San Bernardino, CA – California shooter Syed Rizwan Farook was a devout Muslim who made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2013 and prayed regularly at a mosque in Riverside, California and later at one in nearby San Bernardino, officials at the mosques said on Thursday.
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And that has left them all the more puzzled about his killing spree on Wednesday.
“He is someone who used to listen to my sermons, my talks here,” said Mustafa Kuko, director of the Islamic Center of Riverside. “I sat up last night thinking about him and what’s happened.”
Kuko has trouble understanding how Farook could have betrayed the very principles of his religion. “We’re told in Islam if you take one human life, it’s as if you’ve taken all of mankind.”
Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, his wife and mother of his 6-month-old daughter, were killed in a shootout with police after the couple opened fire at the Inland Regional Center social services agency in the city of San Bernardino, killing 14 people.
Mahmood Nadvi, an assistant imam at the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah-Amer mosque in San Bernardino, which Farook began attending in 2014, was equally disturbed. “You can’t be a true Muslim and sleep after this,” he said “We weep for our brothers and sisters lost in humanity.”
Kuko recalls that Farook attended prayers at the Riverside mosque first thing in the morning and last thing at night until he abruptly quit showing up for services in 2014. “He was a very quiet person, peaceful, never had any argument with anyone or dispute,” he recalled.
The year before, in 2013, Kuko said, Farook told him about a Pakistani woman living in Saudi Arabia whom he hoped to marry, and he asked for Kuko’s blessing. Later that year, Farook married Malik in Saudi Arabia and returned with her to celebrate the union at the Islamic Center in Riverside with a party for an estimated 250 to 300 people.
Kuko recalls Farook that night as being “very much pleased, relaxed, comfortable,” he said. “We didn’t infer anything abnormal.”
Nizaam Ali, a 23-year-old student who got to know Farook after he began attending the San Bernardino mosque, recalled Farook’s saying his wife wore the niqab, a veil that covers the entire face except for the eyes, and that he liked that about her.
Kuko said he couldn’t recall ever hearing Farook express extreme ideology. “If he had ever expressed his ideas, we could have tried to stop it,” he said. “We would have shut it down.”
In the wake of the shootings, the San Bernardino mosque received a phone threat that prompted an investigation by police, Nadvi said.
Friday’s prayer, known as the Jummah prayer, will be guarded by police between 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. as an expected 300 people gather to pray.
At the Riverside mosque, as many as 1,700 people typically show up for Friday prayer. One focus of their thoughts and prayers this week will be for Anies Kondoker, a mosque member who was among those injured in Wednesday’s shooting, Kuko said. She has three children and her husband is the program director.
fakers ! u dont mean it , its just to save yourselfs till things are gonna quiet down
BS, they say this lie since they fear.
If you have never read the Koran you can believe this lie, but if you have read the Koran (I have and recommend it to all who wish to understand) you will know that the Koran permits and advocates lying and in this case it is pure BS.
Add this to the fact that all Muslims MUST believe all of the Koran, and the Koran teaches that Christianity and Jews are to be killed and it is a noble act to kill Christians and Jews, and he/she who does such will go to heaven.
So don’t believe any Muslim who says otherwise. It is a lie, pure and simple, permitted by the Koran.
Kuko speaks emes. This crazy killer has betrayed Islamic beliefs just as the yiddeshe terrorists who were arrested for murdering Arabs for no cause are a betrayal of yiddeshkeit. Just as we have our own crazy rabbonim like Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef who endorse and rationalize the killing of arabs, so too are there crazies in Islam who way outside of the mainstream. Their despicable actions should be condemned and not viewed as the norm for Muslims.
““We’re told in Islam if you take one human life, it’s as if you’ve taken all of mankind.”
All is pure propaganda, it doesn’t pertain to infidels…
Just wonder why we don’t hear of Christians betraying Christianity, Jews betraying Judaism, Hindu betraying Hinduism etc etc
It makes no difference if the majority of Muslims say “not in my name”. At the end of the day it was Muslims who carried out these atrocities. Full stop. Doesn’t matter to the dead and bereaved if it was a cult or offshoot or whatever. It was Muslims. So when security stop Westerners at the airport to be politically correct, they are wasting their time. It is Muslims. Just like the nuts of Naturei Karta are Jews.
So sick these Muslims are the biggest liars. It’s called tekia where you’re allowed to deceive for your religion. They are happy with the violence perpetrated against the west.
FAKER!! As long as you will preach hate, even if you don’t clearly endorse the killings the outcome will still be the same.
And this crime was done by a foreign national too, mr. Barack Hussein
But most probably “work place violence” just like fort hood
Mr. Kuko “said he couldn’t recall ever hearing Farook express extreme ideology. “If he had ever expressed his ideas, we could have tried to stop it,” he said. “We would have shut it down.”
The important question that Mr. Kuko is not asked is, “would you have reported this behavior to law enforcement?”
Taking the responsibility for “shutting it down” is not adequate. These so-called “lone wolves” are in all of the mosques and are probably well known to their fellow congregants. Why are so many unwilling or unable to report them?
We are a secular society. Foreign visitors are always surprised by how many churches we have, but we are essentially a secular nation. So the attack may have been a betrayal of Islam, but it was illegal. Religion regulates morality;murder is immoral but principally it is illegal. These are not terrorists, these are murderers. It would be a welcome change if the media would stop romanticizing them and their actions by calling them terrorists. Murder is what they do.
Got their head in the sand. These extremists are the truest form of Muslim. The “peaceful” Muslims are the one’s that are reformed. ISIS is to Muslim what the most religious hassidic group is to Judaism (IN THE RELIGIOUS SENSE, NOT TO COMPARE THE 2). Extremists are the most religious Muslims in the world who follow the quran to the letter.
It looks like the equavilent for a reform temple. Most ladies in the picture are showing their hair and face. The ladeis are not dressed accorrding to muslim tznuis standards. That begs the following question. Are they condemning the attack because they are secular or because Islam doesn’t hold of it? What do the “ehrlicha” muslims hold. Until a lady with a burka down to her noose who really fasts all 40 days of ramadan condemns it, the condemnation is worthless. Because all they are saying is that secular people don’t hold of terror. if you want to prove tat Isalm is gainst terror you must be a very frum muslim yourslef.