MOSCOW -- He had been a bright but lonely child from a sleepy city near the Mongolian border, in a Buddhist region of Russia far from the nation's Muslim centers. But by the time he was killed last month, thousands of miles away in the volatile North Caucasus, Alexander Tikhomirov had become the face of an Islamist insurgency.
After two young women blew themselves up on the Moscow subway last week, killing 40 people in the city's worst terrorist attack in years, investigators said they suspected that Tikhomirov had recruited and trained them, and perhaps dozens of other suicide bombers.
How the schoolboy whom neighbors called Sascha became the tech-savvy militant known as Sayid Buryatsky remains a question wrapped in rumor and speculation. But the outline of Tikhomirov's journey from the Siberian steppes to the mountains of Chechnya provides a sense of the challenge that radical Islam poses in Russia and the speed with which the insurgency in the nation's southwest is changing.
In less than two years with the rebels, Tikhomirov became their most effective propagandist, drawing in young Muslims with his fluent Russian, colloquial interpretations of Islam and mastery of the Internet. When security forces gunned him down last month at age 27, the guerrillas immediately cast him as a martyr.
Even in death, he remains influential. The rebel leader Doku Umarov has vowed fresh attacks in the Russian heartland by the brigade of suicide bombers that Tikhomirov helped revive. And he remains a digital legend, with his writings and videos preserved on the Web and his DVDs sold outside mosques across the former Soviet Union.
Neighbors in Ulan Ude, capital of the Siberian province of Buryatia, remember Tikhomirov as an awkward boy from a troubled family. His father was Buryat, an ethnic minority related to Mongols, and died soon after he was born. His mother, said to be an ethnic Russian, struggled to make ends meet at a local market.
One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of police scrutiny, said Tikhomirov's interest in Islam came after he was forced to drop out of high school and attend vocational school. Others traced it to a stepfather from the Caucasus.
But in a letter posted on a rebel Web site, Tikhomirov's mother said he was simply drawn in by a library copy of the Koran when he was 17. "That same year, he started to search for people who could tell him anything about Islam," she wrote.
Tikhomirov may have had an early brush with Islamic extremism and Russia's heavy-handed efforts to stamp it out. An Uzbek preacher named Bakhtiyar Umarov moved to his city about the time he converted, and Tikhomirov studied with him, acquaintances said. After Umarov caused a stir by trying to build a mosque, Russia deported the preacher to Uzbekistan, where he was jailed on charges of "terrorist propaganda." But his defenders insist that he is a moderate and could not have radicalized Tikhomirov.
In his late teens, Tikhomirov moved to Moscow, where he attended an Islamic college that the authorities later closed in a crackdown on suspected extremism. He then traveled to Cairo, where he studied Arabic and attended lectures by Muslim scholars, one of whom he cited years later to justify violence in the name of Islam.
In 2003, he returned to Moscow, telling friends that the Egyptian authorities had kicked him out for his religious activities. He took the Muslim name Sayid, calling himself Sayid Buryatsky.
But he seemed far from ready to join the rebels in the North Caucasus. Investigators say he took a job as a low-level assistant to the Russian Council of Muftis, which unites the nation's Muslim spiritual boards.
Suppressed by the czars and the Communists, Islam has enjoyed a fitful rebirth in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the nation's estimated 20 million Muslims are ethnic minorities who adhere to a moderate branch of the faith. But radical views have made inroads, fueled by foreign proselytizers and frustration with state-backed spiritual leaders.
Acquaintances say Tikhomirov embraced a movement known as Salafism, which argues that Islam has been corrupted over the centuries and urges a return to the stricter practices of the earliest Muslims. The movement is popular among young Muslims in Russia, but the security forces often target its adherents as extremists.
Russia's traditional Islamic leaders have tried to steer young people toward moderate views, but a severe shortage of mosques, due in part to state limits, has made that difficult. In Moscow, six mosques serve as many as 3 million believers, the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe.
Aslam Ezhaev, director of an Islamic publishing house, said Tikhomirov voiced frustration with Muslim officialdom and eventually returned to Buryatia, where he took a job as a warehouse guard and offered to translate Arabic books for him.
Ezhaev suggested that Tikhomirov start a podcast for his Web site, Radio Islam. Tikhomirov proved be a talented preacher; his lectures were an immediate hit.
Ezhaev said he opposed violence and forbade Tikhomirov to discuss jihad. "It was easy for him to stay within the limits," he said. "I didn't see any signs of fanaticism."
On the Web, radicals criticized Tikhomirov for refusing to talk about Russia's brutal efforts to crush the insurgency in the Caucasus, where rebels in 2007 declared jihad to establish an Islamist emirate.
In the spring of 2008, Tikhomirov received a recruitment video from a senior rebel commander. "I considered it probably three or five seconds," he recalled in a video of his own, then concluded that God was challenging him to back up his sermons with action.
Because of his mixed ethnicity, he quickly became a powerful symbol for an insurgency trying to expand beyond Chechnya to the rest of the Caucasus. His sermons, which he filmed in combat gear, weaved scripture with sarcasm, striking a chord in an impoverished Muslim region brimming with resentment against the security forces.
Tikhomirov called the screams of injured enemies "music for the ears" and detailed his central role in the campaign of suicide bombings that began last summer with the revival of Riyad-us Saliheen, a brigade that once staged attacks across Russia.
"While I am alive," he wrote in December, "I will do everything possible so that the ranks of Riyad-us Saliheen are broadened and new waves of mujaheddin go on to martyrdom operations."
On March 2, when security forces surrounded him and other fighters in a village in Ingushetia, Tikhomirov recorded a final sermon on his mobile phone, officials said. The authorities recovered the phone, along with a 50-liter barrel of explosives.
What changed between 1991 and 2003 Iraq invasions? (Apr. 3, 2010)
The Morocco author Fatema Mernissi wrote in 1991 “Islam and democracy” after the first invasion of Iraq by President Bush the father or senior. In 2002, she wrote an introduction to the English edition. In 2010, the French editor Albin Michel asked Mernissi a fresh introduction to the updated French edition. Mernissi suggested that the English introduction should be fine and Michel replied: “Do you think that nothing happened between 2002 and 2010 that young Europeans might be interested in knowing?”
After a good night sleep Mernissi realized that among the many changes, apart that Islamic/Arabic youth are double the Western rate, one change stands out grandly: In 1991, the Arabs were terrified of Western supremacy in technology (smart bombs for example that CNN kept showing their devastating effects in collateral damages on civilians); in 2003 invasion it was clear that the American and British soldiers were the most scared of Islam virulence. Mainly, Islamic/Arab States had acquired the numeric information technology for disseminating instant news in sound, pictures, and videos and had begun rational communication discussions (jadal) on points and counter points to the benefit of every Arab/Moslems living in European States and the USA.
The unilateral monopoly in the diffusion and dissemination of information and “intelligence” was eroded: Moslems and Arabs could now enjoy 36 satellite channels broadcasting everywhere, including the most popular Al Jazeera channel that even the Western Medias watched for current and impartial news. Moslems in China were able to keep up with the rest of Islamic World events.
This information victory scared the Western civilization after it realized that the new Islamic/Arabic generations are no longer attuned to their local monopoly Medias run by dictators and monarchs: it is internet age and youth want changes and to discourse rationally. In 1991, Arabs had practically the CNN to cover the war in Iraq as direct source of information and it was biased toward showing the effects of “smart bombs” and Iraqi soldiers being shoveled alive under in the dune bunkers. Arab people got familiar with the term “collateral damages” and CNN failed to inform on the casualties. In 2003, Arab/Moslem masses had Al Jazeera channel to cover the war among 32 other satellite channels viewed for free. It is estimated that by 2012, Islamic/Arab States will have over 1,200 free channels as option for the world to watch information and discussion sessions.
