In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the religious recruitment inevitably takes on a sinister slant. Yet former A&T students stress that the Muslim evangelizing there was largely spiritual and cultural, common enough throughout the Islamic world, where communal prayer is encouraged.
Students who recall Mohammed invariably describe a studious and private devotee of the library and Allah, but friendly enough in a casual way and capable of a laugh.
"All anyone knows about him is that he was in the mosque all the time," said Faisal Munifi, who studied mechanical engineering at the same time.
"He very much kept to himself," said Zitawi, now a gas station owner in the Greensboro area. "We'd see each other at the Burger King for coffee or lunch. That was our hangout.... He was always polite. He wasn't a funny guy, but when he's talking to you, you feel like he's smiling. He wasn't rude or anything."
Nor did Mohammed spout anti-Western or anti-American rhetoric. "Something must have happened later that caused that feeling," said Hindieh, who knew Mohammed at both Chowan and Greensboro. "I never remember him saying anything like that."
There is an unmistakable similarity between descriptions of Mohammed and the later accounts of the men, like Mohamed Atta, he sent to attack the United States: all Western-educated scions of middle-class Arab families; dedicated young men from discerning backgrounds who came to embrace a volatile creed of religion, politics and resentment.
By the end of 1986, after just 2 1/2 years, Mohammed had completed his work. He graduated Dec. 18, one of 28 mechanical engineering graduates, almost a third of them Middle Easterners. As at Chowan, there is no photo of him in the yearbook.
None of almost a dozen faculty members in the department from that era recalled Mohammed. For most of his classmates and teachers, the future terrorist mastermind with a $25-million price on his head did not cast a long shadow, if any at all.
Peshawar: The Call
Jihad, Abdullah Azzam wrote, is the way of everlasting glory, and the only way to get there is behind the barrel of a gun. "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues," he said.
Azzam, more than any man, created the modern notion of a Muslim's duty to wage war against all comers in order to reestablish the reign of Islam on Earth. It is a duty, he said, that commands all Muslims to its banner.
