Muslims stunned by Fort Hood shooting

Stunned Muslims were trying to understand Friday why a normally soft-spoken Army officer who served on his local mosque’s charity committee allegedly fatally shot 13 people at the sprawling Fort Hood military base in Texas.

Officials at the copper-domed Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring — where Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist, attended daily evening and Friday noon services — said he was a quiet, devout man whom few of the 250 members knew.

“I cannot believe it was him,” said Dr. Asif Qadri, a cardiologist who works at a medical clinic at the mosque. “He never expressed his views on politics or religion.”

Pressed further by TV and radio crews that jostled for space in the mosque’s community hall, he said Maj. Hasan helped administer the mosque’s “zakat,” or charity fund. But he was not a recluse, as the media were portraying him.

“He was very soft-spoken, gentle and helpful,” Dr. Qadri said. “He didn’t sound like a recluse. He was a very happy and pleasant person.”

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That was before Maj. Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar,” a term uttered by Muslims meaning “God is great” in Arabic, before his alleged rampage.

“As a Muslim, every time something like that happens, I think ‘Here we go again,’” the doctor said. “Every time something like this happens, I think, ‘please, don’t let this be a Muslim.’”

Arshad Qureshi, chairman of the mosque’s board of trustees, downplayed Maj. Hasan’s role at the Islamic house of worship on New Hampshire Avenue.

“He come and pray and leave,” said Mr. Qureshi, adding that soon after he learned of the shooter’s connection with the mosque, about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, his phone began to ring incessantly until he took it off the hook. “I didn’t know him.”

At a Friday service, the mosque’s spiritual leader, Imam Mohamed Abdullahi, preached on controlling one’s anger and the value of life, quoting Surah 5:32 from the Koran: “If anyone slew a person … it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

He told reporters afterward that Maj. Hasan was “not friendly.”

But, “His personality was not violent,” the imam added. “He was calm. He came here every day.”

Asked whether he feared a local backlash, the imam said he did not.

“This is a friendly community,” he said. “There are churches and synagogues here,” specifically the gold-domed Ukranian Orthodox Cathedrial of St. Andrew next door and a Hindu temple a few miles south. “We’re not afraid.”

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