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The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption
The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption
The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption
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The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption

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The Blood of Lambs reveals the true inside story of the making and mind-set of a Muslim terrorist. Though his ties with terrorism were severed more than twenty years ago, it was not until 9/11, when radical Muslims rained terror on American shores, that Kamal Saleem stepped out of the shadows and revealed his true identity. Today, he is a different kind of warrior. He now stands on the wall and shouts to America, "Open your eyes and fight the danger that lives among you."

As the terrible fruit of Kamal's early life in jihad screams from today's headlines, he courageously puts his life on the line to defend America, the country he now calls home.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHoward Books
Release dateApr 7, 2009
ISBN9781439159286
The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption
Author

Kamal Saleem

Kamal Saleem was born under another name into a large Sunni Muslim family in Lebanon. At age seven, he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and immediately entered a Palestinian Liberation Organization terror training camp in Lebanon. After being involved in terror campaigns in Israel, Europe, Afghanistan, and Africa, and finally making radical Islam converts in the United States, Saleem renounced jihad and became an American citizen. He has appeared on CNN, CBS News, and Fox News programs, and has spoken on terrorism and radical Islam at Stanford University, the University of California, the Air Force Academy, and other institutions nationwide. He is the author of The Blood of Lambs.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book follows the path of Kamal Saleem from the slums of Lebanon where he is recruited into a terrorist group before the age of 10, to the palaces of Saudi Arabia where he raises funds for his terrorist group, to America where he leaves his old life behind.This book goes far into explaining why so many find terrorist groups so appealing and why so many joins. It also heightens the danger that America faces today. The author makes it abundantly clear that he was not the only one sent to America to recruit for extremist groups, and that these groups continue to flourish today, taking advantage of America's freedoms.A must read for anyone interested in terrorism and the threat America faces.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A must read! Edge of your seat bitting your nails novel! Brilliantly written, I loved the dual story mode flipping from childhood one chapter to adulthood in the next. From past to present. I was astonished by what I learned in this epic novel! I give it a 10! Suspenseful and breath taking couldn't put it down! Never a dull moment in this book even had romance and redemption.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a very important book that all Americans should read. The author has more than likely ruined his life by writing it because militant Islamists will increase their efforts to find and kill him. Kamal Saleem joined the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) at the age of seven. By his early teens, he has gone on missions to smuggle weapons into Israel. Many times when he should have died, he was spared. He killed unconfessed, and probably unknown, numbers of people as part of his terrorist activities throughout the Middle East. Finally, he came to America to recruit people to Islam. He was succeeding remarkably well until an automobile accident incapacitated him. With no insurance and no family to care for him, one of his doctors took him into his home while he recuperated. There, he met the very people he had been raised to hate and kill, Christians. In spite of his best efforts to hate these people, he began to sense that truth was in them and not in the teaching of his childhood and youth. He eventually became an American citizen and married an American woman, while telling no one of his past. It was only several years after 9/11, that the truth had to come out of him as he could no longer keep silent. He gave up a lucrative career in information technology to travel the country speaking out on the threat which islamic jihad poses to America today. Read the book and draw your conclusions. I found it very scary!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How he got converted by good old simple love from a family. Love transcends race, religion and time. Let us love and love and love
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    this was an enlightening book that will open the eyes of many

