A new threat from Muslim converts?
There is a post over at Austrolabe about the implied threat in Australia of Muslim converts as well as a post at Planet Grenada about radical trends amongst African American converts.
While converts, especially African-Americans may have a lot of social problems, I really don’t think that there is a widespread threat from most converts to Islam of becoming radical extremists that would plan and/or participate in a terror attack. Even in spite of some radical rhetoric from some masjids, individuals and “internet jihadees”, I don’t think that there are many that would want to participate in a terror attack.
Most converts are open minded and NOT anti-semitic when they enter Islam, and that is not a good mix for extremism. However, I will submit to you that they may pick up a few anti-Jewish thoughts after attending a few Khutbahs and hearing a few conspiracy theories while trying to fit into the general environment at the masjid.
For this reason, you might find some converts that may talk a lot of trash and support verbally some of the terrorist actions overseas, but only a very few, in my opinion, would actually be susceptible to recruitment by an extremist or extremist group. And these individuals seem to have mental problems in many cases.
Allow me to give a few examples:
Around 1999, in Memphis, TN, there was an individual that embraced Islam in prison and upon release, started attending one of the local masjids. This guy was very strange. He generally acted weird, said that he was in the process of memorizing Sahih al-Bukhari in its entirety (In English?) and used to punch the brick walls outside with his bare fists (!!). We all knew that this person seemed a little off to say the least.
At any rate, he eventually disappeared (this was nothing strange as many converts/former prisoners ‘drop off the scene’) and we didn’t hear anything from or about him again until we saw his picture in the paper. He had been captured by police in New Jersey after going on a three state killing spree in which he hacked several people to death and injured others with a machete! He thought that he was receiving “revelation” from God.
In another incident, there was a brother named Abdur-Raqeeb from Baton Rouge, LA that I had heard so much about because of his great kindness and generosity. I had several personal friends to tell me about him and his legendary kindness. Abdur-Raqeeb used to feed people at the local masjid regularly and generally go out of his way to help others.
Last year, a person came to the masjid there and converted to Islam and (I hear) that he was highly “studious”. No one seems to know what was on this guy’s mind, but after a few weeks or months, he must have apparently concluded that it was permissible to kill Abdur-Raqeeb (he was ‘Tabeeghi’) and came to the masjid and shot him dead.
The brothers told me that Abdur-Raqeeb was serving food at the masjid when this guy came and killed him. Abdur-Raqeeb was so well loved and respected that the Muslim community there named the masjid after him.
Incidentally, it was right before the time Abdur-Raqeeb was killed, Rashad and I began to become concerned about a what we saw as, a still small, but increasing number of mentally unstable brothers. People who knew me at the time, know that I even stated that I would not be surprised if some brother gets shot by one of them.
At the time, people thought that Rashad and I were “over-reacting”. Two - three weeks later, Abdur-Raqeeb was shot and killed by this deranged convert.
Soon after that, an Imam in another city was choked to nearly the end of his life in the masjid, and had to be hospitalized. Why? Because that individual’s wife complained to this Imam that she was being abused, so he decided to attack him.
A friend of mine told me of an incident in which a mentally ill convert started yelling at the Muslims at the masjid, accusing them of ‘kufr’ and ‘nifaaq’, then tried to attack his young son. As he was hurrying off in the van with his family, the person pulled out a pistol and shot at the fleeing van until he ran out of bullets. Alhamdulillah, no one in the brother’s family was hurt, but one of his daughters is still afraid to come to the masjid because of that event.
I heard about another incident in which a brother was stabbed a couple of years ago by a mentally ill convert.
Have I made my point yet? Although there are signs of insanity, it is difficult to predict just who would hurt someone. And I shudder to think what would happen if people like those above were recruited by some lunatic extremist.
Along with the above, consider that some said that Richard Reid was “highly impressionable” and possibly - guess what? …Mentally unstable. Then there is this guy who was said to possibly be a convert that blew himself up in Oklahoma and had been treated for clinical depression since the age of ten.