For example, since 1948, Israel has devoured all Palestine and waged countless major pre-emptive wars and the Arab masses had to rely on American Medias for totally biased information; the pickiest watchers occasionally selected the BBC. Things have changed in this numeric information age. In 2003, Al Jazeera was offering as bonuses well targeted discussion panels with many foreign figures. For example, in 2001 and before the September attack on the Twin Towers, Al Jazeera ridiculed Taliban for bombing the ancient giant Buddhist idols in Bamyan (Afghanistan) while Richard Keller of the giant oil multinational UNOCAL was proclaiming “Taliban is good thing for us”
Western humanists grabbed the successes of the Islamic/Arabic satellite channels to become regular guest stars. For example, Dany Schechter of “Plunder: Investigating our economic calamity and the subprime scandal”; Adam Hochschild of “Burry the chains: Prophets and rebels in the fight to liberal”; and Chris Hedges of “War is a force that gives us meaning” are regular guests on Arab satellite channels.
Most ironic, it is the USA and a few European States that have been pressuring the obscurantist Arabic State dictators and monarchies to suppressing freedom of opinions and to shut down “controversial” Arabic channels. In France a few city mayors ordered Arabic channels banned for dissemination because the Arabs and Moslems living in these cities were hooked to Arabic channels and their mind being “poisoned” away from France patriotic indoctrination and inclusion programs.
In early March, observers watched as around 20 long-time Christian orphanage workers were expelled from the country they called home. The incident, and others which followed it, have brought to light the debate surrounding Christianity in the Kingdom.
While the official Moroccan line is that 98.7-99 per cent of the population is Muslim (the remainder being approximately 1% Christian and 0.2% Jewish), that statistic includes ethnic Europeans residing in Morocco. Proselytizing is illegal, as is conversion away from Islam. Still, foreign Christians are allowed to practice freely, and a number of churches, mostly from the era of French colonization, remain. In contrast, the country's tiny Jewish population is almost entirely native, and is also allowed free practice of their faith.
Despite guarantees of freedom, it would appear that the government is taking a stronger approach of late to proselytism, both real and perceived. The Moroccan Dispatchesshares a recent incident in which an Egyptian Catholic priest was expelled from the country:
Evangelicals have operated for years in Morocco, with their main purpose being the conversion of Muslims. Catholics have operated for longer, but purposefully have not engaged in proselytizing. So it came as a surprise that a Catholic priest was also detained and then exported during last week's crackdown.
The blogger shares a message he received from the church in Casablanca:
On Sunday the 7th of March, five minutes before mass began; the police in the city of Larache entered our friary and arrested one of our confrères, Rami Zaki, a young Egyptian friar still in initial formation who was spending a year with us. He was ordered to go with the police, had no possibility to collect anything, and was given no explanation for his arrest…
…When Rami was put on the plane, his passport was taken from him and given to the pilot who later surrendered it with Rami to the police in Cairo. He was detained by the police in Cairo for another seven hours for interrogation before he was permitted to telephone his community of friars. From Sunday, the morning of his arrest, to Tuesday afternoon, when he was released – a total of more than 50 hours – Rami was deprived by the police in Morocco and Egypt of any of his human rights.
In another post, the blogger demonstrates that the public has joined in the crackdowns, citing a recent incident in which a cross was removed from its site of many years:
Where a cross once hung in Meknés
This is the place where a cross used to hang in Meknes' medina. The Catholics who teach Moroccans languages and career skills in this building do not engage in proselytism but have caught up in the anti-Christian sentiment following the recent expulsions of Christians. Last week, the cross was knocked down and beaten into pieces.
On a positive note, Moroccans who have benefited from their services have volunteered to reconstruct the cross.
In a more recent post, the same blogger assesses a TelQuel article on the situation, and says of it:
In the main article, it points out that most Moroccans convert to Christianity more as a result of Arabic media and not from foreign missionaries. This jives with my experience: a number of Moroccans I know have had long conversations with Christian missionaries about religion and none have converted. Some defended Islam while smoking hashish just to piss off the Christians, it that gives you an idea of how many Moroccans understand their Islamic identity. This observation about foreign missionaries, of course, undermines the rationale behind the recent expulsions of many foreigners.
Other media critical of the government have been shut down recently. And the same could happen to Tel Quel. But as long as they are still around, there will be at least some debate and critical thinking about current events.
Chinese Muslim preachers are popular, but they don’t always promote greater pluralism
Hew Wai-Weng
Tan Mei Hwa’s preaching style is especially popular among women
Hew Wai-Weng
In today’s Indonesia, Chinese Muslim preachers have a surprisingly high profile. Although the figures are highly contested, it is generally believed that only about 1 to 2 percent of Chinese Indonesians, out of a total population of 5 to 6 million, are Muslims. Yet Chinese Muslim preachers are popular, not only among Chinese converts, but also with non-Chinese Muslim Indonesians. They appear regularly on religious television programs and hold public talks that are often attended by large crowds.
Successful preachers in contemporary Indonesia are also media celebrities, skilled at tailoring their messages to a media audience. Chinese preachers appear to have a special marketing pull, because of their ethnicity and their status as converts. Most Indonesians are born into the Muslim faith, so converts arouse curiosity under any circumstances, but especially when they are Chinese. Many Muslims are concerned with what they see as a process of ‘Christianisation’ in Indonesia, and so they view the conversion of Chinese Indonesians – a community that is almost forty per cent Christian – as a welcome phenomenon. At the same time, many Muslims think that the spiritual journey toward piety that these converts-turned-preachers make provides a positive role model for non-practising Muslims. The preaching of Chinese Muslims takes varying forms and they each have different messages, reflecting their varying socio-economic backgrounds, cultural outlooks, conversion experiences and religious education. It might be said that Chinese preachers are as diverse as Indonesian Islam itself.
Tan Mei Hwa: singing, dancing, preaching
Tan Mei Hwa, or Ida Astuti, is both a preacher and a performer. Her Chinese identity and entertaining preaching style have made her one of the most popular preachers in East Java. She has speaking engagements nearly every day, and during Ramadhan she hosted a religious program on the biggest local television station in East Java, JTV. She is known as Bu Nyai – Tan Mei Hwa, ‘nyai’ being a prestigious title for a female religious scholar in the Javanese tradition. Always dressed in fashionable and colourful Muslim attire, her easily digested religious messages and down-to-earth preaching style is welcomed by many ordinary Muslims, especially women and girls. She intersperses her message with singing, plenty of jokes and sometimes even dancing. With her expressive body language she can hold her audience’s attention for a full hour and a half of preaching.
She uses her Chinese name, Tan Mei Hwa, in order to differentiate herself from other preachers who have Islamic or Indonesian names. When she preaches, she always tries to present a positive image of Chinese Indonesians to the Muslim crowd by saying that not all Chinese are rich or exclusive. She likes to highlight the role of Cheng Ho, or Zheng He, a 15th century Muslim admiral from China, who helped promote early Islamisation in Java. She also emphasises that some of the revered wali songo, the nine saints who are mythologised as the first persons to spread Islam in Java, were of Chinese descent.
Chinese preachers appear to have a special marketing pull, because of their ethnicity and their status as converts
In a public talk I witnessed in Surabaya during Ramadhan in 2008, Tan Mei Hwa urged the crowd, who were mostly non-Chinese Muslims, to acknowledge and respect difference. She recounted a short conversation between two Muslim girls in which one had refused to go to a pengajian (Islamic study session) because it was being led by a Chinese preacher. She then cited Qur’anic texts and told her audience, ‘I was born as Tan Mei Hua. Can I choose to not be Chinese? Is it a sin to be Chinese? There is no Qur’anic text that obliges someone to be ethnic Chinese or not. God creates us in different shapes and colours. We are all brother and sisters, and we should respect each other.’ Besides promoting tolerance within the Muslim community, Tan Mei Hwa’s chief message concerns the universality of Islamic values and the application of Islamic teachings in everyday life.
Koko Liem: Chinese package, Islamic message
Born Liem Hai Thai, Koko Liem adopted a Muslim name, Muhammad Utsman Anshori, when he converted to Islam. This is something many converts do. However, he prefers to be called Koko Liem when he preaches, because, he says, it is more ‘down-to-earth’. It also differentiates him from other preachers. Koko means ‘brother’ in the Hokkien dialect, while Liem is a clan name that is very common among Indonesians of Chinese descent. It’s a name that marks him as indisputably Chinese.
