interesting article from Salon.com
gary
shank@duq.edu
>
>I studied in Yemen with John Walker
>
>He was fresh from Marin, more Catholic than the pope and the other students
>derisively nicknamed him Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens).
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>By Joshua Mortensen
>
>Jan. 4, 2002 | CAIRO -- I met John Walker in Sana'a, Yemen, during the summer
>of 1998, when we both studied Arabic at the Yemen Language Center. I had
>forgotten his real name until I read he had been captured in Afghanistan
>fighting alongside the Taliban. I knew him better as Yusuf Islam (aka Cat
>Stevens, the Muslim convert who became famous for his support of the fatwa
>calling for Salman Rushdie's death). That's the cynical nickname Walker's
>fellow Arabic students gave him when he arrived.
>
>The first time I met the Marin County convert, he was fresh off a flight from
>Europe, on his first visit to an Arab or Muslim country. Dressed in the
>caricatured outfit popular with Muslim converts, complete with a beard, robe
>and sandals, he was asking a fellow student about the closest Sunni mosque. He
>did not want to accidentally pray with any Shia Muslims, he explained.
>Unfortunately, the student he asked was a Shia. It was not the only
>blunder the
>Islam-obsessed seeker would make in his adopted culture.
>
>Like converts of all faiths, Walker had particular ideas about the nature of
>true Islam. He quickly became disillusioned with the other Muslims in our
>language school and with Yemen in general. Yemen, he told a fellow
>student, was
>not very Islamic. Yemenis spent an inordinate amount of time chewing qat,
>Walker believed. Plus, they went to mosque only on Fridays, and they were
>confused by his California Islamic chic.
>
>But criticizing Yemenis' devotion to Islam took some chutzpah, or ignorance.
>Islam is the official state religion, and Yemen is the only country in the
>Middle East where people actually referred to me as "infidel" -- not in a
>malevolent way, but in the way of people only vaguely aware of faiths other
>than their own. Islam is central to their lives. To doubt the Yemenis' piety
>was both naive and arrogant.
>
>I had only brief exchanges with Walker, as he showed no interest in
>those of us
>who weren't Muslim. His fellow foreign Muslim students at the Yemen Language
>Center didn't impress Walker, either. Most were Shia, and they didn't pray
>enough for his liking. I watched Walker get exasperated one afternoon, trying
>to rouse Muslim students at prayer call, only to hear most of them say they
>were going to take a nap instead. He was incredulous. Muttering how
>he couldn't
>believe Muslims would forgo their duty to pray, he left the room in disgust.
>
>Fixated on Quranic minutiae, Walker would become frustrated when other Muslims
>had a different interpretation from his. Those who were Muslim by birth didn't
>much enjoy having their faith questioned by a beginner. They were usually
>polite and patient with Walker's irritation with their perceived lack of
>devotion to their faith. But they treated him as a curiosity --
>someone playing
>make-believe.
>
>"Why would anyone convert to Islam anyway?" a Canadian-Indian Muslim
>asked once
>after an encounter with Walker. The man was dismissive of Walker and his
>literate but adolescent approach to their shared faith, but he was even more
>bothered by his fundamentalist approach. Extremism sullies the reputation of
>moderate Muslims, and to see Walker adopt Islam's least attractive stereotypes
>wholesale was insulting to many practicing, lifelong Muslims -- as though
>Westerners, even Muslim converts, could only imagine Islam as intolerant and
>narrow.
>
>The John Walker I met suffered a problem common to converts of all religions:
>He was well versed in the letter of Islam, but not so clear on the spirit. To
>Walker, being a Muslim seemed to be largely a matter of following a
>certain set
>of rules. Islam was a tangible puzzle, and with the right knowledge
>it could be
>solved. This makes him no different from thousands of other
>Americans -- except
>for the fact that he chose Islam, not Christianity, to be the focus of his
>narrow, legalistic interpretation.
>
>Apparently, nothing Walker saw in Yemen fit his Islamic ideal of strict
>dedication to select edicts of the Quran. He came all the way from California
>to Sana'a only to find a spiritual void, and he disappeared from the language
>school just a few weeks after he arrived. The rumor was he had traveled to the
>north, off-limits to foreigners at the time, to study with a fundamentalist
>sheik. No one knew for sure.
>
>But I wasn't completely surprised to learn that Walker joined the Taliban. He
>had already traveled all the way to Yemen only to find devotion to
>Islam, as he
>understood it, to be lacking. And if Yemen isn't Islamic enough for you, there
>are very few other choices. His dim view of Shias precluded Iran. Saudi
>Arabia's worldwide fame as a kingdom of hypocrites probably removed
>it from the
>list. This left only one place, the home of the self-declared most
>pure Islamic
>government on earth, Afghanistan.
>
>That Walker would take up arms in order to foist fundamentalist Islam on the
>rest of the world couldn't have been predicted -- I saw no evidence
>of violence
>in the young convert. But likewise, I saw no evidence that Walker was
>brainwashed by anyone but himself.
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>About the writer
>Joshua Mortensen is a freelance writer in Cairo.
>
>http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/01/04/walker/
>
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