Posted on 07/31/2006 7:34:23 PM PDT by voletti
Washington: Naveed Afzal Haq, the Pakistani-American who allegedly went on a shooting spree at a Seattle Jewish centre, it turns out, is not a Muslim but a Christian, having disavowed Islam last year.
The picture that emerges is that of a brilliant but very troubled young man who found it hard to come to terms with his environment. His conversion also seems to have sprung from the state of confusion in which he found himself. After dropping out from a dental college in New York, he returned to Seattle and obtained an engineering degree. Last year, he was arrested for “lewd” conduct at a shopping mall and bailed out by a member of the Islamic Centre.
A report in Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper described the man as an “enigma”, whose life was full of contradictions. He held a degree in electrical engineering and was the son of a successful engineer, yet he could not keep a regular job. He was smart, creative and skilled as a writer. He recently won an essay contest for a United States Institute of Peace scholarship. “Yet Haq was frustrated at his lack of friends and female companionship. He told friends he felt alienated from his own family, in part because his career had disappointed his father and also because he had disavowed Islam last year, converting to Christianity,” says the report. Haq had begun studying the Bible, attending weekly men’s spiritual group meetings, only to stop coming a few months after his baptism. He had told the group’s leader that he seen too much anger in Islam and that he wanted to find a new beginning in Christianity.
However, when he went on his shooting spree on Friday, he shouted that he was an angry Muslim because of Jewish actions. The newspaper said that he did not appear to be the fanatic religious extremist that he acted when he went on his rampage. Instead some of those who know him think his anger was really directed at problems in his personal and professional life. “Naveed had the profile of the guy who just couldn’t get things together,” Erik Neilsen, who let Haq live with him for three months in 2004, told the newspaper. He thought that several problems compounded for Haq, and he just exploded. “I wish I could have done something about it. I look back in retrospect and say ‘Is there anything I could have done?’”
Last winter, said the Post-Intelligencer, Haq began attending a weekly men’s group meeting led by a member of the Word of Faith Church in Kennewick. The group’s leader, Albert Montelongo, said Haq started studying the Bible and in December he underwent a baptism at the non-denominational church, performed by Montelongo. He said Haq accepted his new faith, though he knew that he would also be offending his own family and its deeply rooted culture.
Haq’s father, Mian Haq, was among the founders of the Islamic Centre of the Tri-Cities in Richland. Montelongo said Haq seemed depressed by the tension that had grown between him and his family. And he said Haq talked about suffering from bipolar disorder, but that he had seemed to improve in how he coped with what Montelongo described as ‘his own anger’.
A few months after he was baptised, though, Haq stopped coming to the men’s group meetings. Montelongo last heard from Haq in a message that said he was going to Seattle to find a job. He said he tried to call Haq several times but never reached him. “I don’t understand that. That throws me off from everything he was doing here,” Montelongo said. “That blew me away.”
Muhammad Kaleem Ullah, a member of the Islamic Centre of Tri-Cities, told the Seattle newspaper that Haq stopped attending regularly after he graduated from Richland High School in 1994. He said Haq would attend off and on while visiting his parents and that he surprised members on a Friday two weeks ago with a visit. “This is a totally sad day for us. This is the closest I’ve ever come to something like this,” said Kaleem Ullah. “What could have been going on in his brain has been very hard to figure out.” After high school, Haq enrolled in dentistry school at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York state, something his father encouraged. But after about four years of study, Haq decided to quit school and return home. That also created some tension between father and son, Ullah said. Instead, he went to Washington State University, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering. In March, Haq was arrested for lewd conduct at a Tri-Cities mall. It was Kaleem Ullah he called to bail him out of jail, because Haq was too embarrassed to call his own family, Kaleem Ullah said.
Haq was working as a security guard as he looked for a proper job. His friend Nielson said it seemed odd that someone with a degree in engineering had taken an unskilled job. It seemed to him that Haq had trouble keeping steady employment and that he often lacked focus in his career. His friend was of the view that Haq’s issues with family, his religion and even his social life just compounded. He said he believed his friend wanted desperately to fit into mainstream US society, but felt like an outcast in his own family.
IIRC, the whacko himself announced in the jewish centre and on 911 that he's a muslim angry at Israel.
Bullcrap!
I think it was noted that he had "drifted away" from the church he joined. OK, that makes him secular, the same as the the folks at the NYT and most network anchors.
Guess old habits are hard to break
Christian... Uh huh.... That's why he said "I AM A MUSLIM" before gunning down a bunch of women at the Federation.
Brilliant? Yeah, and other more successful terrorists must have IQs over 200.
Bull s--t!
BTW, Christians don't kill others at random. They don't hate Jews either. They believe in defending themselves, and don't equivocate when people sin and others try to avoid the effects of their sins.
Beat me to it. lol...yep, they conveniently left that part out.
Those guys in Miami planning to destroy the Sears Tower were portrayed as 'Christians' too.
did he go to mel gibson's church?
Been waiting for something like this to come out. None of the newspaper headlines have stated that a Muslim killed some jews.
No. There's no MSM conspiracy. All the news outlets are fair, balanced, neutral, etc., etc., BS, BS, BS.
I'd bet this won't be the last incident of its kind. And you can also bet that future shooters will also be converts of one sort or another. Or, we'll find out that his/her mother breast fed them in public until he/she was 15. Or, his/her father beat them sensless with the Koran day and night, bruising the brain.
In the words of Earl Pitts - "WAKE UP AMERICA!"
You can take the boy out of islam, but you can't take the islam out of the boy.
I did a search for "Naveed" and "Haq" but got no results. The article said he won an essay contest recently but I couldn't find his name at the USIP website. Drive by media at work making up stuff I suppose. http://www.usip.org/search/search?q=haq&restrict=&site=usipweb&output=xml_no_dtd&client=usipweb&proxystylesheet=usipweb
...right...and even if he did....he made his hatred of Jews known...whether Christian or Muslim...still a hate crime..
..tell that to Mel Gibson
You won't see any "Hate Crime" charges come out of this.
If anything, this guy will be coddeled (sp?) over by everyone except the victims families.
The guy who walked into the jewish center was a muslim
who converted to christianity.
The woman in the jewish center who was killed was a christian
woman who converted to judaism.
Its a crazzy world.
I know.
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