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After an Islamist terrorist attack you'll often hear discussions of radicalization. Where were they radicalized, who radicalized them, which hate preacher was it? Which mosque did they visit? Were they self-radicalized online? I have rarely, if ever, heard anyone question whether they're learning this at home. The seeds for this later manipulation and radicalization are often planted in childhood. It's ingrained in the culture. Just ask any ex-muslims, you don't have to spend a great deal of time with Muslims as a Muslim before the Jews are blamed for something or someone is called a kafir. In fact, those are two of their worst slurs, yahud and kafir. So while everyone is more concerned about radicalization as if it's some infection that can be cured, I would argue it's a cancer and it has metastasized throughout the cultures of the islamic world and it begins in the home, not online, not in mosques, in the home. That is where the seed is first planted, the rest is watering and feeding to the germination of that seed and sprouting of its shoots. This is my encounter with that dark culture.
When I was a kid, my mother would bring my younger brother, my older sister and me to church. Occasionally on a Sunday but usually just for the big two, Easter and Christmas. It always seemed like the oddest thing to me. Not having a clue what it was all about, staring up at this man in robes, Father Cosgrave, mumbling as if he was about to doze off mid-sentence. He died years later of a massive heart attack in a gay sauna club. We weren't really a religious family by any stretch, you might say nominally catholic. Except my dad, he was an atheist before he knew what the word meant.
My father always said, he hasn't considered himself a catholic since he was 13 years old. Up to that point he was an altar boy, his parents were more religious but I'm not sure exactly how religious. What I do know is that in typical Irish fashion for larger families, my Dad had 13 siblings, there's usually a designated nun amongst the girls and a designated priest amongst the boys. My Aunt Masie was the nun, she's the oldest of my dad's siblings. She joined the convent in her teens, was sent away to Africa to do missionary work and Dad met his oldest sister for the first time when he was about eight years old.
My father was supposed to be the priest in the family. He served his time as altar boy, should have gone to seminary but for some reason he didn't. Around the same time he quit school and got a job and he's been working ever since. I've asked him why but he just says it's all rubbish anyway. I don't press him on it, he has his reasons.
Growing up in Ireland in the 80's and early 90's the church was ever-present, it loomed large in society. Most people were relaxed about their faith but everyone knew a few more pious people, typically older women and more often than not from a rural background. I have to say, I've known a lot of nice people, but those were often the kindest. Truly kind. My mother had such a friend, they were close, still are. She's my younger brothers Godmother. I've never known anyone who laughed as much as her. She would always slip a 15 year old me cigarettes with a wink and say "I'd hate to see a man goin' without a smoke". Apart from the fact that she was feeding a teenager's nicotine addiction, in her mind it was an act of kindness, it was charity. She was a pious catholic and a tea-totaler, a lovely and genuine person.
The primary school I went to was a non-denominational school, a rarity in Ireland. Considering over 90% of the population were catholic that's understandable. However, despite it not being a catholic school and there being only one non-catholic attending it, catholicism permeated everything. The Roman Catholic Church ran the education system in Ireland, in fact, it still does. So First Holy Communion and Confirmation are taught, prepared for and performed during school hours. Teachers prayed in school, mass was sometimes conducted in the assembly hall. Every Easter there was a drawing competition and the prize was a chocolate easter egg. I won every year. While the other kids were drawing easter bunnies and colourful eggs, morbid little me was drawing the crucifixion of Christ at Calvary complete with roman centurions.
I was nine years of age, drawing Jesus on a crucifix with blood dripping from his wounds and a roman soldier lancing his ribs. I got what the other kids didn't, Easter wasn't about a bunny, it's about Jesus, it's the most important Christian holiday. To this day I'm baffled that most christians would answer Christmas if they were asked what the holiest holiday of the years is. I understood that before I had a single hair on my ball sack.
Secondary school was a different story. I went to an all boys Christian Brothers school. By the time I attended it was staffed exclusively by laypeople. There was a weekly assembly with mass, an entire manual of conduct – discipline was a very serious matter. Corporal punishment was still a thing, although rare. But everyone in my class got a rap on the knuckles with a ruler at least once and chalk-dusters flying at heads were not uncommon when a teacher heard a sound behind his back. Thinking back gives me a chill, those cold winter mornings, frost on the 10" high windows. The building was old, at the turn of the 20th century it was a hotel, before then they were tenement buildings housing poor inner city families and before that it was a city residence for the wealthy. In the early part of the 20th century after the uprising it was the headquarters of Irish republics de-facto government. But by 1931 it was a school. Old, decrepit and cold, so cold, that's how I remember it but "take your jacket off" was still the standard morning greeting from the first teacher to walk into a classroom.
It was in this school that I really began questioning faith and catholic doctrine. By the age of 16 I was getting in trouble for not blessing myself at assembly or praying Our Father in the morning. I was told straight up, if you don't, can't or will not accept Christ and the Holy Trinity then I should look for a different school. It was a bluff of course, they couldn't legally do that and I knew it. Fourth year of secondary school is the year when civics classes and religious retreats were in focus. However it was religion class that got my attention. Aside from the catholic indoctrination, there was some experimentation with meditation too. We were also introduced to other religions.
