Study abroad with Al Qaeda
To understand radical Islam, American writer Theo Padnos pretended he was a Muslim and settled himself into Yemen’s radical mosque scene. Years later, his cover has finally been blown.
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By David Case — GlobalPost
Published: March 10, 2010 11:22 ET in Worldview
Published: March 10, 2010 11:22 ET in Worldview
BOSTON — The dorm — a long corridor lined with shoebox rooms shared by roommates — was just like any other student dwelling, aside from the stained glass windows, the ornate woodwork and loudspeakers blaring with Islam's predawn call to morning worship: “Prayer is better than sleep.”
It was like any other student dwelling — aside from the absence of music. Or posters. Or women. Contact with the opposite sex was strictly banned.
When he wasn’t studying the Quran, Theo Padnos — barefoot, and usually dressed in a flowing white robe — says he would wander down the hall, to see who was around.
Living several doors away was the dorm’s requisite quiet kid, who shared a room with one of Padnos’ good friends. Back in Memphis, the kid’s name had been Carlos Bledsoe. In Sanaa, Yemen, everyone knew him as Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad. Although he was nice to his friends, who were mainly other black Americans, he was suspicious and rarely spoke when Padnos was in the room.
“Abdul Hakim was taciturn, withdrawn, maybe depressed,” Padnos recalls. “He didn’t like me very much. He was an ‘are you with me or are you against me’ kind of guy. And he felt I was against him.”
“He felt that I was a fake Muslim,” Padnos says.
In June 2009, the quiet kid pushed through the doorway of a U.S. military recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark., and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing one soldier and wounding another. More recently, he passed a note to a judge admitting his crime, and claiming that he was a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He faces capital murder charges in an Arkansas court.
On the topic of Padnos, Carlos Bledsoe/Abdul Hakim was right to be suspicious. Padnos now admits that he was indeed a "fake" Muslim. A curly-haired Vermont native who holds a Ph.D. in literature, in 2005 Padnos converted to Islam at a mosque in Yemen, in front of witnesses.
But he says he never really believed in the religion. He professed his faith in a quest to gain access to Yemen’s most forbidden Salafist institutions: places rarely, if ever, visited by non-believers, the mosques and madrassas that breed devout radicals and, in some cases, violent jihadists.
“I wanted to know about the Quran,” Padnos says. “I wanted to know about spiritual experience in Islam. I wanted to travel across the nation. I wanted to do all the things that the converts wanted to do. I just did not believe in the god and the prophet and all that stuff.”
Until late 2008, he spent most of his time in Yemen, polishing his Arabic and burnishing his Islamic credentials, until he managed to visit some of those radical outposts.
Padnos has long wrestled with speaking publicly about the experience. Several years ago, he landed a book contract, but at the last moment he took his publisher to court to suppress publication. He says he had to pay back his advance, plus a 200 percent penalty, a significant financial loss for a writer who has barely been employed in recent years. He says he felt that the manuscript wasn’t good enough to justify the potential outrage and danger to his life that it would generate. Since then, he has continued living in the Middle East.
Finally, this year his cover has been blown. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre and the attempted Christmas Day underwear bombing — both of which were allegedly inspired by a vibrant Yemeni arm of Al Qaeda — Padnos wrote a commentary in the London Review of Books that hinted at his inside knowledge of Yemen's Salafist milieu. He later granted interviews in Germany, to a newspaper and a television program. This tipped off a Yemeni reporter, who in February published an article disclosing his multi-year stint as a fake Muslim.
The article, according to a security expert, accused him of falsely converting to Islam as a ruse to fool Yemenis and gain their trust. “That’ll certainly put you on a few hit lists,” according to the expert.
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This is one of the most
This is one of the most intriguing stories I've read in a while. And although it is presumably the longest (four long pages) I ever happend to read on Global Post, I feel like it's missing more than just the marginal details. I see so much more in Mr. Padnos experiences and I'm eager to read more about it. For now, this report gives me a general idea of what happend, which I think is the following:
Mr. Padnos is by all accounts an educated US-American. While his education and intellect provided him with an understanding of and deep insight into the structures of contemporary Islam, the fact that he was born and raised in a culturally degenerated country and in a society, the moral standards of which are merely a shallow "if it doesn't do any harm, it's morally good", bars him from gaining substantial comprehension of a community, which obeys to a far more complex and afterlife-oriented philosophy.
