Nada Farooq lays down the ground rules early on.
It is late April of 2004, and several women using an on-line forum, created by Ms. Farooq to discuss Islam, are having a conversation about where in the Koran it says a woman has to completely cover all but her eyes, a type of clothing called niqab. One of the women responds by quoting a verse from the Koran and inserting in brackets her own interpretation of what the words mean.
Ms. Farooq, wife of Zakaria Amara, replies.
(All posts appear as they were written on-line.)
"Keep in mind that ONLY the scholors are allowed interpret the Quran," she writes. "We, who don't posses the extensive knowledge of the arabic language and of history CANNOT interpret the Quran.
"If we were to do so, almost everyone would be divided and everyone would have their 'own' opinion about a certain verse."
Two years before her husband and 16 others -- several from the same Meadowvale circle of friends -- would stand accused of a terror plot, Ms. Farooq was one of several Muslim teens in Mississauga's Meadowvale area seeking to better understand her religion.
If they had been living in Pakistan, the young people would have no shortage of Islamic schools from which to choose. If they had been living in Saudi Arabia, they would hear the call to prayer reverberating from every minaret. But they are in Canada, where Islam plays a significantly smaller societal role, so the teens turn largely to the Internet, where some find a nearly endless supply of interpretations of Islam that justify everything from killing civilians to toppling democratic rule.
Those interpretations form the foundation of their understanding of the faith, and inspire some of the teens to engage in a sort of competitive piety that renders much of their surrounding culture sinful.
The only two Arabic-speaking girls on the forum decide to play a trick.
It is the summer of 2004, and the rest of the women in the sisters-only section of Ms. Farooq's website are in the middle of a discussion when one of the girls posts to the other in Arabic, telling her that, for fun, they should start typing exclusively in Arabic, since no one else will understand what they are talking about.
Almost immediately, another girl tersely asks them to keep the conversation in English so everyone else can understand.
On the surface, the fact that most of the Meadowvale students who made up the suspects' inner circle of friends cannot speak Arabic is not surprising. Millions of Muslims cannot speak the language in which the Koran was written.
But it is significant to note where the teens look for information. Some can speak Urdu, and most have a habit of using the few Arabic words they memorized in the middle of sentences when there are perfectly accurate English equivalents (For example, "Know your deen" instead of "Know your religion.")
Without being fluent in the language, most of the teens must depend on translations and interpretations of the Koran and the life of the Prophet. And for those, they turn to the Internet, putting their questions to on-line imams, downloading audio and text interpretations and quoting at length from articles on other Islamic websites, many of which have since been taken off-line.
On the topic of killing civilians, for example, one poster reproduces an explanation written by Saudi Sheik Salman al-Odah of why such acts are largely forbidden under Islam (Mr. al-Odah runs a Muslim website which has a Q&A section). Another replies by quoting Sheik Hamood Bin Uqla, another Saudi, who expresses a more radical view.
On another occasion, the teens discuss the potential for establishing an Islamic state within Iraq. One poster, whose background is Iraqi, says that would be something Iraqis would not want because it would raise all kinds of issues about the proper treatment of different sects of Islam. Another teen replies that it does not matter what the Iraqis want: What matters is the will of God.
The same situation plays out again and again: A forum member posts a response he received from the "Fatwa Department Research Committee" at an Islamic website about whether it is permissible to kill civilians in democratic countries (the committee rules it is not).
Ms. Farooq replies: "Every Rule has an exception. Read the fatwa by Shaikh Hamood Bin Uqla . . ."
There is, it seems, a fatwa somewhere on-line to support any point of view. For example, on the issue of addiction to the Internet, one member posts an article by a South African Muslim preacher titled: "Will Your Internet Connection Disconnect You From Allah Most High?"
But perhaps the most infamous scholar mentioned at length on the website is Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th-century theologian who preached his own deeply conservative take on what previously were the most conservative interpretations of Islam. Because those who follow his teachings believe they are returning to the ways of the first Muslims rather than implementing new ideas, they tend to resent being called "Wahabi."
"Anyone who uses the word 'Wahabi' has no knowledge of the history and of this great scholor," Ms. Farooq writes in a post about the theologian. "If being a Wahabi means following Tawheed [belief in the oneness of God] in its perfect form, then we should be proud of being wahabis."
It seems that is what the teens are after: belief in its perfect form.
To say some of the teens on the forum don't like high-school proms may be a bit of an understatement.
It is mid-May, 2005, and Ms. Farooq is lambasting Muslim students who plan to go out and celebrate the end of high school.
Posting about Muslims going to "filthy" prom nights, she writes: "Geez, what's makes me more angry, is why not go commit these haram actions but don't go around calling them halal just to make yourself feel better and guiltless."
It is a common point of view among conservative Muslims, but instead of discussing whether to go to the prom or not, the rest of the thread is almost entirely spent trying to figure out whether saying the word "geez" in casual conversation is forbidden by Islam, because one of the posters heard that it stems from the Christian practice of calling Jesus God.
Ms. Farooq eventually decides not to use the word again, just to be safe.
In an effort to become the most pious Muslims they can possibly be, the Meadowvale teens' search for spirituality often morphs into a kind of one-upmanship that threatens to turn almost every aspect of Canadian life into a sin.
One participant, for example, boasts of his efforts to eliminate rock music from his life. Another quickly replies that he should, in fact, be seeking to eliminate all music, and all television, to boot.
Music, movies and television should all be completely avoided, some of the teens write. Fahim Ahmad, later accused of being one of the two leaders of the 17-member group, posts at length about the dangers of "free-mixing" or communication between non-married men and women.
While gender separation at Muslim social events is often the norm, that's only the beginning for some teens on the blog: celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and any occasions other than Eid and Fridays is considered sinful.
The single biggest clash on the web forum between Canadian society and this interpretation of Islam seems to come during the 2004 federal election.
The posters are almost evenly split between those who want to vote in order to keep the Conservatives out of office, and those who believe voting is forbidden. The argument is heated, and at one point a poster writes that she agrees with those who want to vote, but she cannot find a religious article or interpretation to support the view.
Ms. Farooq even changes her mind as the election approaches, deciding Muslims should, in fact, vote. It is indicative of what is perhaps the single toughest decision the teens must make: whether to participate in the system in the hope of improving the situation or to oppose the system entirely.
Ms. Farooq eventually changes her mind once more: Muslims are forbidden to vote, she reiterates. It is a return to a position she summed up a few months earlier.
"You're either with the believers," she wrote, "or you're with the disbelievers."