It is going to be a long time before the Fadel Shaker enigma is solved or forgotten. The Lebanese singer acquired fame and fortune in a matter of years and then turned into a jihadist supporter of the Salafist sheikh Ahmad al-Assir. Suddenly, he was a wanted man, pursued by the authorities, after vanishing with his “mentor” following their defeat at the hands of the Lebanese Army on June 24, in Sidon, in south Lebanon.

The path Shaker decided to walk shocked the Lebanese people. Lebanon had never before witnessed one of its singers rediscover his religion and return to the faith. Before Shaker, the stories of TV stars or movie actors who suddenly appeared veiled, declaring that they were forsaking the world of entertainment, had been unique to Egypt, published on the pages of magazines found on the counters at beauty salons and read by the Lebanese for fun.

The Lebanese had only experienced one similar precedent, though a bit different from that of Fadel Shaker. Antoine al-Khawli was a Lebanese singer famous in Lebanon and most other Arab countries in the mid-1980s and into the late 1990s. He went by the stage name Rabih al-Khawli. At the peak of his fame and fortune, two painful incidents befell Khawli: He lost one of his brothers to illness, and a car accident claimed the life of another person in his life. These tragedies changed the man. Antoine, aka Rabih, took an extended sabbatical from the world of singing and went looking for answers to the meaning of life and the mysteries of pain and death.

Khawli's retreat soon turned into a way of life. He quietly left the worlds of art and performance, without a declaration, speech or interview. In the late 1990s, he joined a Maronite monastery that trains apprentices on Mount Lebanon. At that point, Rabih became known as Father Antoine. Ten-plus years have passed since he took his religious vows and made a decision to spend his time in prayer, worship, poverty, asceticism and isolation.