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By now, word was beginning to spread about Awlaki’s oratorical skills. He was a much-sought-after commodity in Muslim religious circles—knowledgeable and fluent in English, with a flair for captivating young audiences. Recordings of his lectures on CD became brisk sellers, including a series on the Prophets of Islam and another on the Companions of the Prophet.

One American Muslim told me he was especially moved by Awlaki’s fifteen-hour series on Abu Bakr Al Siddiq, a companion of Mohammed and the first caliph of the Muslim world. Awlaki, quoting hadith (traditional stories about the Prophet Muhammad’s life), described Abu Bakr as the most devout and pure of the Prophet’s companions.

[The Prophet Muhammad] was once sitting in the masjid, and he asked the Sahabah, “Who’s fasting this day?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I am.”

“Who has visited an ill person?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

“Who has [attended a funeral]?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

“Who on this day has given [something extra to charity]?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

And everybody else in the masjid was looking around, and the only hand that is going up is the hand of Abu Bakr. [ … ] He would always come out the first.

And the amazing thing is that it didn’t seem as if Abu Bakr Al Siddiq [ … ] wasn’t doing it to compete with anyone. It came natural. See, what the others, they were trying to compete with him. Abu Bakr [ … ] was trying to compete with Abu Bakr.42

Awlaki was hired at Dar Al Hijrah in Falls Church, Virginia, one of the nation’s most prominent mosques. Dar Al Hijrah had been founded in the 1980s and grew to a respectable size during the early 1990s, when it became associated with members of the American Muslim Brotherhood. Members of Hamas were also known to attend the mosque.43

Johari Abdul-Malik, the mosque’s current imam, explained to the press how Awlaki came to be hired:

Our community needed an imam who could speak English, not like many masjid, who have an imam who is from the old guard, he—he speaks broken English, if he speaks English at all, but someone who could convey that message with the full force of faith. He was that person. And he delivered that message dutifully.44

As he had in San Diego, Awlaki began to attract devotees at Dar Al Hijrah. His talks during this period were positioned as moderate, but flashes of darkness surfaced from time to time. During a 2001 lecture on tolerance, he explained that Muslims were the most tolerant people in history, then qualified that statement to exclude a call for tolerance in modern times.

Now, is there [ … ] a problem among the Muslim community of intolerance towards other faiths? Well, to some extent there is. To some extent there is.

However, when one is dealing with the issue of tolerance, usually the party that is asked to be tolerant is the party that is in power, the party that is in control. However, when a people are suffering, and oppressed, it is not easy, or it’s not, doesn’t even make a lot of sense to bring up the issue of tolerance.45

Awlaki was highly critical of U.S. foreign policy, and his attraction to the phenomenon of jihad continued, though often carefully framed. One undated lecture was an eight-hour dissertation on a classic book about jihad, which Awlaki attempted to disarm with a prefatory disclaimer:

Now I want to state in the beginning and make it very clear that our study of this book is not an exhortation or invitation to violence or promotion of violence against an individual or a society or a state. This is purely an academic study. We are studying a book that is 600 years old.46

One of the regulars who attended his sermons was an army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan. Hasan, whose father had died two years earlier, had coped with his grief by turning more fervently to religion. Hasan’s eyes would light up when he talked about Awlaki’s teachings.47

There were also familiar faces. The FBI and the 9/11 Commission determined that at least two and as many as four