Besides his name, Koko Liem’s other preaching trademark is that he wears traditional Chinese clothing when he preaches. He says he wears this outfit because it looks interesting and it’s different from what other preachers wear. He adds that it is a preaching strategy to show that Islamic teaching is not incompatible with Chinese custom. His Chinese name and clothing are a strategic way of packaging and marketing his message and do not reflect his daily cultural practice. He can only speak a small amount of Hokkien dialect, but speaks fluent Arabic and Indonesian, and is married to a Javanese woman.
Koko Liem’s latest religious SMS service
www.kokoliem.com
Koko Liem was one of the finalists on Mimbar Dai, a reality show on TPI (Indonesian Education Television) in which one of the competitors is awarded the title of ‘best preacher’. He is one of the most creative Chinese preachers, whose Islamic business career goes beyond public preaching to include acting and advertising, umroh and haj travel, a religious SMS service, and the establishment of a religious school for new converts. He has a personal website (www.kokoliem.com) featuring reports and video clips of his public preaching engagements, as well as Islamic articles, consulting services and stories of new converts. He has also affiliated himself with the UJE Centre, owned by a popular celebrity-preacher, Jefri al-Buchori (Uje). He holds monthly Islamic study sessions for new converts and occasionally speaks at the popular ‘I like Monday’ Islamic study sessions at the UJE Centre.
In his latest SMS religious service, Lampion Hati (A Lantern for the Heart), which offers Islamic-based advice, teaching and ring tones to subscribers, Koko Liem strategically combines Chinese cultural symbols with Islamic messages to attract customers. Against a red background decorated with pictures of Chinese lanterns and the silhouette of a mosque, Koko Liem features in a posture of prayer, wearing green (the colour of Islam) traditional Chinese clothing. The advertisement for his SMS service declares his goal to be ‘illuminating your heart and faith with Islamic advice’. This combination of Chinese cultural symbols and Islamic messages gives Koko Liem his uniqueness and makes him especially popular among Muslim Indonesians.
Irena Handono: from church activist to Islamic preacher
Irena Handono, or Han Hoo Lie, a former student at Atmajaya Catholic University in Jakarta, was a church activist and nun before she converted to Islam. Unlike Tan Mei Hua and Koko Liem, Irena Handoko does not position herself as a ‘Chinese’ preacher. Although some of her Muslim admirers know about her Chinese identity, her trademark as a preacher is her background as a Catholic nun. She is active in numerous Islamic organisations, most of which are conservatively inclined, including Forum Gerakan Anti Pornografi dan Pornoaksi (FORGAPP, Forum for the Anti Pornography and Porno-action Movement). She can be regarded as a more fundamentalist preacher and is well-known in conservative circles.
Whenever she preaches, Irena emphasises her experience of conversion to Islam. She makes lengthy and detailed theological comparisons between Christianity and Islam which always end up demonstrating Islam’s superiority. According to Irena, Islam is the only true religion recognised by God, and the Christian concept of the ‘trinity’ is false. She criticises non-practising Muslims for not using the Qur’an to guide every aspect of their lives. She also attacks prominent Muslims who have promoted pluralistic ideas, such as the well-known religious scholar Syafii Maarif, who had the temerity to suggest that not only Muslims, but also Christians and Jews would have a place in heaven. Her criticisms are welcomed among conservative-fundamental Islamic groups and her preaching is frequently reported in Islamic magazines and newspapers such as Sabili and Republika. For Irena, religious experience is more fundamental than ethnicity as a guide to daily life and preaching.
Anton Medan: from gangster to preacher
Anton Medan, or Tan Kok Liong, is a controversial character, not because he is Chinese, but because in an earlier life he was a preman, or gangster. Now a popular dakwah figure, his involvement in murder, robbery, and illegal gambling led him to spend 18 years of his life in prison. After converting to Islam, he started his preaching career amongst prisoners and prostitutes, before becoming popular with a wider public and on television. His personal transformation from immoral hoodlum to pious preacher is his preaching trademark.
Anton Medan (at the front of the crowd, wearing a black peci cap)
visited Amrozi’s family in Lamongan, before Amrozi was executed for
terrorism
Hew Wai-Weng
He has also established an Islamic boarding school in Bogor that promotes entrepreneurship alongside religious education and where Chinese language and business skills are compulsory subjects. In the same compound, there is a Chinese-style mosque, Masjid Tan Kok Liong, which resembles the architectural design of a traditional Chinese palace. Anton Medan says this building is part of an effort to preach Islam to Chinese Indonesians, and to promote pembauran (blending) between Chinese and non-Chinese Indonesians. He does not see a contradiction between being a Muslim and Chinese, and claims that he has the strength of both, or as he puts it, ‘Akal Cina, Hati Muslim’; ‘Chinese mind’, by which he means a business orientation, and ‘Muslim heart’, denoting an emphasis on spirituality and morality.
The media has sometimes highlighted Anton Medan’s conservative side. For example, his visits to the families of convicted Bali bombers Amrozi and Samudra before the two men were executed for terrorism, was widely reported in the national press. As a new convert with a criminal background, his assertion of his Islamic identity appeals to a broader Muslim audience.
From taboo to commodity
During the long years of Suharto’s New Order regime, Chinese culture was taboo. The government even banned the Mandarin translation of the Qur’an. However, in contemporary democratic Indonesia, Chinese culture has become a marketable commodity, not only consumed by the ethnic Chinese themselves, but also by non-Chinese Indonesians. For example, about eighty percent of the members of lion dance groups in Surabaya are either Javanese or Madurese, and Taiwanese popular culture (such as F4’s Meteor Garden) is popular among non-Chinese youth. The popularity of Chinese preachers amongst non-Chinese Muslims is a further illustration of this appeal.
The new celebrity status of Chinese preachers may help to improve the image of Chinese Indonesians among the broader Indonesian population. Chinese Indonesians are often accused of being ‘exclusive’, of holding themselves apart from the broader population, and of refusing to mix. These feelings have traditionally been strongest in devout Muslim circles, and in Muslim organisations – right back to the early years of the twentieth century when Indonesia’s first truly mass organisation, Sarekat Islam (Islamic Union), was set up to campaign against the influence of Chinese businesses. Now, not only moderate Muslim organisations (such as Nadhlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah), but also conservative groups (like the Islamic Defenders’ Front, FPI, and the Prosperous Justice Party, PKS) are enthusiastic about recruiting Chinese Muslims, both as members and leaders. They do so to prove that they practise multiculturalism, and also to hold up Chinese converts as models of devout behaviour to non-practising Muslims.
Chinese Muslim preachers may diversify the appearance of preaching but they do not necessarily add greater pluralism to the substance of religious belief and practice
However it would be too simplistic to suggest that the consumption of Chinese culture by non-Chinese Muslims can lead to the erosion of ethnic boundaries and suspicions. On the contrary, some Chinese Muslim preachers strategically use stereotypes and symbols of Chinese culture (for example, Koko Liem’s traditional Chinese attire) to attract audiences and promote the universality of Islam. This stereotypical representation of Chinese Indonesians implies that Chinese culture is always attached to the ethnic Chinese, no matter how far they go to adapt to the Muslim mainstream, and that the distinction between ‘Chinese’ and ‘indigenous’ Indonesians is something that can never be erased.
Neither does preaching by Chinese Muslims necessarily contribute to a more progressive understanding of Islam. Chinese Muslim preachers may diversify the appearance of preaching – simply because they look Chinese – but they do not necessarily add greater pluralism to the substance of religious belief and practice.
