at a Washington, D.C., law firm and paid them a $50,000 retainer for a defamation suit against PBS that, as far as I know, went nowhere; and we met with a PR consultant a couple of weeks later but never implemented her ideas.
I didn’t give much thought at the time to Al Haramain’s logo appearing in connection with the embassy bombings. It certainly didn’t make me question my affiliation with Al Haramain. My view was that Western governments and the Western media misunderstood and feared Islam, and this seemed to be another case of their misunderstanding.
I probably should have been more suspicious. I had seen Al Haramain’s ideology firsthand and knew about its international reach. Al Haramain was originally formed as a private charity in Riyadh in 1992. By the time I came to work for the group, it had offices in more than fifty countries and an annual budget of $40 to $50 million. Years later, after Islamic extremism finally came crashing into the public consciousness, I would learn about some of the activities that Al Haramain’s branch offices were involved in.
Further evidence would come to light, for example, about Al Haramain’s role in the embassy bombings. The U.S. Treasury ultimately designated Al Haramain’s offices in Kenya and Tanzania as sponsors of terrorism for their role in the plot. The Treasury designation listed multiple connections between Al Haramain and the embassy bombings, including the Al Haramain offices’ involvement in planning the attacks, funding by a wealthy Al Haramain official, and a former Tanzanian Al Haramain director’s role in making preparations for the advance party that planned the bombings. The Al Haramain branch in the Comoros Islands was also designated because it “was used as a staging area and exfiltration route for the perpetrators of the 1998 bombings.”
My Year Inside Radical Islam Page 16
