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

by Åsne Seierstad

  “Music fills your heart, it does, it fills it. You feel happy for a bit while you’re listening to music, but when it’s gone, when you’re alone, your iPod broken, then you realize how empty your heart is. It’s the same with movies, it’s the same with recreational sex, it’s just a way to fill the empty heart. I need something to distract me, marijuana, acid, coke, heroin, alcohol, the same thing.” The results of this were increased promiscuity, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, depression, suicides.

  Fortunately, there was a cure.

  “Read the Koran! This is a book that Allah has sent down so that we can know Him! Pray! Pray with your heart! Understand what you are saying. Allahu Akbar! What does that mean? It doesn’t mean God is great, no, God is the greatest, no. It literally means Allah is greater. It’s almost an unfinished thought. Whatever you can think of, Allah is greater.”

  He had been speaking continuously for almost an hour. It was time for questions from the floor. A young man asked Green how he knew that Allah was the only proper thing to fill the heart with.

  “That’s the nature God gave to the heart … How do we know Islam is true?… The Koran teaches us that this universe has a creator and this creator is unique, the creator is not like the creation and not one thing in the creation is similar to the creator. Nothing in the universe is similar to God.”

  There was a system and logic to the universe. Like an iPad. It was created. It did not merely come about through a series of random events, by things being thrown around, shaken and mixed. “Although Christianity has a similar concept of God, Christianity confuses this by saying that Jesus is God. That doesn’t make sense. It is not rational.”

  When the boys finished posing their questions, the girls were allowed their turn. One of them stood up. “I’ve seen Muslims fill their hearts with hate, seen them kill one another, Salafists have attacked Sufi mosques while shouting about how they will get to paradise and eat with the Prophet. How can we prevent the hatred spreading between Muslims? How can we prevent the heart being filled with hate instead of love when we get rid of the rubbish?”

  Green replied that it was a good question and one his talk on Sunday would answer.

  “Any more questions?” he asked.

  Another girl spoke up. In the wake of the terror attacks on July 22, songs had played an important part in the grieving process and in bringing people together. Were songs also haram? she wondered.

  Green did not know what she meant, so she had to elaborate. Could not songs create unity and harmony as opposed to what he had said about music creating empty hearts? Green still did not understand what she was referring to. Nervously, she repeated the question for the third time, again making reference to the terror attacks in Oslo, of which the speaker declared his utter ignorance.

  He still answered the question. “Some may say scientists have proven that a glass of red wine a day actually makes you more healthy, it is full of antioxidants and has health benefits,” but the harm, he said, far outweighed the benefits. It was the same with music. “Music may have some therapeutic benefit,” but that did not make up for all the harm that came with it.

  Ayan listened when she had time. There were things to take care of. She was up there now, rubbing shoulders with the leadership. A person of note in Islam Net. She swept graciously around the hall, disappearing into the women’s section. Reemerged, straightened up.

  Aisha and Emira also had tasks to carry out during the Peace Conference. Ayan had added Dilal’s name to the list of volunteers, but the Kurdish girl was rejected by Madia when she turned up. “If you want to play any part in our organization, you’ll have to cover up,” she said. Those were the rules. Dilal insisted the hijab was not obligatory in Islam. Queen Madia had no interest in a debate and asked Dilal to find a seat in the hall.

  Exquisitely dressed and made up, she sat as an ordinary member of the audience while her friends filled important positions in long tunics and head scarves.

  When Dilal went over to them at a break and said that Madia was “pigheaded,” Aisha held up her palm. “You can’t say that! You can’t use the word ‘pig’! And certainly not about a Muslim.”

  Dilal shrugged, she was used to Aisha telling her off.

  * * *

  The lectures were to continue after the break. The hall had finally begun to warm up. Emira was anxious and keeping an eye on the men’s entrance door. She had told Dilal whom she was in love with, a man she was meeting in secret.

  “He’s coming later. Or maybe tomorrow. I’ll tell you when I see him, but I can’t talk to him here.”

  He was Pakistani, she whispered. “He’s called Arslan.”

  Dilal shrugged. “Who is he?”

  His name was Arslan Maroof Hussain, but he had recently changed it to Ubaydullah, which meant “Allah’s little slave”—the one who submits to God. The sweet-faced man, a former football referee, worked for the toll road company in Oslo but dreamed of being a full-time Islamist.

  The final speaker on Friday evening was one of Ayan’s favorites, Moroccan-born Riad Ouarzazi from Canada. The tone of their communications on Twitter was flirtatious. She hinted that she might be too busy to catch his lectures.

  “Why? Are you planning to come in late to some of my events????” the preacher replied.

  “So do you have a punishment for being late ready?!” Ayan asked, to which he quickly responded, “not in this type of event.” Ayan answered: “I am one of the leaders for the event, so hopefully no, it would be fun to see live ☺”

  She made it, of course, and took pictures of him onstage that she posted along with the text: “The Sheikh in action!”

  Ouarzazi lowered and raised his voice as though in a memorized dance; he shouted, whispered, smiled, and hissed. “The angels are here, right here, they come down and surround us. If we were to see them we would faint.”

