The Munich Mosque has disturbing links to terrorism. In the 1980s, Mahmud Abouhalima was a regular at the mosque. Soon afterward, he went to the United States and was sentenced to prison in 1993 for trying to help bomb the World Trade Center. In 1999, German police wiretapped Dallaj's home and monitored his contacts at the mosque. One man stood out: Mohamed Atta. Two years later, Atta flew the first plane into the World Trade Center. In the years that followed, terrorist attacks took place in Madrid and London. Investigators were shocked to find that the suspects were young Muslims born in Europe, either second- or third-generation. The struggle for influence over Munich's Muslims brought a deadly ideology to the West.
Islamic radicalism is a highly politicized and violent ideology that provides fertile ground for terrorism. The West experienced this violence firsthand in the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. But its history goes back much further, and it has troubled countries around the world for decades.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States tried to win Muslim support in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. The infamous Al-Qaeda was born during that period. But the Munich Mosque goes back another thirty years, to the beginning of the Cold War. Here in Germany, Muslims were drawn into a psychological war, a battle of ideas. Across Western Europe, there are between 15 and 20 million Muslims, four times as many as in the United States. The Islamic world did not overlook this demographic shift. At this pivotal moment in history, the Muslim Brotherhood had already sunk deep roots into Western society. No one can clearly explain the West's simultaneous fascination with and rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The most prominent Islamic radical organization is the Muslim Brotherhood. It was the Brotherhood that turned the mosque into a grassroots political organization serving partisan goals. Nearly all of the Brotherhood's activities in the West originated with the small group that ran the Munich Mosque.
This book gave me a deeper understanding of Islamic radicalism and introduced me to people who have struggled with the currents of history. I liked Margaret in the book, and I was deeply impressed by her courage and persistence. This reminds me of Amir in "The Kite Runner". They are both pursuing their beliefs in difficult circumstances. The style of this book is realistic and profound. It is similar to "1984" in that it makes people think deeply about the impact of power and ideology on individuals.