Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey Into the Syrian Jihad

by Åsne Seierstad

  “You are so far behind! The whole year will be wasted. Pull yourself together,” she implored.

  The program was demanding. Perhaps Ayan wanted to transfer to the normal course of study to have a chance of making up lost ground?

  “I’ll think about it,” Ayan replied.

  It was early November and morning frost lay white over Bærum as the first class of the day was starting. Ayan was wrapped in several layers of clothing, both on top of and beneath her cloak. When she tried to remove the outer layer, the shawls bunched up, trapping her arms over her head. A classmate came to her aid and Ayan eventually managed to remove what she was trying to take off and pull back down what she wanted on.

  “Why are you wearing all that stuff?” a boy asked.

  “Because I want people to see my intellect, not my body,” Ayan answered.

  “Why shouldn’t they see your body?” he asked.

  “Because you should be interested in my brain.”

  “In that case, you better start putting it to use, so there is something to get to know there!” the economics teacher quipped.

  That was Ayan’s last day at Nesbru.

  9

  THIS OUTFIT

  Be the change you wish to see in the world.

  The quotation, wrongly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, stood in black letters on the wall inside the door of Dønski Upper Secondary School. Beside it was a quote from Monty Python: Always look on the bright side of life.

  “Welcome” was written in several languages with different characters and alphabets next to posters warning of the dangers of drug use. From the entry, a stairway led to the second floor, where there were classrooms and the library at one end and the principal’s office and staff rooms at the other. A glass door divided the corridor in between. It had previously been left open, until a pupil had helped himself to teachers’ handbags, mobile phones, and laptops, whereupon a lock with a key card and code had been fitted.

  This was Ayan’s new school.

  In early November 2011, Ayan had notified the counselor at Nesbru that she wanted to transfer to Dønski. All her friends were there, she said.

  From the train station close to the school she could get into Oslo city center in just a half hour. She was quick to adjust. The academic standards at Dønski were lower, routines more lax. That freed up more time for Islam Net.

  * * *

  By late November the tasks assigned by Islam Net had piled up. “Ayan was to go around shops in Oslo to find sponsorships. Was this done as of the last meeting? If not a fine is imposed. If not done by today that means another fine. There is very little time left until the final date for funding and Ayan has not managed to put a single sponsor in place, has this been carried out? If not she is fined.”

  On her own copy of the minutes, Ayan wrote: “Talk to Madia!!!” and “Get in touch with Madia! Ask Fahad!”

  Under the heading Miscellaneous, the minutes read: “The deadline for payment of fines is one week after they have been issued. Fine and new deadline of tomorrow for those who have not sent in the reports from courses in which they have participated.” The minutes ended: “Have all of you paid each of your fines?”

  * * *

  On Sundays, Koran school in Bærum continued.

  Mustafa’s worldview was similar to Islam Net’s. Living a pure life was impossible if you got caught up in Norwegian society, with all its decadence and immorality. A Western lifestyle meant nightclubs, drugs, and sex. It led straight to hell.

  The leaders of Islam Net indulged in the same rhetoric. “Norwegians are bored from Monday to Friday, the weekend comes as a release and is filled with drunkenness and wild sex,” Fahad Qureshi told an audience of teenagers. Most Norwegians suffer from depression, he claimed, and “the more preoccupied we become with this world, the more depressed we get.”

  In order to find salvation, you had to live according to the rules of Islam, as strictly interpreted by Sunni Islam. That meant women covering up, not shaking hands with men, avoiding eye contact, and never being alone with a man who was not a family member, because then the devil was always present.

  The Koran lessons were sometimes held in the home of the Juma family; then Ismael found it difficult to skip them. The more his sisters got caught up in Mustafa’s outlook on life, the more repelled he became. He found the undertones of the Koran teacher’s tirades troubling. Mustafa was promoting terror groups, “sponsored by Mom and the other mothers,” Ismael said to Ayan. The Koran teacher paid tribute to the sacrifice of those involved. God would approve. Martyrdom is beautiful.