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Easily one of the most fascinating and terrifying things I have ever read. Mr. Saleem details his induction into the Muslim Brotherhood (at the age of 7!) and his career as a terrorist and what ultimately made him turn his back on it. Just fascinating and horrifying!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In 1940, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur looked at the South Pacific with an uneasy foreboding. Unable to convince his superiors of the impending danger he lamented, “The history of failure in war can be summed up in two worlds: Too Late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy: too late in recognizing the mortal danger; too late in preparedness; too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance; too late in standing with one’s friends. Eventually and tragically, Pearl Harbor proved him right.MacArthur’s quote opens former President Richard M. Nixon’s 1980 book, The Real War: where Nixon warned of the Soviet Union’s plans to expand communism throughout the world. In Nixon’s opinion, the Soviet Union was bent on world domination and were making huge investments in expanding its military to achieve their goal. However, he also warned the democratic west could actually lose the war without military action.Nixon argued America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was more than the United States getting involved in an internal conflict of a sovereign state and it was more than an opportunity for the United States and the Soviet Union to test their respective military metal without subjecting their citizenry to the horrors of war too directly. It was about the spreading of ideological and political influence, because, in Nixon's opinion, if one government could influence (spelled control) another government’s political ideology it could, in effect, control the country. Kamal Saleem’s new book, The Blood of Lambs, 2009, Howard Books, warns us of the danger we face today. A danger that takes two forms; one an indirect, yet overt and violent form - terrorist attacks; and a subtle, but more insidious form of warfare, where the extremist uses our freedoms; our tolerance of other cultures; our schools; our media and our laws to spread their philosophy of intolerance and hate throughout our country. The author, writing under the pseudonym, Kamal Saleem, chronicles his journey from fundamentalist terrorist to caring, dedicated activist; a journey that spans 20 years and takes him through Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Paris and eventually, into America. Blood of Lambs is similar in tone and urgency to Brigitte Gabriel’s 2005 book, Because They Hate (St Martin’s Press), both books cover the same time period and events, particularly the civil war that devastated Lebanon; but from different perspectives, Saleem as a participant and Gabriel as an innocent child trapped in a warzone, struggling to stay alive, while trying to care for her two aging parents. Gabriel’s book is angrier and occasionally drips venom, which is quite understandable when you consider what she was forced to endure. Both describe how Islamic fundamentalism destroyed their beloved country and effectively robbed them of their childhood. But, more important, both make a strong argument for taking our heads out of the clouds and recognizing the very real danger before us as well as the potential consequences of underestimating the situation or the determination of the Islamic fundamentalist to destroy our way of life.The book focuses on the present with Saleem's speaking engagements and the dangers he and his fellow speakers face daily, but makes liberal use of flashbacks to describe his childhood, how he fell under the influence of the Muslim brotherhood and became obsessed with the Jihad mission. He chronicles how cracks eventually developed in his ideology, how and why he broke with them; courageously began speaking out against them, in the process, becoming an enemy to their cause and a marked man. The seeds of intolerance and hate were planted while the author was still a child. Saleem would sit around the kitchen table while his mother cooked and told grand stories of adventure and honor. His beloved mother taught him that even the most evil of Muslim men could redeem themselves and regain their honor by killing Jews and infidels. Saleem would daydream about cutting off the head of a Jew and relished in the imaginary glory the feat would bring. Suddenly, things changed at home; as the family grew his parents no longer had time for him and he began to feel invisible. It was about this time that he fell under the protection of the Fadayeen. As he succumbed to the Fadayeen influence, he began to feel a sense of importance and belonging denied him at home. He tells how as child, his young mind proved fertile ground for the extremists who wanted to fill his head with hate and the belief that dying while killing innocent people was a worthy, even righteous cause. He recalls how the Fadayeen preyed on young children; playing on their egos, misguided sense of adventure, naivety and ultimately, their expendability to further their cause. This misguided sense of adventure caused one of Saleem’s young friends his life. He was shot while attempting to smuggle weapons into Israel.Over the next decade he continued to live the life of a terrorist, until an unexpected event changed his outlook, life and mission; to warn the American people about the impending danger to which most are largely unaware. Saleem points out the holy war is much more than an armed struggle for supremacy punctuated with scattered acts of extreme violence; but a systematic plan to terrorize, disrupt, undermine and eventually destroy the western powers. The battle lines are drawn much closer to home than we think. Saleem contends the battle line is not right at our front door, but behind us; and we missed it. The battle is being fought from the belly of our society, where people are locked up in poverty, prison or inner-city turmoil to the very pinnacle of power and influence in our corporations, foundations and universities. This book hits upon two of the hottest and most debated topics of our time; religion and politics; consequently, predictably and inevitable this book will prove controversial. Controversial not only because of its content; but because of the subjectiveness, beliefs, culture and prejudices of the reader. Such books hit home because they call into question and confront our core beliefs and values, those beliefs and values that define who we are; or at least, define who we think we are. Undoubtedly, there will be those who believe his adventure stories border on the incredulous; but giving him the benefit of the doubt we have to ask ourselves; is it that these accounts are simply wild and reckless stories weaved by an amoral opportunist to play on our fears and make a buck in the process; or can it be that in our arrogance and ignorance we just cannot make ourselves believe that there are people in this world who can actually think in such a cold, callous and deadly way?Many Muslims will see the book as yet another attack on their religion and culture; but is that the full story or can it be that they are oblivious or simply do not want to acknowledge or admit that there are ruthlessly cruel people who use their beloved faith to justify mass murder, oppression, intolerance and a zealous ambition to rule the world? Saleem's story is engrossing and his message, unnerving, but it lacks the potency and urgency of Gabriel's book. This probably has more to do with the fact the book is written from the point of view of a former terrorist than any inherent weakness in the book itself. Readers tend to side with, and believe those with whom they can empathize. And it is easier to empathize with a victim than with an aggressor. Some points may seem a bit over the top, but after all what autobiography does not contain at least a little poetic license? Does that mean that we should not consider the possibility that the underlying message is valid? Does that mean we should ignore the impending danger simply because we did not like that way in which that danger was packaged? Should we put our lives, our children, our freedom and our country only in the hands of a good story teller? If so, does the name Dr. Joseph Goebbels ring a bell?While Saleem does not offer many hard solutions to the problem; other than "wake up", he gives us a vivid account of the things we should be looking out for and how the war will be fought. And if anyone has been keeping up with the news lately, the names Major Nidal Malik Hasan and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should be familiar, disturbingly so. This book, almost certainly, will not give you the answers you seek to the problems of the world and will probably result in more questions than answers, but a questioning attitude in these perilous times is a good start - and hopefully, we will some day look back on these uneasy times without having to lament, it's too late.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Kamal Saleem’s career as a radical Muslim terrorist began at his mother’s knee. Her daily Islamic family devotions ingrained in her young son the precepts that he would build his early life upon – killing for the glory of Allah. His first missions as a seven-year-old saw him smuggling weapons and watching his fellow playmates mowed down by automatic weapons. Clearly, most readers of his memoirs will have much different childhood memories than his.Saleem (a pseudonym due to serious death threads from jihadists) shares his rather graphic memoirs in the hopes of wakening those living in our accepting (and often naïve) culture with the realities of the dangers radical Islam poses. Grippingly written with the help of Lynn Vincent, it is hard to pull away from the story he shares, and it is one that will linger with me for a great while.More striking than even his detailed admissions of violence and conspiracy committed in the name of Islam is his meeting with the true and living God; the only force capable of turning him from the path of destruction he had lived on for so many years.The Blood of Lambs is easy to read and incredibly engrossing. I have always had a difficult time getting a handle on the situation in the Middle East, but reading of major events and skirmishes through Saleem’s eyes helps me to see things in a personal, and therefore memorable way.Perhaps more importantly, it calls us to be aware of the tactics Islamists use to deceive, convert, and recruit terrorists even within the bounds of their target countries. Believers are called to be as wise as serpents however, so being aware of the tactics at work helps us know how to watch for, counter, and most importantly pray for those who would see our violent destruction. . It would be easy to slip into a spirit of paranoid fear after reading Salam’s memoir, so it is important to remember that God is sovereign and holds us in His hands.Any reader with even a passing interest in the ongoing war on terror, Christian/Muslim relations, radical Islam, or terrorism but without an extensive background in these topics will be well served by Saleem’s first-hand account and insiders point of view.Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    very educational, kamal saleem tells of his days as a terrorist, how he was trained from birth to hate any way other than muslim, from age 7 to kill and so on. he also tells of his transformation to christianity.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I received this book through the Early Reviewers list. It was a good read, but a hard pill to swallow, at the same time. Some of the very graphic and horrifying events described from his childhood were so clearly brought back to life that my assumption was that he had embellished. The more I thought about it however, the most shocking moments of my life, I still remember with quite a bit of detail as well. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on that. All in all, it was not a bad read, just a little oddly paced for my liking. It was not my typical biographical read. While I'm glad I read it, it doesn't rank as top pick on my bookshelf!