In fact, most Chinese Muslim preachers are conservative on religious and social matters. Irena Handono is the extreme case: her constant criticism of Christianity in her preaching not only alarms non-Muslims, it also alienates her from moderate Muslim audiences. Most Chinese Muslim preachers avoid controversial issues, and focus on how best to apply Islamic values in daily life. They tend to be moderate and tolerant in their preaching, yet restrict themselves to certain orthodox interpretations of Islamic teaching. Tan Mei Hwa, for instance, once told her audiences that ‘women are not suited to become Muslim leaders’. For converts, subscription to a conservative understanding of Islam is not surprising, as this is one way to prove the sincerity of one’s conversion, and demonstrate one’s credentials as a preacher.
The popularity of Chinese Muslim preachers reflects the commodification of both Chineseness and Islam in contemporary Indonesia. Diversity of styles is not always accompanied by plurality of discourses. Thus, while the appearance of a Chinese preacher in traditional Chinese costume on a religious television program may help to promote a positive image of ethnic Chinese among non-Chinese audiences and diversify the face of Islamic preaching, it does not necessarily break down ethnic stereotypes and pluralise the substance of religion.
Hew Wai-Weng (waiweng.hew@anu.edu.au) is a PhD student in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University.
September 11, 2001, was gruesome enough on its own terms, but for many of us, the real fear was of what might follow. Not only had Al Qaeda shown it was capable of sophisticated and ruthless attacks, but a far greater concern was that the group had or could establish a powerful hold on the hearts and minds of Muslims. And if Muslims sympathized with Al Qaeda's cause, we were in for a herculean struggle. There are more than 1.5 billion Muslims living in more than 150 countries across the world. If jihadist ideology became attractive to a significant part of this population, the West faced a clash of civilizations without end, one marked by blood and tears.
These fears were well founded. The 9/11 attacks opened the curtain on a world of radical and violent Islam that had been festering in the Arab lands and had been exported across the globe, from London to Jakarta. Polls all over the Muslim world revealed deep anger against America and the West and a surprising degree of support for Osama bin Laden. Governments in most of these countries were ambivalent about this phenomenon, assuming that the Islamists' wrath would focus on the United States and not themselves. Large, important countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia seemed vulnerable.
More than eight eventful years have passed, but in some ways it still feels like 2001. Republicans have clearly decided that fanning the public's fears of rampant jihadism continues to be a winning strategy. Commentators furnish examples of backwardness and brutality from various parts of the Muslim world—and there are many—to highlight the grave threat we face.
But, in fact, the entire terrain of the war on terror has evolved dramatically. Put simply, the moderates are fighting back and the tide is turning. We no longer fear the possibility of a major country succumbing to jihadist ideology. In most Muslim nations, mainstream rulers have stabilized their regimes and their societies, and extremists have been isolated. This has not led to the flowering of Jeffersonian democracy or liberalism. But modern, somewhat secular forces are clearly in control and widely supported across the Muslim world. Polls, elections, and in-depth studies all confirm this trend.
The focus of our concern now is not a broad political movement but a handful of fanatics scattered across the globe. Yet Washington's vast nation-building machinery continues to spend tens of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there are calls to do more in Yemen and Somalia. What we have to ask ourselves is whether any of that really will deter these small bands of extremists. Some of them come out of the established democracies of the West, hardly places where nation building will help. We have to understand the changes in the landscape of Islam if we are going to effectively fight the enemy on the ground, rather than the enemy in our minds.
Once, no country was more worrying than bin Laden's homeland. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, steward of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, had surpassed Egypt as the de facto leader of the Arab world because of the vast sums of money it doled out to Islamic causes—usually those consonant with its puritanical Wahhabi doctrines. Since 1979 the Saudi regime had openly appeased its homegrown Islamists, handing over key ministries and funds to reactionary mullahs. Visitors to Saudi Arabia after 9/11 were shocked by what they heard there. Educated Saudis—including senior members of the government—publicly endorsed wild conspiracy theories and denied that any Saudis had been involved in the 9/11 attacks. Even those who accepted reality argued that the fury of some Arabs was inevitable, given America's one-sided foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli issue.
America's initial reaction to 9/11 was to focus on Al Qaeda. The group was driven out of its base in Afghanistan and was pursued wherever it went. Its money was tracked and blocked, its fighters arrested and killed. Many other nations joined in, from France to Malaysia. After all, no government wanted to let terrorists run loose in its land.
But a broader conversation also began, one that asked, "Why is this happening, and what can we do about it?" The most influential statement on Islam to come out of the post-9/11 era was not a presidential speech or an intellectual's essay. It was, believe it or not, a United Nations report. In 2002 the U.N. Development Program published a detailed study of the Arab world. The paper made plain that in an era of globalization, openness, diversity, and tolerance, the Arabs were the world's great laggards. Using hard data, the report painted a picture of political, social, and intellectual stagnation in countries from the Maghreb to the Gulf. And it was written by a team of Arab scholars. This was not paternalism or imperialism. It was truth.
The report, and many essays and speeches by political figures and intellectuals in the West, launched a process of reflection in the Arab world. The debate did not take the form that many in the West wanted—no one said, "You're right, we are backward." But still, leaders in Arab countries were forced to advocate modernity and moderation openly rather than hoping that they could quietly reap its fruits by day while palling around with the mullahs at night. The Bush administration launched a series of programs across the Muslim world to strengthen moderates, shore up civil society, and build forces of tolerance and pluralism. All this has had an effect. From Dubai to Amman to Cairo, in some form or another, authorities have begun opening up economic and political systems that had been tightly closed. The changes have sometimes been small, but the arrows are finally moving in the right direction.
Ultimately, the catalyst for change was something more lethal than a report. After 9/11, Al Qaeda was full of bluster: recall the videotapes of bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, boasting of their plans. Yet they confronted a far less permissive environment. Moving money, people, and materials had all become much more difficult. So they, and local groups inspired by them, began attacking where they could—striking local targets rather than global ones, including a nightclub and hotel in Indonesia, a wedding party in Jordan, cafés in Casablanca and Istanbul, and resorts in Egypt. They threatened the regimes that, either by accident or design, had allowed them to live and breathe.
Over the course of 2003 and 2004, Saudi Arabia was rocked by a series of such terrorist attacks, some directed against foreigners, but others at the heart of the Saudi regime—the Ministry of the Interior and compounds within the oil industry. The monarchy recognized that it had spawned dark forces that were now endangering its very existence. In 2005 a man of wisdom and moderation, King Abdullah, formally ascended to the throne and inaugurated a large-scale political and intellectual effort aimed at discrediting the ideology of jihadism. Mullahs were ordered to denounce suicide bombings, and violence more generally. Education was pried out of the hands of the clerics. Terrorists and terror suspects were "rehabilitated" through extensive programs of education, job training, and counseling. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus said to me, "The Saudi role in taking on Al Qaeda, both by force but also using political, social, religious, and educational tools, is one of the most important, least reported positive developments in the war on terror."
Perhaps the most successful country to combat jihadism has been the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia. In 2002 that country seemed destined for a long and painful struggle with the forces of radical Islam. The nation was rocked by terror attacks, and a local Qaeda affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah, appeared to be gaining strength. But eight years later, JI has been marginalized and main-stream political parties have gained ground, all while a young democracy has flowered after the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship.
Magnus Ranstorp of Stockholm's Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies recently published a careful study examining Indonesia's success in beating back extremism. The main lesson, he writes, is to involve not just government but civil society as a whole, including media and cultural figures who can act as counterforces to terrorism. (That approach obviously has greater potential in regions and countries with open and vibrant political systems—Southeast Asia, Turkey, and India—than in the Arab world.)
Iraq occupies an odd place in this narrative. While the invasion of Iraq inflamed the Muslim world and the series of blunders during the initial occupation period created dangerous chaos at the heart of the Middle East, Iraq also became a stage on which Al Qaeda played a deadly hand, and lost. As Al Qaeda in Iraq gained militarily, it began losing politically. It turned from its broader global ideology to focus on a narrow sectarian agenda, killing Shias and fueling a Sunni-Shia civil war. In doing so, the group also employed a level of brutality and violence that shocked most Iraqis. Where the group gained control, even pious people were repulsed by its reactionary behavior. In Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency, Al Qaeda in Iraq would routinely cut off the fingers of smokers. Even those Sunnis who feared the new Iraq began to prefer Shia rule to such medievalism.
