Ground Zero Mosque

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Contents

Prologue: Three Short Stories..................................................7Introduction...................................................................11Chapter One: My Uncle's Donkey.................................................14Chapter Two: Worms.............................................................18Chapter Three: More Worms......................................................22Chapter Four: Chicken..........................................................25Chapter Five: Nobel Worms......................................................34Chapter Six: Fish..............................................................37Chapter Seven: The Sheikh......................................................43Chapter Eight: (Place) of Good Pain............................................50Chapter Nine: Scholars of the Past.............................................58Chapter Ten: Chicken and Egg...................................................66Chapter Eleven: The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back..........................74Chapter Twelve: The Elephant...................................................82Chapter Thirteen: Culigion.....................................................93Chapter Fourteen: Wrestling with God – Journal Entry.....................100Chapter Fifteen: Demons – Journal Entry..................................108Chapter Sixteen: Slaying the Demon – Journal Entry.......................112Chapter Seventeen: Praise – Journal Entry................................114Chapter Eighteen: Love – Journal Entry...................................118Chapter Nineteen: Beyond – Journal Entry.................................125Chapter Twenty: Wolves and Hyenas..............................................130Chapter Twenty-One: The Rabbi and the Pastor...................................135Chapter Twenty-Two: German Shepherd............................................141Chapter Twenty-Three: Great Dane...............................................145Chapter Twenty-Four: Dream.....................................................148Chapter Twenty-Five: The Donkey and the Elephant...............................156Chapter Twenty-Six: Mishmish...................................................159Index..........................................................................164

Chapter One

Yes, I was born in Cairo, at the interface between the month of fasting and the days of celebration. A month later, we moved to New Jersey so that my parents could begin their graduate studies. During the next ten years, I grew up as a Muslim Egyptian American; praying next to my parents, going to the Islamic center on Sundays, watching G.I. Joe and MacGyver, and having crushes on girls at school. My dream was to become a veterinarian.

We were excited to return to Egypt a decade later, to our roots and extended family. It was an adventure, and in a sense, even at that young age, I knew that I would no longer enjoy many of the things I did in the US. As a family, however, we considered it one of our camping trips, accepting the lack of some amenities because the very purpose of the trip was to trade the comforts of everyday life with something more meaningful.

We lived in the city, next to the Pyramids, but my favorite times were spent in the countryside. I would run straight from the car to my uncle's donkey and ride her all around, barefoot. I was a terrible rider though, and the donkey must have sensed that. Occasionally, while we were trotting along the river bank, she would stop for no reason at all, as if there were a wall in front of her. I would kick and hit her with my stick but she would not budge. The passing peasants would laugh and whisper to each other my lineage and who I was; everyone knew everyone. When I would tell my uncle he would laugh and tell me that her stopping was only because I was weak. I had to show her that I was indeed a good rider. "The only thing opposing her is your inability to command the situation; be strong like iron!" he would say. One day the donkey not only stopped, but actually lay down to bathe in the sun while I was atop! It was the pinnacle of humiliation, but I later learned to laugh about it.

My parents are religious in the sense that they believe and practice Islam. Their belief is in God, the Afterlife, and in the Prophets, including Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. The practice consists of the five daily prayers, fasting the month of Ramadan, charity, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca they had once performed. Their belief and practice are further beautified by their decency and continuous striving to be people of integrity and compassion. That was the Islam I was taught as a child in the US, and that was the Islam I started off with in Egypt but later felt was deficient.

Our return to Egypt coincided with the beginning of my teen years. These were delicate years of budding ideology and identity, and I entered them with a thirst that was quenched by my father's book collection. He worked in Saudi Arabia and therefore was present for only a couple of weeks every few months. During these vacations, we would spend long hours during which he would catch up on my mentoring, by straightening crooked pillars and filling gaps in the foundation. Of the readings that deeply moved me were those addressing political themes, specifically, the occupation of Palestine, the plight of the Chechens, and the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A perspective was born. The Muslim Ummah; that community of believers stretching from Indonesia to Trinidad was orphaned since the fall of the Caliphate, lynched by the West, and in search for its Renaissance. I quickly identified with the Intifada and the heroic acts of those fearless Palestinian fighters who met bullets and tanks with rocks and bare chests.

A popular children's magazine I used to read included a column titled "Martyrs who paved the road to Peace," in which the stories of Intifada stone-throwing martyrs were told. I would read those columns and cry. I envisioned orchestrating the liberation of Palestine. When I was fourteen, I boasted during dinner that I would love to blow myself up for this purpose. My mother cried and wondered why I saw my life as so cheap. A year later, I packed a backpack, took a kitchen knife, and left home for Gaza. Yet, as if by divine intervention, not a single bus passed in front of the busy station. I returned home before my parents were back from shopping and never told a soul.

A trend of religious understanding was now emerging, a politicized one. This was an understanding of Islam and what it meant to be Muslim that was superimposed on the political reality of Muslim-majority countries. Islam became a method of resistance and a means to our long-awaited renaissance. As a Muslim, I saw myself as an agent for change. What needed to change was the condition of our world-wide Ummah. Political corruption and foreign occupation were symptoms of an ailing body. The disease was caused by the mal-practice of Islam. We needed to be better Muslims to change that situation, for God did not change the condition of a people until they changed themselves. We needed to become more Islamic.

I have always been ambitious, perhaps to a delusional degree, and I wanted to impress God and be his favorite. Things had to change for the Ummah, and what...