“I can’t wait to hear about where your life has taken you,” I said.
The smile on my face then turned to a more serious expression. This was the reason I had tracked him down. “Did I ever tell you about what had happened during my time at Al Haramain?” I asked.
“Not really,” al-Husein said. “Nothing good, I assume.”
I gave a half-laugh. “Nothing good is right. The branch I worked for was designated a terrorist entity by the Treasury Department, and two of the directors were indicted. That’s kind of why I’m here.” Al-Husein said nothing, so I continued, “I’m writing a book about it.”
It was hard to read al-Husein’s reaction. I realized that I was moving quickly, but that’s the way it had to be. I had my publishing deadlines, and didn’t want the book to blindside al-Husein. But suddenly I felt something else, something that I hadn’t felt in more than half a decade. I was overcome with the feeling that al-Husein, even after all this time, even after both of our religious transformations, was still my brother. And as my brother, he wasn’t going to judge me harshly. So I pressed on with renewed confidence. “I’m sure you understand what a big part of my spiritual journey you’ve been. That’s reflected in the book, bro. Let me put it this way: the book is dedicated to three people, and you’re one of them.”
Al-Husein still remained silent, but looked both touched and suspicious. Both reactions were justified, and probably wise.
“I’m editing the book right now, and I want you to see it,” I said. “I want you to get a chance to see if my recollections are right, to see if I’ve included anything that you don’t think should be in there.”
“I’d love to see it,” al-Husein said, nodding.
I had gotten what I came for. “I’ll e-mail the manuscript,” I said. “You can look at it at your convenience. When you’re done, I’ll take you out to dinner. We can talk about the book, and we can reconnect. I want to do both.”
“Me too, bro.”
We parted with another embrace. I then walked out of the classroom, out of the Intercultural Center, back into the bright summer day.
Fifteen days later, I summoned the guts and sent al-Husein the manuscript.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
Eight days later, I opened my e-mail and found a surprise. It was from al-Husein.
He and Liana had finished reading the book together the night before. I skimmed through the first couple of paragraphs of his message, then seized on his thoughts about the book: “Overall, we both have positive feelings about your publishing it and including us in it. In fact, we are honored. There are, however, a few content matters we would need to clarify with you.” He proposed that we meet up for dinner to discuss the book.
The fact that al-Husein wanted to clarify certain matters of content came as no surprise. Over the past several months, I had made an effort to show the book manuscript to as many people mentioned herein as was possible and wise. Even figures who played little role in the narrative could offer voluminous suggestions about small details that they remembered differently, or about what they had actually meant by remarks they made years ago. I would have been surprised if al-Husein
hadn’t
wanted to the opportunity to clarify some things.
No, what I seized on was al-Husein and Liana’s positive feelings about the book, and his affirmation that they were honored to be included. I was filled with a sense of relief and happiness. Relief because the book covered so many matters that were of clear import to me and al-Husein, but matters that we had never discussed over the years. Relief because I wasn’t sure if, upon reading the book, he would be angry, defensive, hurt. And I felt happiness because, in seeing his reaction— one that was measured and reflective—I recognized the same friend, the same brother, whom I had known years ago.
I had dinner with al-Husein and Liana in mid-July, a few days before I handed this manuscript over to my publisher. We met at an Indian restaurant in D.C. (Both al-Husein and Liana would point out that they were the only people of Indian descent dining there; never a good sign for an Indian restaurant.)
It was at that dinner that I began to learn where al-Husein’s spiritual journey had taken him. He said that the Salafi voice was at its peak for him in November of 1999; by the time I saw him at his wedding, that voice was receding—although it was still quite strong. Al-Husein was then experiencing a great degree of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, Brother Taha’s voice filled his head. On the other hand, there was lived reality.
The reason the Salafi voice had begun to recede for al-Husein by December 1999 was the meeting with Liana, their families, and the Orlando imam in November. Liana and others who cared about al-Husein were concerned about the theological turn he had taken, and decided to confront him.
