Why I decided to become a Jihadi.

Magomyed was born in Saudi Arabia during a time of profound darkness. The morality police controlled the population through roadside checkpoints. They would halt vehicles and demand identification while aggressively interrogating passengers: “Who is this woman beside you?” Clerics cited ‘honour’ in their sermons, urging men to tighten their control over the women of their families, warning that otherwise they would be “forced” to commit violence to safeguard familial honor. Teachings such as these, repeated endlessly, propelled thousands of young men into the ranks of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and similar groups.

At seventeen, Magomyed was on the way to answer the call for jihad in Syria. Only 50 kilometers from the Saudi–Iraqi border, he turned back, deciding he wanted to find a different way to serve the ummah. Over the next two years he completely deradicalized, and later moved to Canada to pursue an engineering degree. 

Mogamyed will join Yasmine to discuss the normalization of radicalization in Islamic countries, how quickly that radicalization can lead to giving up your life in the name of Allah, and discuss the difficulty of deradicalization and all of the obstacles and risks involved with making that decision.