When I was a Small "ISIS" Project...

Since birth, my parents raised us as little Muslims... my dad used to carry us as babies (I still remember him doing so with my youngest sister, who is 9 years younger than me) and stand by an embroidery of the name "Allah" in Arabic that was framed and hanged on the wall, and whisper to us in a gentle rhymed voice: "Allah... Allah... ya habeebi ya Allah" (oh, my beloved Allah)

Naturally, my parents sent us to Islamic schools. At home, I used to learn all about Islam. I learned that my prayer is my life, and my salvation. I learned to speak to Allah. I learned that Allah knows what is inside me without me even having to speak the words. I learned that Allah was the only one able to take the burdens off my chest. I learned that when my life starts to suck I have to step back, make wudu, put on my prayer garment and pray, and look for my answers in the Holy Quraan. I learned that Allah has created this universe with specific rules, and that locking myself in my room praying and reading Quraan all day will not get me a salary, so as much as I care for my soul to be purified, I was supposed to work and be productive and fill my time (which was entrusted to me by Allah) with useful and productive activities.

At school, I learned to main things: the separation between men and women, and that you can only be a good Muslim if you think of jihad in Palestine night and day.

As a sincere young Muslim, I was soooo enthusiastic to that. I fiercely attacked every mixed wedding. Every mixed event. I made it sound as if all of these people who do not practice FULL SEPARATION between men and women were devils in disguise. My father tried to ask us to take it easy, but we were so sincere. I was on the verge of accusing him of being "brainwashed by the west".

And do not ask me how many times I cried for being helpless towards Palestine. How many times I screamed slogans against Jews. How many times I was genuinely asking my teachers: "what prevents us from crossing the borders and blowing ourselves in a Jewish settlement?" and they always had no answer.

Then came the nineties' war in Chechnia. As Circassians, we had alot of connections with Chechens. At the end, they and us came from the came place: the Caucasus. And there are alot of inter-married couples. And mixed families. So we were able to see the impact of that war closely. My uncle and his wife coordinated with the Jordanian authorities to do some fundraising efforts and to liaise with families to receive wounded people and widows and orphans.

Once, I received a paper sheet with a plea from Chechen freedom fighters directed to the Muslims of the world, in which they are asking them to pray for them. Not collect donations. Nor fighting with them. JUST praying for them. So I made several photocopies and spread them all around the school. That same day I was taken from my class and asked to visit the headmistress's office. In my way, I couldn't but notice that the photocopies of the plea that I have stuck to the boards have disappeared.

At the office, she asked me: "where did you get these papers?"

I told her: "my uncle's friend gave it to my uncle. And my uncle gave it to me".

"we removed them for now. In the future do not stick similar stuff on the walls or the boards of the school unless if some one from the administration allowed you to do".

"But no one told me: what's wrong with these papers?"

"They call for jihad".

"What's wrong with that?"

"It can be understood as violence. And it is a political issue. It can cause us headaches with the government."

"Fighting against an occupier is not violence. And the government knows about my uncle's efforts and all what he is doing is legal".

"Still, we do not want problems".

"But the school is full of stuff about Palestine! And we praise the jihad in Palestine all them time!"

"Oh, dear child... Palestine is different..."

"In what sense?"

"Palestinians are Arab brothers".

"And Chechens are Muslim brothers! Was not Islam supposed to be the real bond that unites us?"

"Chechnia is a foreign country".

"IT IS a Muslims country!!! The people being slaughtered there are MUSLIMS as well!"

"Ok this is taking too long, child. Come on. Go to your class now".

I was dismissed. And I did not go to my class, I went to the stadium and cried my heart out for this injustice.

After that, my dad once came back home after the Jumaa prayer looking disturbed. When we asked him whats up, he told us a story about a man who - after the prayer - asked for permission to speak, and then after the imam allowed him, he started telling people at the Masjid about the hardships that the victims of the war in Chechnia are facing, and asked whoever wishes to donate any some of money to do. Another man started shouting from across the Masjid: he was saying that the priority is for Palestine, and that by collecting money for Chechens, this man was distracting people from their own cause: Palestine!...

This tasted very bitter in my heart. Donations for Palestine were on all around the year, every year. Special centers and saving boxes were created just for Palestine. And Palestinian people seemed to be engaging the whole world in their cause while they lived their life normally. And when any one tried to do any small effort for any other suffering Muslim group, they were silenced under the pretext that Palestine had the priority.

