I flashed back to the rooftop prayer of my childhood when I had come naked before Allah under the tea saucer stars, petitioning heaven with my whole heart. A child’s heart. A heart without vanity. Without treachery or deceit. A heart that wanted only to please the object of my worship.
In these children’s faces, I saw that boy I used to be and, for a moment, mourned. That boy was gone. The man who had replaced him was trained only to deceive, to fight, to kill. But now, through the hands of the innocent, a force washed over me that I had not been trained to resist: love. This love was huge and overpowering, but it did not require of me my blood or my strength or my hatred. It required only my surrender.
And from the mouths of these little children, I heard that this love had a name: Jesus.
4
When I accepted the Davids’ invitation, I expected their house to be crawling with the spirit of the jin. I pictured myself lying in some kind of sickroom, tolerating their kindness and warding off their darkness while counting the days until I could return to my brothers. But from that first day, the Davids’ house seemed full of light. Not a light I could see, but a light I could feel.
I did not like it at all.
The children’s prayer had only hit me at a weak moment, I reasoned. My body was broken; perhaps my spirit had sustained damage as well. Besides, they were cute kids. Anyone can be lulled by cuteness, which is why jihadists sometimes used children to carry bombs.
Then the Davids hit me with another weapon: Southern hospitality. Theresa cooked like a woman possessed by Betty Crocker’s ghost. Everything from stroganoff to exotic goulashes to fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. Theresa and the kids served me three meals a day in bed. I had not eaten so well since my mother’s yaknah.
After a couple of weeks, I was able to sit comfortably in my wheelchair without putting too much strain on my neck. Many evenings Theresa or Dr. David would wheel me into the living room and the whole family would sit down to watch TV. The room was huge, but warm, with a big stone fireplace and a grand piano, which little Elizabeth could already play. I listened as the family talked about family things. Jacob was a champion swimmer in his age group, so there were lots of ribbons and trophies to discuss. Caleb was a ball-sport man—soccer, baseball—and there in the living room, the family relived the best moments of his games.
All the while, I watched them, calculating. And I became very confused. All my life, I had been taught that Christians were thieving dogs. But these people had not stolen from me; they had taken me in and cared for me. I had taken people in, too. Hundreds of people like Antonio. But I had lied to them in order to win them to Islam and with an agenda to turn them against their own people, even their own families.
Sitting in the Davids’ living room night after night, I questioned for the first time in my life the teaching I heard sitting at my mother’s kitchen table, and at Masjid al Bakar at the feet of Abdul Rahman. This Christian family did not match the picture my childhood tutors had painted of sinners and whoremongers, of greedy zealots interested only in the conquest of Muslim lands. Instead, they became a living testimony, people who loved to laugh, who cried at sad movies, who were goodhearted enough to risk everything they had to help a stranger. In fact, the more I was with the Davids, the more I came to see that Abdul Rahman and Abu Yousef fit the enemy image burned in my brain more than did these people did.
If that weren’t enough, once a week a group of about forty men came to the house for a meeting. It was a chapter of a larger group, Dr. David told me, called Christian Businessmen. I was invited to sit in on some of the meetings. The men talked about their business successes and struggles, offering each other tips and strate-gies. At the end of each meeting, they always spent a lengthy time praying for one another. And each time I joined the meeting, they prayed for me.
These men actually stood, joined hands, and gathered around me in a circle. I wanted to believe that they were sincere. But that would go against every teaching held dear, everything I believed to be true about this life and the next.
Do you not know I hate everything about you? my heart screamed reflexively. Do you not know that I especially hate it when you smile at the name of Christ?
As they prayed that my neck would be healed, I prayed silent curses upon them. It was what I had done all my life. It was the very purpose of my life.
But lying in the high four-poster bed at night, I thought of the prayer meetings I had attended at radical mosques around the world. We never prayed that our enemies would be healed. We cried out to Allah to hand us victory over them, that he would give us their land, their wealth, their women. At Sabra and in other camps, we cursed the Jews, the Christians, and the Americans, and prayed fervently that Allah would allow us to cover our hands in their very blood.
But these Christian men did not care whether I was from Tanzania or India or Boise. And never once did they try to force their religion on me, as I had forced mine on others, sometimes at the point of a gun.
They never said, “You are Muslim. You are a foreigner. You are different from us and don’t deserve to live.” Instead, every time they came to visit, each one of them wrote a check or left an envelope with cash. And within three months, my medical bill was completely paid. I did not understand any of this. I could not make these contradictions add up in my mind.
Colorado Springs
2008
The Air Force Academy lecture hall was a huge amphitheater with seats rising in semicircular rows from a ground-level stage. The room was modern, with booths for electronics and projection equipment near the top rows of seats. I did not know it then, but organizers had switched the venue at the last minute to ensure better security. As conference attendees filed in and filled in the rows, I noticed at least a dozen armed guards posted along the outermost walls, and at intervals along the steps that led from the bottom to the top of the hall. Some wore handguns in holsters; others carried rifles.
