We don’t yet know the motive behind the shootings at the King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, which left ten dead. But we’re learning some telling details about the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa.
According to several of Alissa’s former high school wrestling teammates, interviewed by the Denver Post, the accused mass killer was a big angry ball of toxic masculinity. Though they didn’t use the term, they told the Post that he was “violent, short-tempered and paranoid” and that in the past he had physically attacked and threatened to murder people who challenged his fragile masculinity. According to his teammates,
He has a short fuse:
“[H]e was a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge — way too far,” former teammate Dayton Marvel told the Post.
Another former teammate, Angel Hernandez, remembered Alissa’s
dark side … If he did get ticked off about something, within a split second, it was like if something takes over, like a demon. He’d just unleash all his anger.
“He was scary to be around,” Marvel recalled.
He is acutely sensitive to slights — real or imagined. whether they were directed at his Muslim faith or his wrestling prowess (or lack thereof). The Post reports:
In 2017, Alissa, then 18, attacked a classmate at Arvada West High School, according to an affidavit filed in the case. He punched the classmate in the head without warning, and when the boy fell to the ground, Alissa continued to punch him. The classmate suffered bruises and cuts to his head, according to the affidavit.
Witnesses told police they didn’t see or hear any reason for Alissa to attack the classmate. Alissa told officers that the classmate “had made fun of him and called him racial names weeks earlier,” according to the affidavit.
He believes that violence is the solution to many of his troubles.
His attack on a classmate in 2017 wasn’t the only time he tried to solve his problems with his fists. After losing one match, Hernandez said,
Alissa got into a fight in the parking lot …
“(The other wrestler) was just teasing him and goes, ‘Maybe if you were a better wrestler, you would have won.’ (Alissa) just lost it. He started punching him,” Hernandez said.
After losing out on a spot on the varsity wrestling team, Alissa reportedly threatened to murder the whole team. Though “nobody believed hiim,” Marvel said, “we were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it.”
He is homophobic.
On a now-deleted Facebook page thought to have been Alissa’s, he reportedly “expressed anti-LGBTQ sentiments,” according to the Post.
We will almost certainly learn more about Alissa’s motives for the shooting in the coming days. But it’s already clear that toxic masculinity deserves some of the blame.
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@Ohlmann
I’m not an expert on Islam (or any subject really). I’m not a Muslim either.
I just like to read. And lately I’ve been reading The Travels of ibn Battuta. A fascinating account, though modern readers might be aghast by all the casual references to slavery.
Ibn Battuta visited the Maldives during the reign of Sultana Khadijah. And during his stay, is offered the chance to marry the daughter of a naval officer, but she rejects him. Ibn Battuta got to marry the Sultana’s mother-in-law instead, so he wasn’t that upset.
But the dress code of Maldivian women was most upsetting to ibn Battuta. As in the 14th century most Maldivian women walked around topless. The cantankerous Maghrebi Arab tried to persuade them to dress more conservatively, but they didn’t listen. Despite his reservations about the women’s modesty, ibn Battuta describes the Maldivians as pious.
Ibn Battuta also traveled to the Mali Empire during the reign of Mansa Sulaiman (brother of Mansa Musa). And in Mali, most women didn’t wear clothes at all. Yet, just like the Maldivians, ibn Battuta calls them pious Muslims. If Malinese children failed to memorize the entire Quran by heart they were harshly disciplined, but the parts about women covering their bodies seems to have been interpreted allegorically. The nude women specifically mentioned are the servants, slave girls and young daughters. Including the Mansa’s own daughters after reaching puberty. So maybe women paraded around naked to find a husband, an intriguing custom, I wouldn’t mind it returning.
Ibn Battuta had some other gripes with Mali, but he couldn’t help to be impressed by the safety enjoyed by both citizens and foreigners in the empire. Ibn Battuta had been all over the world, yet he had never seen anyone keep law & order like black people.
@Bookworm in hijab
I’m also reading The Forgotten Queens of Islam by Fatima Mernissi. Although it’s surprising light on biographical detail about the queens. I think I learned more from online sources.
