Joshua Van Alstine, 25, How did this blonde American kid became a mega star in Saudi Arabia?

Joshua Van Alstine, 25, — who goes by the name Abu Muteb online — rose to fame in the Middle East after he posted videos to YouTube of himself challenging Westerners to seek a better understanding of Islam. In the clips, he speaks Arabic and appears dressed in traditional Gulf robes with his head covered in a keffiyeh. His most popular video, which has amassed more than two million views on YouTube, is a lighthearted take on non-verbal communication in Saudi Arabia. While the videos didn’t make as much of a ripple in the United States, they made waves in Saudi Arabia, even catching the attention of the kingdom’s rulers. The Saudi royal court tracked down Van Alstine in 2012 and invited him to visit. He arrived as a royal guest just after the death of the second in line to the thrown, Crown Prince Nayef, and attended the mourning events. He joined the royal delegation to pray in Mecca with senior princes and others at a palace in Jeddah. Among them was the future Saudi king, Salman. Van Alstine kissed him on the forehead, a traditional greeting between men in Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
Van Alstine reportedly also paid homage to his sponsors by taking the nom-de-Web Abu Muteb, a nickname of then Saudi King Abdullah, who died nearly a year ago and was succeeded by Salman. Van Alstine returned to the United States but it wasn’t long before he was called back to Saudi Arabia. According to the Washington Post, Saudi leadership emailed Van Alstine in May 2013, offering him a job to help create a new TV channel and suggested he move to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Van Alstine accepted. Van Alstine quickly became hot property and landed a spot on one of the Middle East’s most popular television channels. He was last week recruited by Qatar state television to help cover the country’s national day celebrations. “This whole thing has been wild. Really crazy,” Van Alstine told the Washington Post. “Hang on a sec,” he apologised during a phone interview from Qatar’s capital, Doha. “OK, I’m back. I had to take some photos with fans. Like I was saying, it’s nuts, dude. It’s sometimes hard to take it all in.”He grew up between Turkey and the United States, with his father working in the Airforce as a chief master sergeant. Van Alstine told the Washington Post the first time he felt he wasn’t accepted in America was on a stop in San Antonio, shortly after 9/11, when he was in grade school. “For the first time I felt I wasn’t accepted,” he said. “Here I was, a white Muslim in America. Many Americans rejected me because I was Muslim. The Muslims in America — Arabs, Pakistanis and others — rejected me because they saw me as just American. I felt really isolated.”