Summaries

Synopsis

Synopsis

What makes a person willing to kill and die for their religion ?

What social, economic and political environments create the mindset of a Jihadist, especially an American one? American JIhadist is a look at militant Islam through the eyes of an American who fought for it.Isa Abdullah Ali, aka Clevin Raphael Holt, is intriguing because he grew up in the ghettos of Americas capitol and was surrounded by physical and psychological violence from the very beginning. American Jihadist looks at what role violence and a lack of hope for the future play in the development of radicalism. The film reaches beyond easy labels to grasp the nuances behind one mans decision to fight for his religion.

American Jihadist is the story of Isa Abdullah Ali, an African- American Muslim from the ghettos of Washington, DC, labeled a known terrorist by the U.S. Defense Department though hes never been charged with any crime. Ali fought for six years in Lebanon and Bosnia and was shot multiple times for, as he puts it, the pleasure of God by taking a stand to help the ill treated and oppressed.

What makes a person willing to pick up a gun for their religion? Are the underlying causes purely religious? Or might religious militancy be a means of addressing chronic social, economic and political issues? And what do the answers mean for the wider Islamic World? These questions underlie American Jihadist.

Ali turned his personal quest for justice into an international struggle: He briefly joined the Jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets and then, seeing reflections of his own struggles in the plight of the Lebanese Shiites, he became the only American Muslim known to have fought in Lebanons bloody civil war. He served for five years with the Amal militia as a sniper and street fighter. In 1986, he barely survived an assassination attempt when he was gunned down on a Beirut street.

By the time Ali was wounded he had grown disillusioned with the infighting that ripped Lebanon apart, but his war years had been the most meaningful of his life. Back in DC, he was confronted anew with the racism and poverty he had struggled so hard toovercome. He worked menial jobs as a groundskeeper and trash man for a nightclub.Suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression, he felt as though he were simply waiting to die.

In 1995, after seeing Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic proclaim on CNN that the Serbs were doing Europe a favor by eliminating Muslims, Ali found a new cause. He volunteered to fight with the Muslim-led Bosnian government and helped liber- ate much of the country from Serb occupation. In 1996, he briefly became a cause célèbre when his face appeared on wanted posters throughout Bosnia after being labeled a "known terrorist" by the Pentagon. He later turned himself in and was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Despite Ali's checkered past, he regularly travels to Washington, DC, with his current American passport. Many suspect he is working for the U.S. Government. Ali works odd jobs during the day and as security in the blues nightclub "Madam's Organ" to make money to support his wife and three kids back in Bosnia. He has vowed to fight on the behalf of the Muslim majority in Kosovo should hostilities break out in the wake of Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia.