WHITE MUSLIM:
FROM LA, TO NEW YORK… TO JIHAD?
by Brendan Bernhard
Publication Date: February 15, 2006
$12.95
ISBN 0-9766583-5-6

It seemed the height of perversity: In response to the horrific September 11th attacks, one young American decided to convert to Islam.

And when, by chance, reporter Brendan Bernhard came upon him leaning on his cab outside a storefront mosque on New York’s Lower East Side, he was struck by the very sight: Charles was a handsome, blue-eyed Californian from the L.A. suburbs, dressed in an all-white tunic, with a big smile and charming manner... preaching a particularly severe form of Islam.

Intrigued, Bernhard plunged into the story. Were people like Charles, or like John Walker Lindh—the young Californian captured fighting with the Taliban—simply malcontents?

What Bernhard uncovered was more complex, surprising, and worldwide: a huge mosque on New York’s Upper East Side, packed with thousands of people and more waiting to get in; an Australian would-be jihadist shocked to find himself having dinner with “that bloke on the telly,” Osama bin Laden; rising numbers of Hispanic converts; deepening unrest in the suburbs of London and Paris.

Interviewing other converts – a middle-aged Jewish professor, a trendy twenty-something in Tribeca – as well as charismatic imams, security experts, and more, Bernhard’s White Muslim probes this unexpected subculture in a penetrating investigation that asks: Is this something to fear?

BRENDAN BERNHARD is a staff writer for LA Weekly who has also written for the New York Times, Spin, Buzz, Gear, and the New York Sun. He has been a finalist for a PEN West Journalism Award, and has won numerous awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. He lives in New York City.