A knife to the heart

The vegetarian potluck was ending, Fatima bin Laden savoring the last morsels of a vinaigrette salad of couscous, black olives, capers, Maui onions and red, yellow and green peppers, and people began to move inside the spacious living area. They sat on couches and chairs, cross-legged on cushions and halfway up the stairs, spilling out through triple-wide doors to the lanai.

Imam Ibrahim al-Shakr, wearing a black robe gathered at the waist with a sash, and a black taqiyah covering his head, walked among them as he spoke, beginning with a prayer giving thanks to the One God and asking his blessing.

And because one of his followers always recorded the young imam's orations and then typed up his words, creating an addendum of Sufi sermons to the imam's own journal -- both of which I was able to read and copy -- he's quoted directly here.

"We will speak this evening of good and evil. Actually, let's remove an O, and speak of God and evil. Both are here with us tonight, as they are everywhere in the earth. It is God who whispers in our ears that there is one true God. It is the evil Jinn who whisper that your own god is the only God, even as other Jinn whisper it in ears in 10,000 other places.

"It is God who calls out for one brother-sisterhood, for all people of the world are his children. 'I am a diamond,' God says, 'of infinite aspects. What you see depends on where you are .' It is the Jinn who cry out for religious war, lying that Jew, Christian, Muslim, Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, Druid, Hindu worship different gods, but only your own god is true.

"It is God who speaks clearly on these matters. And it is the Jinn, I am afraid to say, for I come to God as a Muslim, it is Jinn who are taking over Islam. Who cry 'Jihad!' 'Infidel!' 'Death to America and Israel!'

"Instead, I say, the infidel is within. The One God wishes only peace and prosperity for all his people. Islam reveres Moses, Abraham and Jesus, yet some who claim to speak for Islam want to kill their followers. How can you kill a follower of Moses? Was he not one of God's great prophets. How can you kill a follower of Abraham? Surely he was a great prophet. How can you kill the followers of Jesus, for he too was a great prophet. And there are many more around the world who speak for the One God, calling people to him."

As Fatima bin Laden would later say, "His words were like a knife to the heart... " That's one way of describing being called Jinn. "... and yet I felt my spirit soaring."

Fatima remembered another emotion that night: "When Baz greeted a man with a warm embrace and said 'Shalom, rabbi!' I almost threw up my dinner!"