Harun Abdurahman is a Canadian who was raised as a Christian in a military family with a proud record of service in the Canadian Armed Forces. He converted to Islam at 17. What follows is an edited version of his answers during his interview with the Star. (Harun Abdurahman is an online alias.)

ON CONVERTING TO ISLAM FROM CHRISTIANITY:

I was getting tired of the lifestyle I was living. I was a teenager, I was living on my own at a young age and could do whatever I wanted so I took full advantage of that and I partied a lot. I got into a little bit of trouble. But I think I decided eventually that I didn’t want to live my life like that. I was looking for something different.

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I found answers to a lot of questions. Another reason I started studying Islam is because it’s not just a religion as you can compare to Christianity or mainstream Judaism but it’s a full-encompassing way of life that includes a financial system, a system of law, as well as religious beliefs and practices.

ON HIS FAMILY’S REACTION:

At first my parents thought it was sort of a joke. In my family we come from a military tradition. Everybody’s served in the military at one point or another and I wouldn’t say we’re particularly patriotic or nationalistic. The military lifestyle has been something that everybody in my family has taken part in. I guess that’s why my parents were hesitant or had their doubts that I was serious — because of their lifestyle. It doesn’t include Islam. Being members of the military, they’re involved in fighting Muslims whether directly or indirectly.

ON BEING INTERVIEWED BY CSIS:

The government already knows who I am. They’ve already been asking around about me. I know they’re monitoring me. It’s too late for me to do anything about that. It’s already happened.

CSIS knows who I am. They know about my Twitter account and what I say on there.

It’s unnerving just because there was some people that I didn’t want to know about things. For example, my family. They don’t really know a lot about what I say online but now they do. Now it’s worse because however they happened upon my Twitter account, I think there might not have been context. I’m not really sure.

They spoke to a friend of mine from Ontario and this friend told one of my family members that they were asking around about me and one of my family members contacted me and asked why is CSIS asking around about you? At the time I had no idea, but what I did is I got a phone number of one of the CSIS agents who was asking around and I texted him. I think I said, “I hear you’re looking for me and asking around about me.” Then I was contacted by a local agent who wanted to set up an interview. We sat down and had coffee. She asked me some questions and I answered them and that’s it. I haven’t heard about them since. Or, I haven’t heard from them directly since.

The general feel of the interview was her trying to find out what my actual beliefs were on current events, specifically the Islamic State. She told me that at that point I wasn’t being investigated by the RCMP . . . She told me that I was in the early stages of being investigated by CSIS, but not by the RCMP. But that may have changed since then as it’s been a few months.

ON THE ISLAMIC STATE:

I think it would be better for all Muslims to emigrate to the Islamic State.

ON THE CANADIAN MISSION IN IRAQ:

Anywhere that is killing Muslims and is passing it off as fighting extremism or fighting for the civilians in that country, I don’t have any love or sympathy for a system that thinks they can just invade other countries and get away with it.

ON THE PARLIAMENT HILL ATTACK:

In some ways I was pretty excited because there was retaliation. It was shortly after Canada announced it was sending (fighter jets to Iraq). I saw that as a direct retaliation for Canada’s aggression against Muslims in another country.

Sure, I guess you could call it terrorism, but what isn’t terrorism? I can’t think of any western intervention in a foreign country that wasn’t terrorism under the same definition.

I think that is justified because they weren’t attacks on civilians or attacks on women and children. They were attacks on uniformed soldiers and members of the government.

ON VIDEOS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE KILLING HOSTAGES:

The glorification of images of violence, I don’t think it’s good for people. It’s not good to look at that all day. It messes with your mind and desensitizes you to violence. I just don’t think that’s healthy. Also I don’t think it’s good for an organization, especially the Islamic State, which is trying to attract people to the cause . . . , I don’t think it’s good for them to value this as a means of gaining followers or sympathizers because you might just be attracting the wrong people, like the people who are already extremely violent.

At the same time I think some of the images and the videos are kind of good. I use the word good loosely. I think a lot of people in America and Canada don’t view bombing people as military action. They think they’re just dropping bombs and that the bombs just land on the bad guys and nobody else dies. The think they that they die instantly. They may not think that they get burned alive or that they’re critically injured and they die a slow death. They might know what happens.

ON A PROPOSED NEW LAWS:

I’m not scared of going to prison for something that I firmly believe in. . . . I would be scared for going to prison for something stupid, like if I was to steal a chocolate bar or got angry and punched someone in the face who didn’t matter.

ON RADICALIZATION:

I wouldn’t describe myself as radical. There are people who would call me radical for what I am and if they want to do so then I’d let them. But I wouldn’t say myself that I’m a radical Muslim because that goes right along with extremism and you may have heard this before but there isn’t extremism in Islam. There is Islam and there are things outside of Islam. It’s semantics really.

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