Zak was scheduled to speak first. But he was so weakened by his diabetic episode the day before that his knees buckled twice on the way to the podium. During his talk, he gripped its edges to support himself and kept cutting glances my way. His hooded eyes transmitted to me a clear message: I am not going to last long up here.
It was true. Fifteen minutes into his talk, he thanked the audience for their attention and shuffled off the stage. Now it was my turn. As I took the podium to polite applause, I looked up into the auditorium. Uniformed cadets and officers filled most of the seats. Sprinkled in between were international guests—students from overseas universities, including schools in the Middle East.
The night before, I had stayed up until 1 A.M. going over my speech. I wanted to make clear to the audience how a boy could be raised a killer. I wanted to share some of the things my mother had taught me, like the time she told me, “If you kill a Jew, your right hand will light up before the throne of Allah, and you will go straight to heaven.”
Also, she taught me that to kill a Christian you must have a reason. “If he spits on your hand, you can retaliate,” she said. “Kill him in self-defense. But for a Jew, you do not need a reason. That he is a Jew is enough.”
When your mother loves and cares for you, when she is hardworking and devout, when the people in the neighborhood straighten up in her presence, then you believe whatever she teaches you in the family kitchen. I never doubted her. Not once.
The night before the AFA event, these scenes replayed themselves in my mind, accompanied as always by the ghost-senses, the smell of baking baklava, the scent of olive oil, the sound of the berry tree scratching on the window.
Now I took the podium and began to tell my story. My story. Not the false one that the newspapers had attributed to me.
I told of growing up in Lebanon, tutored in the ways of al-shaheed, the martyrs for Allah…
…of dreaming at age six that I caused Allah, a rigid, stone-faced god, to laugh with delight as I lopped off the heads of infidels with my mighty sw
ord…
…of being recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and introduced to the PLO at age seven…
…of carrying small arms and ammunition into Israel, carrying a knapsack and disguised as a Bedouin boy…
…of undertaking a life whose central pulse was the hatred of Jews and Americans…
…of coming to America to destroy her from the inside out.
“I loved Allah with all my heart,” I told the AFA audience.
I shared from the Koran the sura that says that if Muslims refuse the call of jihad, Allah will replace them with better Muslims; and another sura in which even the stones and trees say, “There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!”
During my talks, I always watch my audience. I can tell immediately who is with me and who is not. At the academy that day, I heard whispering from the gallery. Low in the amphitheater, I saw two Middle Eastern men, and next to them, two women who could have been Middle Eastern, but might also have been Pakistani. All four glared at me and whispered loudly among themselves. High in the amphitheater, I saw two slim blond men dressed in civilian clothes. They were doing the same thing.
I pressed on: “At the assault camp, I learned to hate the Great Satan. The PLO showed us propaganda movies in which Christians and Jews acquired Muslim blood to use in their religious ceremonies. These films told us that the Americans were poisoning our water and air in order to destroy our world. We watched sex movies and were told these were made by the Americans and Hollywood Jews to corrupt the holiness of Islam, to take our women, and to introduce into our world every kind of evil.”
The Middle Eastern group began shaking their heads. Their whispering grew louder.
“We sang hate songs calling for the destruction of the infidels. Part of the lyrics talked about building a ladder to glory out of the skulls of Americans and Jews,” I continued. “And every Friday at the noon prayers, we cast violent curses against America, her leaders, and their seed and called for the spilling of their blood, that they would die by the sword.”
The hall became quiet as now it seemed that even my critics were in shock at what I was sharing. I told them how groups like the Islamic Thinkers Society, which has some common ideology with al-Qaeda, supported al-Muhajiroun, demonstrated on a New York street corner in exercise of their “free-speech rights.” While stomping on and tearing up an American flag, they publicly laughed at Americans for being stupid while they used their constitutional rights to argue that the Constitution should be replaced with Sharia law and the country ruled by a new Islamic caliphate.
I told them how Omar Ahmad, founder of the “moderate” Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith…[but] should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”
I heard whispering again and looked up to see the blond men with their heads together. Glancing to my right, I saw an MP staring hard at them.
Next, I shared how I came to America and preyed on the weak and the poor, speaking in various mosques and universities, raising funds for the cause of jihad. And then I spoke more from the Koran itself, the holy book where I learned my deadly philosophy:
Sura 2:191—“Kill the disbelievers wherever you find them.”
Sura 9:123—“Murder them and treat them harshly.”
Sura 9:5—“Fight and slay the pagans, seize them, harass them, and lie in wait for them with every trick.”
Sura 8:12—“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads.”
Now I addressed the audience with force: “Wake up, America! You must arise! You must wake up to the issue of radical terrorism.”
A brief shower of applause rolled over the whispering like a wave.