Since 9/11, Western commentators have been calling on moderate Muslim leaders to condemn jihadist ideology, issue fatwas against suicide bombing, and denounce Al Qaeda. Since about 2006, they've begun to do so in significant numbers. In 2007 one of bin Laden's most prominent Saudi mentors, the preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter criticizing him for "fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering, and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families." That same year Abdulaziz al ash-Sheikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudis from engaging in jihad abroad and accused both bin Laden and Arab regimes of "transforming our youth into walking bombs to accomplish their own political and military aims." One of Al Qaeda's own top theorists, Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, renounced its extremism, including the killing of civilians and the choosing of targets based on religion and nationality. Sherif—a longtime associate of Zawahiri who crafted what became known as Al Qaeda's guide to jihad—has called on militants to desist from terrorism, and authored a rebuttal of his former cohorts.
Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the oldest and most prestigious school of Islamic learning, now routinely condemns jihadism. The Darul Uloom Deoband movement in India, home to the original radicalism that influenced Al Qaeda, has inveighed against suicide bombing since 2008. None of these groups or people have become pro-American or liberal, but they have become anti-jihadist.
This might seem like an esoteric debate. But consider: the most important moderates to denounce militants have been the families of radicals. In the case of both the five young American Muslims from Virginia arrested in Pakistan last year and Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, parents were the ones to report their worries about their own children to the U.S. government—an act so stunning that it requires far more examination, and praise, than it has gotten. This is where soft power becomes critical. Were the fathers of these boys convinced that the United States would torture, maim, and execute their children without any sense of justice, they would not have come forward. I doubt that any Chechen father has turned his child over to Vladimir Putin's regime.
The data on public opinion in the Muslim world are now overwhelming. London School of Economics professor Fawaz Gerges has analyzed polls from dozens of Muslim countries over the past few years. He notes that in a range of places—Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh—there have been substantial declines in the number of people who say suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified to defend Islam. Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable.
The shift has been especially dramatic in Jordan, where only 12 percent of Jordanians view suicide attacks as "often or sometimes justified" (down from 57 percent in 2005). In Indonesia, 85 percent of respondents agree that terrorist attacks are "rarely/never justified" (in 2002, by contrast, only 70 percent opposed such attacks). In Pakistan, that figure is 90 percent, up from 43 percent in 2002. Gerges points out that, by comparison, only 46 percent of Americans say that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
This shift does not reflect a turn away from religiosity or even from a backward conception of Islam. That ideological struggle persists and will take decades, not years, to resolve itself. But the battle against jihadism has fared much better, much sooner, than anyone could have imagined.
The exceptions to this picture readily spring to mind—Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. But consider the conditions in those countries. In Afghanistan, jihadist ideology has wrapped itself around a genuine ethnic struggle in which Pashtuns feel that they are being dispossessed by rival groups. In Pakistan, the regime is still where Saudi Arabia was in 2003 and 2004: slowly coming to realize that the extremism it had fostered has now become a threat to its own survival. In Yemen, the state simply lacks the basic capacity to fight back. So the rule might simply be that in those places where a government lacks the desire, will, or capacity to fight jihadism, Al Qaeda can continue to thrive.
But the nature of the enemy is now quite different. It is not a movement capable of winning over the Arab street. Its political appeal does not make rulers tremble. The video messages of bin Laden and Zawahiri once unsettled moderate regimes. Now they are mostly dismissed as almost comical attempts to find popular causes to latch onto. (After the financial crash, bin Laden tried his hand at bashing greedy bankers.)
This is not an argument to relax our efforts to hunt down militants. Al Qaeda remains a group of relentless, ruthless killers who are trying to recruit other fanatics to carry out hideous attacks that would do terrible damage to civilized society. But the group's aura is gone, its political influence limited. Its few remaining fighters are spread thinly throughout the world and face hostile environments almost everywhere.
America is no longer engaged in a civilizational struggle throughout the Muslim world, but a military and intelligence campaign in a set of discrete places. Now, that latter struggle might well require politics, diplomacy, and development assistance—in the manner that good foreign policy always does (Petraeus calls this a "whole-of-government strategy"). We have allies; we need to support them. But the target is only a handful of extremist organizations that have found a small group of fanatics to carry out their plans. To put it another way, even if the United States pursues a broad and successful effort at nation building in Afghanistan and Yemen, does anyone really think that will deter the next Nigerian misfit—or fanatic from Detroit—from getting on a plane with chemicals in his underwear? Such people cannot be won over. They cannot be reasoned with; they can only be captured or killed.
The enemy is not vast; the swamp is being drained. Al Qaeda has already lost in the realm of ideology. What remains is the battle to defeat it in the nooks, crannies, and crevices of the real world.
WANGEN BEI OLTEN, Switzerland — Bertram Decker’s second-floor office in Nestlé’s big food plant here looks out over the town’s only minaret, a wooden turret topped with a gilt star and crescent.
The minaret, atop a Turkish cultural association, is one of only four in all of Switzerland, and it has a special place in the country’s recent history. It touched off a local scrap that in November led more than 57 percent of Swiss voters to approve a call for a constitutional amendment to ban minarets.
Here in Wangen, 61 percent approved the measure, which is a little curious, since Mr. Decker’s factory produces, among other things, packages of feuilleté, or puff pastry, that adhere to Islam’s ritual halal requirements.
Last year, the factory’s assembly lines churned out 100 million packages of pastry, up from 80 million a decade ago. Though halal products represent at most 3 percent of the total, Mr. Decker said, “We see now that it’s growing.”
On a wall near the entrance, he points to a certificate from the Grand Mosque in Paris certifying the factory as halal, or free of impure products like alcohol or pork. “The original certification was for two years,” said Mr. Decker, 41, a German who was brought in 18 months ago to manage the plant, part of the Swiss multinational Nestlé. “We just got an extension until 2012.”
As incomes rise in the Islamic world and Muslims migrate increasingly to Europe and the United States, Wangen’s halal production is part of a thrust by Nestlé to carve a niche in the global market for halal products, including coffee, baked goods, breakfast cereals and baby food. Halal products now account for $5 billion of Nestlé’s global sales.
But while Switzerland benefits from factories like this one selling its products to Muslim customers in many countries, it appears the Swiss are adamantly opposed to the construction of more minarets like the one down the street.
In some ways, Wangen wears this contradiction on its sleeve. When the Turkish club decided in 2006 to erect the minaret atop its clubhouse, local residents took the association to court to prevent construction, arguing that the minaret violated building codes. The case went to Switzerland’s highest court, which approved construction, though not because the minaret was a form of religious expression. “The court ruled on conformity to the building codes,” said Beat Frey, 50, a regional court judge who is also Wangen’s part-time mayor. “Not on freedom of religion.”
The decision was seized upon by conservative parties, above all the Swiss People’s Party of Christoph Blocher, a right-wing industrialist-turned-politician, who demanded a referendum on the future construction of minarets. Of course, all politics is local, and not just in Massachusetts. The vote in tiny Wangen, population 4,950, many local people said, was not the expression of intolerance it might have seemed.
“There were many reasons, not above all the Muslims among us,” said Mr. Frey, who himself voted in favor of minarets. “Yes, there was fear of political Islam, but people also wanted to send a message to the federal government in Bern,” whose opposition to the amendment was viewed as interference in local affairs.
“There was also fear of the unknown,” he said, adding that about 18 percent of the town’s population is foreign, though the largest group among them are native Germans from nearby.
Down at the Turkish cultural association, Mustafa Karahan, 50, sometimes feels under siege. “The problem is, people don’t know us,” he said over coffee. “If they did, there wouldn’t have been the referendum.”
In 2006, when the club was considering construction of a minaret, members organized an open house, and more than 500 people came. “When we dedicated the minaret, the local Protestant pastor spoke and several government officials came,” said Mr. Karahan, a teacher who migrated to Switzerland in 1980 and works in a machine shop.
