Hardball Tactics in an Era of Threats

Led by Muhammad Adam Alshaikh, right, a group of American Muslims pray outside the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday, March 4, 2004. Three American Muslims accused of training for holy war against the United States by waging paintball battles in the Virginia woods were convicted Thursday of conspiring to support terrorism. (Matthew Cavanaugh - AP)

"The older generation was taught that religion was a backward thing," said one of those who attended, referring to the secular nationalism that held sway in the Middle East and South Asia in the 1950s and '60s. But their American children found Islam "did answer a lot of questions. It gave them a purpose in life."

The gung-ho young Muslims tried to strictly adhere to Islamic scriptures and imitate the prophet Muhammad and his companions in the 7th century -- an approach known as salafism. Men wore beards; women were veiled and sat behind a curtain.

The zealous salafis weren't impressed by the efforts of big mosques in the area -- such as Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society -- to integrate into American society.

Those mosques "kind of gave you the mushy middle. Don't rock the boat. Don't make people mad," said Umar Lee, a former Falls Church resident who attended Dar al-Arqam. The young people, he said, "wanted authenticity."

From Georgetown to Saudi Arabia

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Law enforcement officials would eventually trace the rise of the jihad network to two men: Timimi, the lecturer at Dar al-Arqam, and Randall "Ismail" Royer, a public relations professional.

Neither started out as religious Muslims.

The son of an Iraqi lawyer, Timimi had grown up in Northwest Washington and attended the elite Georgetown Day School. When he was 15 years old, his family moved temporarily to Saudi Arabia, where he became an observant Muslim. Timimi spent another year in the kingdom in the late 1980s on a Saudi scholarship, studying with one of the "awakening sheikhs" who would inspire bin Laden with their anti-Western speeches.

His supporters at Dar al-Arqam bristle at prosecutors' assertions that he was spouting radical politics; his speeches, they say, focused on spiritual subjects. But they also reflected an alienation from his own culture.

In one of his taped lectures available on the Internet, Timimi warned Muslims not to become too friendly with non-Muslim "disbelievers" or even work for them if other jobs were available. "A Muslim should never allow the disbeliever to have the upper hand," he said.

And he echoed the widespread perception in the Muslim world that the West is an enemy in a clash of civilizations.

"The greatest power in the world inimical to Islam is the United States," he declared in a lecture cited by prosecutors.

Not all his followers in the Washington suburbs shared such extreme views. But they were dazzled by Timimi, a man who could both translate 7th-century Koranic Arabic and joke about the Redskins.