“In the mid-1980s,” I continued, “I had an accident and met three American men who loved me and showed me kindness that completely changed my life. Today, I wish to expose the hatred and evil from which I came so that I can make Americans and the West truly understand the threats that face our great nation and the free world. When Walid, Zak, and I believed and fought for Islamic fundamentalism, we were willing to die for the prize of jihad. Today, we come with a new truth. Now we love this country and live for her, standing and fighting for America as Americans.”
We ate a buffet-style lunch with the cadets that day, served in another building a short walk from the auditorium. Afterward, I walked back through an open breezeway with Zak, the chilly sunshine pushing against the edge of the shade. The walkway was filled with conference attendees headed back to hear the next speaker, who was scheduled to begin in minutes.
Even in the throng, I could feel someone crowding me from behind. Then a man was at my right ear, his left shoulder pressing into my right one.
“Hello.” His breath was on my neck. Cadets and officers pushed past us.
I turned slightly to see an unsmiling face.
His eyes, I thought. Palestinian.
“You call yourselves Arabs,” the man said. “Then you must speak Arabic.”
On my left, Zak laughed. “Of course, we speak Arabic. What are you saying?”
We continued walking, approaching the stairs leading down into the hall. The man kept his shoulder pressing into mine.
He spoke again, his words now in Arabic, clipped and low. “I disagree with everything you are saying. Everything you said is a lie.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off.
“You insult Islam and you mock Muhammad. You are the enemy of Islam.”
Zak had already started down the stairs. I stopped and turned to this man, the crowd surging past us.
“Can I speak to you?” I asked him.
“No, you have already said enough,” he replied in Arabic. Then he lowered his voice.
“People like you should be killed,” he said.
America
1985–1991
1
In the Davids’ living room, I began to accept that what I had learned about Christians and Americans was a lie. And if that was a lie, founded in the teachings of radical Islam, what else had I learned that was untrue? I had devoted my life to Allah, spilled my blood for him, killed for him.
After I left the Davids’ house, a spiritual earthquake shook the depths of my soul. It was like the collapsing hotel roof times one thousand, the walls and ceilings of my faith crashing down on my head.
I wanted with every particle of my soul to believe Islam. I did not want to believe that I had committed my whole life to a lie. That I had killed for a lie.
In my apartment, there was a place I prayed, a window facing east. One morning not long after I moved out of the Davids’ house, I fell on my knees there, the sun streaming onto my face.
My heart desperate within me, I raised my hands to heaven and cried out, “Allah, my Lord and my King! Why did you allow such a thing to happen to me? Why did you put me in the hands of those Christian people?” I do not remember the exact words of my prayer, but they poured out of me in a torrent of confusion. The Davids and their friends did not seem to be the evil people I had always hated. They were people who call on their God and received what they prayed for. They prayed for healing and received healing. They prayed for answers and received answers. “They hear their God speak,” I cried. “I want to have a relationship like that with you.”
But the room rang with silence.
Dimly, I was aware of the thick layer of dust that coated every surface of the apartment, the result of many weeks of neglect. The sun beat on me through the eastern window.
“I want to hear your voice!” I cried. “Allah, I want to hear that you love me. If you are real, speak to me.”
I poured all my hope and faith into my prayer. But there was only silence. Stillness. Not one dust particle moved.
A deep sadness engulfed me. My whole life had been a vain masquerade, I decided. Empty and void.
There is no place for me to go. There is nothi
ng left for me.
My mind skipped across the apartment to the laundry room. There, under the carpet near the washing machine, I kept several weapons. I stood and went to retrieve a 9 mm. What was left except to put it to my head and pull the trigger? An eye for an eye. My eye for many eyes.
But as I bent to lift the edge of the carpet, I heard a voice.
“Kamal, the Muslims believe in the God of Father Abraham, and so do the Jews and the Christians. Why don’t you call on the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?”
The voice was so strong, so powerful, so real.
And I knew I would never have thought such thoughts on my own.
Terrified not to listen, I rushed back to the window and fell on my knees again. I cried out in a loud voice, with every fiber within me, “God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, if you are real, speak to me! God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, if you are real, I want to know you!”
Then, for the first time in my life, a miracle happened in front of me. The window brightened until its frame disappeared. The entire room was flooded with light. In this light, there was overwhelming peace and joy. My heart leapt within me because I knew it was the light of God.
“Who are you, my Lord?” I cried.
A voice spoke in my heart: “I am that I am.”
“What does that mean?” I called out.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the voice said. “I have known you since before the foundation of the world.”
“My Lord, I will live and die for you!” I said.
“Do not die for me,” the voice said. “I died for you that you may live.”
At that moment, I knew I met the Christian God. I knew I had met my Creator. There was no turning back.
Through the Christian Businessmen, I relearned what I knew about Jesus: that he was a Jew, not a Muslim, as I had been taught. That he really was the son of God, not merely a prophet or even merely the greatest prophet. That he died for the sins of the world and on the third day rose again. That he had made recompense before a holy God for every sin of every man who would simply declare faith in Him. Even my sins, which were worse than those of any man I knew.
The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption Page 27