As the class entered the prayer room, Pete directed the boys to sit on the right side of the room, with the girls on the left. It seemed silly to make them do this, the kind of thing that could leave the class with a bad taste in their mouths. But I remembered from my last visit that the men generally prayed upstairs at
juma,
with the women downstairs. This group clearly had a very conservative approach to relations between the sexes.
Dawood opened the presentation. “These days, everybody is talking about multiculturalism. In higher education, in politics, in the media, multiculturalism is the new big thing. Well, in that light, you can think of this as . . . a cultural event.” I understood the reason for Dawood’s pause. He almost described this as a
multi
cultural event—but the students weren’t learning about multiple cultures. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure if Dawood approved of those other cultures that fell under the multicultural umbrella.
After that introduction, Pete took over. His salesmanship was in full force. At times he was quite funny, and he always came across as perfectly sincere.
Pete began by asking the students the first thing that came to mind when they heard the word
Islam.
After a couple of innocuous responses—
discipline, prayerfulness
—Pete said, “Come on, tell the truth. You’re not gonna hurt my feelings.”
Then he started getting the kind of answers he was looking for.
Terrorism. The burka. Oppression of women. Salman Rushdie.
The more negative the view of Islam, the wider Pete’s smile became. These responses made his point: Islam has been erected as the new bogeyman.
Pete then said that he wanted to move past the media hype and show what Islam really is. Islam is a word indicating submission to God, he said, and it is derived from the same root word as
salaam,
the Arabic word for “peace.” “So Islam means peace.”
He then explained the basics of Islam. There was
tawheed,
Arabic for Islamic monotheism. “Islam has a pure, beautiful monotheism. We believe that there is one god and only one. We call our god Allah— that’s Arabic for the word ‘god.’ In Islam, Allah is the unique and unchallenged lord of the universe. He’s unique in his attributes, and worship should be reserved for Him alone.”
Pete explained that Muhammad was the last in a long line of prophets that included Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. He explained that Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of Allah, revealed to Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel. And he described the five pillars of Islam: belief in the Oneness of God, the five daily prayers, almsgiving for the needy, fasting during Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). At an intermission, Dennis Geren brought the students dates and tea.
After the break, the presentation turned from the religious to the sociopolitical. This was where Pete intended to knock down all the negative stereotypes about Islam that he had drawn out.
Pete started by addressing the students’ concerns about so-called Islamic terrorism. He said, “Whenever you see a picture of a Muslim in the paper, they show you some guy with a frown on his face and an AK-47. People have these images of busloads of schoolchildren being blown up. But does anyone here remember what the word
Islam
means?”
A dark-skinned kid in shorts raised his hand. “Peace.”
“Right.” Pete smiled. “Because you were paying attention, you get a T-shirt as a prize.” Dennis Geren brought the student a shirt. It had Al Haramain’s logo on the front, along with the slogan Islam Means Peace. On the back, the shirt said Islam Rejects Terrorism.
“So Islam means peace, right? And terrorism isn’t very peaceful, is it?” Pete said. “So this terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.”
Dawood chimed in, “Look, everyone asks Muslims to justify that our religion doesn’t support terrorism. But look what’s happening around the world. Look at Kosovo, Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Algeria, and Kashmir. People accuse Islam of being an aggressive religion, but when we look out at the world, we feel like we’re being
pounded.
”
Dawood’s approach was typical of the rest of the presentation. My coworkers spent less and less time defending Islam against attacks. Instead, they went on the offensive. In every area where Islam had been criticized, they tried to show that the West was worse. It isn’t the way I would have done the presentation, but they were passionate and persuasive, and it seemed to work.
When the presentation turned to women in Islam, Pete said, “A lot of people think Islam is chauvinistic because they look out at so-called Muslim countries and see women treated bad. But you gotta separate the true teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, from what these woman-haters are doing when they claim to act for Islam.