Have you heard the Yogyakarta Sultanate in Indonesia may have a female Sultan soon? Many are upset the current Sultan named his daughter as heir. A major point of contention is the Sultan is supposed to be in a spiritual marriage to one Queen of the South Sea. (Indonesian Islam often has syncretic Hindu elements.) But many say a female human marrying a female spirit is queer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43806210
@ Frey,
Ooh, thank you, I will go look this up! I’ve read her book Scheherazade Goes West and loved it (and then lent it to someone, which was a terribly bad idea as I never got it back).
Seconding what you said about Ibn Battuta’s accounts of his travels, too!
Also, if you’re interested, there is a great book called Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, which is a wonderfully informative book. Content warning of course for descriptions of slavery. I am trying to remember the author’s name… I think Sylviane Diouf?
I mean, things like *waves hand at all the references in the comments to historical and contemporary Islam* are what make me get So Damn Pissed Off whenever people describe Islam and Muslims as though we share a hivemind and have a single, static, unchanging monoculture. Whenever I hear “Muslims are xyz” or “Islam is abc”, I just think…sheesh, read a history book. Or, like, modern books by Muslims. ?
@ bookworm in hijab
This actually cropped up today. Someone referred to ‘The Muslim Empire’ and of course everyone was asking “Well, which one?”. The original commentator tried to argue there was single entity. But someone (wish it had been me) made the point that under his definition, the later Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the British Empire, were just a single ‘Christian Empire’.
But anyway, for a more nuanced view, as a religious history/theology nerd, I really love this guy’s videos.
@ Alan,
Someone needs to write an alternate-history novel with this as the premise.
Except, on reflection, I think it might play a little too readily into some very nasty prejudices.
I have bookmarked that video to watch later! Oh, and thinking of your liking for Moosleemargh, do you know of the artist @yesimhotinthis ? A link: https://www.instagram.com/yesimhotinthis/
@ bookworm in hijab
I wasn’t familiar; so thank you. Some of those very much made me giggle; especially the sort of one shot ones where I got the context. There’s also one I’ll be stealing. A few people will be getting that on LinkedIn next Eid.
@Bookworm in Hijab
I once read a scifi book in which it turned out that the Roman Catholic Church was actually the Roman Empire incognito, and once stardrive was developed they went off and formed a Roman Empire IN SPACE!! which is at war with the rest of interstellar society.
DALILLAMA, WHAT?! I need the title of this book. It sounds gloriously weird!
Oh and Alan, my daughter has suggested that YesImHotInThis’s book should be her “Islam 101” handout when people ask her questions. She’s a teenager now; she’s starting to field the same kind of intrusive questions I do. ? I think a YIHIT pamphlet would be a great idea…or at least a FUN idea.
I’m very curious: which one will you be stealing to post on LinkedIn for Eid? ?
@Bookworm
It was The Tour of the Merrimack, which is apparently the beginning of a series.
@Dalaillama: I read the whole series.
Aren’t Muslim men supposed to dress modestly, too? I see guys walking around here in the summer in nothing but sleeveless t’s and short shorts, with their wives in hijab, long sleeves, long dress, maybe a veil.
And I think “Hope Allah mentions that to you after you’re dead.”
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity: ruining everything since before history.
@ bookworm in hijab
The stare at the moon one. I’ll also be using it on Facebook. You can imagine the sorts of chats that crop up around Ramadan and Eid. Some are quite surreal. Like with some of my gym bunny friends who do intermittent fasting anyway. That’s like a non smoker giving up cigarettes for Lent.
And yes, I think there’s all sorts of cartoons, and other art endeavours, that would be brilliant in an Islam 101 book. Or as the Dr chap in the video argues ‘IslamS 101’
Speaking of art, I got to see Prince Charles private collection of Islamic art once. It was pretty spectacular. Although I guess if your family is on first name terms with the King of Jordan and the Saudi royal family, you’re going to get some nice gifts.
@ GSS ex-noob,
Um…yeah, that’s not ok of them. And what gets at me most isn’t the clothing, it’s the disparity between their clothes and what their wives are wearing. I don’t judge people’s clothing choices, but I DO judge what looks to me like a double-standard.