After this intervention, another significant event helped bring al-Husein out of Salafism. This was a conference that he helped organize at Harvard called “Islam in America,” which was designed to examine the lived experience of Islam in the United States. In organizing and hosting the conference, al-Husein noticed that the Salafis refused to enter into dialogue with Muslim progressives like Asma Gull Hassan (the author of
American Muslims: The New Generation
; she graduated from NYU Law around the same time I did).
This obstinacy on the Salafis’ part upset al-Husein, as did their tendency to deny the experience of Muslims who collectively lacked power, such as African-American Muslims. Al-Husein and I spoke at some length about Salafism’s appeal. The Salafis have a logical approach to the faith that seems compelling. Even if your heart rebels against Salafism (as both mine and al-Husein’s did), a key Salafi ideal teaches you to question your heart. Al-Husein suggested that there are two ways Salafism’s hold on a believer may collapse. The first is when the believer sees its failure to provide the answers one needs for actual, lived reality—something that was made plain to al-Husein at the Islam in America conference. Also, its hold may collapse when the believer has enough knowledge of Islamic history, theology, and Arabic to assess the Salafis’ seemingly powerful arguments more critically, from a position of confidence.
Our first dinner together in more than half a decade didn’t give me the opportunity to learn all the details of al-Husein’s spiritual transformation away from extreme Salafism, but I believe that he too has an important story to tell.
Al-Husein also offered a couple of interesting insights into what may have been going through his head during our parallel journeys toward and away from radical Islam. For one thing, he said that his own practice of Islam probably wasn’t as extreme at the time of his wedding as it came across to me. The environment at the Ismaili-dominated wedding was the exact opposite of the environment I knew at Al Haramain. At Al Haramain, I was dealing with people who thought that Freecell and credit cards were
haram
; at the wedding, al-Husein was dealing with nominal Muslims who wanted alcohol at the wedding and urged him not to fast for Ramadan. The role you take often depends on the environment you’re in, and al-Husein said that much of the stance he adopted at the wedding was a reaction to its ultraliberal Islamic environment. (Of course, Salafism hadn’t lost its hold on al-Husein at that point. But neither was the hold as strong as it appeared.)
In particular, al-Husein said that when he showed me the photo of the Chechen mujahideen, it wasn’t out of a desire to cheerlead for their jihad. Rather, he showed me the photo of the Chechens because it was a symbol of his own struggles in Orlando. There were the Chechen warriors with their fight, and here was al-Husein, thousands of miles away, with his own very different fight—struggling for a sound practice of Islam in an environment that tried to turn him away from it.
He also had an interesting remark about the conversation we had about an Islamic reformation, the conversation where I felt he was probing for deviant beliefs. At one point we had served as religious sounding boards for each other; by the time al-Husein asked if I still believed in an Islamic reformation, I felt that this was no longer true. While I felt that al-Husein was probing for deviance, he may have had a very different purpose: he may have been reaching out to me as a sounding board, hoping that I could help pull him from his own radicalism. That, sadly, is something I was unable to do for al-Husein.
We finished dinner around ten o’clock, and Liana had to get to sleep. Al-Husein and I ended the night in the Ritz-Carlton’s lounge in Arlington, Virginia. We went through his thoughts on the book in detail, but our discussion went far beyond that. By the time I dropped al-Husein off at his apartment at two thirty in the morning, it reminded me of the nights that we used to have. Far-ranging conversation, staying up far too late, and regretting not a thing when we were done. It was an evening spent with the same friend, the same brother, whom I had known years ago.
What al-Husein’s friendship meant to me over the four brilliant years that we were close cannot be overstated. He was my first true mentor. I fondly remember our late-night talks and walks around the quad. I remember how al-Husein always had something new to teach me. Some of these were college-type lessons involving exercises in absurd left-of-center thinking. But other lessons remain with me to this day. When we were in Istanbul together, I pointed out to al-Husein that other people seemed to gravitate toward him while often almost completely ignoring me. That observation began a several-week-long lesson in how to dress and carry myself more professionally, how to build my presence. That was an example of al-Husein at his best: having something extraordinary to teach me, understanding what I needed better than I did.