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book through the librarything early-reviewers list. I found it quite interesting, but with some concern about the makeup of the material. I found some portions of it alarming, especially when the author describes attitudes and behaviors that might typically be dismissed as stereotypes or assumptions. He is frank about encounters with death, terrorism, and moments of luck, though I wondered about some stories that seemed to be written for the sake of sensationalism and drama. The pace of the content is brisk yet not lacking in detail. I enjoyed it overall, in spite of my own bit of incredulity with the severity of his warnings and my strains with the reality presented in the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Was interesting but not what I thought it was going to be. I loved the account he made and the chance to get inside of his memories in the radical world of Islam. Americans should read this book even if just to get a basic understanding of life on the other side.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The only thing that troubled me about this book--I just don't see how a 50-year-old man can write with such vivid recall about events that happened when he was 7 years old and younger. So sometimes it comes across as quite embellished, and I found myself wondering if perhaps it was even partly fabricated. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating story of what God can do and that no one is truly beyond His reach. And I'm inclined to think that Saleem is right about the sinister intents of radical (and even those not so radical) Muslims. His warning about America's apathy in the face of grave danger is surely on target.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I can't say I enjoyed reading this book; I can say that I'm glad I did. The odd mix of horror and hope I felt while reading it left me a bit nonplussed. I'm glad for him. He has found a new way of life that has given him a sense of peace as well as purpose. However, I reinforces my belief that compromise isn't always possible. If my ultimate goal is to live in peace, I'm willing to compromise a few things if, in the end, I reach my goal. If I want everybody in the United States to die...if I want all of a certain faith to be slaughtered...if genocide is my ultimate goal, any compromise will keep it from me. There can be no compromise.As he makes clear, not wanting that to be true won't keep it from being true.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Blood of Lambs is the memoir of a former Lebanese terrorist who describes his recruitment into the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent conversion to Christianity. I found this to be an excellent book. Yes, there is some sensationalism, but I did not find anything that didn't coincide with historical events and newspaper reports. Nothing that would lead me to believe that Mr. Saleem is lying about his story. His testimony of his conversion to Christianity comes at the end of the book and in no way detracts from his descriptions of the effects of terrorism on both victims and terrorists. And it did not make me afraid, as some have accused him of promoting fear of Islam, only wary of radicals. To close our eyes to the fact that terrorism exists is to deny September 11th and other acts around the world. I thought that the writing was well done and effective for his message. Bravo for the writer's courage in putting pen to paper.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "The Blood of Lambs" is a memoir of former terrorist Kamal Saleem written by Lynn Vincent based on interviews with Kamal. He shares the story of how young people and their situations that make them ripe to be converted into a terrorist. Kamal seems to leave nothing out that he can remember that would not endanger anyone’s present life. The environment needed to take a child or anyone who is easily influenced into a terrorist exists in every county. But since this is a memoir, we focus on Kamal’s life in Lebanon and as he grows his travels into other countries that eventually lead him to the U.S.A. where he finds that all he has been taught is a lie. The book is a fast paced read on the making and disillusionment of a former terrorist who only goal was to kill all non-Sunni Muslims, but most of all Jews and Americans. His life is one of use and horror though he is proud to live it at the time for he knows no better. And his culture fosters him and pushes him to be the hero he thinks he is. Simply and selfless acts of kindness, which reading his memoir only come from the Christians he hates is much in his book is amazing. As a child he seems to forget, but recalls in his book, the only person to help him asking nothing in return was a Christian woman. And he will find this to be true again. Though written in a way to make sure to keep your attention like an old serial, this book is what I expected but many in the western world ignore. The Jihad is real and never stops. Nor does it always take the forms of outward violence. If you learn nothing else learn the patience that these extremist have in destroying your culture. They will never stop and they are in every country now.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had a hard time writing this review, figuring out exactly how to evaluate the book. You see, as a non-fiction historical book, it should be evaluated according to its integrity. In this regard, I think that it is low. The author takes a sensationalist viewpoint and seems to be trying to latch onto what a left-winger like Juan Cole would call the "islamaphobe." However, like a good tabloid reporter, Saleem does capture you and bring you in. If you look at the book as a mostly true, yet sensationalized version of a Tom Clancy novel then it becomes more palatable. A solid 2 1/2 stars which, for me, is damning with faint praise. Tolerable but there's a lot better out there.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A captivating book that gives great perspective into radical Islam. However, like other reviewers this book seemed to represent more of a warning to Americans of the threat posed by Radical Islam rather then a broader discussion from the inside of such circles that committed acts like 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I truly enjoyed the way in which this book was written. Since I did not know a great deal about Islam, it was a somewhat educational read, especially when Saleem described the mindset of radical Islam. However, I question whether or not a former terrorist can ever be "reformed." All in all, the book was captivating, although I was quite disappointed in the way in which it ended. It seemed as if he couldn't think of a way to do it, so he just inserted some generic narrative.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kamal Saleem is the pseudonym for a man who was raised in as a Radical Islam only to become a Christian American Citizen. His memory tells of his journey through life alternating chapters between his childhood and his time in America. This memoir is not for the faint of heart because there are details of killings and violent missions throughout the book. This book was frightening in many ways and should be read by Americans in power.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book follows the path of Kamal Saleem from the slums of Lebanon where he is recruited into a terrorist group before the age of 10, to the palaces of Saudi Arabia where he raises funds for his terrorist group, to America where he leaves his old life behind.This book goes far into explaining why so many find terrorist groups so appealing and why so many joins. It also heightens the danger that America faces today. The author makes it abundantly clear that he was not the only one sent to America to recruit for extremist groups, and that these groups continue to flourish today, taking advantage of America's freedoms.A must read for anyone interested in terrorism and the threat America faces.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a very important book that all Americans should read. The author has more than likely ruined his life by writing it because militant Islamists will increase their efforts to find and kill him. Kamal Saleem joined the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) at the age of seven. By his early teens, he has gone on missions to smuggle weapons into Israel. Many times when he should have died, he was spared. He killed unconfessed, and probably unknown, numbers of people as part of his terrorist activities throughout the Middle East. Finally, he came to America to recruit people to Islam. He was succeeding remarkably well until an automobile accident incapacitated him. With no insurance and no family to care for him, one of his doctors took him into his home while he recuperated. There, he met the very people he had been raised to hate and kill, Christians. In spite of his best efforts to hate these people, he began to sense that truth was in them and not in the teaching of his childhood and youth. He eventually became an American citizen and married an American woman, while telling no one of his past. It was only several years after 9/11, that the truth had to come out of him as he could no longer keep silent. He gave up a lucrative career in information technology to travel the country speaking out on the threat which islamic jihad poses to America today. Read the book and draw your conclusions. I found it very scary!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Blood of the Lambs by Kamal Saleem is a perplexing read. The description of a terrorist’s lifestyle: calculated murder, extortion, bloody urban warfare and bigoted hatred was shocking but expected. However, the authenticity of the story didn't ring true with me. Mr. Saleem describes his humble, ultra-conservative Islamic upbringing as a neglected, exploited child among many siblings. His vulnerability led to his recruitment at the age of seven into the Muslim Brotherhood. As his terrorist life-style develops he is propelled into a quagmire of criminal behavior. Eventually he has a life-changing experience which causes him to reconsider his beliefs. I took extra time after finishing this book to absorb the stories Mr. Saleem presented but I had more questions than answers. How did Mr. Saleem, an uneducated child from such an unsophisticated background, develop the manners necessary to mix with the jet-set, and brush shoulders with wealthy sheikhs? How did he acquire the refinement to marry well? Where were the educational credentials that enabled his skilled careers? Red flags appear everywhere.The author contends that the purpose of his book is to warn Americans about the destructive "cancer" which is destroying the country from within while we passively and naïvely encourage cultural diversity. While I question the truthfulness and motives of this book, I do accept the premise that we must be alert citizens while living in a dangerous world.I received this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewer program. The Blood of the Lambs by Kamal Saleem kept my attention to the end but I wouldn’t recommend this book to serious readers.