The Final Acceptance

"He was never like that before. He had a great multitude of friends in Calgary. Everybody liked him. He was a nerd and we hung out in a circle of nerds. He was extremely funny. ... That's what drew people to him was his sense of humour."
"He never threw fists or anything ... but when he was angry he'd make fun of people. He'd belittle them."
"I saw his morals slowly start to decline."
"Farah was very easily manipulated throughout his life. If someone thought he was cool and he knew it, they could basically make him do anything they want. That's what he really wanted, was to feel accepted."
Nathaniel Little, 21, former school chum of Calgarian Farah Mohamed Shirdon

"This is a message to Canada, and all the American tyrants: We are coming and we will destroy you, with permission from Allah the almighty."
"I left comfort for one reason alone. For Allah."
"Beheading Shias is a beautiful thing."
Former Calgarian Farah Mohamed Shirdon, aka Abu Usama dead ISIS member

Frame grab from an ISIS video, of Calgarian, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, who was fighting overseas with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS video frame grab/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency

"It's very hard to believe. Especially a young person who grew up in the Western [world] and goes to a place he has no ethnicity, no community, no language."
"It's very hard for his family. Even the parents have no idea why this young man has [gone] to join this radical group."
Mohamed Jama, president, Somali Canadian Society of Calgary

And so, he became cooler than cool. Becoming one with a feared and detested group of psychopaths claiming that their blood-letting was pure and enlightened because they were doing the work of their god; what could be cooler than that? The law of the Koran, Sharia, transcends any man-made laws, for theirs is the word of god incarnate, none higher in authority than that, and when Allah and the Prophet Mohammad declare jihad to be the 'moral' responsibility of pious Muslims what more is there to be said?

Farah Mohamed Shirdon, 21, a Somali-Canadian, felt compelled to devote himself to the greater order of god, for whatever he did, Allah willed it. Although Mr. Little knew his then-friend to be religiously-inclined he also knew that his friend "would never press his beliefs on anyone". People change, and Farah Mohamed Shirdon, on the evidence, certainly changed. If true that he yearned for acceptance and gravitated for that reason from one group to another for that purpose, then joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham was his final acceptance.

There he could glorify Allah and the Prophet with the intention to slaughter all those who refused to submit to Islam. In this way he could pay his obeisance to his obligations as a firmly committed Islamist, by engaging in jihad, a noble enterprise. Mr. Little spoke of his former friend experimenting with partying, selling marijuana, until finally he transformed himself, leaving behind his former friends, and allying himself only with Muslims.

There are other Muslim Calgarians whose experience with extremist-expression Islam as the religion of peace amok with violent jihad finding their mission in life through a storefront mosque that seemed to fulfill a yearning deep within the psyches of these disgruntled and restless youth for whom the appeal of violent jihad filled a deep void.

"The RCMP is aware that there is issue with the radicalization to violence of individuals in the Calgary area who are leaving to take part in terrorist activities overseas. We take the threats of terrorism and radicalization to violence very seriously", stated RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Josee Valiquette. And as a result, what manner of enterprise to prevent, avoid, stop, bring and end to the recruitment of young Muslims prone to the enticing attraction of violence will be undertaken?