On this week's podcast Extra, a bonus episode from our friends at the United States of anxiety, produced right here at WNYC.

They released it on September 11th, and that's kind of where their story starts.

Kairite is the host with reporter Matt Katz.

Dismillah, Rahman, Rahimim. Alhamdul to Allah, Rhabi, Matt Katz.

You're listening to Ibad Raqman at New York.

And I think it's gorgeous.

I first heard the dancing lyricism of prayer in Arabic way back when I was in school myself, and it never fails to put me at peace. But clearly, not everybody hears peace in these sounds.

Ibad is a PhD student in religion.

He's basically spent his whole life studying Islam.

My parents immigrated from Bangladesh, and we grew up in a religious household where we were encouraged to pray, where we went to the mosque.

After sixth grade, elementary school in the Lower East Side,

we made a trip to Mecca and Medina when I was 11 years old. For my family, we all became

more devout and more concerned about learning about the faith and taking it more seriously.

But he says, like a lot of people, he really got serious about understanding Islam following

9-11.

Every person who was in New York City that morning has a story about it, can tell you exactly

where they stood when the reality of it sunk in.

Ibad was at Stuyvesant High School,

just a few blocks from the World Trade Center.

I was in Mr. Grossman's European literature class in 10th grade

on the sixth floor of the library,

and Mr. Taitel, the principal, comes on the loudspeaker,

...