When I first moved to Philly I met a brother on the 15 bus up near Girard Avenue. Tall black guy, good thick beard, white thowb, tasbih (Muslim rosary) in his hand, white kufi on his head, black leather socks in white Converse. I used to keep a chin strap beard back then cuz I found that in Philly that was what the “Sunnis” (euphemism for Muslim) kept. Since I used to walk around late at night in the ghetto, I thought the chin strap was a good identity marker and would keep me safe. I was right. It also drew other Muslims to me. Sometimes that was a good thing.

So this guy comes up to me in the bus and says a hefty Salam. He then asks “Takallum al-lughatul Arabiyya?” (You speak Arabic?) I shook my head but then smiled. “Shwayya” (A little). “Kaif-ul-hal?” (How are you?) he said. “Alhamdulillah” (chillin), I replied. I wanted to switch to English but he didn’t. In fact, he kept talking in the most pristine fus’ha (Standard Modern Arabic) I have ever heard. Being a drop out from Arabic I had to reply in English. I learned his name was Ahmed (I changed his name). He learned his Arabic in prison. I didn’t ask him why he went - that’s effing rude. He told me about the nearby mosque and extended me an invitation to roll through. I said of course I would. I never really ended up going because I found a mosque much closer to apartment. Over the next week, ‘Brotha’ Ahmed stalked the hell out of me. He showed up at the desi restaurants I was eating at; at my work; at my basketball game; even at the mosque I was going to (which I wasn’t going to all that much so you gotta wonder how long he stuck around). I’m down with Muslims, prison or not, but there was something sinister about him. Maybe he was just plain lonely. Then, one day he disappeared.

After he left, I asked one of my non-Muslim friends from the same neighborhood as Ahmed what the guy’s deal was. He told me that ever since he came back from prison he was seen as more Muslim than black, and, in fact, denied he was black at all. “He says he’s just a Muslim and wants everyone else to think like that.” I wondered why Ahmed didn’t just hang out with the people at the mosque. After all, North Philly is full of black Muslims (some of their women even cover their faces). My friend (who used to be Muslim at one point), replied that Ahmed wasn’t much interested in issues that affected people in Philly. His Shaykh in prison had been a Libyan. Ahmed wanted to go to North Africa. He wanted to go to the Middle East. He wanted to be anything but an American. (We had this conversation over tasty as hell Crownn Fried Chicken somewhere in West Philly).

 To me, Ahmed is a tragedy. He is a rootless person, dreaming of utopias that are both non-existent, and if existent, situated somewhere in a past that can’t be recaptured, or in a future that he will not see. He has an identity, but he cannot accept that others have a different identity. He has a world outlook but cannot accept that others don’t share it (I didn’t and I think that’s why he stalked me). Finally, he can’t stand being American. In other words, although his social construction is very different than a university graduated British Paki who turns to utopian ideologies to combat his disenchantment, Ahmed reaches the same ideological position as that British Paki: hatred of the place where one is located.

So what will you do to ‘cure’ men like Ahmed? Will you say to them: Islam is a vile disease? Will you say to them: secularism is the answer, maybe adding a disparaging “yo” since he’s black? Will you say: allow me to demonstrate why Montesquieu’s separation of powers is a better model for civic construction that unitarian political theory of Islam. Eff that! The only thing you can do is change the place that Ahmed comes from. Maybe if he did not emerge from such a hell-hole, he would not dream of places that he could liken to Paradise. I imagine Ahmed had no idea what a nasty way of living in the desert is (I tried it - you don’t get water from the government pipes for four to five days at a time). He probably thinks its an oasis, with waterfalls, women that listen to him (unlike the welfare “ho’s” in Philly) whom he likens to Hooris, and a community that is united in their hatred of hellish places. Ahmed reminds me of the dudes in Pakistan who think America is the fount of human industry and is an oasis for civilization and they try over and over, using all the illegal means they can, to sneak into the country. For another portrait of this kind of ‘Ahmed’ see the film Syriana.

I noted in a comment earlier that if and when (and it may have already), Islamic Fanaticism starts to subvert our American youth, it will be through those groups in this country who are as alienated and insular as the Pakis in England and the Algerians in France. Who are such Americans? Do you know? Well? Try looking for places that look like these pictures and you will find them lurking there. Real humans. Forgotten by you, fodder for fanaticism.

Please don’t read this and conclude that I hold the moronic belief that the poor turn fanatic and the rich do not. That’s bollocks. Where was John Walker Lindh from? The top five richest counties in America. Nor should we forget that countless kids from every race and ethnicity are living in the kind of environments John Walker was from. My friend mentioned earlier, on the other hand, was from the same neighborhood as Ahmed, and he is now a lawyer (still lives in the same neighborhood). The point is that there is alienation everyehere. We don’t see it in the ghetto because we would never go there. We don’t see it in the rich white neighborhoods because we have no interest in them. We construct a mental barricade around these places and assume that the people there are not in need of genuine human warmth. In the end we leave them for the blazes of bombs and hell. They needed warmth. You, and I, gave them the cold shoulder.

Photes courtesy of Marc Manley