ISIS at the Gyro King

When two young men were arrested en route to Syria, the Uzbeks of Brooklyn felt upset, maligned, and only a little sympathetic.

- Mark Jacobson, photographs by Joseph Michael Lopez

The Brooklyn Uzbeks seemed to be in a daze, as if they had no idea what had hit them. Immi­grants who’d arrived in New York during the mid­-to­-late aughts, until quite recently they’d hung out on Coney Island Avenue, their days largely filled with the drudgery of working in gyro stands in Midwood and Kensington and selling sunglasses to nonbelievers in tacky suburban malls. This was what they knew of the polluted realm of the kafir. Sometime during 2014, according to federal authorities, the two young Uzbeks charted a different destiny for themselves. They began sending jihadist messages on Uzbek­ language websites and watching videos of holy warriors chopping off heads. They were going to join the Islamic State of Iraq and al­-Sham, or ISIS. They’d get on a plane and go to Turkey, where they hoped “an elder brother” would meet them. From there, they would be escorted to the front lines, where, in the prophetic path of heroes and martyrs, they would engage the armies of the Crusad­ers and their proxies. Next stop was Para­dise, where all people, not just the rich and connected, are free to bathe in rivers of milk, honey, and crystal­-clear water.