For many of you, New Year’s Day meant pondering self-improvement – the promise to lose 20 pounds, visit the gym, or lose the credit card.
But on Friday evening, the resolutions for 2016 made by dozens of my neighbors in west Cobb County were far more basic.
The first: To keep their children from becoming the tools of ISIS. The second: To persuade neighbors, co-workers, and strangers on the street that scarves and beards don’t equate to a terroristic threat.
The anti-ISIS seminar at Masjid al Furqan - West Cobb Islamic Center was sandwiched between the two final prayers of the day. The program: “What every Muslim should know about ISIS and what parents can do to ensure their kids are not misled and brainwashed by ISIS.”
The mosque is a converted suburban home, though a better facility is under construction. Sixty or so people sat on the carpeted floor of a former rec room – fathers and sons at the front, mothers and daughters in the back. Two older men were offered chairs. I was one of them, an outside witness to the fact that Muslims in metro Atlanta understand their vulnerability in the current climate.
A single off-kilter young man — or woman — who digests the wrong kind of Internet tripe can put an entire community at risk. Perhaps 100 American Muslims have joined the Islamic State in Syria. One Georgian has attempted to do so.
“They are looking for young disillusioned teens,” began Arshad Anwar, the visiting imam from Roswell Community Masjid. Anwar, 31, was raised in Mississippi and occasionally talks like it. He has become a practiced debunker of radical ideology.
Anwar described ISIS as a rank apostasy with refined Internet marketing techniques, down to the used car salesman’s demand for immediate decisions. “Limited-time offer. Act now. It’s very much like an infomercial,” he said.
Close your eyes and in the mosque that evening you could hear the same worries expressed by Christians in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when their alienated offspring were being lured into religious cults. When Jim Jones and David Koresh were household names.
“The targets are people who don’t know much about their religion, converts who have problems with their parents or friends at home. This is exactly what happens when people join gangs,” Anwar said. “If you have proper knowledge and good family relations, good social relationships, you’re not going to be influenced by cult-like rhetoric. It’s simple as that.”
But ISIS isn’t Heaven’s Gate, that odd group whose members, in 1997, committed suicide in the belief that death would deliver them to an alien spaceship hiding behind an approaching comet. Chattanooga and San Bernardino have taught us that. If it is a cult, ISIS is one with serious geopolitical implications.
Here the lecture took an even more serious turn. Anwar addressed the false but alluring calls for martyrdom. The empty ISIS promise to redress legitimate grievances among Palestinians, Syrians, Chechnyans and the like. “They say they’re the only ones doing anything about it, but they’re not,” the imam said.
On his slide screen, Anwar threw up a pair of Twitter messages aimed at female recruits. One promised “the right to cover” in the Islamic State.
“Does anyone not have the right to cover in America?” the imam asked. “They’re not offering you anything that you don’t already have.”
Anwar had blacked out the Twitter handles of the authors he cited. “The last thing you want to do is engage with these people,” he said. “No. 1, if they’re actually recruiters, they’re crazy and you don’t want to fall into their trap. Or No. 2, it’s somebody from an intelligence agency looking to trap people. You’re in trouble either way.”
Also, sneaking away from home to join ISIS isn’t sanctioned by Islam, Anwar said – looking directly at the boys in front of him. “Islam has given parents a high position and it is not allowed for children to leave their parents without their knowledge and permission,” he said.
Nor did the imam shy away from those "problematic" – his phrasing, not mine – verses in the Quran. The ones cited by ISIS to prove that Islam should be at war with the rest of the world. The ones cited by conservative talk show hosts to prove that Islam is at war with the rest of the world.
Yes, the verses exist. But Anwar reminded the congregation that Muslims don’t – or at least, shouldn’t – read the verses of the Quran as many Christians read the Bible. That is, as applicable to every situation.
The Quran was written over a period of 23 years, often when the Prophet Muhammad was in conflict with specific tribes. Some verses are intended to be interpreted generally, others require the context provided by other sources. “The Quran isn’t something you can read and understand by itself,” he explained.
Several times during his 90-minute talk, Anwar mentioned that no credible Muslim scholar has endorsed the theology espoused by ISIS. Most have condemned it.
Given the many children in the room, Anwar was spare in his descriptions of ISIS atrocities. One exception was a captured Jordanian pilot, a Muslim, who was burned alive. Islam forbids punishment or torture by fire, Anwar said, citing this as prima facie evidence of the Islamic State's abandonment of the faith.
It was during the question-and-answer session that the conversation turned again. Parents seemed to accept that they must keep closer watch on their teenagers. Locked bedroom doors and 2 a.m. sessions on the Internet are no longer things to be ignored.
But what truly concerned them, in question after question, were the accusations: “What should we do when they call us terrorists?”
“The No. 1 victims of ISIS are Muslims. Memorize this thought,” Anwar said. Repeat it, nicely, to those who don’t know any better.
Another: “Do Muslim youth have to just settle in and give up to those bullies?” one father asked.
Imam Anwar confessed there was no easy answer to the larger question. A soft answer will sometimes work. In other situations, silence is best.
From a mother: What should be done when teachers and school administrators are the ones casting aspersions? It was the final question of the night. Here Anwar was more definitive: Public schools are an area where formal conversations and proceedings can be pursued. We have organizations for that now, the imam said.
“You do have rights. Even students have rights. You have certain rights,” Anwar said, looking at the kids. “Prayer is one of those rights. They have to be accommodated.”
The moment was a thoroughly American one, appropriate to the first day of a new year. A Mississippi Baptist couldn’t have said it any better. And certainly wouldn’t disagree.
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