But the controversy over the minarets provoked a backlash. As the date for the vote approached, stones were thrown at the clubhouse windows and a bag of pork products was hung on the door. Parking for club members along the nearby railroad was suddenly made off limits by railway officials (and remains so).
“They played politics with us, particularly regarding the minaret, to gain votes,” Mr. Karahan said. “They have damaged Switzerland’s image.”
Mustafa Bakci, 27, a chemist with a Swiss pharmaceuticals company, said the club was open to all nationalities, not just Turks. “Libyans, Saudis — it’s open for everyone,” said Mr. Bakci, who was born in Switzerland. “From A to Z.”
Many foreigners work in the Nestlé plant and at the town’s other big employer, Coop, a Wal-Mart-like retailer. “My sister-in-law works for Nestlé,” Mr. Bakci said.
Walter Leisi, 64, remembers well when in 1962 his father, a baker from Basel, decided to build a factory in Wangen to produce his packaged puff pastry, which had been such a hit at home. “We had three nationalities back then,” he said, recalling the starting work force of about 70 people. “Swiss, Italians and Spaniards.”
In 1972 the factory passed into Nestlé’s hands, but the younger Mr. Leisi, who also voted against the minaret ban, managed it until last year. Now there are 400 employees, about two-thirds non-Swiss. “Many Swiss think it’s not necessary for them to work nights,” he said.
Signs on factory walls are in numerous languages, including Albanian, Serbian, Italian and Turkish. During the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Mr. Leisi said, “I had a bad feeling; would there be knifings here? Down there they were killing each other, yet here we never had a problem.”
Most of the factory’s halal products are exported to France, which has Europe’s largest Muslim population. To meet growing demand, the factory runs three eight-hour shifts a day, Mr. Decker said, sometimes Saturdays.
How does Mr. Leisi explain the resistance to minarets in a town that lives in part by selling food to Muslims?
“The problem is you had a certain category of extremist on one side, and another on the other side,” he said, shaking his head.
Gesturing over his shoulder toward the Turkish club, he added, “One of the reasons, of course, was that little minaret over there.”
By Russell Contreras Saturday, January 9, 2010; B02
Artwork from the Punjab state of India decorates the Ray family home. A Johann Sebastian Bach statue sits on a piano. But in the basement -- cluttered with wires, old concert fliers and drawings -- Arjun Ray, 25, is fighting distortion from his electric guitar.
For this son of Indian immigrants, trained in classical violin and raised on traditional Punjab music, getting his three Pakistani American bandmates in sync is the goal on this cold New England evening. Their band, the Kominas, is trying to record a punk rock version of the classic Bollywood song, "Choli Ke Peeche" ("Behind the Blouse").
"Yeah," said Shahjehan Khan, 26, one of the band's guitarists, "there are a lot of contradictions going on here."
Deep in the woods of this colonial town boils a kind of revolutionary movement. From the basement of this middle-class home tucked in the woods west of Boston, the Kominas have helped launched a small but growing South Asian and Middle Eastern punk rock movement that is attracting children of Muslim and Hindu immigrants. It also is drawing scorn from some traditional Muslims who say their political, hard-edged music is "haraam," or forbidden. The movement, an anti-establishment subculture born of religiously conservative communities, is the subject of two new films and is a hot topic on social-networking sites.
The artists say they are trying to reconcile issues such as life in America, women's rights and homosexuality with Islam and old East vs. West cultural clashes.
"This is one way to deal with my identity as an Arab American," said Marwan Kamel, 24, lead guitarist in Chicago-based Al-Thawra. "With this music, I can express this confusion."
The movement's birth often is credited to the novel "The Taqwacore," by Michael Muhammad Knight, a Rochester, N.Y.-raised writer who converted to Islam. Knight coined the book's title from the Arabic word "taqwá," which means piety or God-fearing, and the term hard core. The 2003 book portrayed an imagined world of living-on-the-edge Muslim punk rockers and influenced real-life South Asians to form their own bands.
South Asian and Middle Eastern punk bands soon were popping up across the United States and communicating with one another on MySpace.
At the time of the book's release, Khan and Basim Usmani were experimenting with punk and building the foundation for the Kominas, which loosely means "scoundrels" in various South Asian languages. When Usmani, 26, came across the book, he was writing songs and sporting a mohawk -- just like the punk rocker on the novel's cover.
Usmani contacted Knight, who agreed to buy a bus on eBay for $2,000 to help launch the nation's first "Muslim punk rock tour" in 2007. Kamel bought a one-way ticket to Boston to join the tour, and Canadian drag-queen singer Sena Hussain met up with them along the way.
The musicians performed at several venues but were kicked off stage during an open-mike performance at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago. Traditional Muslims at the convention decried the electric guitar-based music as un-Islamic, and others were upset that a woman dared sing on stage. The episode was documented by Pakistani Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed in his documentary "Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam."
"These guys are not prophetizing or preaching anything specific about Islam," said Majeed, whose film is scheduled for release this year in the United States. "They just happen to be young and Muslim, and they write songs and do art that expresses that idea."
Imam Talal Eid, executive director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, said some traditional Muslims might object to such music because they focus on its sexual elements rather than its use for spiritual enjoyment. "But I think we can come up with a moderate opinion that distinguished what is forbidden from what is not," Eid said. "It's a new issue among Muslims."
The musical style of each group varies. Some songs on the Kominas's album "Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay" lean toward the humorous and ironic, including "Suicide Bomb the Gap." In their song "Sharia Law in the USA," the lyrics mock the portrayal of Islamists: "I am an Islamist/I am the anti-Christ/most squares can't make a most-wanted list/but my-my how I stay in style." Their sound mixes hard-edged punk, ska and funk.
Al-Thawra sings about political events in the Middle East, with songs such as "Gaza: Choking on the Smoke of Dreams." Their music is closer to heavy metal.
Usmani said he grew up as a "nonreligious" Muslim American, so his journey into punk caused few problems. He admits, though, that his family doesn't like the drinking and smoking that pervade the music scene. Khan and Kominas drummer Imran Malik, 25, also said they aren't as observant as their families might like.
"I mean, if you put a sword to us, one of us might pray," Usmani said. During a recent Kominas performance in a Cambridge, Mass., club, Usmani played guitar while wearing a round-topped hat known as a pakul and a traditional lungi, a cloth that South Asian men wrap around their waists. An Iraqi woman in a hijab bobbed her head to the music while others slammed-danced in front of the stage. At one point, audience members yelled jokingly that their music was forbidden and playfully threw shoes at the band -- an act that is an insult among Muslims.
The bands are doing what American kids have done for generations: forming bands and making loud music. That they are Muslim doesn't mean there's a hidden message; Vote Hezbollah goes so far as to denounce violence on its MySpace page.
Usmani said despite their obvious ironic messages, he fears that his band and others like it will keep getting "stupid questions" about subjects such as Sept. 11, 2001.
Usmani said a reporter once asked him how he felt about some Muslims being terrorists. He responded by asking her how she, as a white person, felt about the African slave trade.
"We have people asking us about [issues that have] nothing to do with chords we want to play," Usmani said. "Or how loud we want to be."
By Eli Saslow, Philip Rucker, William Wan and Mary Pat Flaherty Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, December 31, 2009; A01
Nidal Hasan was causing a ruckus in his one-bedroom apartment during the early hours of Nov. 5, banging against the thin walls long after midnight, packing boxes and shredding papers until he woke up the tenants next door.
Maybe that was a clue.
He picked up the phone at 2:37 a.m. and dialed a neighbor. Nobody answered. Hasan called again three hours later, this time leaving a message. "Nice knowing you, friend," he said. "I'm moving on from here."
Maybe that was a clue, too.
He left Apartment 9 early that morning and stopped next door to see a woman named Patricia Villa, whom he had known for less than a month. He gave her a bag of frozen vegetables, some broccoli, a clothing steamer and an air mattress, explaining that he was about to be deployed to a war zone. Then Hasan visited another neighbor, a devout Christian, who looked at him quizzically when he handed her a copy of the Koran and recommended passages for her to read. "In my religion," Hasan told her, "we'll do anything to be closer to God."