  The lecture was about mercy. “One day the Prophet was crying so Allah sent Gabriel to ask him, oh Prophet of Allah, why are you crying? The Prophet said Ummati, ummati, my people, my people, I want Allah to save my people.”

  Ouarzazi fought back tears as he related what God had commanded the archangel: “Go and tell him we shall please him and please his people!”

  The eyes of the young people in the audience, however, were dry. They had, after all, grown up in Norway, where public displays of emotion were not commonplace.

  The speaker lowered his head, concentrating as he approached the high point: Muhammad on his deathbed, accompanied by his wife Aisha. “Now the Prophet is sixty-three years old. Gray hair.” His voice failed him again.

  He concluded with a declaration of love to Muhammad and asked if the young people in the audience loved the Prophet as much as he did.

  “Do you love him? Do you really? How much do you love him? How much are you willing to sacrifice for him?” he called out.

  Ayan took photographs of the weeping preacher and posted them on Twitter. He had dried up and wrote a terse reply saying they were kind of blurry.

  * * *

  A group of men turned up toward the end of the three-day conference. They were dressed in traditional Salafi garb: short, wide trousers ending just above their ankles, and qamis—tunics—as the Prophet was said to have worn. They sported beards but no mustaches, because the Prophet had said that no hair must touch the mouth. Some of them wore keffiyehs—Arabic scarves worn around the neck and head.

  The men had checkered pasts. A number had been in gangs and some had criminal records, while others had grown up under the supervision of Child Welfare Services.

  One of them was Hisham Hussain Ahmed, who had attended Dønski a few years before Ayan. Together they had manned Islam Net’s dawa stand on Karl Johans Gate, the main street in Oslo, where Ayan had approached nonbelievers and Muslims of varying degrees of faith according to the instruction sheet they had been issued. Smiling broadly in the pedestrian area, she had tried to give people a taste of Islam, while Hisham had stood watching for the most p
art, lacking the courage to engage with people directly, content to merely hand out brochures. They had also met clambering up and down ladders stocktaking for IKEA, a work detail Islam Net had organized to raise funds. They had hit it off.

  Hisham had arrived in Norway in 2003, three years after Ayan. While she had been flown in as part of a UN family reunification program, Hisham had traveled alone from Eritrea. He gave his age as thirteen upon arrival, was registered as an underage asylum seeker, and was placed with a foster family in Bærum. He quickly made friends and spent his time playing football. They had never had a more harmonious foster child, the family said.

  After a year in the reception class, and after completing lower secondary, he was accepted on the sports program at Dønski. He was a skillful football player, a talented athlete on the whole, in fact, and had the biggest, whitest smile in the class. In a school photograph from Dønski, he is lying across the girls’ laps, like a mascot.

  What he had not told the authorities when he arrived was that his family was in Oslo. He had uncles and cousins living in the city. He led two lives. One in Bærum, one with his uncles.

  He had changed since Ayan saw him at the IKEA fund-raiser. His beard was longer. His features were hard where before they had been soft. He wore the clothes of the Prophet. Something else had changed, she discovered: his civil status. Hisham had married.

  * * *

  It was time for the concluding lecture. The theme was the day of judgment.

  “Dear brothers and sisters,” Muhammad Abdul Jabbar began. He was the leader of a large missionary organization in Birmingham.

  The end is near! was the message. Earth would break up and be smashed to pieces, the oceans would burn, people would try to escape but there would be nowhere to hide. The stars would be extinguished and fall from the sky, darkness would descend as the universe reached its end. Everyone would perish prior to resurrection to face God’s judgment.

  Ayan had set up a profile on YouTube where she posted links to websites and religious channels. Jabbar’s speech, “The Soul of a Believer,” had the same message as the one he conveyed at the Peace Conference: “These are dark times, there is no denying. The end is near!”

  The special effects showing the apocalypse were Hollywood inspired. There were thunder, lightning, flames, people burning, screaming, and falling before the deep voice of the preacher resounded: “Is this the end? No, it’s just the beginning…” The angel of death will appear, flames coming from his eyes, his nostrils, his mouth, to take the sinners with him. Behind him an abundance of angels will stand with glowing faces and bouquets of flowers in their hands to welcome the chosen ones.

  Those who had obeyed Allah and lived a life subject to his rules would be raised up. Because God had said, “They who believe and do righteous deeds—those are the companions of paradise.”

  The others would be destroyed: “The drug dealers. Pimps. The wine dealers. Junkies. Crackheads.” All of them would go down, but others as well. The men who fooled women, who made women do things they did not want to do. Those who did not pray, who did not fast. The adulterers. The ones who stole, lied, and killed! No one would escape judgment. Unbelievers would die as unbelievers. An agonizing punishment awaited them, and they would have no one to help them. Because God had said, “If anyone seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted, and in the next world he will be among the losers.”

  The omens for the approaching day of judgment stood written in the Koran. These signs included a proliferation of murders and killings, oppressive world leaders, almost everyone drinking wine, and children making decisions instead of their parents. In addition, people would stop believing in God and begin to believe in the stars, song and music would be everywhere, suicide and death wishes would be commonplace, time would move quickly, and false prophets would appear.