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I tried to read The Blood of Lambs with a completely open mind, ready to accept at face value the story of a Muslim-terrorist-turned-Christian whose new-found mission is to warn Americans of the danger of militant Muslims who are infiltrating American society; however, very early in the book, doubts began to surface, and eventually the book provoked many questions in my mind concerning not only the veracity of the story but the possible political agenda(s) which propelled its publication. It may take some time for me to sort out the concerns I have about this book. For example, although the personal anecdotes that make up the bulk of the book are probably true, they just don't feel like they all happened to the same person. Furthermore, I was frankly surprised by the polished professional writing style which seems to reach beyond the parameters of good editing and unfortunately gives the narrator an artificial voice that doesn't "ring true" for me. I'm left wondering, is this an honest book? I have read more convincing and heartfelt books written with a co-author in which the co-author maintained an almost invisible position, a style which I find more satisfying than the slickness of "Kamal Saleem's" book.The issues of editing piqued my interest in the credentials of the author's collaborator, Lynn Vincent. The book jacket describes Ms. Vincent as a U.S. Navy veteran, "features editor at WORLD magazine and the author/collaborator of six books." A search of the Internet shows World Magazine to be "a full-color biweekly news magazine that provides complete coverage of national news and international news, written from a Christian perspective." OK, I remind myself that just because the organization she works for has a stated Christian agenda doesn't necessarily mean that she can't be a balanced and objective writer, right? Why do I feel that this book was conceived, written, and published for consumption by the conservative Christian readership in the U.S.? While looking at World Magazine's website, I noticed that they have just announced that Ms. Vincent has been chosen by Sarah Palin to co-author her memoirs and "set the record straight about her public and private life" in a book to be published by Harper Collins in Spring of 2010. OK, I tell myself again that I should try not to let things like this influence my assessment of The Blood of Lambs, but this only seems to add more misgivings to my reading of this book. The dust jacket also tells that the author's name, Kamal Saleem, is a pseudonym, yet, this gentleman (or some kind of stand-in?) makes public appearances, risking his own life to warn Americans about the encroachment of militant Islam on their own soil. The more I consider the intentions of this book, the more xenophobic and inflammatory it seems to be. Militant Islam on one side of the balance and xenophobic Christian vigilantes on the other, neither extreme can foster peace in our time.I've read some books published in the U.S. during World War II which seemed to be solidly written but were actually carefully planned as propaganda. Such books have a marvelous blend of truth and fiction which looks so much like Truth and tells people what they want to hear, yet are sadly just feeding our own prejudices and pumping up our own sense of sef-righteousness. Unfortunately, The Blood of Lambs may be this type of book.I recommend passing on this one and reading such alternatives as The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid instead.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a very disturbing book to read. Kamal Saleem paints a side of Islam that we didn't cover in our World Culture's class and its hard to know what to do with this information.As a book it is powerful, full of experiences so shocking that I found them hard to digest. This is a side of the war on terrorism that I have never heard told before. Kamal's childhood was brutal and the reader finds themself wishing someone would show this child love and decency, saving him from the vacuum of hate. At times Blood of Lambs is exciting, at others terrifying, and eventually redemptive. I recommend it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Kamal Saleem details his life growing up, the incidents leading him to terrorism, his life as a terrorist, and eventually his retirement.What I have found most interesting about Saleem's story is what led him to terrorism. Nothing so grandiose, nothing that had him shaking his fist at the sky swearing revenge because of some despicable acts. It was much more mundane. Saleem, in short, fell into it. He grew up in a poor, devout Muslim family. As part of his upbringing he would be taught stories and lessons from the Koran every week and a gerat many of these stories involved warriors slaying Allah's enemies in battle, usually Jews and Christians (bigoted teachings aside, he did have Christian friends, it being Beirut in the 60s). Naturally, Saleem being a young boy, would day dream endlessly about being a warrior and fighting glorious battles for Allah. Eventually, his family becomes too poor to support his education and he is forced to work for his uncle across town. Saleem would walk across town through various bad neighborhoods encountering bullies of the worst sort who would beat him mercilessly and steal from him. One day he runs into a mosque and the imams offer him protection. In fact, they offer him more. The imams make Saleem show him where his bullies live and torment him and they in turn torment his bullies and their familes. As it turns out, the imams he encounters were all members of the Muslim Brotherhood. And from there, it goes. The imams speak with his family, and Saleem begins attending their mosque on a regular basis, becoming radicalized. Soon enough, he is running weapons into Israel for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.And on it goes.What's striking is that the reasons for Saleem's radicalization is actually very mundane. The surrounding Islamic culture inculcates a steady diet of anti-semitism and anti-Americanism, but the boy is too naive to really let it sink in. He defies his parents and plays games with neighborhood Christian children (even though he thinks they're all going to hell). In the beginning, and even sometime after, he's a simple child who sees the world in childlike ways, seeking childlike things. He seeks simple affection and recognition, all things taken advantage of by the Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah. This here is the chief issue that needs to be understood when dealing with these groups that so many are willing to turn a blind eye towards and that so few have dared to speak up about. That Islamist terrorists truly do hate more than they love their children.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kamal Saleem was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1958. At the age of seven, he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and soon after joined Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO. His book The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist’s Memoir of Death and Redemption alternates between the story of his youth as a member of Fatah and his present day actions. At seven, he began smuggling weapons into Israel and soon moved on to combat missions. He participated in extortions, kidnappings, bombings, murders, and the usual terrorist activities as he moved up in the Fatah ranks. At the age of 16, he went to Libya for advanced terror training in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s training camps. He returned home just prior to the start of the Lebanese civil war and spent several years fighting along the Beirut’s Green Line. He was eventually sent to Saudi Arabia to raise money for the PLO, which he was apparently very successful at, collecting large donations from wealthy oil Sheikhs. He returned to Lebanon and was involved in a mission to steal SA-7 SAMs from Syria; once they were stolen, he helped transport them into Afghanistan for use against the Soviets. While in Afghanistan Mr. Saleem shot down a Soviet bomber with one of the SA-7s. In 1981, he came to the United States in an effort to radicalize American Muslims, which he continued to do until 1985. In 1985, he was involved in a serious auto accident and broke two vertebrae in his neck. After spending a week in the hospital, his doctor asked him if he would like to continue his recovery at the doctor’s home. Mr. Saleem agreed and moved in with the doctor’s family while he continued to heal. By 1990, he had converted to Christianity and married an American woman. He never told her or anyone about his terrorist past. In 2004, he decided he needed to speak out about the dangers of radical Islam and its ties to terrorism. Intermixed with the above story are incidents that occurred during his speaking tour in 2007-2008. Most of the incidents involve threats of some sort made against him or his family.In the first chapter, Mr. Saleem describes an incident that occurred in Chino, California in 2007. I have been in law enforcement for almost 20 years, so I know a little about security and I have a hard time believing the event he described actually happened or at least happened as he described. This caused me to question the truthfulness of everything that came after. All of the events Mr. Saleem describes could have happened and they all could have happened to him but his first chapter makes me wonder. With this in mind, I question how Mr. Saleem could have risen so high in Fatah at such a young age and how he managed to be involved in so many different actions in such a short time. While I questioned Mr. Saleem’s trustworthiness, I thought the story was well told and it kept me interested. Right up to the point where he moved in with the doctor’s family. While, I found it unlikely that such an event would occur, what really got me was the doctor’s explanation for the offer, “We just want to show you the love of God”. I read that and said; “You have got to be kidding” however it got worse. The scene describing the doctor’s children meeting Mr. Saleem sounded like a scene with Rod and Todd Flanders from The Simpsons. Moreover, to finish it off, god spoke to him.Mr. Saleem mentions in his book that critics have accused him of fabricating his story, alleging he was never a terrorist, nor a Muslim. The supposed purpose of this is to discredit his warnings about radical Islam. I think his warnings are valid, but I don’t know if his story is.This book was received from Library Thing Early Reviewer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was excellent. Saleem gives the viewer an insiders view not only to Arabic Cultures and Islam but, into the minds of terrorists. This work helps the reader to understand how thousands of years of conflict between Islam, Judaism and Christianity have effected not only Western society, but the societies of many Middle Eastern nations. This book is also a testament to the idea that people can change.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kamal Saleem's memoir is a horrifying, touching, thought-provoking work. His warning and his outlook on the future are chilling, so much so because of the personal knowledge of the hatred that can be bred by ignorance, poverty, guile, and zealotry. The matter-of-fact tone makes even the most incredible details believable. The lack of preaching for his new religion and the continued allowance that there are good people in his previous faith keep the book seeming fair. While the authors strong emotions are easy to feel, the book does not present itself as a work of radicalism of any form, rather something the author truly hopes will help people to protect themselves.The short chapters make the book a quick read and the (explained) arabic words add to the overall ambiance of the story. The jumps in the timeline do not seem to occur for obvious reasons at points, but the clearly defined time and place of each section of the book keep it from being a confusing transition. For anyone interested in terrorism, the whys of it or how great the possible dangers continue to be, I highly recommend this work.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "The Blood of Lambs" byy Kamal Saleem is an amazing, must read book from start to finish. It is a memoir about a former terrorist's life. Since it is a memoir, everything contained in the book must be taken with a grain of salt because the author will be inherantly somewhat biased. However, that being said, I believe the author does try to provide the reader with an honest view of what being a terrorist was like. The purpose of this book is to inform the reader and open up their eyes that the danger to America is not gone but in fact real and present.The chapters in this book are short, exactly like "The DaVinci Code", which makes the book an even faster read. I could not put this book down once I began it. It grabs the reader immediately and they are drawn into this dangerous world. Since the purpose of this book was not just to tell the story of one former terrorist's life but to inform and warn the readers, it succeeded. The reader cannot finish this book without feeling a little chill in their spine about the future. This book definitely provides a wakeup call for all of those who have become complacent since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America.This is an amazing memoir and I highly recommend it to everyone. It is one of those books you can't put down once you begin. Also this book has a good point it's trying to make which makes this book even more worth the read.

