Christian Muslim

A Christian Muslim American:

Sovay tells me -- and sends a link to back it up -- that our self-described "Muslim American" was a recent convert to Christianity, although he had stopped attending church and turned up at an Islamic center not long before the shooting.

He told the Christian group he'd joined that he'd 'seen too much anger in Islam,' which prompted his conversion. Assuming that statement is accurate, we can read that his community of faith in earlier days was not of the more moderate Islamic type. We all know, having seen it played out in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that the angrier sort of imam declares that apostasy is punishable by death and damnation.

If I were a journalist, and could manage an interview, I'd ask him about this. Was this the act of a man who had been raised to believe that apostates went to Hell -- who then left the faith due to concerns about its anger -- and then began to fear for his soul? What if the old imams were right? Would that prompt him to stop attending those Christian meetings -- to return to Islamic centers -- and then, raised to believe in the angry Islamic way, to try to redeem his soul with blood?

The story also says he had trouble holding a job, and was confusing to those who knew him. It's likely that the main thing behind the shooting was his own instability, rather than Islamic teachings.

On the other hand, we've also seen this model before -- in Palestinian suicide bombers, particularly the female ones. Many times they have (as he had) advanced education and good prospects. They often carry out their attacks mainly because of points of honor -- because they have been raised to believe that only in this way can they remove some stain on their soul.

It would be worth asking if that is the case here. We ought to find out -- if we can -- why he felt he should kill in Islam's name, by declaring himself a Muslim just before he opened fire.