forgiving him or taking blood money of nearly $3,000. I wasn’t inclined to forgive him and did not want to return to prison for breaking a bottle over someone’s head. But the blood money meant that suddenly I could travel again.
I had recently taken to browsing Muslim ‘matrimonial’ sites on the internet, hopeful of finding a suitably religious but also suitably attractive partner. They would never be referred to as dating sites and were rather more prim than their American counterparts. The women who had posted their details had little to say of their personal likes and dislikes, more often promising to be good, obedient and faithful wives. Every one of them wore the hijab and a meek expression. Even so, one living in the Moroccan capital had attracted my attention. Karima spoke English, was well-educated and religiously observant, and had approached me with a simple online question: would I like to marry her? 3
Flush with cash thanks to a broken bottle, with a clean Danish passport and my debt to society paid in full, I was soon airborne.
I was met by her brother in Rabat – the vetting committee. Even before I met Karima I went to a couple of the more radical mosques in Salat, a poorer neighbourhood of Rabat. Here too Salafism was thriving: the fact that I had been to Yemen and knew Sheikh Muqbil opened doors. It also impressed Karima’s family.
Karima was petite with olive skin, almond eyes and a demure manner that complemented her deep faith. I found her both attractive and intelligent. She was already thinking about emigrating to Yemen or Afghanistan with me to seek a purer existence. Within days we were married at her family’s house. It may seem ridiculous that two peoplecould marry days after meeting each other, but it was the way dictated by our faith. There was no question of dating, of discreet dinners to explore each other’s thoughts and emotions. Allah would take care of everything.
And the Danish state would take care of relocating me to Yemen. Youth education grants were just one aspect of its overarching social welfare system. I applied to learn Arabic at the CALES language institute in Sana’a and received a grant – no questions asked. Karima remained in Morocco while I set about preparing for our new life in Yemen.
In April 2001 I flew into Sana’a again. It felt strangely like I belonged there. What had been an assault on the senses on my first visit was now pleasantly familiar. The chaos of the streets was welcoming rather than overwhelming; I was excited to catch up with my acquaintances there and spend long evenings on roof terraces talking about faith and the world. And I felt a real affinity for this poor corner of the Arabian Peninsula. This was where the struggle for the soul of my religion was being waged.
The neighbourhood of Sana’a where I settled seemed much more spontaneous than the bland, well-ordered suburbs of Denmark. I smiled to see the battered carts of fruit and vegetables being hauled through the streets by thin young men, the tiny kiosks selling gum and cigarettes, the old men gathered on corners with their prayer beads.
Yemen’s bureaucracy meant it would be several months before Karima could join me in Sana’a. That same bureaucracy was also having trouble keeping up with my former Salafist comrades, who had become even more active and radical in my absence. And it was by now beyond doubt that al-Qaeda saw Yemen as a ‘space’ in which to attack Western interests. A few months before my return, terrorists aboard a skiff had approached the visiting USS Cole in Aden harbour. They saluted the sailors on board before detonating hundreds of pounds of C4 explosives against the Cole ’s hull. Seventeen US sailors lost their lives and the ship nearly sank.
Young Abdul, a skinny teenager when I had left, was now a confident young man with a growing jihadist network and much-improved English. He often visited the house I had rented and we fell back intolong
Matt Christopher, Stephanie Peters