From that time on, I started to get obsessed about Chechnya and the war there. I registered myself in a forum of Chechen fighters to receive their fresh news. I also became obsessed with songs about jihad in Chechnya, songs like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ajnxC4Nhao

The obsession took its time to grow. It was sweet. Noble. Promising. A young Muslim who has grown up hearing the language of the defeated from every one around her, who has been taught that a Muslim can only live with dignity, and that a person can only be a mujahid Muslim or a kaafri, and who has listened to stories about how Allah rewards fighters for his cause, and how mujahideen always never fear death, and when they die they die smiling. A young Muslim who has been taught that dignity is ONLY translated through military conquest. That young Muslim found her cause in the blood-thirsty war that the Russians has waged against the Muslim Chechnya. A Muslim, and ethnically related nation. And it was satisfactory, sweet, sad, nostalgic, and most of all, promising...

The first tiny twitch that I felt in my heart was when my cousin - another young Muslim obsessed with the Chechen cause - once asked me to look at his computer screen just to be surprised to see a Russian soldier being beheaded. With a knife! That was awful! I screamed: "Mohammad! Never show me something like this again! NEVER!" he laughed, and told me that Russians did things that were far more horrible than that to Muslim Chechens. He started to tell me how they killed babies by smashing them to the wall in front of their mothers, and how they raped dead women. I begged him to stop. That night I saw nightmares. It was the first time I feel that war was inhumane!

But the obsession did not stop. And I kept telling myself: this war will need blood if we want it to stop. Blood can only be stopped with blood. The Chechen jihad at that point made all the sense: they were Muslims again a non-believing aggressive nation that was waging war inside their lands. It was a war of defense, not offense.

And I went to university while the obsession was still alive. At that stage I was so disappointed with every thing "Arab". So I stuck with my Circassian fellows. They are Muslim, and some of them are practicing Muslims, but they do not feel that this was an essential part of their identity. They are Muslim, but if you ask any of them randomly: "What are you?" the spontaneous answer will definitely be: "A Circassian". At that point that did not make a problem for me. The ideological part was the last thing I cared for. These people were closer to the model I was looking for. And I was hoping that I would give a new example, better that those committed Circassians that believe the best thing they would do is denouncing their origins just because Circassians do not practice a sharp separation between men and women. But there was still a missing part.

Until I met that guy. He was almost like me. Brought up like me. Except that he did not seem to be aware of the struggle of how our Circassian fellows will look at us or whether they will accept us or not. He never felt shy to say: I am going to pray and will be back. In Ramadhan, I would see him sitting in the place were we used to gather, taking a corner and reading Quraan. He used to ask me how far I was advanced in my reading. And one day, I do not know how, we confessed to one another our passion towards Chechnya. And we started to exchange e-mails, audio material, and visual material about Chechnya. We followed the news. If any one of us missed something, the other would tell him right the next day.

One day, he came to me: "There is something I want to tell you. Meat me beside the cafeteria".

I felt he was carrying important news. I waited beside the cafeteria, and when he arrived, he whispered: "I found a guy. A Chechen. He is in touch with people there, And I heard that he sends people who are interested to fight to Chechnya. I will visit him today and will ask him to go to Chechnya for jihad. Are you interested?"

"Are you kidding me! Of course I am! Tell him about me, and tell me what he says!"

At that point I was ready to escape from my parents house at midnight and sneak to Chechnya to fight (because that's how I thought he smuggled people there, the Islamists' effect: governments are gainst any one who holds arms righteously)

The next day he came. I was burning to know what news he had. His face was not glowing with excitement as I expected. He told me: "He did not accept to send me to Chechnya. He told me: Son, you are young and promising. You have no idea how is the war there. You do not know how to hold a gun. Besides, you have a family here who have alot of hopes about you. You must not disappoint them. I only send to Chechnya people who are experts in the war and whose families are aware of their intentions. They are not militias. They are expert army men who have done their duty toward their community and families, and have left their wives and mothers and sisters with their young sons to take care of them. Besides, do you have a permission from the government to go there? Did you think I just smuggle people there? I do not, son! If you want to do real jihad, study well and excel in your domain. Be an asset to Chechnya and fight against hatred"

That was a disappointment!

At that point I knew I lost all hope of being a "mujahid". All I was left with was Al Jazeera channel and jihad forums that I joined, and my prayers at night for Allah to be with Chechnya.