Just before the break of dawn in Killeen, Tex., Hasan drove away from the Casa Del Norte apartment complex and stopped for his customary breakfast at a nearby 7-Eleven. The store's owner, wary of him, had spent the past month pretending to be absent whenever Hasan entered. This time, Hasan approached the counter with coffee and hash browns at 6:22 a.m., wearing an Arab robe and a white kufi cap. Before fiddling in his pockets for change, buying his breakfast and driving away to work at Fort Hood, he smiled at another customer and issued what sounded like a warning.
"There's going to be big action on post around 1:30," he said, according to witnesses. "Be prepared."
Clues -- he left them everywhere. When viewed in retrospect, Hasan's life becomes an apparent trail of evidence that leads to an inevitable end. At 1:34 p.m. on Nov. 5, he bowed his head in prayer during his regular shift at Fort Hood, opened his eyes and started shooting, witnesses said. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist allegedly aimed for soldiers in uniform, firing more than 100 times with a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver. The terror lasted less than 10 minutes. Thirteen people died. Thirty were injured.
Now, more than seven weeks later, what is left of the Fort Hood tragedy is a community haunted by clues that somehow went unheeded. During a week in which the government has lamented missed signals in the case of an attempted bombing on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, there remain unresolved questions about how so many signals could have passed unnoticed before the Fort Hood shootings. While the Pentagon, the Army and the FBI work to complete investigations of Hasan with findings due next month, his former friends and colleagues sift backward through his biography and search for answers of their own.
This story, which attempts to fill in that biography, is based on interviews with 100 people who lived, worked or prayed with Hasan in Texas, the District, Virginia and Maryland -- a group now united by its obsession with the same troubling questions.
How do you differentiate between pious and fanatical?
Between lonely and isolated?
Between eccentric and crazy?
And the one question the former friends and colleagues return to most: Could they have recognized the clues in time to stop him?
* * *
Where were the clues back in 2001, when a friend told his Silver Spring youth group to emulate Hasan as the role model for well-rounded success? Here was a devoted student -- a summa cum laude graduate of Virginia Western Community College, an honors graduate of Virginia Tech -- now well on his way to becoming a doctor. Here was a devoted Muslim who regularly drove to a mosque to pray five times each day, as is customary among the devout, and stuck around between prayers to raise money for the homeless and find temporary housing for new arrivals to Washington. Here was a devoted son who took time off from school and made space in his one-bedroom apartment to care for his mother, sick with cancer.
Hasan took a leave from medical school to spend the better part of two years in his suburban Washington apartment with his mother, Nora, until she died on May 30, 2001. She was 49, and other family members considered her Hasan's closest confidante -- a woman who discouraged her son from joining the military only to later introduce herself as the mother of an Army officer. Hasan hosted her funeral at Dar al-Hijrah, Northern Virginia's biggest mosque, where more than 3,000 people sometimes attend evening prayer and stay afterward for brief funerals. Nora's service, held after a crowded Thursday prayer, was Hasan's last gift to his mother: Muslim belief dictates that the more people who pray for the deceased, the greater the rewards in heaven.
Nora's death left Hasan bereft of his anchor, relatives said, and over the next several years he started to drift. He moved three times in three years, renting rooms in one transient apartment building after the next in the Maryland suburbs.
In the meantime, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had made him an occasional target as a Muslim in the Army -- his car was twice vandalized with graffiti and dirty diapers at work -- and he confided to fellow Muslims that he opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt like "an outcast." Even inside the mosque, Hasan's haven, he was becoming a misfit as an aging bachelor in a religion that considers marriage not just a priority but a cultural duty.
His solution was to find a new anchor. Hasan began looking for a wife.
It seemed less a search than a full-time obsession. Hasan's status as a doctor and a military officer made him a considerable catch, but his standards were exacting. He wanted a virgin of Arabic descent -- a woman in her 20s who wore the hijab, understood the Koran and prayed five times a day. He enlisted matchmaking help from three imams, a neighbor in his Silver Spring high-rise apartment complex and the proprietor of a Maryland deli where Hasan liked to eat halal meat for dinner. He quizzed fellow Muslim men about their wives and asked family members to keep an eye out for prospects.
As the years wore on with little to show for the search, Hasan's plight became a running joke among some at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring: Because of his age, fellow worshipers joked, Brother Nidal always got the first chance at any new woman who joined the mosque.
One day in 2006, as Hasan edged toward his late 30s, he attended a matchmaking event at the Islamic Society of the Washington Area. The annual gathering is a last-chance staple for hundreds of Muslims, some of whom travel from as far as India or Hawaii, to mingle over a breakfast buffet. But attending such an event was an uncharacteristic step for Hasan, who steadfastly avoided group parties with co-workers and who, his aunt Noel Hasan said, "did not make many friends easily and did not make friends fast."
Hasan arrived at the Islamic Society's beige house in Silver Spring, paid the $15 sign-up fee and completed his application. He wrote down his phone numbers, then changed his mind and crossed them out. He skipped several categories, filling out only the essential ones.
Height: 5'6.5".
Weight: 190.
Nationality: Palestinian.
Personality and character: "Quiet, reserved until more familiar with person. Funny, caring, and personable."
Priorities desired in a spouse: "Prays 5x/day at prescribed times. Wears hijab appropriately. Lives life according to Quran/Sunnah."
After breakfast, Hasan and the other 150 singles in attendance formed a gigantic circle and took turns introducing themselves. Some were divorced, others were widowed, and a few had children. When his turn came, Hasan talked about his work as a doctor and his devotion to Islam. Several women showed interest, but Hasan didn't reciprocate. Instead, as the singles filed out, Hasan visited privately with the matchmaker, Faizul Khan, and expressed disappointment. Not a single woman had interested him, he said.
Khan apologized and offered to let Hasan return in a few days to look through stacks of matchmaking applications from previous years. Maybe, Khan suggested, Hasan would find the pious woman of his dreams in the collection of 300 applications and accompanying head shots.
Maybe, Hasan agreed. But he never went back.
In the ensuing months, colleagues said, Hasan spent most of his time alone. He studied for long hours inside a wooden cubicle in the library of the Muslim Community Center, where the administrative assistant wondered whether he was lonely. He ate dinners by himself at his favorite deli, with an open laptop on the table and his head buried behind the monitor. Family members worried that he was becoming increasingly isolated -- with no wife, no parents, no close friends -- but Hasan reassured them. He had no time for company, he said. All of his energy was devoted to work.
* * *
Meanwhile, Hasan's colleagues were beginning to worry, too. He proselytized to them in the hallways of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was a psychiatry resident, turning conversations about war and the Redskins into lectures about the Koran. He spoke openly about his opposition to the war in Iraq, repeatedly saying that he could not imagine deploying to fight against fellow Muslims. As the war dragged into 2007, Hasan told family members that he had unsuccessfully tried to get out of the Army by consulting with a lawyer and even offering to repay the cost of his education.
While working at an overloaded military hospital desperate for psychiatrists, Hasan sometimes saw only one or two patients per week -- far fewer than most of his peers, many of whom privately regarded him as either a dud or a slacker. The patients Hasan did treat seemed to deeply unsettle him. He spoke to his aunt Noel Hasan about a patient who had mental problems and facial burns so severe that his skin had nearly melted. The sessions, the aunt quoted him as saying, were sometimes "traumatic." At least once, Hasan counseled a patient about the healing virtues of Islam, prompting a reprimand from his supervisors.
But nothing raised alarm among Hasan's colleagues at Walter Reed quite like his classroom presentations, which seemed to chart the evolution of his beliefs. In June 2007, he gave the culminating presentation of his medical residency to 25 colleagues and supervisors. He was allowed to talk about any subject, and Hasan stood at the front of the room and gave a 50-slide introduction to Islam.
Slide 11: "It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims."
Slide 12: "(4.93) And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell."
Slide 49: "God expects full loyalty."