People tend to take their very own standards and those of their fellow people as an ultimate scale. Who could blame them for what other standards could they possibly have? This holds true for both parties: "Enlightened and progressive" western citizens and fundamental muslims. They cannot possibly outrun their cultural shadow.
Mr. Padnos, the report respectively, mentions that although he lived in a deeply religious society for very long, Mr. Padnos never honestly converted. It's mentioned more than twice. Anyone who had ever considered that this could happen does not understand the major discrepancy between Mr. Padnos state of mind and the completely different ethical values of the religious Islamic community.
A person such as Mr. Padnos is mentally apt to notice structures such as "preachers aquiring power through young believers" and "men in the mosque being sexually frustrated" but he eventually naively questions these principles by his 21st-century anglo-american perceiption and therefore all he finds is constant dissent.
It's thus practically impossible for him to be actively converted as every attempt to do so, would only confront him with intense conflict to his internalized values. Trying to build a house from mud might be difficult, but possible, as opposed to trying to build a house from dry sand: It just dissolves into nothing.
This, again, describes the situation in both directions equally well.
Mr. Padnos research might prove to be a very telling insight into deeply religious Islamic circles, but it's as technical and merely informative as regular, though less detailed research done by other completely non-islamic academics of his ilk.
It will not be an enlightenment for US-American college students or politicans to gain a deeper cultural understanding of the world, as it will only repeat the same US-American thoughts and generic attitudes.
It will reveal certain facts that the broad public is not aware of, but besides that, Mr. Padnos report will only consolidate an already established image of Islam among the western society. An image made up from the contradiction between Islamic facts and "progressive" ethos.
The conclusion is that, although this story is out of the ordinary and outrageous to Muslims - mostly because of how contemptuously Mr. Padnos treats not just every single individual Muslim he pretended to be converted to, but thereby also the Islamic community in it's whole - and I'm still looking forward to find out more details about his journey into that world, it remains written from the perspective of a US-American who examined an alien culture he only partially understands.
Your post is long and you are
Your post is long and you are quite literate, but all I can sense in you is hatred. In America people of all races and religions are free to practice their faith and follow their traditions. Sure, there is some intolerance and misunderstanding amongst those like yourself, but that is to be expected in a multi-cultural society. The United States Constitution forces America, despite its flaws, to constantly evolve to the betterment of all. Tolerance is something Islamo-Nazis just don't understand. I think the point you're missing is that we just don't go around blowing each other up because of something that happened 1400 years ago. When Islam corrects that injustice, maybe the world will lighten up a little.
Jakedog, we appear to be
Jakedog, we appear to be running into eachother and I respect you for you remain honest and dignified in your choice of words despite all the dispute we had.
Let me first say that what you sense is not hatred against the US nor its people. It's contempt -- if that isn't already a too strong word -- for those who are naive and/or ignorant and whom, unfortunally, the US has a lot of. So do other countries, mine included.
Saying that these "Islamo-Nazis" aren't as tolerant as [you], is a contradiction in itsself. So is your perceiption of what tolerance means. This might sound strange, but given that there is no accepted authority that concedes either the US' perspective or the fundamental Islamic's perspective the right to call itsself absolute, their world-views are equally justified and so are their actions.
What we do have here are two completely different cultures. One embraces cultural diversity, fears terror and sees human rights as a dogma, the other obeys to strict religious principles and accepts murder, "discrimination" (the quotation marks should remind you not to judge) and separation of genders as their world.
No, they aren't tolerant, as it's not part of their culture. As it's not part of your culture to accept the murder of people who believe in different things.
When you speak of the US as being a multi-cultural society you refer to a distinct US-American culture of diversity in terms of beliefs and attitudes which again, is limited in its acceptance. You do not accept your Islamic neighbour keeping his wife locked up in the house and slapping her for what he considers misbehaviour. You do not accept someone which such a completely different ethos. You would want to free his wife of what you consider intolerable domestic abuse.
There is no excuse for attacking a foreign country as in the 9/11 attacks, as you thereby cross the line that is drawn by your Social Contract and interfere with a community that isn't your own. The response of latter community may be anything they deem appropriate.
