Signs of the Muslim behind the Fort Hood shootings

I thought this was an interesting and detailed look at the personal life of Nidal Hasan in the days leading up to the Fort Hood shooting, in which 12 were killed and 31 injured. He was most likely emotionally distressed, troubled about the death of his mother, lonely in his personal life and isolated because of his Islamist views. According to the article, he was sometimes haggled after 9/11 for his religious views. While in the Army, his car was vandalized twice, and he described himself as “an outcast.”

In fact, while reading this story, I was partially struck by how similar this fellow’s social life was to my own. Of course, I don’t have the double hindrance of religion, but in social circles, he likely felt, to put it no other way, awkward.

One day in 2006, as Hasan edged toward his late 30s, he attended a matchmaking event at the Islamic Society of the Washington Area. The annual gathering is a last-chance staple for hundreds of Muslims, some of whom travel from as far as India or Hawaii, to mingle over a breakfast buffet. But attending such an event was an uncharacteristic step for Hasan, who steadfastly avoided group parties with co-workers and who, his aunt Noel Hasan said, “did not make many friends easily and did not make friends fast.”

Under the personality and character section of a questionnaire, he described himself as, “Quiet, reserved until more familiar with person. Funny, caring, and personable.”

Of course, to say all that is to say that I somewhat identified with him socially. We must have been of a similar mode, at least in that one, and only, regard.

And then there’s religion.

The day of the shooting, among other sundry activities, he left his Apartment 9 room and visited a devout Christian neighbor, who was apparently puzzled

when he handed her a copy of the Koran and recommended passages for her to read.

Then Hasan delivered this chilling, but not altogether shocking statement, coming from a fanatical Muslim:

“In my religion,” Hasan told her, “we’ll do anything to be closer to God.”

Anything, indeed.

I’m currently reading “Islamic Imperialism” by Efraim Karsh, which recounts the rise and fall, and the apparent and attempted new rise of the caliphate in the modern world, of the Islamic empire that swept through the Middle East and parts of Europe beginning in the 7th century. Unlike the variants of Judaism, Protestantism and Catholicism, the general message of Islam has been largely uniform down through the ages since the Koran was first cobbled together and borrowed from texts of the aforementioned religions (To attempt to claim that Islam is a peaceful religion, as President Barack Obama and others have done, is just playing nice and skirting what the religion’s texts actually say). Take these statement to which Karsh brings to light one right after another in his introduction:

  • “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god by Allah.’ – Muhammad’s farewell address, March 632
  • “I shall cross this sea to their islands to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah.” – Saladin, January 1189
  • “We will export our revolution throughout the world … until the calls ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ are echoed all over the world.” – Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979
  • “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is not god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.” – Osama bin Laden, November 2001

I encourage folks to read the article about Hasan because it really is troubling that he left so many signs about his oncoming and present extremism, according to the above linked article and apparently no one had the foresight to see the signs and confront him about them. In the midst of his increasing devotion to Islam in college,

he gave the culminating presentation of his medical residency to 25 colleagues and supervisors. He was allowed to talk about any subject, and Hasan stood at the front of the room and gave a 50-slide introduction to Islam.

Slide 11: “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”

Slide 12: “(4.93) And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell.”

Slide 49: “God expects full loyalty.”

Slide 50: “Department of Defense should allow Muslim Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.”