Slide 50: "Department of Defense should allow Muslim Soldiers the option of being released as 'Conscientious objectors' to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events."
Hasan gave another presentation on the topic six months later, classmates said. This time, during his research, he e-mailed back and forth with Anwar al-Aulaqi, an al-Qaeda sympathizer living in Yemen (who also has been linked to the Nigerian man charged in the attempted Detroit plane bombing). Hasan also tested his material in front of fellow Muslims at the Silver Spring mosque. Other students in his public health class presented on topics such as water safety and mold. Hasan focused his work on the thesis that the war on terrorism was actually a war on Islam, several classmates said.
A few months later came a third presentation. This time, Hasan advanced his thesis by one degree: He spoke about the heroism of suicide bombers, classmates said.
Were these the clues of a developing extremist? Or just more cluelessness from a floundering student? Hasan's classmates were divided. At least one student mentioned his concerns to a medical staff supervisor; another classmate, a devout Christian, privately explained to Hasan that the conflict in Iraq was not about "warring with religion," prompting Hasan to shake his head and walk away.
One classmate thought Hasan was misunderstood: "I didn't see him as a threat, I saw him as fervent."
Another believed Hasan could pose a risk but kept quiet. "If you complain and someone higher up says you're biased, that can be a career ender. That dogs you."
By early 2009, what emerged were two conflicting narratives of Hasan's life, which now had only his name in common. One, told by his classmates and colleagues, depicted an isolated man struggling in his career and tending toward radicalism. The other, documented in Hasan's official record, continued to track an Army psychiatrist on the rise: Hasan completed his prestigious medical fellowship, earned a promotion to the rank of major despite his supervisors' misgivings and was named co-chairman of a panel assembled by the American Psychiatric Association. Then, in July 2009, he was assigned to Fort Hood, where he would evaluate and prepare soldiers for war, and prepare to go to war himself.
* * *
Hasan told friends in Maryland that he wished he could avoid moving to Texas, and he never acted like he planned to stay long. Fort Hood staffers typically help officers locate nice places to live, but Hasan found his new home in the classified ads of the Killeen Daily Herald. He paid $325 per month for a one-bedroom unit in a shabby apartment complex on the seedy side of downtown. The welcome sign at the 27-unit Casa Del Norte apartment building was patched together with duct tape, and low-hanging electrical wires lined the nearby streets. Police were dispatched to the building about once a week.
Hasan usually left his apartment for prayer before dawn and returned late in the evening, wearing a white robe and clutching a copy of the Koran. His route home took him past a group of neighbors who liked to drink beer at the picnic table in the courtyard, and they sometimes laughed at his outfits. One neighbor, John Van de Walker, scraped a key across the passenger side of Hasan's car and ripped off a bumper sticker that read "Allah is Love." Van de Walker was charged with criminal mischief and fined, but Hasan told neighbors that he would forgive Van de Walker as a gesture during the holy month of Ramadan.
Shortly after moving to Killeen, Hasan made two purchases that would soon be seen as clues. He went to Guns Galore, a windowless white cinder-block shop on a country highway, and bought a high-powered semiautomatic pistol. He also ordered business cards that listed his professional specialties -- "Behavioral Health -- Mental Health -- Life Skills" -- without mentioning his involvement in the Army. The cards included an abbreviation after Hasan's name: "SoA," standing for "Slave of Allah" or "Soldier of Allah." It was an unusually forceful assertion, one considered odd even by the most pious Muslims.
During business hours at Fort Hood, Hasan worked at the Resilience and Restoration Center, writing psychological profiles of soldiers entering and exiting war. Nobody could study Hasan as closely. Regulars at a Killeen mosque knew him only as devoted and quiet; neighbors in his apartment building referred to him not by name but by his apartment number, calling him "Number 9." He ate dinner night after night at Golden Corral with an 18-year-old named Duane Reasoner, a recent Muslim convert who had left a trail of anti-American postings on jihadist Web sites, but they sat in a corner booth and kept their conversations at a low volume, witnesses said.
Nearly everyone in Killeen who interacted with Hasan considered him a mystery, and his actions became more confounding as October turned to November.
Why was an Army psychiatrist, instead of helping soldiers, obsessing over charging them with war crimes?
Why was a conservative Muslim going to the Starz strip club on the nights of Oct. 28 and 29, spending seven hours each night sitting alone at a round table near the stage, handing out Bud Lights and generous tips to each dancer and then buying a series of fully nude private lap dances that cost $50 each?
Why was an Army officer eschewing the shooting range at Fort Hood to drive 35 miles into the central Texas flatlands on Nov. 3 and take his target practice at Stan's Outdoor Shooting Range, where bullets sometimes ricocheted off square targets and hit cars?
Why, on the morning of Nov. 5, were witnesses seeing Hasan hand out copies of the Koran, give away his groceries, issue a warning at 7-Eleven, report to work, stand on a table, shout "Allahu Akbar" and wave two guns inside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center?
Then Hasan allegedly opened fire, and suddenly the questions became clues, and the clues began to make horrifying sense.
Staff writers Anne Hull, Kafia Hosh and Dana Priest, research director Lucy Shackelford and staff researchers Meg Smith and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_toF9Bg0n-aKa-_myYTSieRQAM2AMK_DTOpAomHEsAadIX10DfU6jrejPIP37OEHFiOz_KxUuB33shkexRBodn4ddhmAIByDt49JtnbKrcGV3ueMiUip9Ai5SB4zqxunI3ubNWAGh3gxdjkrRrYZsM=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vb4RKtRMVrlJ8qbWMr1O1Gon6kRmoDsfkpwP9Xd_dC25sMVn15Z6i3fEq8Upc7J1ND_MCYk7weDlKNhYbSijCH2YPPAW4VexdgMtwIt2gLdGLvdEAa-oePPHwmj4YpzwI5dcjQ0sVaIgu9asTmVPrv=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uEWxDA8kffgXKyy6H2v8oROd_sPJpBCSg1PrxhgjJvcrk62YmKKF8r0S_HRnBnP2oVgNs4e5FyCU13OQq1pkj-iiM_rTKJQZ_6fpq2B-IqbXdhXrHgleZaxiReJzZP09vF9tqe99X928YSVjf2ssF4=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vOM-Aya7egyPG90Bs1buC1gMalzPHRPqbl2gCQlienkpPoqsY4VVvYqlgKFgKcW8W1Al-6zDotFO8P_ExHok2PmE0AJfjzKbh2EjxxdMEDwfsDM4F1U3izVV511Dol4IqsS5-9gq0wzwvb42Ri5UwF=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tCFej1O_P8o8OP7HoCXU2PF01LhM81UB9XjRIvPsYLJEK-7YR1eIOk3kdR9pySiovf8z0QJUN5JS7gkrWA1U8M99gqGn_N67-Gp0sp4duzzf22QmIe8Gl2QKIZytrM7-wMJO5n8VwBC15DwColunGf=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s6kVOyIO3LE_fwlAeOOfLrFE3Zww3eYcPOEU57EMIYdSazsxmWZvVpCKS1JXsY96p7IN3P7nxXTUB_cr2nPjA5ALZzb2NwH1ed0bxXEL5tuIfIo8R348cUF7-cTUJdQoHvNZMUVQ0zleG0E1aIW9_h=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uuIO4nEOR5wZ21vDiFVi1-Ol-zeJ0iV06XHrhtGyaY3PHS4Nc3zGvd14aWFbd4uBrT-vvpTY-FOLXyabI_XppHgpljBfro3j7Lnb04yvyh6X-WTqh-lNKjndNnQaH247U-w4XDGZGUyg-1gx6BPNE=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sF79kenqjsclRCB9JN1fQBpNNINRhYyOwoT2sYeMVy6UjzAYJS1dqmvehfZCdOLTmTa7lTEOjeO-tX1GIy_NHF5Sc_VPSb3HCoSILymz17z6t52MOpXRbO3E7ZKvjuJoFTHeUYvgRc9ZyQKlIY-Og=s0-d)