  The next portents would be great earthquakes, one in the east, one in the west, as well as one in Arabia, which, according to the Prophet, was the center of the world. A wind would blow across the whole of the globe, the sun would rise in the west, and there would be a great fire in Yemen. Once these signs appeared, repentance and conversion to Islam would no longer be possible. By then it would be too late.

  Jabbar was reaching the end of his talk. The Muslims of the world were appalled at Western culture, he thundered. Role models like Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent had taken the place of the Prophet. He urged those in the audience to do as al-salaf al-salih—the true believing forefathers—and invest in akhirah, life after death. A perfect segue into the money collection. Buckets were passed around. Donating money to Islam Net was an “investment for Allah’s sake” and would give extra points on the day of judgment, the audience was reminded.

  “For those of you who are not members, you’ll find registration forms on the floor beneath your chairs. You can fill them in and pay at the tables over there!” boomed a voice throughout the hall.

  The collection turned into an auction, where you raised your hand depending on the sum you wanted to donate. It was important to stake money on paradise while still in this world, one of the preachers who had been flown in called out. Alms would wash away sins and help against illness. Words of warning and blame were called out.

  The bearded men in the clothes of the Prophet had already left. They raised money for their own causes and some of them were often seen with collection boxes at the metro station in Grønland and outside the mosques. Emergency aid, they said. For the children in Syria. And for the widows.

  The differences between these rougher-looking types and the leadership of Islam Net could appear slight from a purely religious point of view. They all wanted a society based on sharia, all believed in the day of judgment, and all laid claim to follow the Prophet. The style of dress differed, but what set them apart was something far more important. Where Islam Net followed the Prophet’s instruction to spread the word, those who had left the hall wanted to go in the footsteps of warrior Muhammad and conquer the world by the sword—jihad bi’l-sayf.

  What set them apart was the belief in violence.

  11

  VALENTINE’S UMMAH

  Aisha was having a rough time.

  When criticism rained down in the Norwegian media, she was left on her own to weather the storm. She wanted Islam Net to back her up in the niqab debate and had approached Fahad Qureshi for support. That was something the board would have to consider, he replied.

  It took time.

  Aisha had told him about being assaulted by a man, one of those motionless, statuelike men painted gold who stand on the street and hardly blink. She had been walking past him by Parliament, when he had suddenly reached out and pulled off her veil.

  The board was in favor of women wearing the niqab in public, both in school and in the workplace, but was now the right time to pursue the issue? And was Aisha the right one to front it?

  Aisha had a tendency to be brusque, not a quality held in high regard by the board. She was subservient to God alone, not men in general. Feminism was, in her words, about “fighting for the right to cover up.” The niqab served as protection against the world; it was not about her letting someone else make decisions for her.

  Islam Net was also uncomfortable with the powerful rhetoric the former extortionist Arfan Bhatti had used in the speech he’d given at the demonstration against Norwegian military engagement. The group was further distressed by a video that had been made to promote the rally, a video that Aisha had shown support for. The director was Bastian Vasquez, born to parents of Chilean ancestry in Skien, a couple of hours’ drive south of Oslo. The short, slightly overweight, but strong convert had made a video about the Norwegian forces in Afghanistan, featuring footage of Crown Prince Haakon, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, followed by the threat: “Oh, Allah, destroy them and let it be painful!”

  A few hours after Bastian posted it online to advertise the demonstration, the police were at his house.
He opened the door wearing only a towel around his waist. They followed him into the bedroom while he got dressed, and began searching the room. One of the officers saw him put something in his mouth and heard it hit hard against his teeth. The policeman put him in a headlock to prevent him from swallowing. Bastian was eventually forced to spit it out—a memory stick containing the film, bomb-making instructions, and footage of hundreds of beheadings and torture methods signed by al-Qaida.

  One of the first things Bastian Vasquez demanded when he was placed in custody was that Arfan Bhatti, the former leader of the underworld, be notified. He never asked for his wife.

  According to police interview notes, Bastian had set up a new online profile “a couple of weeks ago with the intention of finding a second Muslim wife.” The notes recorded that “the accused is married but polygamy is permissible in Islam.” He had also created an online profile under the name Mohammad Jundullah in order to “network and make as many friends as possible online.” The notes went on to say that “the accused has been a member of Islam Net and views proselytizing as an important task.”

  Bastian confirmed that he and Arfan Bhatti had arranged the demonstration and elaborated on his relationship to his infamous co-arranger. “The accused perceives it as special to be together with Bhatti and in making the video he had hoped to gain his recognition. The accused hoped that people would think he was cool. He realizes how idiotic this sounds but the accused was bullied while growing up and thinks this might explain it.”

  Bastian denied having threatened anyone, and when he was asked what he meant by “Oh, Allah, destroy them and let it be painful!” he answered “that, like, Allah would punish them ones and get them out of Norway … out of Afghanistan.”

  “Who are ‘them ones’?” his interviewer asked.

  “Norwegian soldiers killing innocent people.”

  “How would they be punished?”

  “By a fever or something, or … dunno … illness, something that would make them leave in any case.”