  Ismael asked him straight out if he supported al-Qaida. Mustafa would not answer.

  “What about the terrorist group al-Shabaab?” Ismael asked.

  Mustafa offered a cryptic reply. “I have nothing bad to say about them.”

  Ismael was appalled and told his mother that the teacher refused to condemn these terror organizations.

  “You must have heard wrong,” was all Sara said. She shooed her son away, thinking he was only trying to wangle his way out of the Sunday lessons.

  Sara did not care for al-Shabaab. But she had respect for authority and had made her mind up that she liked the Koran teacher.

  Mustafa, in Ismael’s view, was pushing his pupils, the youngest of whom was around twelve years old, into the camp of hatred. He was creating an image of the enemy and reinforcing the idea of mistrust in their minds: The media were in league with security institutions in the West, which were in cahoots with those whose goal was to destroy Islam.

  “I need to find out if I can trust you all,” the Koran teacher said one day. “Let’s say that I’ve done something against the West, and the CIA or FBI comes to get me. I’ve hidden in that closet over there and the agents enter the room fully armed and ask you, ‘Where is Mustafa? Where is he?’ Would you tell them where I am?”

  The youngsters looked at him mutely, some of them shook their heads.

  That did not suffice.

  “Put up your hand! Put up your hand if you would tell them I was in the closet!”

  No one raised a hand. Not even Ismael. He could not be bothered.

  * * *

  Aisha had become Norway’s first niqab-wearing celebrity, a voice worth listening to. Her contribution to the Uncovered anthology had attracted the interest of Association!Read, a state-funded organization whose aim was to promote reading and literacy among children and adolescents; they sent out texts from the anthology to secondary schools and offered to facilitate visits from the authors. Aisha accepted the invitations that came. If she managed to convert anyone on the tour, which was sponsored by the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association, it would get her lots of ajr—extra points in heaven.

  Criticism was not long in coming. The outfit is political, Professor Kjell Lars Berge of the University of Oslo claimed, and not an existential or private choice.

  “It testifies to a religious conviction that is extreme and connected to a political program leaning in a Fascist direction. We know well what these groups represent and it has no place in the classroom,” he told Klassekampen newspaper in January 2012.

  In protest, the author Morten Skårdal returned a prize he had been awarded by Association!Read. The culture editor of the Bergens Tidende newspaper, Hilde Sandvik, drew a parallel between Aisha Shezadi and the right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, and claimed that supporters of the talks in the schools were legitimizing violence. Her colleague in Norway’s newspaper of record, Aftenposten, Knut Olav Åmås, warned against equating the niqab with extremism. “Should a niqab-wearing Norwegian youth from Bærum be prevented from touring schools because nearly everyone hates what she stands for? No.” He asserted that society needed more openness and debate after the terrorist attacks of July 22, 2011, as a strategy against those forces that did not want either of those things.

  The tour of schools had not drawn much attention until Aisha had expressed support for the Taliban’s attacks on Norw
egian soldiers. Beneath a photograph of an international coalition soldier and a Taliban fighter on her Facebook page she wrote: “No matter how much equipment they have they will never eliminate the lions of Allah.” She encouraged people to protest, and on another Facebook event page titled “Demonstration: Norwegian soldiers out of Afghanistan,” she wrote, “Inshallah, the demo will be a success … the more attention it attracts the better—it will mean more people pay attention and we inshallah can show what we are good for.” On a discussion thread supporting the introduction of sharia in Norway, she wrote, “What is the point of democracy anyway when we have sharia?”

  The main speaker at the demonstration was Arfan Bhatti, a charismatic man in his midthirties, with deep-set dark eyes, a long beard, and agile steps. He was of medium height, broad shouldered, and feared for his aggressiveness. After serving several prison sentences for acts of violence, he had drifted from the criminal underworld into the group of extremist Islamists, reinventing himself as an emir, a Muslim commander.

