What Message Did Haq Get From His Islamic community?

Submitted by Charlotte West (Canada), Aug 8, 2006 at 10:41

Yes, would that the Jewish community was more attuned to the warnings Daniel Pipes has been issuing for years, and dedicated more of its energies to countering the threat. Often working in a similarly identifiable setting, I feel especially vulnerable to ... to what? Haq's parents were leaders of the Islamic community and Haq grew up "surrounded by their work".

So perhaps this is the story of an American-born Muslim who tried to escape Islam through a flirtation with Christianity, but who became too guilt-ridden to actually go through with it (imagine the guilt a Muslim must feel if he tries to convert) and so came scurrying home to his mosque. Or perhaps it's the story of an American-born Muslim's downward slide - flunked out of dental school, rejected in love, exploring forbidden religions, embarassingly scheduled to appear in court for exposing himself in public (an embarassment that in Islamic cultures is so great it allows a father to murder his own daughter) - and how he sought to redeem himself in the eyes of his successful parents and his Muslim-American community. Who knows?

But what we can say for certain is that this is the story of how one Muslim 'returned home' to Islam with a vengeance. As an examination of the timeline shows, it is a FACT that Haq's rampage chillingly coincides with his return to Islam. After a long absence, during which he explored Christianity and (no doubt wracked with guilt) suddenly dropped out, he came home to his mosque one Friday, and only several days later went out and bought 2 guns from different shops, waited the minimum 3 days to pick them up, and the very next day, leafed through the phone book for the first identifiably Jewish target he could find and dashed right out, driving in a buses-only lane in his distracted excitement, entered a building filled with Jewish women and children, and began shooting to kill. "I'm a Muslim American!" he declared, probably as much to himself as to his victims and the police. His hopes to produce dead Jews for his people reminds me of the manner in which a cat will lay a dead mouse at the feet of its owner to prove its usefulness and loyalty. Charlotte West

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