Suddenly, all over the news were faces of familiar women with hijabs, wearing military jackets and are in a place that seems to be an auditorium or a theater. They were Chechen women holding hostages in the Moscow theater. I was nailed in front of TV: under the leadership of some of the warlords, widows of Chechen martyrs were holding a number of civilians hostages in an attempt to practice some pressure on the Russian leadership. They only wanted the Russian troops out. They informed the hostages that they do not want to harm them but they want Russia and the world to listen to their demands. Russian did not listen nor allow any one else to listen: the broke in the theater, and used some sort of nerve gas that was not even recognized world wide. The images of Chechen women who died on the spot in the same positions in which they were sitting. It was horrible. Some died with their heads leaning back. Some dies wile leaning forward over their hands trying to nap. They died instantly without even realizing they were being attacked with nerve gas!

That was shocking. The faces of the brave dead women who were trying to make the voice of their people heard and died for nothing just haunted me. There were casualties among civilian hostages as well. That was the second shock.

A couple of years later, the Beslan school hostage taking made its way to the news again. This time some thing was going on wrong: Chechen mujahids were holding elementary school children with their female teachers as hostages in the city of Beslan in Ossettia. Again, Russia did not wait to listen to any one. They did not negotiate. They broke into the school and almost every one were killed: the hostage takers, and the school children and their teachers.

This was wrong! Wrong since the beginning... It did not seam to hold the finger prints of Aslan Maskhadov or Shamel Pasaev... Aslan Maskhadov was peace oriented, and Shamel Pasaev would never allow some one to fight in his wars instead of him, he lost his leg because he did not allow his colleagues to cross a bridge that he suspected was mined before him, he lead the group and the mine exploded under his feet and he lost his leg. Why children? Why Ossetians?

I once mentioned that this was not right in front of my cousin. She said that they deserved it, although they were not Russians, they because of their silence. I exploded: "Why would they say anything? Ossettians are neither Chechens nor Russians! They have no fighters in that war! They are not even Muslims so you cannot say "it's Islamic brotherhood"... they have nothing to do with the war... they are innocent!"

It turned out that hostage takers were a group of mostly Arab mujahids, with a number of Jordanian Chechens. People who are completely out of the image of what is going on in Chechnya, but have been raised to praise jihad and are burning to die as martyrs, and are eagerly looking for a battle field. They found their prey in the Chechen cause, and they chose the most wrong battle field: school children and their teachers.

At this point, I was questioning alot of things that I have believed in for long.

Until one day, during the US invasion of Iraq, on the news board in the faculty of Engineering (where I studied my bachelor's degree) I saw a photo of a burning military jeep with what seemed like a man inside it. The paragraph with the photo told a story about how the Fallujah mujahids have looked this American soldier inside his Jeep and burned him alive! He was extending his hand asking for help, but people around him were coldly watching until he turned to ashes! Another news I read on that board spoke about an American soldier that was captured by the residents of Fallujah and was killed, and dragged around Fallujah... Then people cut him into pieces and each one hanged a piece of him on their house entrances!

That was brutal! And to my shock, being an American soldier for alot of people made that brutality acceptable! They would reply to my angry exclamations: "Americans did more horrible things in Iraq" and I would reply: "No! Never! American soldiers never dared to so thing this brutal! If you do not remember, it was Saddam who did more brutal stuff, and suddenly, just because the Americans were the ones who defeated him, you forgot his attrocities and he became a hero, and his Baathist fighters, who believed in no religion, became mujahids?"

That was the wake up call. That was my defining moment in which I realized that all this talk about jihad can be really poisoning to the minds of youth. Jihad is Fard. Yes. But under certain circumstances. Under a perfect leadership. And most of all: without being fueled with hatred.

At that point, I threw all that I have learned about jihad behind my back. I started reading my religion from point Zero. From the first steps of faith: getting to know Allah. Can any one know Allah and accept these blood-thirsty actions?

NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!

It was as if I embraced Islam again. And this time, with no bias. This time, I would refuse any narration that is not authentic. I suspected most of the historical narrations and relied only on the Quraan and authentic hadeeth. And I did not rely on hadeeth as if it was Quraan. And did not feel that it is enough to hear that a couple of words are a ahdeeth on order to accept them. No. There was two important things: look for the hadith's authentication, and compare it to the holy Quraan.

And to my astonishment, it was as if I have embraced a new Islam! VERY different from what people around me believed in!

I cannot now list all of the areas in which my new thoughts were different.

I think reading through my pages will tell you all I want to say :-)

So be my guest to read and compare...