Craig Baxam, the Secret Convert
There is something quite fascinating, in a disturbing way to be clear, about the entire Craig Baxam affair. For those who don't know (article available about it here), Baxam is a former US soldier who secretly converted to Islam in July and was arrested by December trying to get himself into Somalia to join the Shebab.
We already knew that there is a certain viral strain of Islam out there that is proving itself remarkably resilient and attractive to all too many Muslims. It is an Islam that is divorced from Islam's methodological and doctrinal traditions (that for another day), but real and particularly attractive to Muslims who are themselves divorced from these traditions because this strain does draw on them just enough, barely, to be credible to those looking for the message. European Muslims, for example, who learn Islam but don't have the same sort of context that their parents might have and cannot seem to develop their own context of their own society, in the way that more North American Muslims have, and for that see the show All American Muslim. Or even Arab Muslims who don't have an authority they much regard as legitimate in a world they find frustrating and difficult. But in any event, there is a strain of violent Islam, it is dangerous and corrupting, and a problem that I think many of us Muslims recognize, and frankly more of us need to if we are to retain broader credibility.
But Baxam shows something even more disturbing. This isn't a violent Islam that is drawing (sort of) on Islamic resources in a manner that proves enticing to Islam's youth. It's actually that strain proving itself appealing to nonMuslims. When Baxam converts, he converts secretly, and based on material in extremist websites. Admittedly one does not know precisely what his motivations are, but we do know the short time between conversion and deployment in the field, the fact that it was secret, which is unusual for most converts and very importantly, we know the source material for his conversion (the site talked about Judgment Day, which moved him, the indictment says. Is that the virgins? Did he convert for the virgins? What else is it about Judgment Day that's so appealing in extremist websites, and different from more mainstream Islam outlets, or even Christian outlets for that matter?) Seems like a particular predisposition toward the kind of extremist violence the website may have been advancing. And so he reads it, and converts, and immediately goes to help a group of similarly violently predisposed thugs whose idea of Islam, which they say they got from the Qur'an, involves starving tens of thousands of innocent people (Muslims, which you'd think might mean something to them) and terrorizing others. The violent join the violent and somewhere underneath it all, some sort of strain is running which is very hard to figure out (starve Muslims to death is what you got from the Qur'an?) but very appealing in some sick way.
Probably not terribly new as a phenomenon. There are a fair number of leftist groups whose commitment to ideology seemed subordinate to or at least coequal with a preference to engage in violence wherever and whenever possible for means only casually related to the ideological ends. And they attracted some number of American converts who weren't even particularly strong leftists before joining them in the jungles of Bolivia or Peru or wherever. Still, for a committed leftist then, or a committed Muslim now, all of this is deeply unsettling, as the terror seems to have eclipsed the message and has proven seductive enough not only to delude some of the committed, but actually entice those who otherwise have no interest in the intricacies and complexities of our faith.
HAH
We already knew that there is a certain viral strain of Islam out there that is proving itself remarkably resilient and attractive to all too many Muslims. It is an Islam that is divorced from Islam's methodological and doctrinal traditions (that for another day), but real and particularly attractive to Muslims who are themselves divorced from these traditions because this strain does draw on them just enough, barely, to be credible to those looking for the message. European Muslims, for example, who learn Islam but don't have the same sort of context that their parents might have and cannot seem to develop their own context of their own society, in the way that more North American Muslims have, and for that see the show All American Muslim. Or even Arab Muslims who don't have an authority they much regard as legitimate in a world they find frustrating and difficult. But in any event, there is a strain of violent Islam, it is dangerous and corrupting, and a problem that I think many of us Muslims recognize, and frankly more of us need to if we are to retain broader credibility.
But Baxam shows something even more disturbing. This isn't a violent Islam that is drawing (sort of) on Islamic resources in a manner that proves enticing to Islam's youth. It's actually that strain proving itself appealing to nonMuslims. When Baxam converts, he converts secretly, and based on material in extremist websites. Admittedly one does not know precisely what his motivations are, but we do know the short time between conversion and deployment in the field, the fact that it was secret, which is unusual for most converts and very importantly, we know the source material for his conversion (the site talked about Judgment Day, which moved him, the indictment says. Is that the virgins? Did he convert for the virgins? What else is it about Judgment Day that's so appealing in extremist websites, and different from more mainstream Islam outlets, or even Christian outlets for that matter?) Seems like a particular predisposition toward the kind of extremist violence the website may have been advancing. And so he reads it, and converts, and immediately goes to help a group of similarly violently predisposed thugs whose idea of Islam, which they say they got from the Qur'an, involves starving tens of thousands of innocent people (Muslims, which you'd think might mean something to them) and terrorizing others. The violent join the violent and somewhere underneath it all, some sort of strain is running which is very hard to figure out (starve Muslims to death is what you got from the Qur'an?) but very appealing in some sick way.
Probably not terribly new as a phenomenon. There are a fair number of leftist groups whose commitment to ideology seemed subordinate to or at least coequal with a preference to engage in violence wherever and whenever possible for means only casually related to the ideological ends. And they attracted some number of American converts who weren't even particularly strong leftists before joining them in the jungles of Bolivia or Peru or wherever. Still, for a committed leftist then, or a committed Muslim now, all of this is deeply unsettling, as the terror seems to have eclipsed the message and has proven seductive enough not only to delude some of the committed, but actually entice those who otherwise have no interest in the intricacies and complexities of our faith.
HAH
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