There are reasons for this that involve the effects of colonization and how (and who) gets ahead in a society that has been colonized vs how (and who is required) to preserve traditions when a society feels its identity is threatened. I don’t want to write a huge essay on this, but a quick summary is that the way to get ahead as a guy was to embrace the colonizers’ standards. And of course that isn’t ok either…but, patriarchy, who is expected to keep the traditions alive while the menfolks are busy, uh…selling out (ok, that’s a bit mean of me; it’s more complicated than that)? The women. So with colonization we see a steep sudden decline in visible, public female scholarship, for example, because European men at the time didn’t go for that (despite their lip-service about “liberating women”). We also see dudes in western-style suits and women in traditional clothing. Add a few hundred years and it’s dudes in tshirts and women in abayas. The biggie for me isn’t the clothes, it’s the sudden restriction of women from our places in, especially, the educational/scholarly world. Once we get cut off from studying our religion for ourselves, that…sucks. A lot. Because there were A TON of female religious scholars. (http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/koran-carla-power/index.html. A relevant quote: “Women scholars taught judges and imams, issued fatwas, and traveled to distant cities. Some made lecture tours across the Middle East.”)
It is WAY more complicated than I’m presenting it in my brief semi-sarcastic summary. There’s also secularism and pan-Arabism that influenced women’s clothing choices (and a lot else besides, of course, but we’re talking about clothes); then the “revival”, or really modern interpretation, of Muslim traditional clothing that we started seeing in the 80s or so. (A lot of the older women in my community don’t wear hijab, whereas a lot of the younger women do, for example. Again, that’s complicated and is influenced by who immigrated when, and from where, and what their experiences were both here and previously.)
Ok, so I DID write an essay. I seem to do that. I’ll sum up by saying that my husband dresses very modestly, which is at least partly to not be like those dudes in their flip-flops and sleeveless tshirts, which I appreciate. In the interests of full disclosure (maybe not the best term?!) I should say that I wear abayas and hijab and I love it; I feel very comfortable and, well, rockin’. ?
@ bookworm in hijab
I like your ‘mini essay’! There’s a lot of jumping off points in the issues you raise. I’ll just briefly mention two though.
This is something that crops up with the Decolonising Diet movements. That encompasses a lot of things. But one of them is related. It’s the thing that ‘Western’ food is promoted as being progressive and forward thinking. So if you’re a hip worldly young un, you don’t eat granny’s food; you go to McDonalds. Same as you don’t dress like your dad.
I’m old enough to remember when middle eastern ‘radicalism’ (for want of a better word) was very secular. Basically just various strands of Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism etc . Hence all the collaboration between groups like the PLO, PIRA, and RAF.
As for clothing, it’s funny to recall that, outspoken atheist, Leila Khaled got a lot of pushback from conservative men for wearing the keffiyeh; it being seen as masculine dress; which is of course why she wore it.
Speaking of food based colonialism; I like that in this classic pic, the Sandinista guy is using a Pepsi bottle for his Molotov cocktail. Seems sort of apposite.
I haven’t come across that! Makes sense, though, that it would also be a thing. I have Indian friends who basically never ate their family’s cooking when at school, since they knew they’d be made fun of. And then, of course, appropriation is a thing and suddenly “foreign stuff” is cool once white/non-Muslim (or in that case white/non-Hindu) people are doing it.
Although I think curry, specifically, has a different history in England…? ?
@ bookworm in hijab
Heh, now there’s a topic you don’t want to get me started on; we’d be here for weeks.
Suffice it to say, I will just mention that the first curry house opened here in 1810; in that there London.
But as everyone knows, the best curries are from Bradford.
https://www.yorkshire.com/inspiration/features/capital-of-curry
@bookworm in a hijab
(My phone tried to change hijab into handjob so if it ever does that and I don’t notice. I’m sorry)
I have a friend who isn’t Muslim but a lot of her family is and her family went to go vists her distant family in a Muslim majority contry. She sent me this picture of her a while back cause her mom got her one of those covering dresses and head dress that covers everything but your eyes (I forget the word for it) and was like ” here you’ll be me comfortable in this here” but the picture of it she sent me was because she was wearing that while they were out someone where while her brother was standing next to her in normal western clothes which was board shorts and a tank top.