Book preview

The Blood of Lambs - Kamal Saleem

Chino, California

2007

1

Leaving the auditorium, we rolled through Southern California sunshine in a pair of black Yukons. Zakariah in the rear vehicle, me in the lead, and six 9 mm handguns between the two. People born in this country might not think weapons are necessary when returning from a speaking engagement. I know differently. When I was with the PLO, our special unit assassinated a grand imam on his way home from leading evening prayer.

Five minutes to the hotel. The security men riding with us were off-duty law enforcement and antiterrorist agents—six locals, each with a Sig Sauer or Glock concealed beneath his plain shirt or jacket. Back at the venue, Jack, our host, had introduced these men only by first name.

Kamal, this is John, Jack said to me as we stood in a huge empty auditorium built on an oasis campus of palm and trickling fountains that reminded me of a safe house villa where I had once hidden in Spain. He’ll be heading up security for you this afternoon.

About three dozen men in plainclothes gathered loosely around me, Zakariah, and our friend Walid, waiting to be assigned their posts. Four plainclothes policemen stood in the background. An unusual amount of armed security for three civilians, but certain jihadists were growing tired of our little road show. Already Walid had been threatened dozens of times. Zak had been severely beaten twice and once almost beheaded. He had moved six times in six years—once out of the country—to protect his family from those who wished to silence him.

Blond and blue-eyed, John shook my hand with a firm grip and looked me in the eye. While you’re speaking, I’ll be standing right beside you, he said, his muscled frame squaring the shoulders of his sport jacket. I guessed him to be off-duty SWAT. If anything happens, run straight toward me. I’ll get you out.

I believed him.

Now, three minutes from the hotel, John sat beside me in the Yukon’s leather backseat, talking quietly over the headrest with a dark-haired agent whose large head nearly scraped the roof over the passenger seat. Outside the window to my right, I saw planned communities and business districts skating by. I wondered how Zak liked the scenery in California and whether Walid had made his plane on time. When the driver stopped at a traffic light, John’s low murmuring also stopped as each agent scanned the area. But the only movement was to our left, in a small, pine-shaded park with kids on swings. Two women watched them from a park bench, laughing.

Sleeping, I thought. Sleeping through an invasion that is already underway.

Zak, Walid, and I had delivered our message to an audience of three thousand. People filled the overflow rooms and even sat outside on the stamped-concrete terraces, listening on loudspeakers. Zak, a Koran scholar who had once assassinated a man by flinging him from a Lebanese rooftop, explained the theology of jihad. Walid, a Bethlehem-born, former terrorist who was now a U.S. citizen, discussed Islamic-Jewish hatred. I told the audience how I had been recruited into the Muslim Brotherhood at age seven and how at age twenty-three I had crossed the Atlantic, on a mission to destroy America from the inside out.

All three of us had abandoned jihad, each for a different reason and by a different road. When we finished telling our stories, the audience rose and showered us with waterfalls of applause. For a moment, my heart was glad. But I also knew most would drive off and discuss the 3 Ex-Terrorists over lunch or Starbucks. Then they would rejoin the national slumber, the comfortable sleep of prosperity.

They would not remember what I had told them about Al-Anfâl—Koran, Sura 8, The Spoils of War—in which Allah counsels his warriors to be patient. Or that I had told them the invaders had already breached America’s borders and were spreading. Silently. Lethally. Like a cancer.

In the Yukon, we rolled again. After several blocks, the driver turned in at a hotel where Zak and I had checked in the day before. As the driver glided past the glassed lobby, I froze.

Two men standing on the sidewalk locked eyes with me. One was Middle Eastern. The other looked Pakistani. Both carried canvas tote bags—not luggage. Both men bolted through the sliding glass doors into the lobby. Inside, a half-dozen more men rose from their seats.

Instantly, my muscles tensed for battle, heart thumping, hands tingling.

The men with tote bags nodded in our direction.

John spotted them. Code Red, he said. That’s a Code Red!

The driver braked to a halt. On a handheld radio, John relayed the alert to the rear Yukon. I saw the two men striding rapidly out of the lobby and toward the hotel interior. Toward my room.