Then when generally considering mental instability of extremists’ recent recruits -particularly in the West - Amir pointed out this story and this story.
Again, people like this (and I’m talking people would I think could possibly hurt others or even possibly kill) are rare in light of the many Muslims that I have met. However, it is when I think of individuals like this, that make me afraid of how the angry and fiery rhetoric in some khutbahs may be taken by a person with a mental problem.
But even to the extent that some sane brothers become anti-Jewish and reclusive is not good. A person who has a slight mental problem, may be stark raving mad after 5-6 years of hearing angry rhetoric and social isolation from the outside world.
This is why I don’t think that it is good idea to indoctrinate converts with this angry rhetoric that is imported from the Muslim world. One can show concern for other fellow Muslims without all of that. One can give charity and pray for victims of violence without the angry rhetoric that does none of us any good anyway.
This is just one reason why I am against the angry khutbahs. I feel that we, especially converts, should be talking about things like tawheed, building and improving the community, and paternal investment in our children instead of week after week on (depending on where you go) the deviance of other groups, the plotting of the Jews, or just some mythical stories about the Muslim past.
American converts should be allowed to worship God, improve their lives and become an integral part of the society and not be forced to sqeeze all of the personality out of them to become part of the hive mind that must be offended. As Marqas stated, some people have made the Palestinian issue into the sixth pillar of Islam. I think that is a brilliant observation.
I believe that if converts were allowed to be American (while of course dropping filthy habits) and the rhetoric was at the very least moderated, and ideally eliminated, then the lunatics would stand out that much more…
Link: The Threat of Conversion
Link: Radical African-American Muslims
Link: Muslims push plan to protect converts
Link: Machete Killer to serve life term
Link: Terror suspect mentally disturbed
Link: Lawyer: Terror suspect suffers from psychiatric illness
UPDATE: Hood wrote a series on the issue of Mental Illness: Part one, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Filed under: Black American Muslims, Convert Issues
I think it is not just becoming anti-Jewish, it is becoming anti-Shi’a, anti-American, in some cases anti-white. I think becoming “anti-anything” for a new convert should be a cause for concern.
But hey, I dont think Islam has the corner on whacky converts. A convert, by their very nature, is someone who is seeking answers to the questions and problems that they have in life. Some have more problems than others.
We cannot blame Islam, as some try to do, for that actions of some it’s followers. When Gibson went off on his anti-Jewish rant, did everyone blame Catholicism? Even though for hundreds of years the Church in Rome had a lot of very anti-semetic teachings.
It is the nature of things today that even if the American Muslim community experiences the same exact thing as other communities in the USA, we will be the ones brought to book for it.
Abu Sinan:
Of course I’m not saying that Islam is to blame, but there is something fundamentally wrong with our approach. And I am saying that this approach can potentially spark lunatics to do something outrageous
These people shouldn’t be categorised as Muslims. They probably convert to islam in a state of insanity not initially knowing the essence and principles of the faith they’re submitting to.
very interesting article. i actually experienced some of these khutbahs recently in consecutive weeks. 2 of them were focusing on politics, in one of them the khateeb focused on the need to make du’a and increase our ibaadah to help muslims, and people came away with a good impression. standing with the khateeb afterwards i was privy to a lot of people’s comments and they were very thankful as many of them actually came to juma with the intention of trying to seek guidance on what to do. subhanallah. it really worried me to think that if he had given a bad message, what kind of effect it would have had, not just on new converts, etc, but just on your avg everyday muslim who may not be that aware of his deen.
the other political one was just making fun of the situation more or less and pointing out the inconsistencies in foreign policies,etc. in reality i felt this didnt accomplish much and people it seems just came out of it feeling good about themselves and fired up with a little more hatred for the west.
the last one was on raising children and raising them with the deen (kind of stepped on a few toes) and it seemed people were kind of shocked because it was a wake up call they were not expecting, especially because they were probably expecting something politically motivated.
i think you hit the nail on the head though about showing concern for muslims without the angry rhetoric.
