Mark, the subject of Bassam Tariq’s Ghosts of Sugar Land, was an outsider in high school, being one of the only black students in his class, but as his South Asian Muslim friends tell it, they always tried to make him feel welcome in their culture. Converting to Islam seemed like an inevitable act of friendship. Over time, Mark committed himself to Islam much more strongly than his friends did, driving them apart. He posted increasingly conservative views online. One day, Mark’s friends woke up to a Facebook post from him location-tagged in Turkey. A few days later, there was a new post: “I am now currently living in the Islamic State [in Syria].”