But there is no moral authority, and surely not yourself -- the US -- that can condemn how fundamental Islam leads what they consider a war against the US. There is no way for a US-American "curly haired Vermont native" to ultimatively judge a society that isn't his own.
He may judge, but the judgment will we be one of a US-American with a US-American state of mind and thus without any cultural insight nor moral content.
Ignorant, in this case it is, to claim that, and access a culture of which one has no understanding, based upon facts one witnesses and ethics, which these facts do not relate to. The US-American public will devour Mr. Padnos' report as a "first-hand insight" into a culture of violent, radical fanatics and, because Mr. Padnos is just one of these average US-Americans, feel confirmed in their perspective.
ManDay, I can agree that we
ManDay, I can agree that we have two different cultutres, but Islamo-fascists slaughtered 3,000 innocent American men, women and children for absolutely no reason on 9/11. And despite that fact, more muslims live in America and practice their religion in PEACE, without fear of repression or suicide bombers than in the Middle East and Asia combined. America has also brought freedom to more muslims than any other country in the world -- freedom that was bought and paid for with American blood.
And, yes, Americans do have things we don't accept, like the killing of innocents in God's name. So don't even try to make excuses for the Islamo-fascist mentality with me, ManDay, and save your contempt for those who truly deserve contempt.
Islamo-fascists kill innocent people, sometimes for no better reason than a difference of opinion on the prophet himself. And you're telling me I don't understand the meaning of tolerance? If being tolerant means rationalizing the massacre of innocent men, women and children, then please feel free to call me intolerant.
Oh, yeah... before I forget. A quote from your post: "You do not accept your Islamic neighbour keeping his wife locked up in the house and slapping her for what he considers misbehaviour. You do not accept someone which such a completely different ethos. You would want to free his wife of what you consider intolerable domestic abuse."
Do you keep your wife locked up in the house and slap her when she "misbehaves"? Please enlighten me on what constitutes "misbehavior" in a woman that would warrant a beating from her big, strong husband. Maybe it'll be my turn to puke.
No, it's you who should
No, it's you who should educate me. Educate me on what "innocent people" are. Educate me on how to treat one's wife. Educate me on what is "reason enough" to kill a man. Educate me, because we belong to approximately the same culture and you are eligible to educate on our common ethos.
Don't educate Islam on whether not believing in God is "innocent". Don't educate Islam on how to treat women. Don't educate Islam not to kill for their religion.
But if you do, be at least as frank as admitting, that it's pure intolerance to a culture which thinks so ununderstandably differently that makes you want to change them and bring them what you consider "freedom". A good which Islam doesn't want.
Terrorists, reckless suicide bombers. Soldiers, fighters who give their life for the cause of protecting their people against a cultural invasion.
It all depends on your vantage point and we are having this discussion on the US-American side of things. I don't exprect you to convert to Islam and plead for a withdrawal from the East. But you should not call the US/western community an altruistic savior for they make attempts to turn the world into what they consider desirable.
After all, to bring this to closure, I do not keep my wife locked up. I am a western citizen and believe in human rights, equality and in partly the same values that you believe in. But if it wasn't to late for that, I'd support complete withdrawal from all countries that do not pose an imminent threat to the NATO and haven't requested our intervention by a majority of their people.
If you want to save the world, start with countries where intervention would undoubtably be justified. Free Tibet. Send your troups to Africa to help economic projects. Fight the drug cartel in Latin America.
That's what I'd call truely progressive.
Manday, any attempt to
Manday, any attempt to educate you is useless. I pray for your wife, if you have one. And if so, do you slap her? It's a serious question with a simple answer: yes or no?
Unlike other Arabists, most
Unlike other Arabists, most notably Wilfred Thesinger and T.E. Lawrence, whose affinity for the peoples of the middle east, Iraq for the former, Saudi Arabia for the latter, impelled them to broaden and deepen their understanding, Mr Padnos' mission seems to have been motivated by more self-indulgent interests. Certainly, slumming and schlepping through Yemen as a Western reporter has all the marks of a Lonely Planet/Bruce Chatwin type character. Yet Mr Padnos'up-close-and-personal experiences serve up the same tropes about radical Islam and its adherents. We hear only of stock characterizations: the lonely disaffected youth exchanging loyalty for the pure embrace of blind faith; the imam and sheiks who profess submission to the will of god but harbor ulterior motives; and last but not least, the obligatory summation that non-Muslims and the Western world in particular should fear these fundamentalists. Mr Padnos, please tell us somethings we DON'T know!