Since some prefer to work with different demagraphics, some will see different results. Some in our communities focus on middle/upper class folks, college students and/or graduates, professionals, etc. and will find that converts (no matter what race) are understandibly more stable. That’s not to say that being in college or being middle to upper class protects one from mental illness. However, there are reasons that some of these illnesses are less pronounced such as access to the proper treatment, qualified therapists, emotional support from family and friends, proper diet and excercise, etc.
Those who work in prisons or in areas where poverty is high will come across more instances of untreated or misdiagnosed mental illnesses due to the lack of access to the resources stated above. Just observe just how many ‘institutionalized’ brothers and sisters either NEED to take meds or are taking some form of medicine for various mental/emotional disorders. As Tariq mentioned, we’ve come across plenty.
One brother at a masjid in Tariq’s former city claimed he was ‘Isa in the parking lot. He was cool for a couple months. He admitted that he had some ‘issues’ when he first came around…then he stopped taking his meds. we had to scour the surrounding neighborhood to make sure that he went back to the halfway house that his mother had him assigned to. W’Allahi in the jail brothers had multiple distinct personalities. Tariq may remember that on one day, the guy was a mushrik…then the next he was a muwahhid…then he went back to being a mushrik. Then the med tray comes…and 15 brothers are assigned meds. These are the ones that may drift into the masjid and hear (or think they hear) some craaazey stuff and act on it. Not all though. Some may be able to function to some degree. But it’s clearly irresponsible to not only deny that we all have emotional baggage and may suffer from it but to also aggravate it by giving irresonsible sermons from those who are supposed to be the leaders of our communities. I do agree with the observation that the pen may be lifted on most of these cases and that they may not even be Muslims given that one should have control of his/her faculties to be taken to account. That still does not protect the larger population from the potential danger that left unchecked, they may present.
This is something I have thought about for a while after noticing a lot of mentally unstable brothers at the masjid in St. Louis. I asked Sheikh Nur why we had so many nuts in the masjid and he said “because they get a sense of peace at the masjid” and that may be so but they then do their best to destroy the peace.
I also agree with the statement that radical extremist are rare in the community compared to just at-large nuts.
Salam Alaikum
Excellent post Tariq, it is definitely an important issue. I remember sitting in a shura with some oldheads once discussing the topic of the Jama’ah. They told us that in the old days a person could not just come up in the masjid and call it his own with out being known who he is, where he is coming from, and what he is about.
I thought alot about this in now-a-days application, especially after returning the the masjid that I took shahadah in during the summer. After speaking with some brothers there, they told me that they were concerned that after I took shahadah at an age under 18 that my family would sue them or something.
The point i want to make is that there needs to be a survey process and an iniatition process other than “mashallah this brother just took shahadah, now change your name akhi.”
We should have some time of document whose legalities are thought out so that both the person, the masjid, and the jama’ah can take proper actions in a time of need. This was one benefit of the NOI and the Dar movement.
The insanity issue has got my brain churning now, and inshallah I plan to write somehting on it in the next few days.
Jazakallahu khairan for the post,
salam
about dealing with brothers, be it converts or not, whose mental health has been affected….
in traditional Muslim societies, it always had been the culture of imams to gauge or evaluate the level of the congregation or class or individual before putting forth a khutbah or lecture or advice etc. this is to ensure the person when receiving from the imam has the capacity to receive it and hereby avoid burdening him with it.
two levels of support kicks in. firstly the imam who has to maybe isolate this individual and/or given other forms of attention. secondly those around this individual bring him to the attention of the imam.
i myself am experiencing this now with a good friend of mine who is not a convert. He is a very pious person. He had experienced something frightening during our boot camp when we were in the security services about 10 years ago which had traumatised him terribly. till recently whenever he gets stressed up or when he watches something horrifying on tv, he gets very emotionally and mentally upset and needs attention. he was distant from me for a while when he chanced to see something scarry which upset him mentally again and eventually after two weeks while he had not recovered, he confided his problem to me. being in healthcare industry, oddly i dont trust western medicine for these kinds of problems. anti-depressants are commonly what psychiatrists or psychologists will prescribe for this but it does not quite work beyond temporary relief.
