My Year Inside Radical Islam

When John Walker Lindh appeared on CNN after his 2001 capture in Afghanistan looking unwashed and vaguely surprised, one of my first thoughts was: “I can’t wait to read his memoir.”

Because Walker Lindh is under a gag order until his release from federal prison in 2019, that’s going to be a long wait. Similarly, Adam Gadahn, another California-raised Al-Qaeda operative, now wanted in the United States for treason, is too busy making stagy propaganda videos to sign any publishing contracts just now.

Coming to the rescue of me and everyone else who wants to know how a smart American guy with every advantage could go the Muslim Dark Side is Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. His new memoir, My Year Inside Radical Islam, chronicles his religious journey, from child of hippie Jews to enthusiastic Sufi-flavored Muslim to brooding post-college Wahhabi to ex-Muslim FBI informant to his current incarnation, as a Christian working in the right-wing reaches of counter-terrorism blog-journalism.

Given his current religious and ideological location, American Muslims have every reason to fear this memoir: Is it another Irshad Manji-type broadside against Islam? In addition to appearing on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” – which showcases Christians who have left “false religions” – Gartenstein-Ross today shares online mastheads with Steven Emerson, the oft-discredited terrorism alarmist, and Charles Johnson, creator of “Little Green Footballs,” a web-site frequently condemned as racist and anti-Muslim.

While mosques trumpet the number of converts walking through their front doors, they rarely keep tabs on the many leaving through back doors. Progressive young Muslims today have formed social and religious networks that exist almost completely independent of mosques, leaving those institutions to revert to what my friend Salma Kazmi calls “the most conservative common denominator.” And yet where else is a new convert to go in search of the brotherhood and sisterhood they so eagerly seek? Gartenstein-Ross’ book, if anything, should prod progressive-minded Muslims to think twice about abandoning their local mosques.

For those concerned with the drama of Islam in America, the end of the book may prove disappointing. Because Gartenstein-Ross converts to Christianity shortly after his departure from the Oregon Islamic center, he removes himself from the Muslim conversion in an important way. The reader is left with many questions: Is there a version of Islam that is intellectually sound, religiously authentic, and able to satisfy that inner desire for clarity? Was Gartenstein-Ross’ initial happiness in the religion sustainable?

Gartenstein-Ross does not answer these questions, but his book has opened a door for conversation inside the Muslim communities in America. Hopefully, some of the many Muslims who have dallied with Wahhabism and lived to tell about it will step forward with their stories, as Gartenstein-Ross has been brave enough to do with his own.

ANDREA USEEM is a freelance religion reporter based in northern Virginia, where she lives with her husband and three sons. She can be reached at auseem@gmail.com.This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

OH JOY:

Noam Chomsky
On Religion and Politics

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Professor Noam Chomsky is arguably one of the most influential political analysts of our day and age. While some may read anything ever written solely because they know they will agree with everything he has to say, others may dismiss him entirely. This interview with Amina Chaudary is part of an ongoing effort at trying to understand the world today in the face of religious-based violence, political failures and increasing divide along the secular and religious across the globe.

Amina Chaudary: First, Professor Chomsky, thank you so much for your time. I’d like to begin with a very broad question. Current affairs tend to indicate that a tension between and within religions, some say especially in the case of Islam, lies at the center of many conflicts in the world today. Do you think religion is exerting a greater influence on foreign policy today, both here in the U.S. and abroad? Would you also address what happens when religion merges with politics – and how this is any different than other forms of identity merging with politics, such as ethnicity?

Noam Chomsky: Well the major problems of the world are those that appear in the most powerful states almost by definition, because whatever affects them affects everyone. And the most powerful state in the world by orders of magnitude is the U.S., and it also happens to be one of the most extreme fundamentalist countries in the world. Extremist fundamentalist religion may well have a greater hold in the U.S. on the public than say in Iran, though I’ve never seen a poll in Iran. But I doubt 50 percent of the population thinks the world was created 6,000 years ago exactly the way it is now. This is actually strange because way back in American history to the time of the colonists, there have been eras of religious revivalism. Most recently we see this in the 1950s, which was a big period of religious revivalism. That’s how we get phrases like “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God.” Religious revivalism picked up again in recent years. Until recent years, it was not a major force in political affairs. That has happened in the last 25 years and it is now an enormous force – fundamentalist religion, not all religion by any means. So, for example, the U.S. has often been bitterly opposed to Christianity. That painting (points to a picture) is an illustration of the hatred of U.S. leaders for the Catholic Church. It was given to me 15 years ago by a Jesuit priest. It is a painting of the Angel of Death on one side with Archbishop Romero, who was assassinated, and right below are six leading intellectuals who were murdered by an elite U.S.-run battalion. That framed the decade of the 1980s: Romero was assassinated by U.S.-backed forces in 1980, Jesuit priests in 1989 and, in between, the U.S. carried out a major war against the Catholic Church. Many of the victims of (President) Reagan’s efforts in Central America were nuns, lay workers, and for clear and explicit reasons, which you can see officially stated, like the famous School of America, which trains Latin American officers.

There is a book (now available in paperback ):

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Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
(Hardcover)
by David Horowitz

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And reviews:

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Editorial Reviews

Rich Lowry, Editor National Review

David Horowitz is synonymous with pyrotechnics. A historian and polemicist of the first order, he is paid the ultimate compliment --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Davis Hanson, Author, Ripples of Battle

An original look at those who want us to fail in the Middle East, both at home and abroad. The --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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See all Editorial Reviews

Fascinating Analysis of Leftist Goals, August 13, 2006

Reviewer: N. Sincerity - See all my reviews

A former 1960s radical, Horowitz is well-acquainted with the Leftist mindset. In this book, he strives to explain the modern alliance between left wing progressivists and radical Islamofascists. He argues that this alliance is based on a common desire to destroy Western capitalism. Leftist sympathy with Islamofascist ideas makes no sense from an intellectual point of view, given that countries ruled by radical Islamists are among the most racist, sexist, theocratic states in the world today. However, Leftists have recognized that they can benefit politically from destructive terrorist attacks on the Western world. A West under attack can be made to turn on its leaders in fear and desperation (as they did in Spain after the Madrid train bombings). Only once people reject current government structures can the Left execute its anti-capitalist revolution and build a new reality that mirrors the Leftist view of utopia.

The complete and utter idealogical hypocrisy of the Islamofascist-Leftist alliance is distressing, but as Horowitz reminds us,

Leftists radicals truly believe the ends justify the means.

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