Manday is interesting -- he
Manday is interesting -- he describes as a mere cultural difference the practice of beating women who misbehave (that is, who dare to behave as individuals, rather than as extensions of the men who control them) and killing those who dare to cross conventions accepted as normal. He says that those who do not subscribe to the culture that holds such values can not judge it. That is not true. There are absolutes in the world at large. Muslims who believe that their religion authorizes them to behave in that fashion, and who ascribe to their version of God the approval necessary to warrant them in so behaving, are simply breasting the tide of history, which in all civilizations has moved away from such conceptions and toward the notion that the individual has worth and value. The religion, so practiced, is infantile. It reflects most clearly an anxiety about manhood that strikes me as pathetic. Such people are not men, they are cripples. A man or a woman is one who is confident enough in him or herself and his or her beliefs not to need to kill what disagrees with him or her. Jihadist "thought" is not thought at all. It is a disease, a form of paranoia that dooms itself, because the behavior it validates discredits all that it affirms when viewed through the lens of evolving historical norms, thus ensuring its ultimate rejection, and exposing its falsity, through the actions it prompts. History is gradual, but it is inexorable. Islam of this type is doomed.
Holy Cow! With all the
Holy Cow! With all the Blah-Blahism over Padnos you would think he stepped on the tail of.... Now, to work on this riddle, lets imagine what the world would be like if Islam was everywhere and everything. Guess I'd be barefoot running back and forth between my Mad-drassa and kicking open to door to see my wife (which hopefully she kept closed to all but me). And that, in Massachusetts?
And on Padnos himself..his name can be transliterated into Patmos...d and t's often replace one another and the same with the n,m context.
That said, it is evident that he is the Second Coming of St. John who wrote Revelations on the Island of Patmos. I can see no other way but that we are in for the opening of the seventh seal and the sounding of 4 trumpets announcing the end of the world and the reign of the true God. Ah, well, someone has to have a true God, right? If not you, why not me? Actually, the would make a dandy Broadway Play...I can see it coming now...the new hit...two boys on the shore of a desert island find they are gods in waiting! They grow up sharing prophecies...oops, like a lot of other B'way stuff this has a biggy flaw. Religions never grow up together. They have a tendency to eat one another. Ah, for the gaping maul of Baal to end today's problems. May Hannibal rise from the dead to conquer again today!
Does anyone actually think he
Does anyone actually think he truly undertook a covert, multi-year effort to ingratiate himself with AQAP leadership just for a chance at getting "Undercover Muslim" to press?
He was clearly training to be the next sleeper jihadi and had a change of heart when he realized he would only get rolled up by the good guys or dead.
Islam doesn't tell you to
Islam doesn't tell you to kill innocent people. Quran says: and whoever kills a human being without right is like he killed all human being. And whoever helps a human being is like he helped all human being.
Islam doesn't tell to beat your wife or children. Those you saw might have understood Islam the way their sick hearts wanted. Imam Ali once didn't come home out of shame because his wife asked him for a thing which he couldn't provide. Islam preaches good manners in family.
Muslims are not sexually frustrated. It's not our problem if we don't bang every girl we see. We wait until we get married.
Stop being racists, stop hating others, stop looking at others mistakes, Islam's first rule is that stop looking at others mistakes, and fix yours. Stop living with your desires. Start loving others, start understanding others. That Imam Ali that never ever disrespected his wife was the same person who said:
1. Don't curse the dark, light up a candle.
2. Give the worker his payment before his sweat dries.
3. If human is not a brother of you in religion, he's a parallel of you in humanity.
Open your eyes and start understanding 2 millions in this world. You always find the worst examples of Muslims to ruin Islam's reputation and making them look like vampires in Resident Evil. I really feel sorry for you guys. The sources that you get your information from are fully corrupted.
Islam isn't what you guys have been feeding yourself with. I feel sorry for you guys that you spend all this time reading a long article like this but don't get a copy of Quran yourselves to make your information sure.