“The truth,” Pete said, “is that Islam gave women rights they wouldn’t have in the West for more than a thousand years, even gave them rights they
still don’t have
in the West. It gives women the right to go to heaven. It gives them the right to earn wealth and own property. It lets women choose who they’ll marry and keep their own last names. It gives women the right to seek a divorce.”
Dennis Geren chimed in with a story about two men, a Westerner and a Muslim, walking down the street together. “They pass by a store that’s selling TV sets, and there are all these TVs in the window display,” he said. “One of the screens has a picture of a woman in a burka on it, and the Western man points and says, ‘In my culture, we find that very offensive to women.’ Then, on another screen, here comes Pamela Sue Anderson”—he meant Pamela Anderson Lee, the buxom blond
Bay-watch
star—“in a skimpy little bikini, with her breasts flopping all around. The Muslim turns to the Westerner and says, ‘In my culture, we find
that
very offensive to women.’ ”
The notion that the burka and soft porn could be equally offensive to female equality was not considered. The idea was presented as though one canceled out the other, as though it’s impossible to be against both.
The presentation continued in this vein until the question-and-answer session. The student who had earned a T-shirt earlier asked the first question. He said he knew there were conservative customs regarding relations between men and women in Islam, and asked how you could find a spouse when you aren’t allowed to date.
“The Islamic courtship process is different from Western courtship,” Pete said. “In the West, you date a person here, date a person there. You’re not thinking about spending your lives together. There’s no deep connection between you, everything is physical. In Islamic courtship, you don’t date. You’re interested in a girl, right away you try to see if she’s marriage material. You talk about religion, you talk about family, you talk about politics. You begin at a deeper level. We think this is
better
than the Western way of dating.”
His answer made me realize that bringing Amy here may have been a mistake.
Another student asked about the Taliban, the fundamentalist group that had seized power in Afghanistan. They were known for forcing women to wear all-encompassing burkas; imposing harsh criminal punishments such as stonings, amputations, and public executions; slaughtering Shia Muslims; and harboring Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist group. I had paid close attention to the Taliban during my last year at Wake Forest because they disgusted me. Since I thought the Taliban’s rule was an unjustifiable distortion of Islam, this seemed like a softball question.
Dawood began to give the answer I expected. “You see a lot of things going on in the Muslim world,” he said. His voice possessed the certainty of a true believer. “But you need to compare everything you see to Islam’s true teachings to determine if this is really Islam, or if it’s a distortion based on cultural practices.”
Dennis Geren interrupted. “We have to remember that the Taliban fought against the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan, and the Russians brutalized the country. A lot of things have been said about the Taliban, and we have to resist Western media hype.” (Of course, the Taliban didn’t exist until five years after the Soviets left Afghanistan.)
Dawood didn’t disagree. “Yes, let’s all resist this Western media hype,” he said, immediately pointing to another student.
Western media hype?
I thought. The lack of women’s rights, the slaughter of Shias, the complete suppression of freedoms—all of this was being written off as hype? But at the time, it seemed that nobody else noticed this. Not the teachers, not the students.
After the presentation, Amy and I headed back toward my home in my red Tercel. I told her that Dennis Geren’s remark about the Taliban disturbed me. “I was with him for the first part of it,” I said. “I agree that the Afghan mujahideen fought against the brutal Russian invasion. But what he should have said was that the Russians left behind a traumatized population that was willing to accept the Taliban’s barbaric practices in exchange for some semblance of law and order.”
After a few seconds, I added, “I’ll have to talk to Dennis about that.”
Amy just nodded.
I continued my appraisal of the day. “Overall, I think the presentation was a success. I took a look at the evaluation forms that they passed out at the end, and all the students gave it high marks. I got to read some of the student comments on the forms, and most of them said that they learned a lot. More than a few said that Islam was a good religion, better than most other religions.” Of course it was.
Years later, Susan Thorngate told me that many of the students had in fact been put off because they felt that the presenters were “majorly proselytizing.” But at the time there was no indication of this, from either the student reaction or the evaluation forms.