We took a field trip to Dublin's Jewish Museum. Jews in Ireland? I had no idea, were they lost? Weren't they responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus? As it turns out, Dublin has had a jewish community for almost 1,000 years. They've been well integrated and well tolerated and never faced the same persecution as in other parts of Europe. Maybe that's why I never knew. Our second field trip as part of our introduction to other religions was to a mosque. If the existence of Jews in Ireland didn't blow my mind this certainly did. We knew nothing about muslims, we had no idea that in the middle of Dublin there was an old church that was converted to a mosque. Around this mosque there was a thriving Pakistani community. Even more mind-blowing, they had Dublin accents, here were these brown-skinned men with thick Dublin accents. Some had been in Ireland since the 1950's, some were born in Ireland. A quiet, peaceful community that kept largely to itself. The mosque welcomed us, the Imam showed us around, gave us a crash-course into Islam and then allowed us to sit quietly at the back and watch the congregation pray. I had never seen anything like it. It was nothing like catholic mass. It was so egalitarian by comparison, except there were no women. It was new, mysterious, exotic, it was interesting.
After this first encounter with Islam I began reading more. I bought an English copy of the Qur'an, Marmaduke Pickthall's translation and Karen Armstrong's book on the life of Muhammad. I became increasingly interested in this religion and simultaneously politics. Eventually, I knew I wanted to be Muslim. So on a cold December evening in 2000 I went to the mosque. I asked the first person I encountered if he can show me where the Imam is. He grabbed my hand and said yes, yes of course. I wasn't that tall but at 6'1" I towered over his fat frame. As he ushered me towards the office next to the mosque he asked me why I wanted to see the Imam. I think he already knew, I told him I wished to convert. He asked me my name, I told him and he immediately said, I will call you Malik, it means King. I immediately felt uncomfortable. Why did he want to call me Malik and why was he still holding my hand? He told me his name was Ibrahim. Ibrahim from Libya. We arrived at the door of what was once a parochial house, a tall Nigerian man opened the door. His name was Yahya Al-Hussein, he was the Imam. Yahya invited us into his office and sat behind his desk. He asked me why I wanted to convert. I was nervous, I didn't know how to answer. Ibrahim interjected, he said I'm a believer, that he could see it. Yahya sighed, he wasn't convinced. He told Ibrahim to go outside and gather witnesses. When Ibrahim left, he said to me, "are you sure?" I replied yes. When Ibrahim returned, Yahya said, repeat after me, "lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh, muḥammadur-rasūlu-llāh". I did and that was that. I didn't feel different, it was all a blur really, handshakes and hugs.
On the way out, Ibrahim and I exchanged numbers. He said he'd pick me up that Friday, I was to call him. Friday came, I took a day off work and I called. He picked me up at home and we drove to the mosque. On the way there Ibrahim told me a bit about himself, he was imprisoned in Libya in the 70's after Gaddafi had killed his father. After his release he fled to Ireland as a refugee. He told me he was the director of the Irish branch of the Islamic Relief Agency and has traveled the world. He had been all over the Middle East and North Africa and he travels often to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Germany. He was married and had two sons and a daughter.
After my first Ju'mah prayer, Ibrahim introduced me to some people. One of them was a ginger man from County Cork called Muhammad, recently returned from Afghanistan. He was studying agriculture and chemistry at University College Dublin. He was friendly, chatty, very curious. We talked for a while, small talk. After a few minutes he said he needed to go see someone and left me alone. That's when I met Mahmood for the first and last time. Mahmood was also from Libya, married to an Irish woman. Mahmood was a jolly middle-aged man. After exchanging pleasantries he stopped smiling, held my elbow, moved closer and said "Ibrahim, the fat man. Stay away from him. Go make friends with the Malaysians instead". It was the oddest thing, but I would eventually find out why he said that.
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Things began to get strange. There was a newer mosque, a multi-million pound mosque. Purpose built with an adjoining school and 4 small apartments. It was paid for by the Makhtoums, the royal family of
the United Arab Emirates. At the time it was the largest purpose-built mosque in Europe and the headquarters of the Fatwa Council of Europe. They had decided to provide Muay Thai training, two nights a week. The trainer was Fatih, an MMA fighter from Tunisia who had lived and fought professionally in Canada and the United States. One evening, after training, one of the guys offered to drive everyone home. I was sitting in the back, sandwiched between two Algerians with my gym bag on my lap. One of the guys noticed a book in my bag, he took it, flicked through the pages, rolled the window down and threw it out. He looked at me sternly and said, "you only need one book" and in it's place he put a small Qu'ran he had in his pocket. I had never felt so intimidated before. I was scared.
Some weeks later Ibrahim called and asked if I would be interested in coming to the mosque, he was close by and could pick me up on his way. I said yes. When he arrived I got in the front and noticed two boys in the back, his sons. He introduced me to Ahmad and Yehyia. On the way, Ibrahim spoke, I never interrupted him, I never knew what to say. At one point, Yehyia, the six year old interrupted. He said, "baba, why are you always talking about death?". What a weird thing for a child to say. Then again, when I was eight I was drawing a man nailed to a cross. Ibrahim responded by telling his six year old son that martyrdom is the most beautiful thing any man could wish for.
Then came August 2001. After prayers one evening I was in the car with Ibrahim, he was talking politics. Specifically Palestine and Israel. He said some big things were going to happen soon. I thought he was talking about Middle Eastern geopolitics, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, maybe he was. A few days later, I was talking to my sister about the situation with Israelis and Palestinians and I repeated Ibrahim's words. And then it happened. September 11, 2001. I was freaked the fuck out now. My sister called me, she just said "how did you know?". I didn't know, I had no idea. I was terrified. I distanced myself from Ibrahim, in fact I never spoke to him again. I have since found out that every one of those guys in the car that night after Muay Thai training is either dead or in jail. And Yehyia, that little six year old kid who wanted to know why his baba was always talking about death. He died fighting in Benghazi in 2013, he was only 18 years old.
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The point is, while everyone is asking who radicalized who and how. They're deliberately ignoring the culture it comes from and the religious justification for it. They fail to acknowledge that the seeds are planted early.