i suggested to him something and i told him its up to him if he wants to belief me in this. i guess he was a little desperate too and so he did. i offered to bring him to one of our local imams who knows how to handle these cases. the imam will assess the condition, recite verses and blow on the person and also recite verses and blow onto bottle of water. this is something no rational explation can offer any wisdom. wahabis reject this as bida. rationalists reject this as superstition. i had seen this far too often work that i cannot reject it as bida or supersition. anyway my friend who is quite a rationalist surprised me by willing to try. the imam understand what is wrong after assessing his condition, did what i said above, also the imam told him to follow a specified routine of zikr. now my friend feels so much better. i can quote numerous other cases but i thought this being the most recent and relevant to our topic i might as well stick to this.
in america, i guess what’s lacking in what i described above are
1) imams sometimes dont understand that they may burden the listener with their khutbah, class, advice etc. in other words there is little meticulous effort to gauge the capacity of the receiver. for example some topics during khutbah do tend to work up certain people pretty badly. since khutbah’s main purpose is ‘to remind’, these topics can very well be avoided.
2) those around the affected one need to bring this person to the attention of an imam or rightful person who can help. often in US this is tricky as issues of privacy and space gets greater priority
3) its really difficult to find imams who can really ‘treat’ such people. in my six years in canada i only came across one imam.
it will be worthwhile to work to establish this…..
Salaam ‘Alaikum
Alongside race, gender, and class, mental illness is something that it seems the Muslim community can not handle and will not discuss. In add’n to that, you get some of these extreme people saying that it is kufr to seek psychological help or take medications. MI is a problem among converts and “born” Muslims alike, but too many of us say things like “If your ‘iman was stronger…”
It is a problem among women too. I don’t know how many sisters I’ve dealt with who’ve gone off their meds and became extremely difficult to speak to. One sister really went over board and started obsessing on me and it got ugly, etc. (I don’t really want to talk about it)
In add’n, I’ve seen personally another dimension of our unwillingness to confront this issue and that is eager imams and walis turning a blind eye or saying, “If he has a wife, she can take care of him… that’s all he needs.”
Re: what the person above said on point #3: We also have to stop importing imams who can’t speak our languages and don’t understand our culture and all it’s problems and benefits. I’m not against immigrant imams, I’m only talking about those who can’t speak English and aren’t familiar at all with our culture. I know of one institute in the Arab world that is starting a training program for future imams to teach them how to deal with contemporary social problems like drug abuse, MI, etc.
[...] Tariq Nelson: A new threat from Muslim converts? [...]
Salam,
I just came across this by accident - I’m from London, United Kingdom and am assuming that the author of this site must be american as much of it is about events in the states.
Anyway - there has been alot of emphasis in the last few weeks on Muslim converts particularly since the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights here in England. It seems as always the media sensationalises everything and no one questions it. I agree with alot of what you’ve said and a do believe that people do not think to question what they read.
There are alot of unstable, gulable and naive people out there - converts and born muslims. Alot crazy things people do are not necassarily because of their faith, they’re just..well…crazy, lost..whatever.
I think there are lost of things that we need to do to improve our situation and the first before we start blaming our imam’s, our community, our parents and the air we breath - its time for us to reflect about what we do as individuals. Its the little things that we do that will make a diffrence, there is no point in blaming others when we our selves don’t do much to make a change.
Wassalam
[...] Just got back to Northern Virginia early this morning after spending the last couple of days in Baton Rouge, LA on business. While I was there, I stopped through Masjid Abdul-Raqeeb, the masjid I mentioned earlier was named for the brother, known for the great amount of good that he used to do, that was shot by an insane convert in that very building. [...]
As-Salaamu Alaikum.