“I thought Dawood and Pete were especially strong when they talked about terrorism and women in Islam,” I said. “They sounded real forceful and persuasive on those subjects.”
“You know what would make the section on women more persuasive? ” Amy asked.
“What?”
“If there were at least one female presenter.”
I remained silent. While Amy was clearly right, it felt like she was attacking the religious world that I had chosen to inhabit.
There would be no female presenter the next time around. I would in fact see very few women over the next nine months, and would eventually, as my faith developed, view the absence of women as a
positive
thing.
four
DOGS BARKING
To my surprise, I found that the men with whom I had become Muslim were hated by the Muslims I now worked with.
I learned this while looking through our Web site at
www.qf.org
. QF stood for Qur’an Foundation, the Islamic charity that Pete had founded before he developed a relationship with Al Haramain. Al Haramain’s head office in Saudi Arabia also had a Web site, but
qf.org
was our local site. One of the pages at
qf.org
featured a handful of links to other Islamic Web sites, and the first link I clicked on led me to the site of a man named Salim Morgan.
The top of Salim’s Web page was normal enough, beginning with the inscription, “In the Name of Allah, the Benificent [sic], the Merciful.” These words are known as the
basmallah,
and are commonly seen at the top of Muslim writings. They’re meant to denote that the writing is dedicated to God. The
basmallah
was followed by an explanation that the Islamic section of Salim’s Web site featured translations and articles on various Islamic subjects, as well as handouts and class notes from lectures and seminars that Salim had given.
When I scrolled down to the featured articles, I found that the first one was titled “The Naqshabandia Tariqa [Path] Exposed.” The italicized explanation next to the link to that article said, “If you have been confused by the schemes of Shaitaan [Satan] coming from this group or know others who have been, READ THIS concise and informative article NOW!”
I was taken aback by seeing that not only did Salim despise the Naqshbandis, but that he felt strongly enough to make an attack on them the lead link on his Web page. Scrolling down further, I saw a link to an audio file ominously titled “Barking of Dogs?” Beside the link, Salim commented: “Hear some truly bizarre carrying-on which some people call ‘worship’. You won’t believe your ears! I seek refuge in Allah from all forms of bida and deviation.”
Bida
was innovation in religion. Salim’s belief—one shared by my coworkers—was that any religious practice that differed from those of Prophet Muhammad was unacceptable
bida. Bida
would at the very least earn Allah’s anger, and could even take you completely out of the Islamic faith.
By “truly bizarre carrying-on which some people call ‘worship,’ ” I realized that Salim was referring to loud
dhikr,
the religious chanting in which I had taken part the night I became a Muslim. He was saying that it was the same as the barking of dogs.
One of Pete’s sons, Yunus, entered the office while I was looking at Salim’s Web site. Yunus, who was just beginning high school, was skinny and stood about five feet four—but looked like he could grow another foot and a half overnight, probably gaining not a pound in the process. Yunus’s skin was much lighter than Pete’s, his brown hair had a tint of blond, and he spoke with a voice that was far too loud for our rather small office.
Basically, Yunus displayed all the complexes and insecurities typical of a young high school kid. His personality would go through wild swings, from brash, arrogant, and dismissive to lonely and needy. I could never get work done while he was in the office because he always demanded my attention.
Lacking any concept of personal space or privacy, Yunus walked up right behind me when he entered, craning his neck to see my computer screen. “Those guys are so weird,” Yunus’s booming voice said when he saw Salim’s comments about the Naqshbandis. “I heard a tape where Idris Palmer goes around and interviews them. They’re sitting around chanting.” He did a mocking imitation of loud
dhikr.
(I was familiar with the name Idris Palmer; while working on my honors thesis on the Nation of Islam I read an emotional pamphlet that Palmer wrote attacking the group. I did not, at the time, realize that he and his writings would become a daily staple at the office.)