from Sana’a. Depending on the political climate, the Yemeni government frequently put up roadblocks to prevent foreigners from travelling there, concerned that it was becoming a magnet for militants.
Within days I realized that Yemen was the destination of choice for a growing number of Western converts to Islam – including several Americans in search of what they imagined was the authentic (and austere) Salafi interpretation of Islam. Among those I encountered in Sana’a was a Vietnam veteran close to the firebrand preacher Louis Farrakhan. There were also British, French and Canadian converts.
Salafism was capturing the imagination of a generation of Muslims and converts. It derived from the Arabic ‘ al-salaaf al-salih ’ – meaning the pious forefathers, the first three generations of Muslims. As such, it represented a return to the pure and original core of Islam, free of interpretation or revisionism. But Salafism was far from coherent; its adherents derived different messages from those forefathers. Some eschewed politics and loathed the Muslim Brotherhood for its political activism; only God could legislate through the application of Sharia law. Others reviled ‘non-believers’ and non-Salafi Muslims (especially the Shia), and disavowed rulers who allied themselves with the hated West.
I was not prepared for this ferment among Muslims. In my naivety I had imagined a religion whose followers were united in obedience to Allah. The books I had read in Denmark said nothing of the schisms and hatreds that ran through Islam like faultlines. And I was not familiar with the one concept that would come to dominate the next decade of my life: jihad.
Getting to Dammaj would be the first trial of my faith and dedication. I decided to travel with one of the Americans I had met – Rashid Barbi, an African-American convert from North Carolina – and a Tunisian.
After an hour in a battered Peugeot, Rashid, the Tunisian and I – along with a Yemeni guide – had to climb out to avoid a military checkpoint. This was an area of tribal rivalries and frequent clashes between Sunni and Shi’ite groups.
We began walking through the mountains in the blazing sun, butwere ill-prepared. We had no water and no protection, either from the heat or later from the cold as night fell. I was wearing cheap sandals and soon my feet were a forest of blisters.
At dusk we stopped to pray at the edge of a cliff, but it was too dark to make any further progress. A burst of monsoon rain further dampened our spirits. I began to feel feverish and more than once I asked myself what on earth I had done. I had left Milton Keynes just two weeks ago, but its bland comforts suddenly seemed very appealing.
It would be a night and half a day before we finally traipsed into the valley of mud houses and date-palm trees, which were overlooked by a massive escarpment. The whitewashed-brick complex of the Dammaj Institute was snuggled into an oasis of greenery. The chugging of diesel water-pumps in the surrounding fields was the only sound in the torpid afternoon heat.
Sheikh Muqbil thought our little group must have been arrested and was relieved to hear of our arrival. He approached us with a whole chicken, exclaiming that the man from ‘Benimark’ had finally made it. He had little sense of European geography. Rashid and I devoured the food while the Sheikh and his bodyguards laughed at our sunburned and bedraggled appearance.
I was taken aback by the Sheikh’s appearance; it was the first time I had seen a man with a long, straggly hennaed beard, a custom among distinguished preachers and tribal figures in Yemen. 2
I was entrusted to the care of Abu Bilal, a bookish Swedish-Ghanaian student in his mid-twenties, who gave me a tour of the complex. He spoke fluent English as well as Arabic. During my first weeks in Dammaj, he or Rashid was almost always at my side translating for me.
The intensity of the place was difficult to take in. Like a
Within days I realized that Yemen was the destination of choice for a growing number of Western converts to Islam – including several Americans in search of what they imagined was the authentic (and austere) Salafi interpretation of Islam. Among those I encountered in Sana’a was a Vietnam veteran close to the firebrand preacher Louis Farrakhan. There were also British, French and Canadian converts.
Salafism was capturing the imagination of a generation of Muslims and converts. It derived from the Arabic ‘ al-salaaf al-salih ’ – meaning the pious forefathers, the first three generations of Muslims. As such, it represented a return to the pure and original core of Islam, free of interpretation or revisionism. But Salafism was far from coherent; its adherents derived different messages from those forefathers. Some eschewed politics and loathed the Muslim Brotherhood for its political activism; only God could legislate through the application of Sharia law. Others reviled ‘non-believers’ and non-Salafi Muslims (especially the Shia), and disavowed rulers who allied themselves with the hated West.
I was not prepared for this ferment among Muslims. In my naivety I had imagined a religion whose followers were united in obedience to Allah. The books I had read in Denmark said nothing of the schisms and hatreds that ran through Islam like faultlines. And I was not familiar with the one concept that would come to dominate the next decade of my life: jihad.
Getting to Dammaj would be the first trial of my faith and dedication. I decided to travel with one of the Americans I had met – Rashid Barbi, an African-American convert from North Carolina – and a Tunisian.
After an hour in a battered Peugeot, Rashid, the Tunisian and I – along with a Yemeni guide – had to climb out to avoid a military checkpoint. This was an area of tribal rivalries and frequent clashes between Sunni and Shi’ite groups.
We began walking through the mountains in the blazing sun, butwere ill-prepared. We had no water and no protection, either from the heat or later from the cold as night fell. I was wearing cheap sandals and soon my feet were a forest of blisters.
At dusk we stopped to pray at the edge of a cliff, but it was too dark to make any further progress. A burst of monsoon rain further dampened our spirits. I began to feel feverish and more than once I asked myself what on earth I had done. I had left Milton Keynes just two weeks ago, but its bland comforts suddenly seemed very appealing.
It would be a night and half a day before we finally traipsed into the valley of mud houses and date-palm trees, which were overlooked by a massive escarpment. The whitewashed-brick complex of the Dammaj Institute was snuggled into an oasis of greenery. The chugging of diesel water-pumps in the surrounding fields was the only sound in the torpid afternoon heat.
Sheikh Muqbil thought our little group must have been arrested and was relieved to hear of our arrival. He approached us with a whole chicken, exclaiming that the man from ‘Benimark’ had finally made it. He had little sense of European geography. Rashid and I devoured the food while the Sheikh and his bodyguards laughed at our sunburned and bedraggled appearance.
I was taken aback by the Sheikh’s appearance; it was the first time I had seen a man with a long, straggly hennaed beard, a custom among distinguished preachers and tribal figures in Yemen. 2
I was entrusted to the care of Abu Bilal, a bookish Swedish-Ghanaian student in his mid-twenties, who gave me a tour of the complex. He spoke fluent English as well as Arabic. During my first weeks in Dammaj, he or Rashid was almost always at my side translating for me.
The intensity of the place was difficult to take in. Like a
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