Although we still love Bro. Abdur - Raqeeb and live with the pain of his transition, let us remember that Allah, Subhana wa ta Ilah is in charge of life and is in charge of death and that we (humans) come forth and involve ourselves in an event and cause sin upon our souls. Know that my husband and father of my sons was to die on that day, at that time, in that Masjid, for Allah had decreed this upon his conception, no matter who came with the gun.
We don’t believe the killer was insane, but was sent by the Almighty Alim who is the Arranger of all Affairs, to bring his faithful servant back to Him. It became obvious to us that Allah, Subhana wa ta Ilah was ready for his precious servant to return to his rightful place in the Jennatul Firdaus. It also became obvious to us that Allah was not pleased with the killer and wanted this man locked up for some unknown serious reason. Allah could have taken our loved one without the action of any human being but this man was chosen for the sin and Allah knows best why he was chosen.
Please know that Bro. Abdur Raqeeb died a beautiful death in the Masjid with Shahadah being his last spoken words, with many signs of a good death, with members of the entire world having lost a very special human being. Brother Abdur Raqeeb attained the status of Shahid (martydom) by living Islam and dying in Islam, literally. And his killer is the one who told him to say his Shahadah. This could only be from Allah, the Merciful. And, as Allah has told us, they are not dead, but are alive, and on them is no fear and neither shall they grieve ( Holy Quran). Let us keep in mind that Allah is Al-Muhyi and Al-Mumit.
Anyone who witnessed the scenary that night would know that the scenario was strictly from Allah relative to our loved one and brother in Islam. You could hear a pin fall as the atmosphere was so serene. As for the supposedly insane one, there was only trouble for him following his actions.
Brother Abdur Raqeeb lived each and every day of his life preparing for his death. He was not surprised or caught off guard. Abdur Raqeeb was always waiting for this day. Alhamdulilah Ar-Rabbil-Ilameen. Shukran for allowing my response.
Nice observations, and for most parts I agree.
Especially that one should be focussing in giving out an positive message in khutbas.
AS
Forgive me for never getting back to you akhi I have been a bit busy and likewise I am not in the States so I cant really contribute on a grassroots level to the improvement of our community so I opt for spreading a good word if I can.
I thought this post was very well placed. This is an issue that has preoccupied my thinking for some time. I studied a good deal of psychology formly and informly and likewise sociology so given that background there is more than one occassion that I have concluded that the new Imam, the Imam of the now and future must be a counselor.
I studied to be a Catholic priest for two and a half years and noticed that this is the trend in the realm of people of the cloth or clergy or whatever you want to call them and this because the mental health of the community at large and we can speak baout Muslims in particular has come under a degree of strain.
One thing that rarely is spoken about is the effects of drugs and even television in the minds of converts and how that impacts the way that they carry themselves. There is a masjid I know that is like a recovery house for druggies and we see that tablighi jam’aat is a refuge for a good many brothers with personal issues whether they be familial or drug abuse. Going out for 40 days or even 3 days provides an outlet and a chance to get a break from the problems that plague the self.
This akhi, is what I mark the failure of Sunnis. Look when the Nation of Islam was really involved they cleaned people up but I just can not understand why we Sunnis in the ghettos of North America or in the Suburbs are not promoting self-transformation lest to say aiding the process.
We have to bring the issues in the community up. How many us talk about making STD tests a mandatory before marriage? Serious. It is not a nice thing to wake up with an STD and know your spouse gave it to you do you know the mental impact of that?
In any event all converts should go through a process before fully being integrated into the community one for the sake of the person and second for the sake of the community. we want quality not numbers. For some it may sound harsh but this is true we want healthy Muslims in all senses and we want to ensure a certain standard of living for the community.
So we come back to your end Shaikh Tariq and that is grassroots efforts.
AS
Abul-Hussein
Always glad to see that there are reasonable Muslims like you that are fighting extremist ideology
[...] Leaves Fake Nail Bomb Posted on June 30, 2008 by Tariq Nelson Looks like another mentally disturbed convert…You have to be mentally disturbed to leave a fake bomb on a bus in the name of a [...]