@ Elaine,
That’s a hilarious autocorrect-fail! Lol! Don’t worry, I won’t blame you.
From the sounds of it I wonder if your friend went to Saudi? The niqab (that’s the face-veil) thing kind of sounds like it. I’ve never been, though friends of mine have.
@Alan, 1810?! That is very cool. You’re probably aware of the saying/quote “The difference between the British and the Americans is that the British think 100 miles is a long way, and the Americans think 100 years is a long time.”
@bookworm in a hijab
Probably, it’s been so long ago I can’t remember where she went.
Hey Elaine, looks like we’re on at the same time! ? Yes, my friend who worked there for a while wore niqab while she was there. Still does at times.
Although with covid and masking I’m basically a niqabi-in-crowds these days myself. I’m kind of enjoying it: my skin feels much better in the cold! Anyone else finding that with masks?
@bookworm in a hijab
when it’s cold I would normally wrap a scarf around my face anyways to try and protect it from the cold. I’m hating the mask wearing right now. my skin is hating it. I’m having to wash it like 4 times day now to try and combat break outs.
I also keep getting nose bleeds from the constant pressure on my nose. Which is odd but it keeps happing at my second job.
@ Alan Robertshaw:
He was also “shampoo-surgeon” (i.e. massage therapist) to the Prince Regent!
During the Cold War both the US and the UK encouraged Saudi Arabia to spread the Wahhabi Gospel globally to counter secular left-wing movements. The book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam by Mark Curtis details it.
I never finished the book (and I can’t seem to find it now). So, I’m not even sure it mentions St John Philby (father of the more famous Kim Philby), a British spy who, somehow, became a close advisor to Abdulaziz ibn Saud, founder of the eponymous Kingdom. Nothing to see here folks, he was just on a relaxing getaway in the desert, British spies get twelve-months paid vacation.
As an aside, how megalomaniacal do you have to be to name the country you rule after yourself?
Even the Kim Dynasty of North Korea had enough sense to not name their country The Democratic People’s Republic of Kim, nor have they managed to convinced the entire world to call the people they rule Kims.
But the House of Saud named their subjects after themselves, and it just passes without comment.
Real men don’t care about what they wear, they care about what women wear.
Many Papuan men wear nothing but a “penis gourd” called a Koteka. National Geographic never had much zeal for photographing those guys.
Malala Yousafzai isn’t allowed to teach in Quebec. Because the Quebecois are too tolerant to tolerate her headscarf.
https://www.themarysue.com/malala-yousafzai-headscarf-quebec-education-minister/
But nobody tries to ‘save’ Tuareg men from veiling their faces.
@ Frey, re Wahhabism: UGH. The book Progressive Muslims by Omid Safi has several good discussions of this. I know I give a lot of book references but, well…books are awesome! Also, re
This is one of those subjects that I can’t even let myself think about too much, because the rage-despair gets overwhelming. ?
@ Elaine, I’m so sorry to hear you’re getting nosebleeds! That’s awful, and must be so hard to manage in a mask. I don’t have any suggestions, but hugs if you’d like them. How’s vaccination going where you are? I think you said you’d gotten your first?
@Bookworm: YES! It’s the double standard. The man will be in sleeveless T (often with gold chain… way to be a stereotype, dude), shorts, flip flops, the kids will be in kid clothes (an older daughter might have a scarf, but otherwise wearing Disney merch) and there’s mom in head to toe black where all you can see is her hands and maybe her face. And obviously as a white lady I can’t get in his face, but I really want to say he’s being a terrible Muslim. So I glare at him. It would not kill him to wear a long sleeved shirt and trousers. Kinda hope he falls off that bridge.
I am sure you look great. I used to have a Yemeni friend who wore the most gorgeous headscarves and robes, she was the best-dressed woman I knew. Really tasteful color combos. She pointed out that she never had to worry about a bad hair day; I was a little jealous.
Quebec is messed up and intolerant in a lot of ways, of course they’d go in for anti-Islamic measures.