  “The people of Norway need to know that their security is in danger as long as Norway has soldiers in Afghanistan. This is not a threat. It is a warning for your own good!” Arfan Bhatti shouted to the assembled demonstrators. This de facto leader of the Islamists, a man who mixed newly learned hadiths with street slang, said the country was at war with Islam and therefore with all Muslims. He called Norwegian soldiers terrorists and promised revenge.

  Aisha, in her niqab outside the Parliament building that January day, approved of what she heard and what she saw.

  This outfit was unequivocally political.

  10

  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE HEART

  On December 25, 2011, Ayan turned eighteen. She could obtain a passport, apply for a credit card, order things online, qualify for a driver’s license, and vote. The school could no longer contact her parents with any concerns they had, as attendance was now her own responsibility.

  In January she opened a Twitter account. Her debut of 140 characters was a quotation by a man her Koran teacher often referred to, Muhammad al-Tirmidhi: “Know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with hardship.”

  Ayan’s profile, in contrast with Aisha’s, contained nothing hateful or extreme. She posted links to interviews and talks, such as one in which the American journalist Glenn Greenwald spoke of how meaningless the terms “terror” and “terrorism” were, and she wrote, “The U.S. is kicking out 1000 immigrants a day. Not bad for a people who stole the land in the first place.”

  She was interested in her own African identity. “Being black is not easy wallahi [I swear to God]! How the world is against black people at times!! I praise Allah for Islam.” She added, “Especially in countries like Norway! But Alhamdulillah for Islam!”

  * * *

  The Arab Spring was entering its second year. It was a year since the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali had fled to Saudi Arabia in the wake of mass demonstrations. Hosni Mubarak was in prison in Cairo, and a few months earlier Muammar Gaddafi had been dragged from a drainage pipe, beaten bloody, sodomized with a bayonet, and shot in the head before his corpse was placed on display at a militia headquarters in Misrata until the stench made them remove him.

  In Syria, Bashar al-Assad was still in power. Ayan followed developments from afar, waging jihad with her heart, tongue, and keyboard. “Ugliest dog in the world dies—what a misleading title, I thought they finally killed Bashar,” she tweeted in March 2012.

  Western leaders declined to support the Syrian uprising as they had backed Libya’s. They sat on the fence when the Assad regime attacked peaceful demonstrators, and when the demonstrators took up arms they were left to fend for themselves. An intervention in Syria would involve an entirely different set of challenges. The Syrian military was far stronger and possessed advanced Russian-produced antiaircraft systems. In addition, the regime was supported by Iran, and any intervention would motivate Iran to assist Assad more directly and further undermine American interests in Iraq, in turn jeopardizing Iran’s continuing involvement in the negotiations for a deal regarding their nuclear program. It was simply not worth it.

  Western leaders turned a blind eye as the first foreign fighters from Europe entered the theater of war. For a time they were viewed as something akin to aid workers and freedom fighters. Although a few enlisted in the Free Syrian Army in the hope of introducing democracy to the country, most were jihadists and joined al-Qaida’s Syrian branch.

  With Islam Net’s Peace Conference approaching, Ayan’s activity on Twitter intensified. As a member of the organizing committee, she exchanged text messages with several of the speakers. The tone was personal and confident; she usually addressed them as akhi—my brother. The conference was the highlight of the year for the young Salafists. It was to open at the start of Easter week, when most Norwegians were packing their rucksacks and heading to the mountains.

  At Ekeberghallen, an indoor sports arena just south of Oslo city center, where the organizing committee had eventually managed to land a good deal, two entrances were planned, one for boys, one for girls. There would be segregated rest areas where samosas, cakes, and soft drinks could be purchased.

  At a table in the women’s section, some of the girls Ayan had recruited were to distribute dawa literature. Books that had been sent by a publisher in Egypt were handed out free of charge. There were pink brochures on “Women’s Rights in Islam—respected, honored, cherished,” peppered with quotations from the Koran, mostly framed in hearts: “And the male is not like the female. Does not the one who created you know?” Still, men and women needed each other. “They are clothing for you and you are clothing for them.”

