The Making Of John Walker Lindh

How did a quiet, bright young boy from suburban America end up alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan? This is a story of love, loathing and an often reckless quest for spiritual fulfillment

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    Correction Appended: March 24, 2003

    "He was ready to stay with me," says Hayat, "but I pushed him into the madrasah." Nevertheless, the businessman appears to be jealous of Lindh's relationship with the teacher he recommended, Mufti Iltimas Khan. The mufti does not discuss the nature of his relationship with Lindh, though he seems happy to talk about the young man. "Everyone who saw him wanted to talk to him and to look at him and to look at his face. A very lovely face he had, John Walker."

    Lindh chose to study at Iltimas' Madrasah al Arabia, in the village of Hasanni Kalan Surani, outside Bannu. He would remain there from December 2000 until the following May. The mufti insists that the studies had nothing to do with jihad, just the Koran and its memorization. Lindh could recite almost a third of the holy book by heart before he headed for Afghanistan. How, then, did the reputedly scholarly Lindh become a holy warrior? Did Hayat have anything to do with this? In response, Iltimas just smiles and says, "Maybe Mr. Hayat was trying to turn a warrior into a scholar." Iltimas recalls lying next to Lindh on their separate cots at night, talking about opening a madrasah in the U.S. He felt that Lindh's faith and natural magnetism would make him an influential American imam.

    Nevertheless, Lindh's notebooks from the period contain translation exercises with passages from the Koran that include descriptions of battles with the Jews. One of the notebooks includes a passage that reads, "We shall make jihad as long as we live."

    It was in Pakistan too that Lindh fired his first Kalashnikov. Nearly every compound around Bannu has one of the Soviet-designed submachine guns for protection from thieves and attacks from rival clans. Hayat says he took Lindh out behind their walled home for some dove hunting. He showed Lindh how to load the clip and cock the gun. He says Lindh was a miserable shot. "He was hitting nothing but air."

    While with Iltimas, Lindh would e-mail his mother every Thursday night from an Internet cafe. Sending a message could sometimes take hours, but Lindh soon became something of a local computer whiz. At the end of the U.S. presidential election in 2000, he e-mailed his mother, referring to George W. Bush as "your new President" and adding, "I'm glad he's not mine." Despite the weekly contact with home, Lindh would not discuss his family with Hayat or Iltimas (except for the occasional mention of concern for his sister Naomi). Both men said he was always careful to ask for parental permission before embarking on any large trip. And yet, when he decided to leave Bannu, he did not elaborate on his plans. Frank Lindh says he would have refused to give it if he had known that the ultimate destination was Afghanistan. But in May, all Lindh said was that the weather was cooler in the mountains and it was terribly hot in Bannu. Could he go up to the mountains? And Frank gave permission.

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