Receiving emails that were strange, long-winded, and sometimes inappropriate was a frequent occurrence. These emails would show up in my inbox at any hour of the day, going on about the Western world, former Muslim refugees, and ex-Muslim women.
I had no clue who the sender was. He identified himself as a Saudi Arabian immigrant and an anti-Islamist advocate, but his messages were mostly confusing and hostile. Each time I spotted his name in my inbox, it made me uneasy.
I usually chose not to open or read the emails, instead opting to delete them immediately. However, when I heard about the tragic incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, my blood ran cold.
I recognised the name of the suspect all too well. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old man thought to be a psychiatrist, has been arrested over the deaths of four women and a nine-year-old boy, after ploughing his BMW into a mass of people on a busy street. More than 200 were injured.
Over the past 18 months or more, Abdulmohsen has targeted me with countless vile, threatening and intimidating messages. Nothing I saw in them ever gave me an inkling that he was planning to commit this terrible crime, or I would of course have forwarded everything to the police.
But the grim truth is that women like me, who grew up in Muslim families and have rejected Islam, are constantly subjected to online abuse. I am quite sure that, if I had reported Abdulmohsen’s emails and social media rantings, I would have been ignored.
It’s horribly common for me to see hatred directed at me online. The messages often start by calling me a ‘wh***’ or a ‘prostitute’, accusing me of ‘selling my body to white men’ before unleashing a barrage of threats about what my fate will be in this world and the next.
Abdulmohsen used a slightly different tactic, by denouncing other women to me and urging me to ‘expose’ them in the media. When I refused to engage with him, he redoubled his campaign, sending endless allegations.
Khadija Khan says she was targeted by Abdulmohsen with countless vile, threatening and intimidating messages
People leave candles and floral tributes near the Alter Markt in Magdeburg, where a man drove a car into the crowd on Friday evening
Although he claimed to be a lapsed believer who came to Europe as a refugee because he was not safe in Saudi Arabia as an atheist, he appeared to loathe former Muslim women in the West.
One of his targets, he wrote, ‘finished high school in Saudi Arabia and has no further significant qualifications. She works as a receptionist at a medical clinic.
‘She spends a great deal of her time selling access to her private stories on Snapchat which, according to her, mainly contain sexy pics and videos’.
I have no idea whether any of that is true. What I do know is that every word of it stinks of misogyny – contempt for women who work, contempt for women who don’t have degrees (and no doubt those who do as well), contempt for women who left Saudi Arabia as he did, contempt for women’s sexuality.
When I realised the man who had ranted at me online was the lunatic arrested for the Magdeburg killings, I contacted other ex-Muslim women over the weekend and discovered that I am far from alone.
Abdulmohsen has conducted a long campaign of harassment against people like me – while pretending to be a selfless volunteer and activist whose mission was to protect women and help those who wanted to escape from oppression in the Middle East.
He sent me videos and images of one Saudi woman in the West, and then a disgusting and graphic message describing her breasts in detail and obsessing over their appearance in or out of a bra. It’s evidently the product of a deeply disturbed mind. Some of the recipients did report their concerns to a support group, the ex-Muslims International coalition, who had him marked down as a stalker and cyber-bully.
Police arrested an ‘unstable’ 50-year-old Saudi doctor identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen after he allegedly rammed his SUV into a packed market in the town of Magdeburg
This is the moment the Magdeburg attack suspect, 50, from Saudi Arabia is arrested by police
Yasmine Mohammed, an author and former Muslim activist born in Canada, says she has been aware of Abdulmohsen for years through online exchanges and that he didn’t appear ‘stable’ to her.
The BBC recorded an interview with him five years ago. On the BBC News website, we are told the purpose of the interview was to discuss, ‘a website he designed to help ex-Muslims flee the Gulf region’.
In the 33-second clip, he is seen working at his laptop. ‘My name is Taleb,’ he announces. ‘I’m from Saudi Arabia. I’m an activist. I created a website to help people seeking asylum, especially from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. If I have time, I spend between 10 to 16 hours a day [doing this]… 90 per cent of people who approach me are women between 18 and 30 years old.’
It is deeply worrying that such a man could be given publicity and credence. The BBC has not declared what checks it did to establish that this man was who he said he was – but even a cursory background sweep would probably have uncovered indications of what he was really doing online.
I find it sickening that Left-leaning media appear so ready to accept the Magdeburg atrocity was fuelled by Islamophobia and far-Right propaganda, when we’ve only got the alleged killer’s social posts as proof of his motives.
My strong suspicion is that this was in fact an Islamist attack, by a lone wolf terrorist with profound mental illness. This is based on the numerous messages I have received from Abdulmohsen.
But I cannot claim to have the full picture yet, so I’m keeping an open mind. If only BBC journalists took the same impartial line, instead of being so quick to believe anti-Muslim hatred was behind the attack.
Now more than ever, with so much disinformation and false news on social media, our national broadcaster needs more than ever to be cautious about leaping to conclusions.
Instead, a narrative is already emerging that Abdulmohsen was motivated by the bile spewed by ultra-nationalists.
It’s simplistic to accept this explanation. But when I question it, I know I will be accused of peddling conspiracy theories and stirring up hatred of Muslims.
Does it need saying that I am not ‘Islamophobic’? Most of my much-loved family back in Pakistan are Muslims, and many of my friends are ex-Muslims. Many more aren’t, of course. I unequivocally condemn extremism and violence, that’s all.
As an ex-Muslim, I understand the culture much better than most virtue-signalling Lefties in the media. I know, for instance, that Shi’a theology permits and even encourages a practice called ‘taqiyya’, which means concealing your true religious beliefs from non-Muslims. It literally means ‘shielding yourself’.
Despite his insistence that he had renounced Islam, Abdulmohsen was originally a Shi’ite Muslim and would be familiar with the concept of taqiyya.
In all the messages he sent to me, at least the ones I read before deleting, I never had a sense that this was a man who was angry at his former religion or the atrocities committed in its name.
His disgust and his poison was aimed at Westerners in general and women in particular. We may never understand what provoked the dreadful attack in Magdeburg last week. But we have to be very wary of believing anything the suspect tells us.
- Khadija Khan is Politics and Culture Editor at A Further Inquiry magazine.