It had been more than twenty years since my last armed mission, but my right hand now screamed for the familiar, comforting weight of a gun.

John turned sharply to me: Stay here. Do not leave this vehicle. Then, to the agent up front: Let’s move.

Weapons already drawn, each man chambered a 9 mm round, kicked open his door, and jumped to the pavement. Glancing behind me, I saw two more agents spill from Zak’s vehicle. John and a man from the rear vehicle jogged into the lobby, holding their weapons beside their legs.

Hotel guests backed away with wide, frightened eyes. John and the other agent scanned the room and in four long strides reached the lobby desk. I could see a young woman behind it talking with him and pointing.

The other agents fanned out in the parking lot, feeling the hoods of cars, checking for recent arrivals. I watched as they read license plate numbers into their radios.

I did not like my exposed position. Looking up, I could see row after row of hotel windows with direct lines of sight to the Yukon roofs. The men had dispersed into, not out of, the hotel. I flashed back to Lebanon. How many times had I fired an RPG from elevation and watched a vehicle below erupt into shrapnel and flame?

This could be it.

When somebody runs from you in a war, it does not mean they are afraid of you. What preparations are they running toward? What button are they running to push? Who is lying in wait? In urban warfare, if you cannot take cover, sometimes the smartest move is aggression. I itched to burst out of the Yukon and join the hunt.

Head swiveling, I scanned the windows, the parking lot, the lobby. My mind whirled and I tensed, half expecting the searing whine of an incoming RPG, something that had not been seen in the streets of America. Yet.

But then, until 2001, America—my adopted country—had not seen jets used as missiles. Until 2001, she had never seen skyscrapers dissolve into avalanches. She had never seen thousands of innocent civilians murdered at once. Yet even with the horrific impact of 9/11, America did not understand what I knew: that the invasion was on. The enemy already lurked inside her walls, the cancer of jihad seething through her inner cities, her prisons, her small, sleepy towns. And while the cancer ate and ate, metastasizing in the intellectual centers, the elite stood on the ramparts screaming, Peace! Peace! They closed their eyes, willfully blind, accomplices in the rape of their own nation.

I knew because I had helped to cause it. I had planned it. I came here, funded by Islamists in the Arab countries, willing to die for this glorious invasion. To someday see blood running in American streets.

2

Twenty minutes passed before John and his agents returned to the Yukon outside the Holiday Inn. John opened the rear door, and I saw he had holstered his weapon.

We checked the hotel, the public areas, the parking lots. No sign of them, he said. No Middle Eastern names on the hotel register. They probably checked in under western names. We notified Chino PD, SWAT, and the FBI SAIC of suspicious activity.

SAIC. Special Agent in Charge. I knew the term well from staying off the FBI’s radar in my former life.

I called Jack, John said. He thinks we should move you and Zak to another hotel.

I was tired from traveling, but unwilling to take chances. Good idea.

John shut the Yukon door and walked back to the lobby to wait while the agent driving the Yukon pulled under the portico. Walking in the center of a knot of six agents, I passed through the lobby and down the first-floor corridor that ran off to the left. Now three agents moved ahead of me and three fell back.

We passed the open door of a travelers’ business center on the left. Empty.

Then past a sitting room and a small gym with a glass door on the right. No one.

My room was next, on the left.

It’s open, one of the agents said, a tense whisper. The door is open!

Adrenaline surged through me. Sounds of cycling steel as all six agents drew their weapons and one man pushed me against the far wall. Two agents flattened themselves against the wall on each side of the door. John knelt before the door, gun raised. I felt naked and wished again for a weapon.

Hand and eye signals passed between the men. On a silent count, John rose up and kicked the door wide open.

Two agents knelt in the door frame, sweeping their weapons in a room-clearing arc. Two agents stood above.

Empty.

John crossed the carpet and checked the bathroom. He turned to us and shook his head. Nothing.

I was not so sure. My mind whirred, flipping back through what I would have done in the same situation. Rig the lamp switch with explosives? Lace the toothbrush with poison? Put a tank mine under a couch cushion?

Touch nothing, I said.

3

John and his men listened as I quietly explained that in Fatah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, when we missed our mark, we did not give up. Instead, we resorted to booby traps. As the security team looked on, I threw away all my toiletries, checked under my luggage for wires, stuffed in my robe and slippers, latched it, and walked out of the room.

An hour later, Zak and I were traveling across the city. The agents deposited us in a nameless hotel on the other side of Chino. Satisfied that we had not been followed, the security team swept the room and left. Now, sitting in an overstuffed chair facing the bolted door, I had time to think. I wondered if there was a Kamal, another me, among those Middle Easterners at the Holiday Inn. A man with a heart like I used to have, who would stop at nothing to fulfill his mission for Allah. A zealot whose very heart was a wick on which the flame of jihad burned.

If so, would I still be alive in the morning?

I stared at the back of the hotel-room door. How many had I seen since I came out from the shadows, since I revealed to my American wife my secret past, since I started speaking out against radical Islam?

Nearly thirty years before, empowered by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), I had come to America. From the Koranic teaching of my youth, I knew that by infiltrating the American education system, overrunning its universities and jails, and swarming its poor neighborhoods, my jihadist brothers and I could usher in Umma—one world under Islam. It would be, as Americans like to say, a piece of cake.

I had worked odd jobs as cover only, since I was being well paid by Middle Eastern sheikhs. While on the jihadist side, I came to realize that the strength of the American people and infrastructure is also its weakness. An open society with constitutionally protected freedom of speech and religion, which prides itself on its embrace of foreign cultures, was the perfect place to teach a message of hatred in broad daylight. I was a master at reaching the poor and those who perceived themselves oppressed. I taught them that Allah cared for them. I found them jobs, mentored them, and invited them to fellowship with my jihadist brothers, who all the while never mentioned jihad. Once the converts were hooked, we turned them over to the imams at small apartment mosques to be radicalized.

Now, sitting in the hotel room, I knew I had introduced a deadly disease into an unsuspecting host. The human body does not know when a cancer is growing within. It hums happily along, seeming to function normally. Even when the immune system performs its routine protective scans, it does not recognize the cancer cell as a threat because the cell itself takes on the aspect of its neighbors, fooling the body for months and sometimes years. But over time, the cancer spreads and then becomes dominant, until finally it brings the host to the point of death.

So is radical Islam to America. Now I was speaking out against it. And apparently had become a target. Some might call it poetic: the cancer had circled back to one of its makers.

My mission could have ended today, I thought.

I thought about my wife, my children. What if they had been with me? What if there had been an attack? Should I stop? Should I stop telling America to wake up? To rise up and fight?

When I met my American wife, I was unprocessed, like the minerals in a rock. She saw something in me I did not know was there. Was it goodness? I did not think that was quite the right word. But she knew if she could chisel it out, if she could polish it, it might shine. I could not risk losing her. And yet she was the one who kept me going forward with my message.