  Ayan and Leila skipped school to be at the opening on Friday morning. Easter fell late, it was already the end of April. Crocuses and tulips were in bloom in the gardens of the villas in Bærum, the cherry trees blossoming. Ayan took a picture of a lustrous birch tree against a bright blue sky on a verdant slope and posted it on Twitter: “Cause after every rainfall a rainbow must come! #springinnorway #alhamdulillah!”

  The sisters got on the bus in Bærum wearing long black dresses. They put on niqabs before arriving at the square in front of Oslo Central Station, where they boarded the bus that would take them to Ekeberg. The closer they got to their stop, the more people in similar attire got on the bus. They were all going the same way: fi sabil Allah—God’s way.

  The sisters bypassed the women’s queue; after all, Ayan was a member of the organizing committee. Behind tables at the entrance where you checked in and were given a stamp sat the girls she had recruited to work Admission.

  The seats slowly filled up, boys in front, girls at the back. Youngsters made their way, alone or in groups, to the back of the hall to pray. White athletic shoes, high-heeled pumps, boots, and sandals were removed, while they washed. They bowed in prayer—There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger—before returning to fill up the rows of chairs.

  After several hours, due to the lengthy, detailed registration process, Fahad Qureshi welcomed everyone. He was wearing a tight-fitting dark suit and a white shirt. Atop his head he wore a kufi—a brimless prayer cap. According to sunna, the teachings of Muhammad, the kufi went back to the time of the Prophet. Fahad’s was striped.

  The Norwegian Pakistani basked in the limelight and the glory of the big names soon to take the stage. The purpose of the weekend was to convey the true message in order to stem fear, prejudice, and hatred. Perhaps the tragedy of the right-wing July 22 terror attacks could have been avoided, he suggested, if society had more knowledge of Islam?

  People were freezing. The hall was ice-cold. Girls drew shawls and cloaks tighter around them. Some wore niqabs, most merely hijabs in a variety of styles: leopard print, gold, glitter, striped, baby pink, earth tones. Covering up and bling were in no way incompatible.

  The big name was the British convert Abdur-Raheem Green. He had been born in Tanzania, where his father had worked as a colonial
administrator. He spent his childhood in Catholic boarding schools before opening the Koran at age twenty-four and subsequently converting.

  Dressed in a long beige tunic, Green resembled a Viking right out of central casting: tall, powerfully built, with pale blue eyes and an impressive blond beard. He was banned from speaking in Canada, denied entry to Australia, as well as barred from the Emirates stadium, home of Arsenal F.C., for statements such as “Muslims and Westerners cannot live peaceably together” and that “to die while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah’s good pleasure.” He had been caught on camera at Hyde Park Corner in London shouting for a man wearing a Jewish kippa on his head to be removed: “Why don’t you take the Yahudi over there far away so his stench doesn’t disturb us?”

  Islam Net deemed his views acceptable. His lecture was titled “Empty Hearts, Crazy Lives.”

  “Let’s look at the nature of the heart,” he said, after uttering the customary Islamic greetings. “A piece of flesh. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said when this piece of flesh is sound, the whole body is sound. When it is corrupt the whole body is corrupt.”

  What the heart contained came out through the mouth. “You’ve heard the expression You are what you eat. If you keep eating rubbish for long enough, you’ll become rubbish and you’ll become so addicted to rubbish, you can’t even eat anything else.” People had become like rats, feeding themselves junk food. And that meant, Green was keen to stress, you were not getting the nutrition you needed, that your soul needed—God.

  The heart hungered to know Allah, to obey Allah, to worship Him, adore Him. This was what gave life to the heart. “You need to look inside your heart, examine yourself. What motivates me, what is the purpose? Is it because I want fame? To get my picture taken? The admiration? Being seen on Facebook?”

  While he was speaking, people in the back rows were chatting and children were playing. Green did not let this affect him, however, and began listing all the things that were detrimental.