4 ms·

it makes a little sense to question this. It make more sense that they had chance encounters at a mosque (i.e. "strange" visitors who are visiting an area are

it makes a little sense to question this. It make more sense that they had chance encounters at a mosque (i.e. "strange" visitors who are visiting an area are common to visiting local religious institutions). with that said, there's a joke that many jews make when they travel, of playing the game "spot the jew", and I can imagine if I ran into a jew at a random 7-11 I'm more likely to have a friendly chit-chat than with other random people, so I can imagine that the same might hold true for saudis. I could very easily imagine if they were in a location with a reasonably sized saudi ex-pat community that there would be many of these chance encounters with other saudis. I could imagine "white bread" FBI agents that aren't from a minority, might not be able to comprehend how minorities find each other and make connections in random locations. with all that said, it be proper for the FBI to chase down all these threads.

nkozyra 5y ago
I think the details of this are a little more coincidental than you and I connecting randomly because we're Jewish.
- compsciphd 5y ago
  you mean not coincidental?
- imglorp 5y ago
  At least conservative jews and muslims both wear distinctive headwear, and sometimes grooming, so it's decent odds of greeting one another on the street. Most other backgrounds, not so much.
  - ksaj 5y ago
    I agree with this. I'm white from Toronto, Canada. A decade or so ago I worked in Saudi Arabia and as I was walking out of a coffee shop I saw another white guy walking past... so of course he stood out by the way he looked and the way he dressed. But not only that, he was someone I met up with at 2600 meetings every month in Toronto. We chatted, and he was staying in a compound that I had stayed at a number of times before. It was a total chance meeting, as neither of us knew the other had even left Toronto for any particular gig. Prior to that I didn't even know what he did for a living. So chance meetings certainly can and do happen. In this case it was actually someone I knew. But we initially noticed each other because we similarly stood out in the surrounding population. Likewise, during prayer times (Saudis pray 5 times a day!) I would stay in whatever restaurant or cafe and they would shut the window blinds so the religious police (Muttawa) wouldn't see us and give us grief for not being at prayer. Every time, the place always had numerous other white people whom I didn't know and didn't meet. But you could be sure several of us bumped into each other repeatedly at these cafes, despite not knowing each other at all. Our only connection was being white and non-Muslim. Exactly the reverse of what's being touted as suspicious coincidences here.
redis_mlc 5y ago
Sure, but 911 goes much deeper than "chance encounters at a mosque": - it's been reported that Saudi embassies were involved in the US. The US govt. would have sigint on their communications. Stay tuned. - often mosques get stricter imams after large donations from KSA - the Saudi royal family is known to donate to Islamists - Canadian mosques were involved in arranging citizenship, etc. for one of the organizers - in Islam, the only guaranteed path to heaven is jihad, or funding jihad - the latter is something anybody can do with little risk and high perceived reward. (This is partly why France finds 50 people supporting each Paris attack. It takes a village.) When you combine the above with OBL being independently wealthy, you can start to understand how this happened.
h2odragon 5y ago
Many FBI agents are Mormons, and have the same automatic assumption of fellowship you speak of.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Define 'Many'. Do you have any stats?
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    I don't. I've met some Mormon FBI agents, and read things like this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great-fbi-recruits https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great...
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      huh well thats fascinating.
MauroIksem 5y ago
I call it "what kind of brown are you"?
TuringNYC 5y ago
I find it dubious to call chance encounters even "encounters." Muslims are encouraged to pray in congregation, even during travel. You find a random Mosque with several hundred people and perform your prayer rituals there (for most busy people, that is only for Friday congregational prayers.) You are also encouraged to smile at and greet everyone, even though you dont know them. As a former Management Consultant, i've been in dozens of random mosques in random cities (based on where my client happened to be.) In SF alone I've visited in five or six on Fridays in the year before COVID as I flew in for work meetings. I dont know anyone at any of these, but you try to smile and greet people as you are encouraged to. Now imagine you create a graph of where you've been and who else has been there. You can find all sorts of co-incidences because the graph doesnt account for the degree of connectedness (near zero) Another reason others faiths often dont fully understand this is due to the workday challenge in the west. Muslim mandatory congregational prayers are on a workday (usually Friday 12-1 or 1-2), so we dont get to enjoy the community feel of a long congregation with socializing before/after that one could achieve on a Saturday or Sunday. Instead Muslims often find themselves rushing back to work for a 2pm meeting. If you're unlucky and your meeting starts at 2pm sharp, you are brisk walking back and swapping New Balances for wingtips on the elevator up. The workday challenge also means that the congregational prayer is not in your home community, it is whatever is closest to your office. Sometimes, you have multiple depending on whether you're at the downtown or uptown office, etc.
- compsciphd 5y ago
  religious jews pray 3 times a day as well. It's common in cities with reasonable size jewish populations to have afternoon services in different office buildings scattered throughout the city where people meet up every work day. so that experience is common to them as well.
geoduck14 5y ago
>of playing the game "spot the jew" That can get dangerous very fast!