It’s the right thing to do, Kamal, Victoria often said.

If she was not afraid, how could I be afraid? Yet I knew how deadly these people were. Their blood was darkness and they had no tears. They were not only willing to die, but hoping to die, to be ushered into the presence of Allah and the glorious rewards of al-shaheed, the martyrs.

On the clock beside the bed, red numbers flickered past. Throughout the long watch of the night, I stared at the door, certain that any moment the knob would silently turn.

Beirut, Lebanon

1963

1

It was at my mother’s kitchen table, surrounded by the smells of herbed olive oils and pomegranates, that I first learned of jihad. Every day, my brothers and I gathered around the low table for madrassa, our lessons in Islam. I always tried to sit facing east, toward the window above the long marble sink where a huge tree with sweet white berries brushed against the window panes. Made of a warm, reddish wood, our table sat in the middle of the kitchen and was surrounded by tesats, small rugs that kept us off the cool tile. Mother sat at the head of the table and read to us from the Koran and also from the hadith, which records the wisdom and instruction of Allah’s prophet, Muhammad.

Mother’s Koran had a hard black cover etched ornately in gold and scarlet. Her grandfather had given the Book to her father, who had given it her. Even as a small boy I knew my mother and father were devout Sunni Muslims. So devout, in fact, that other Sunnis held themselves a little straighter in our family’s presence. My mother never went out without her hijab, only her coffee-colored eyes peering above the cloth that shielded her face, which no man outside our family had ever seen. My father, respected in our mosque, earned an honest living as a blacksmith. He had learned the trade from my grandfather, a slim Turk who wore a red fez, walked with a limp, and cherished thick, cinnamon-laced coffee.

Each day at madrassa, Mother pulled her treasured Koran from a soft bag made of ivory cloth and when she opened it, the breath of its frail, aging pages floated down the table. Mother would read to us about the glory of Islam, about the good Muslims, and about what the Jews did to us. As a four-year-old boy, my favorite parts were the stories of war.

I vividly remember the day in madrassa when we heard the story of a merciless bandit who went about robbing caravans and killing innocent travelers. "This bandit was an evil, evil man," Mother said, spinning the tale as she sketched pictures of swords for us to color.

An evil bandit? She had my attention.

One day, there was a great battle between the Jews and the sons of Islam, she went on. The bandit decided to join the fight for the cause of Allah. He charged in on a great, black horse, sweeping his heavy sword left and right, cutting down the infidel warriors.

My eyes grew wider. I held my breath so as not to miss a word.

The bandit fought bravely for Allah, killing several of the enemy until the sword of an infidel pierced the bandit’s heart. He tumbled from his horse and died on the battlefield.

Disappointment deflated my chest. What good is a story like that?

I could hear children outside, shouting and playing. A breeze from the Mediterranean shimmered in the berry tree. Mother’s yaknah simmered on the stove—green beans snapped fresh, cooked with olive oil, tomato, onion, and garlic. She would serve it cool that evening with pita bread, fresh mint, and cucumbers. My stomach rumbled.

After the bandit died, Mother was saying in her storytelling voice, his mother had a dream. In this dream, she saw her son sitting on the shore of an endless crystal river, surrounded by a multitude of women who were feeding him and tending to him.

I turned back toward Mother. Maybe this story was not so bad after all.

The bandit’s mother was an observant woman, obedient to her husband and to Allah and Muhammad, my mother said. "This woman knew her son was a robber and a murderer. ‘How dare you be sitting here in paradise?’ she scolded him. ‘You don’t belong here. You belong in hell!’ But her son answered, ‘I died for the glory of Allah and when I woke up, He welcomed me into jannah.’"

Paradise.

My mother swept her eyes around the kitchen table. So you see, my sons, even the most sinful man is able to redeem himself with one drop of an infidel’s blood.

2

Through one window of our flat in West Beirut, the blue Mediterranean smiled up at me, not more than two kilometers away. That was my dreaming window. From that cinderblock frame upon the world, I gazed across the rooftops where children played, old men smoked, and drying clothes flapped in the sunlight.

Even as a child, I knew the proud history of my country. My grandmother, Fatima, would tell me stories about the ancient coastal kingdoms and the peoples who used to line the shores of Lebanon, like the Phoenicians, the swarthy maritime traders in Tyre and Sidon. Although my country had been conquered many times, it was often under the siege of mighty warriors like Alexander the Great, a fact that always fired my boyhood imagination.

Even the great King Nebuchadnezzar took thirteen years to conquer Lebanon, my grandmother once told me. I later learned that Lebanon had been annexed to Rome and conquered by France, but she always fought bravely and when beaten rose again.

To the modern ear, Beirut means war and smoking ruins. But the Beirut of my childhood was a lush jewel encircled in a green mountain embrace. Century after century, the tread of foreign feet had turned it into a seaside feast of cultures and religions. The Jews, the Christians, the Sunni and Shia Muslims, and the Druze all worshipped freely, in separate neighborhoods that melted one into another. In my neighborhood alone, I could see the imprint of many nations. Cafes sold filet mignon bordelaise, a French dish; Greek baklava; shish tawook, Turkish chicken on a skewer; and from America, Wimpy Burgers.

From my dreaming window I could see the hills by the seashore where my family went each spring to picnic in the fields. Mama would take scissors with her for cutting wild herbs while my brothers and I ran across the meadows flying brightly colored kites. From my window, I could also see white sailing ships sliding into port. I imagined the wealthy passengers: cream-suited gentlemen smoking fine cigars and fair-skinned ladies who smelled brazenly of musk and roses and did not cover their heads. If I passed such a woman in the streets, my mother taught me, I was to avert my eyes and hold my breath so that her sinful odor didn’t spark sin of my own.

I thought about the tourists and the places they came from: Britain. Italy. Germany. France. When the cruise ships set sail again, their foghorns lowed, wooing me with an invitation. At night, as I lay awake with my brothers in our tiny living room, the salt breeze carried the sound in through my dreaming window. To me, it was the voice of the sea, vast and colossal where the moon touched the water, promising a freedom bigger than our three-room flat.

When you are a very small child, you do not know you are poor. Early on, when I had only four, and not ten, brothers and sisters, we were clean and well-fed. I did not think it was remarkable that we had only one bedroom for a family of seven, that we pulled out mattresses in the living room each night, arranged them like puzzle pieces for sleeping, and stuffed them away in a metal cabinet each morning. I did not notice that our only light was a naked bulb dangling from a wire attached to our high Lebanese ceiling, or how infrequently we ate meat, or how carefully my mother pressed the olives, sure to squeeze out every drop of oil.

I did not get to go outside in the street to play very often because Mother looked down on the street people and thought them of a lower class. But I loved the street kids; and the rare times she let me go out, I had the time of my life. My friends—Hisham, Marie, and my best friend Eli—and I played Cowboys and Indians and Germans and Americans. The Germans and the Indians always won—our small revenge against the Americans, whom we had heard were generally a loud and dirty people.

