Imam of mosque Hasan once attended denies alleged link to 9/11 hijackers; Imam spoke on '06 Coe panel

By Barry Shlachter

McClatchy Newspapers

FORT WORTH, Texas - The suspect in the Fort Hood shootings once regularly attended a Falls Church, Va., mosque, which the FBI has linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers, but the congregation's current spiritual leader Sunday insisted the government's claims of connections are wrong.

In 2001, Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center was led by Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born scholar now living in Yemen. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, according to new disclosures by a Fort Hood acquaintance, was an admirer of al-Awlaki, who has been described as a radical Islamist.

The 9/11 Commission report accepted FBI findings that two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour, briefly worshiped at the mosque after one had met al-Awlaki during the imam's previous religious posting in San Diego. But the FBI found no evidence al-Awlaki had prior knowledge of the attack, the Washington Post reported.

Shaker el Sayed, Dar's current imam, said the FBI turned over to the commission the fact that two of the hijackers used the mosque as their home address on driver's license applications, which el Sayed ridiculed as a specious link, noting even FBI agents he met could not provide credible proof of a connection with the congregation.

Moreover, no congregant remembers seeing either al-Hamzi or Hanjour at Dar, one of the capital area's oldest and largest mosques, the imam told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

El Sayed said he spent time with Hasan, but that was after being asked to assist finding the bachelor psychiatrist a wife.

"I met him personally because he sought my help to get him married. This was unsuccessful," said the imam, who learned little of the man's world view.

Like most worshipers, he said Hasan "joined prayers, finished prayers, then left. I didn't see him hanging out with people, joining discussion groups or classes. But there has been a lot of blogging about our mosque, a rightwing conspiracy, trying to make a mountain out of cardboard."

Contrary to numerous reports Hasan was a brooding loner in Killeen, Texas, a more detailed picture of Hasan has surfaced that said he had at least one close friend, an Army officer who had converted to Islam several years ago. They had worshiped through the night together during the final days of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting holiday.

Kamran Pasha, a Pakistani-American novelist, quoted the Fort Hood officer as saying he befriended the Army psychiatrist, prayed side by side with him hours before Thursday's mass killings and had once challenged Hasan's view that Islam condoned suicide bombings.

Hasan also argued Jews were "cursed by God," according to the officer, who had contacted Pasha long before the shootings to discuss his novel, "Mother of the Believers," an account of Islam's beginnings as seen through the eyes of Prophet Mohammed's wife Aisha. The officer, a 22-year Army veteran, declined to be identified or speak to reporters because of his past work in special operations in Iraq, Pasha said. No independent corroboration could be made Sunday.

The following is what the officer purportedly told of his relationship with Hasan, according to Pasha:

At their very first meeting in July, Hasan insisted the war on terror was actually a war on Islam and that Muslims should have no part in the U.S. military.

Despite his disagreement, the career officer and Hasan were to forge a friendship. Hasan also got to know the officer's family and the 10-year-old son, who wanted to study medicine, began to consider the Army psychiatrist as a role model.

The officer respected Hasan's evident piety and they often met at Killeen's mosque, which the psychiatrist attended daily. But Hasan's black-and-white interpretation of Islam that afforded no room for nuance or debate, sometimes leading to flare-ups between the two men. At the mention of al-Awlaki, he recalled Hasan's eyes "lit up."

Another hint of radicalism surfaced when Hasan angrily told the officer he should not have asked a group of Muslims if the Taliban followed Prophet Mohammed's true path or were misguided. While others present defended the the right to ask, the officer was taken aback by Hasan's vehemence, which transformed what had been an amiable gathering.

At predawn prayers Thursday, the officer was asked by the imam to recite the call to worship, or azan.

But before he could begin, Hasan rose from his seat and performed the ritual, smiling and winking at his friend.

The officer, who began studying Islam after 9/11 "to know one's enemy" and later decided to convert, believes Hasan -if he is indeed the shooter -might have been influenced by radical religious views and from months of hearing his patients recount horrific stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, which only hardened the psychiatrist's extreme positions. Then an imminent deployment possibly pushed him over the edge.

That puzzles to the officer, who told Pasha Hasan would likely have never gone near combat but most probably would have been ensconced in a heavily protected compound.

After the shootings, the officer told his son Hasan might have been responsible for a very bad deed and could no longer be his role model, Pasha added.

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(c) 2009, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

From Gazette archives, 11/19/2006:

Speakers explain religions' views of God

By Molly Rossiter

The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hoping to offer a broader understanding of the similarities of their faiths, speakers representing Christianity, Islam and Judaism spoke on the revelations of God and how their respective views differed.

Rabbi Aaron Sherman of Temple Judah, 3221 Lindsay Lane SE, Cedar Rapids; Sheikh Shaker Elsayed, imam of Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center and secretary general of Muslim American Society  International, Falls Church, Va.; and John Waldmeir, assistant professor of religious studies at Loras College, Dubuque; were the speakers for the "One God, Three Faiths" discussion at the Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College last night.

Waldmeir said discussions such as the one at Coe are necessary because "we don't know enough about one another, we don't know enough to recognize ourselves in the other faiths."

The theme of the discussion centered on the word of God and the revelations to followers of each faith.

For Jews, Sherman said, "we learn what God wants by our continued study of the Torah; it's up to each individual to make their own interpretation."

He said he doesn't tell others to "read" the Torah; he asks them to study it.

"The way that we figure what God wants is through the learning and study of the Bible," he said.

For Christians, the Bible has been interpreted historically by various leaders, depending on denomination, from the apostles in the Bible to Martin Luther in the 16th century and Jonathan

Edwards in the 18th century.

"No one, least of all Christians, can read the sacred texts outside of history," Waldmeir said. "I think the arrival of the word for Christians comes in the form of a person."

In Islam, authenticity is a central issue, and the issue of authenticity must come with authority, Elsayed said.

"We have established authorship, that the speaker is God," he said. "(The Quran) is not a book written by man about God."

He said Muslims believe the best interpretation is one with "the least possible human intervention."

The panel was sponsored by the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County, Churches United, the Iowa chapter of the Muslim American Society, Temple Judah, Children of Abraham and the Philosophy and Religion department at Coe College.

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