nkozyra 5y ago

I think the details of this are a little more coincidental than you and I connecting randomly because we're Jewish.

compsciphd 5y ago
you mean not coincidental?
imglorp 5y ago
At least conservative jews and muslims both wear distinctive headwear, and sometimes grooming, so it's decent odds of greeting one another on the street. Most other backgrounds, not so much.
- ksaj 5y ago
  I agree with this. I'm white from Toronto, Canada. A decade or so ago I worked in Saudi Arabia and as I was walking out of a coffee shop I saw another white guy walking past... so of course he stood out by the way he looked and the way he dressed. But not only that, he was someone I met up with at 2600 meetings every month in Toronto. We chatted, and he was staying in a compound that I had stayed at a number of times before. It was a total chance meeting, as neither of us knew the other had even left Toronto for any particular gig. Prior to that I didn't even know what he did for a living. So chance meetings certainly can and do happen. In this case it was actually someone I knew. But we initially noticed each other because we similarly stood out in the surrounding population. Likewise, during prayer times (Saudis pray 5 times a day!) I would stay in whatever restaurant or cafe and they would shut the window blinds so the religious police (Muttawa) wouldn't see us and give us grief for not being at prayer. Every time, the place always had numerous other white people whom I didn't know and didn't meet. But you could be sure several of us bumped into each other repeatedly at these cafes, despite not knowing each other at all. Our only connection was being white and non-Muslim. Exactly the reverse of what's being touted as suspicious coincidences here.

redis_mlc 5y ago

Sure, but 911 goes much deeper than "chance encounters at a mosque": - it's been reported that Saudi embassies were involved in the US. The US govt. would have sigint on their communications. Stay tuned. - often mosques get stricter imams after large donations from KSA - the Saudi royal family is known to donate to Islamists - Canadian mosques were involved in arranging citizenship, etc. for one of the organizers - in Islam, the only guaranteed path to heaven is jihad, or funding jihad - the latter is something anybody can do with little risk and high perceived reward. (This is partly why France finds 50 people supporting each Paris attack. It takes a village.) When you combine the above with OBL being independently wealthy, you can start to understand how this happened.

h2odragon 5y ago

Many FBI agents are Mormons, and have the same automatic assumption of fellowship you speak of.

nebula8804 5y ago
Define 'Many'. Do you have any stats?
- h2odragon 5y ago
  I don't. I've met some Mormon FBI agents, and read things like this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great-fbi-recruits https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great...
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    huh well thats fascinating.

MauroIksem 5y ago

I call it "what kind of brown are you"?

TuringNYC 5y ago

I find it dubious to call chance encounters even "encounters." Muslims are encouraged to pray in congregation, even during travel. You find a random Mosque with several hundred people and perform your prayer rituals there (for most busy people, that is only for Friday congregational prayers.) You are also encouraged to smile at and greet everyone, even though you dont know them. As a former Management Consultant, i've been in dozens of random mosques in random cities (based on where my client happened to be.) In SF alone I've visited in five or six on Fridays in the year before COVID as I flew in for work meetings. I dont know anyone at any of these, but you try to smile and greet people as you are encouraged to. Now imagine you create a graph of where you've been and who else has been there. You can find all sorts of co-incidences because the graph doesnt account for the degree of connectedness (near zero) Another reason others faiths often dont fully understand this is due to the workday challenge in the west. Muslim mandatory congregational prayers are on a workday (usually Friday 12-1 or 1-2), so we dont get to enjoy the community feel of a long congregation with socializing before/after that one could achieve on a Saturday or Sunday. Instead Muslims often find themselves rushing back to work for a 2pm meeting. If you're unlucky and your meeting starts at 2pm sharp, you are brisk walking back and swapping New Balances for wingtips on the elevator up. The workday challenge also means that the congregational prayer is not in your home community, it is whatever is closest to your office. Sometimes, you have multiple depending on whether you're at the downtown or uptown office, etc.

compsciphd 5y ago
religious jews pray 3 times a day as well. It's common in cities with reasonable size jewish populations to have afternoon services in different office buildings scattered throughout the city where people meet up every work day. so that experience is common to them as well.

geoduck14 5y ago

>of playing the game "spot the jew" That can get dangerous very fast!