My favorite game was seven stones. The children broke into teams and stacked seven square stones in a tower. Each team rolled tennis balls at the tower to try and knock it over, and the team that knocked it over had to rebuild it before getting pinged out with more tennis balls. I loved that game, and a couple of times I snuck out of the house to play it while Mother was taking a nap.

That ended when I got caught. Mother beat me with a stout, knobby switch from a pomegranate tree. She used to order a stack of these from my Uncle Mahmoud every year. She kept them on a high shelf in the entry way, where we could see them every time we entered the house. The day I snuck out to play seven stones, she gave me the worst kind of beating—smacking the bottoms of my feet, each blow causing fire to light up in my brain. But my mother was fair in her judgment: if she beat one of us, she beat everyone. Her reasoning was that if one of us was doing a crime, the rest of us were thinking about doing it.

Whenever I scraped together a few kroosh, I gave the money to my brother and asked him to buy me comic books. Batman and Superman took me outside of madrassa, giving me a different window on life. I carried my treasures to my hiding place, an attic storage area above the bathroom, and escaped from the world for awhile. I also remember a book I had from Egypt about child spies, kids who knew how to decode phone numbers and who rode fast, powerful motorcycles. They were devastatingly clever: if they wanted to know someone’s nationality, for example, they would watch to see which flag the person saluted.

I looked forward to the Muslim festivals, Adha and Ramadan. During Adha, people went on a pilgrimage to the mountains to make sacrifices for their sins. During Ramadan, we fasted for thirty days then celebrated like crazy for three. Before those celebrations, Mother baked all day long, kneading dough and mixing it in huge copper pots. All of us children helped, waking before sunrise to line up along the marble counter and around the low kitchen table.

Kamal, crush these very finely, Mother would say, dumping a kilo of pistachio meats on the table before me. I loved helping in this way, the scent of nuts and dough and pastry glazes wrapping around me like a comforting blanket. Amira, my oldest sister, chopping the spinach for fatire, small pies. My oldest brother, Fouad, browning meats for the sanbousick, meat pies. Ibrahim smashing dates for baklava—my mother would make six different kinds.

Laughter filled our tiny kitchen during these times, the pink sun warming us through the window as it rose.

3

When I was small, I was awakened most mornings by the smoky scents of brewing Turkish coffee and my father’s Italian cologne. He bought this elixir by the liter and slapped it on after showering in the chilly water that ran under Beirut from the springs of Jabal Sunnin. Each day, before the sun peeked over the mountains, Father left for his blacksmith shop, and all day long I looked forward to his homecoming. In the evenings, he would scoop me up in a hug, and I could smell the metal dust on his skin, the masculine scents of iron and fire.

I always loved climbing on my father’s back, holding onto his big thick neck. He had a French moustache, thin, not thick, sitting just on top of his lips.

I liked to run my finger over it. Daddy, when I grow up will I have a moustache like you? I would ask.

Fifty times I asked him that and yet each time, he would smile and say, Yes, my son, you will have one just like mine one day.

My father almost always arrived home after sunset, almost always carrying two leather sacks filled with fresh vegetables and grains from the market, or souk. One day over a family dinner in the kitchen, when I was about six years old, Father looked at me across the table where I sat between Fouad and Ibrahim.

Kamal, would you like to go to work with me tomorrow?

Joy surged through my heart and that night I could hardly sleep, my anticipation percolating in me as though I were going to a great feast. It was before sunrise when Mother rousted me from the couch in the living room. I could already smell the coffee and Father’s cologne, and I heard ice-laced rain pelting against the windows. Mother double-dressed me, pulling Ibrahim’s trousers and shirt over my pajamas. She had made for me a special hat of a shape she had seen in pictures from Tunisia. It was shaped like a ship, pointed in the front and back, wide around the middle, and trimmed in fake fur.

When I stepped outside with Father, an icy wind snapped at my ears. I could hear the ice pinging down on tin roofs. My father tried to cover us both with his good umbrella.

The blacksmith shop was in an area called Zaytoon, not far from the Mediterranean, set between an area called St. George Chalet and the Valley of the Jews. When we reached it, Father used a key to unhinge a great padlock, then rolled up the door, which rattled its way to the top.

I hurried inside out of the biting wind and into the dark place that smelled like my father. Quickly, he exchanged his street clothes for blue work pants and a khaki shirt. Right away he began building up a fire of rock coals, not wood, in two big barrels. In Father’s shop, everything was manual, nothing was electric. In the middle of the wall, high up, two huge barrels created pressure, and Father used the big chain dangling from the ceiling to pump heavy air into the ovens.

I stood watching him in awe as he strode back and forth across the floor, yanking tarps off the machinery and bringing the shop to fiery life.

Soon the coals glimmered in the furnaces, sending off an orange glow. The shop radiated with dry heat and Father took his shirt off. Suddenly, I saw him in a new light. Covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his skin reflected the fire’s copper glow. He was muscular, cut all over, his torso the shape of a sharp V, with wide shoulders narrowing to a trim waist and a hard belly that rippled in the shape of my mother’s washboard. His arms were thicker than all of me. The heat in the room ignited the smell of his cologne, and it mixed with that of the metal. Suddenly, I realized the strength of my father and pride swelled my heart.

At that moment, he flashed me a smile; and a great warmth, far beyond the heat of any furnace, flooded through me. To me, my father was everything a man is supposed to be.

4

My father did not teach madrassa often, but would sit in during especially important lessons. I remember the day we learned about the seventy-two virgins. My brothers—Fouad, Ibrahim, Omer—were there and also my mother’s brothers, Uncle Khalid and Uncle Shafiq. My mother sat quietly at the end of the table while Father told us a story from the hadith about a man who charged into a Jewish army all alone, sacrificing himself for Allah.

"The moment he died, he woke up instantly in jannah, Father said. Allah presented him with seventy-two virgins, women who had never before been touched by a man. And each virgin also had seventy-two virgins attending her, and all these women belonged to the man who died as al-shaheed, a martyr."

Uncle Khalid winked at Fouad, who grinned widely. It seemed my oldest brother thought this was a fine arrangement. But I sat on my tesat and thought about it. Seventy-two times seventy-two? At six years old, I could not even count that high.

Father, I said, You only have one woman in the house, and you fight all the time. How are you going to be able to manage so many women?

My uncles burst out laughing, and Father smiled a little sheepishly. He thought it over for a moment, then said, The grace of Allah is sufficient.

He went on to explain that there would be no bickering or fighting in jannah. These women will attend to all your desires and needs.

So they are servants? I said.

No, they are , virgin women. They will not be angels, but not human, either. They will be there to meet your heart’s desire.

I knew what he meant. My friends had told me a million versions of how sex was done. Also, I had seen sheep and goats mating in the little barn behind our building.

But now I wondered: What about my mother?

I looked down the table and caught her eye. Then I turned to my father again. "You

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