A Different Kind of Mujahid

Ahmed heard of the eminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq shortly before it occurred on March 19^th, 2003. Not soon thereafter, he was sitting in his room studying when an American helicopter bombed a nearby apartment. The force from the explosion, he said, threw him across the room. He would later learn that that explosion killed one of his neighbors, a mother of a mujahid, while she was on the rooftop of her house reciting the Qur’an.

Ahmed a thin, well-dressed man, smiles as he tells me war stories from his village in Anbar Province. Just like his hair, seemingly to short to part, but which always remains neatly pulled neatly across his head, it seems impossible that the emotion he showed most was humor. Saddam was a terrorist, he noted with a chuckle, it was good that he was gone.

It has been over ten years since the country I call home invaded the country he calls his. He was fourteen when American and Coalition forces began their mission to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime during George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.” I was a mere twelve at the time, thousands of miles away. But I, too, watched as Tomahawk missiles slammed into Baghdad, a foreshadowing of the oncoming violence.

We first met through a mutual friend after Friday prayers at our local mosque sometime in January or February of 2013. He had just arrived in the United States, and I had just converted to Islam. For the next couple weeks, we would sit together after prayers to catch up on each other’s lives. Every now and then he would excuse himself to get up and make his rounds, shaking hands and exchanging salaams with friends or kneeling down for a short period to check in with his companions.

It seems fit that we are friends. I am one of only a handful of first generation Muslims to worship at our mosque, and he is one of only a handful Iraqis to successfully navigate the visa process. About forty other Iraqis are currently studying in the state of Michigan. He refuses to have his photograph taken or his real name printed out of fear that he will be kicked out of his exchange program, and when asked why he told me of his friend who was sent home after telling a fellow Iraqi student that her skirt was too short. They even tell us not to pray in mosques, he says.

Ahmed is used to living with restrictions, though. After the invasion, Coalition soldiers surrounded a government building near his house. They set up checkpoints that he would have to cross to get to school, and he is quick to note that soldiers would shoot at anyone who crossed the streets between his house and his school. Three of his teachers were killed by American soldiers. His neighbor, a metalworker, would clear the dead bodies from the streets.

The violence, although crippling, did not bring life to a complete halt. Ahmed remembers the soccer games he played at night in his neighborhood, undeterred by drunk soldiers shooting their weapons indiscriminately from their checkpoints surrounding the nearby government office.  If a bomb were to go off right here, he said, pointing to a grassy patch near the cafeteria in which we were eating, I wouldn’t be scared. But, he added, whenever I see an American army uniform. He trailed off, shaking his head. That is something he still fears.

American soldiers are terrorists. He has a right to say so. They are responsible for the deaths of 40-50 of his friends, neighbors, and family members. When I asked about the mujahideen, he was quick to make a distinction between our word and theirs. Just like the term jihad, there exist two meanings for mujahideen, the first and correct usage signifies those who fought the American invasion out of a need to defend their country from foreign armies. The other, more American usage of the term, signifies those who both Americans and Iraqis consider terrorists. They are the ones who, in the absence of law and order, strapped bombs to their chests and walked into crowded markets.

Ahmed’s family did not protest or fight the American invasion. Still, their house was subject to frequent armed searches. Soldiers would appear looking for weapons, taking anyone who had one into custody. They would give the Sunnis to the Shia government, who would kill them with drills. Those who were lucky to escape this fate ended up incarcerated, some for years, in one of three American prisons, Buca in the south, Susa in the north, and the most well known, Abu Ghraib, in Baghdad.

The soldiers felt comfortable when someone spoke to them in English, he says, noting that his father is a professor of Arabic at a local university. From him Ahmed learned the value of an education, and instead of taking up arms to resist the invader, he turned to his books, even if it meant endangering himself daily. In fact, three times he had to change schools due to the violence and destruction that plagued his town for years.

That same motivation brought him to the United States, where he is studying Electrical Engineering. He lives with two other Iraqis, a Sunni from Fallujah and a Shia from Baghdad. All three study at the same university. Ahmed notes that it is funny that they live together, since so much of the violence that has occurred since the invasion was due to sectarian conflict between the two biggest sects in Islam. Even here, he is quick to note the role the American forces played in the violence, telling me that the army paid Sunnis to attack Shias, and Shias to attack Sunnis. Not all of them are bad, he said, adding we hate the army so, so, so, so much because they hurt us.

Although the situation at home is still dangerous, Ahmed plans to return to his former life as soon as he finishes his studies here. To an American it may seem strange that he is so adamant about returning to a war zone, but it is hard to blame him. He lived in one for years, witness to constant bombardments and searches, crackling gunfire in the night, and the incessant sound of helicopters in the air. That is what his home has become, that is what my government has done to his country, but Ahmed does not resent me for it, nor does he resent my fellow countrymen.

I assume it is the religion that we share in common that encourages him to forgive such grave offences. He remembers them all, but yet he studies with some of the same men that once roamed the streets of his province, body armor and guns in hand, fighting a War on Terror, and at the same time fueling another.

There is hope still, though. Ahmed uses his experiences to fuel his academic career. He holds no grudges because he is not in this country because of the actions of a government that was elected to represent us. He is here because he wants to succeed, he wants to learn and he wants to thrive.