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of Sana’a. I dug out my return ticket to London.
CHAPTER FIVE
Londonistan
Summer 1998–Early 2000
I arrived at Heathrow airport on a muggy late summer’s day in 1998, relieved to be free of the dust and heat of Sana’a and faintly amused by the orderly appearance of suburban London. I was soon reunited with Mahmud al-Tayyib at the Regent’s Park mosque and regaled him with stories of Dammaj and Sana’a.
I helped teach Muslims who came to the mosque and began accompanying an elderly Iraqi preacher and several converts to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, where we would try to spread the word of Islam. We must have been a strange sight in our long Islamic thawb s, the ankle-length robe. Sometimes we would get into heated debates with evangelical Christians.
‘The Koran is the pure word of God,’ I would shout, remembering to quote a famous verse from the Koran. ‘ Had it issued from any but God, they would surely have found in it many a contradiction. ’
We were usually greeted by a mixture of indifference and suspicion, which only reinforced our determination to continue proselytizing.
For radical Muslims London had become a cauldron of debate and rivalry. There were many echoes of the discussions that had occupied our afternoons under the date-palms of Dammaj. And the gritty district of Brixton, south of the River Thames, had become the centre of this tussle for the soul of Islam.
Brixton had seen riots in the early 1980s, pitching Afro-Caribbean youth against the Metropolitan Police. Disturbances had then spread to a dozen cities. The area had since become somewhat gentrified, but itshousing was rundown and there was still plenty of poverty. Even on a bright summer’s day in 1998 the high street was gloomy – a collection of down-at-heel stores and roads strewn with escaped plastic bags. But Brixton mosque was thriving and its reputation for Salafism was attracting devotees from across Europe. I had first heard about the mosque from British Muslims who had come to Yemen.
Most of my friends and flatmates were of a similar outlook. My experiences in Yemen and especially my time at Dammaj fascinated them. I even met the singer Cat Stevens several times. He had changed his name to Yusuf Islam and become a Sufi Muslim; I had some animated conversations with him about the true path of Islam. Salafis scorned Sufi Muslims for their veneration of saints and other perceived distortions of the faith.
I picked up temporary jobs, mostly driving, which helped me find radical mosques throughout London: in Hounslow, Shepherd’s Bush and Finchley. None was as grand as Regent’s Park; some were no more than shabby basements. But they were energized by a fervour which was by then challenging – and worrying – more moderate preachers, as well as the British security services.
The new circle I had entered included plenty of angry young men looking to inflict revenge on the West for its persecution of Muslims. A few clearly had emotional or psychological issues, displaying wild mood swings or budding paranoia, but most were driven by an unshakable belief that they had found the true way to obey Allah and that obedience called for waging jihad. A surprising number of French converts had come to Brixton, including one called Mukhtar. We talked about everything, shared a passion for martial arts and attended the mosque together.
Mukhtar was a French convert in his thirties, with a lean physique and close-set dark eyes. He reminded me a little of the French footballer Zinedine Zidane. We had met at Brixton mosque and he told me he had come to London to get away from police brutality in the rundown suburb of Paris where he had lived.
I soon met his French-Moroccan flatmate, one Zacarias Moussaoui. They lived in a decrepit 1960s council tower block that reeked of decay.Their apartment was bare: no beds or sofas, just a couple of mattresses and rough hessian mats on the floor. It was a typical Salafists’ pad.
Moussaoui
CHAPTER FIVE
Londonistan
Summer 1998–Early 2000
I arrived at Heathrow airport on a muggy late summer’s day in 1998, relieved to be free of the dust and heat of Sana’a and faintly amused by the orderly appearance of suburban London. I was soon reunited with Mahmud al-Tayyib at the Regent’s Park mosque and regaled him with stories of Dammaj and Sana’a.
I helped teach Muslims who came to the mosque and began accompanying an elderly Iraqi preacher and several converts to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, where we would try to spread the word of Islam. We must have been a strange sight in our long Islamic thawb s, the ankle-length robe. Sometimes we would get into heated debates with evangelical Christians.
‘The Koran is the pure word of God,’ I would shout, remembering to quote a famous verse from the Koran. ‘ Had it issued from any but God, they would surely have found in it many a contradiction. ’
We were usually greeted by a mixture of indifference and suspicion, which only reinforced our determination to continue proselytizing.
For radical Muslims London had become a cauldron of debate and rivalry. There were many echoes of the discussions that had occupied our afternoons under the date-palms of Dammaj. And the gritty district of Brixton, south of the River Thames, had become the centre of this tussle for the soul of Islam.
Brixton had seen riots in the early 1980s, pitching Afro-Caribbean youth against the Metropolitan Police. Disturbances had then spread to a dozen cities. The area had since become somewhat gentrified, but itshousing was rundown and there was still plenty of poverty. Even on a bright summer’s day in 1998 the high street was gloomy – a collection of down-at-heel stores and roads strewn with escaped plastic bags. But Brixton mosque was thriving and its reputation for Salafism was attracting devotees from across Europe. I had first heard about the mosque from British Muslims who had come to Yemen.
Most of my friends and flatmates were of a similar outlook. My experiences in Yemen and especially my time at Dammaj fascinated them. I even met the singer Cat Stevens several times. He had changed his name to Yusuf Islam and become a Sufi Muslim; I had some animated conversations with him about the true path of Islam. Salafis scorned Sufi Muslims for their veneration of saints and other perceived distortions of the faith.
I picked up temporary jobs, mostly driving, which helped me find radical mosques throughout London: in Hounslow, Shepherd’s Bush and Finchley. None was as grand as Regent’s Park; some were no more than shabby basements. But they were energized by a fervour which was by then challenging – and worrying – more moderate preachers, as well as the British security services.
The new circle I had entered included plenty of angry young men looking to inflict revenge on the West for its persecution of Muslims. A few clearly had emotional or psychological issues, displaying wild mood swings or budding paranoia, but most were driven by an unshakable belief that they had found the true way to obey Allah and that obedience called for waging jihad. A surprising number of French converts had come to Brixton, including one called Mukhtar. We talked about everything, shared a passion for martial arts and attended the mosque together.
Mukhtar was a French convert in his thirties, with a lean physique and close-set dark eyes. He reminded me a little of the French footballer Zinedine Zidane. We had met at Brixton mosque and he told me he had come to London to get away from police brutality in the rundown suburb of Paris where he had lived.
I soon met his French-Moroccan flatmate, one Zacarias Moussaoui. They lived in a decrepit 1960s council tower block that reeked of decay.Their apartment was bare: no beds or sofas, just a couple of mattresses and rough hessian mats on the floor. It was a typical Salafists’ pad.
Moussaoui
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