Hammad

Hammad is one of the terrorists behind the attacks on 9/11. Throughout the chapters, "On Marienstrasse]", "In Nokomis" and "In the Hudson Corridor", we gain an insight into the terrorist himself in that we see things from his perspective. In the novel, his development into a terrorist capable of killing thousands of people is described.

Easily influenced

Hammad is a young Muslim man who lives in Hamburg. He is taking a technical education of some kind (p. 79), has a family and a German-Syrian girlfriend called Leyla with whom he dreams of starting a family.

Although he goes to a mosque, he is not very religious. However, he joins a group of radical Muslims who meet in an apartment in Marienstrasse. Hammad is not politically active and is not engaged in the discussions in the apartment either. Instead, he sits and listens to what the others are saying, taking it in uncritically:

Hammad wasn’t sure whether this was funny, true or stupid. He listened to everything they said, intently. He was a bulky man, clumsy, and thought all his life that some unnamed energy was sealed ...