Al-Husein was the kind of friend that I never expected to have because I never knew that friendship like his existed. He once described ours as a “found” friendship. That is, there are some friendships that you work to cultivate for weeks, months, or years; after much effort, a friendship has been made. There are other friendships that you simply stumble upon and immediately realize that they had always existed. All you had to do was uncover the friendship in order for it to be.
In the past few years, I’ve gained a lot and lost a lot. But I’m surprised and delighted that the friendship I gained in al-Husein has not been lost.
He’s still there, and so am I.
epilogue
FRIENDS AND FUGITIVES
When I worked for the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, I was overwhelmed by the rules and restrictions, and it slowly seduced me into a radical interpretation of Islam. I’m sure that radical Islam’s dark undertow has dragged many unsuspecting believers into those deep waters as well.
In the West, we tend to see all religions as variations on a theme. But Christianity and Islam stand in marked contrast to each other. For example, in the West religion is private and primarily a matter of conscience. In the Middle East, religion is public and is a matter of ritual as well as conscience. These differences are reflected in the divergent ways that prayer takes place within both faiths. Prayer in Islam is more ritualized than in Christianity, with the believer praying in Arabic and putting his body through a series of standing, bowing, kneeling, and prostrating positions. These differences are reflected in the oft-repeated saying that Islam is “a complete way of life”—as Pete Seda once observed to me, it leaves no doubt about the smallest detail, from the proper way to eat your food down to how to cleanse yourself after using the bathroom. And these differences can be seen in the lack of separation between mosque and state within Islam.
Part of Islam’s seduction is its otherness—how different it is from anything else. And it would be a mistake to shortchange how satisfying a life is inside radical Islam. As I descended into radicalism, I had a greater feeling of certainty than I had known before. I felt that for the first time, I could truly comprehend and follow Allah’s will—and I knew that those who disagreed with me were just following their own desires. There was a sense of community that came with this certainty. I was part of an exclusive club composed of those who could see beyond the shallow Western liberal values with which I was raised.
People I met within Islam were pulled in many different directions. You’ve already learned about what happened to al-Husein. Here’s what became of the rest.
My feelings about
Pete Seda
changed over time. At first I was taken in by his charm, and it took me a while to realize that there were two sides to Pete: a public side and a private one. While the public Pete could befriend local rabbis and put a good face on the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, the private one had a very rigid view of Islam that was extremely critical of Jews, homosexuals, and even his own family for following the Shia branch of Islam.
A grand jury indicted Pete in early 2005 on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and file a false IRS return by a tax-exempt organization. The charges stemmed from Soliman al-But’he’s March 2000 visit to Oregon—the one during which Pete tried to convince me to meet Soliman at a New York airport.
The indictment explains that in February 2000, an individual in Egypt donated about $150,000 to Al Haramain, writing that the money was given “as Zakat [charity] in order to participate in your nobel support to our muslim brothers in Chychnia.” That individual then undertook a wire transfer to Al Haramain’s bank account in Oregon. In early March, Soliman flew from Riyadh to southern Oregon. There, he and Pete bought 130 thousand-dollar American Express traveler’s checks (at a cost of $131,300) as well as a $21,000 cashier’s check issued to Soliman from the local Bank of America.
Soliman then left the country via JFK International Airport in New York. He failed to file a Form 4790, Report of International Transportation of Currency or Monetary Instruments, as required by law when an individual leaves the United States with traveler’s checks exceeding $10,000. The indictment alleges that Pete then tried to disguise the money sent to Chechnya by inflating the cost of a building that Al Haramain had bought in Springfield, Missouri, by $131,300—the price of the traveler’s checks.