San Diego’s Muslims, a mosque, and a city shaken | The Take

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Today, a community shaken by tragedy.

[00:00:04]>> My dad was the number one advocate for safety and keeping our community safe.

[00:00:09]He stood against any form of hate.

[00:00:12]>> How San Diego is remembering the three men killed while protecting a school and Muslim community center. I'm Malika Biral and this is the take.

[00:00:27]Hey there. As details about the shooting in San Diego, California continue to emerge, we know many of you have thoughts about what you've seen in the reporting of it and questions still to be answered. We want to hear them. Use the comments to let us know and tell us if there are any perspectives you wish were being covered. And before we go on, be warned that this episode will deal with death and gun violence. Here's the show.

[00:00:57]My name is Sarah Hussein. I run my own business focusing on AI, the integration of AI and culture and I'm also a community leader here in San Diego supporting six nonprofits on their boards and then volunteering on many others.

[00:01:11]>> Wow. Well, Sarah, welcome to the Take.

[00:01:14]It's good to have you, though I wish the circumstances were different. You and I go way back. We've been friends for years. So, you were the first person that I thought of when I heard about the attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, where you're from. What I didn't know is that you have deep roots at that center.

[00:01:35]>> Yeah.

[00:01:35]>> So, before we dive into the details of what happened and what has happened next, how are you doing and how is your community doing right now?

[00:01:45]>> Yeah. I want to start off by saying thank you for reaching out and it's good to see you. Um, I haven't been great. I have been kind of paralyzed on my couch. I immediately wrote because I cope with writing whether it's joy or sorrow. And so I wrote how I felt and it got published.

[00:02:06]But my goal was simply to articulate that this is a community that is in pain. And right now the amount of texts and calls between members of the community, it's non-stop. and everyone's sharing news, updates, stories, posts.

[00:02:23]Uh so the community is definitely in a lot of shock and a lot of pain and devastation, but there has been a call to action and I think that this will, you know, hopefully after today, after the funeral, there will be a turn into action.

[00:02:39]>> What is the call to action?

[00:02:41]You know, I a lot of it's how we're going to rise from this and what does coming together look like? It's going to be first of all the kids that were there and they had to see things and hear things that will forever mark them. So, getting them the counseling they need.

[00:02:59]Um reopening the school, you know, kind of getting a little bit back to what normal will look like after this.

[00:03:08]And so, there's that. how you're going to rise, how we're going to come together and stand by one another. And I think there's the greater San Diego issue around communities coming together to address hate and having more dialogues.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah.

[00:03:22]So, for those who may not have been following this story, can you walk us through what happened and first how you learned it was happening?

[00:03:34]Yeah. You know, hindsight's 2020. I didn't actually wake up feeling great Monday morning. Um, just felt a little off and driving on the highway and my phone just starts going off. I'm like, "What's going on?" Like, this thread is going off. There must be a funny meme.

[00:03:49]There must be something. Like, you don't default to bad news immediately.

[00:03:53]>> Yeah.

[00:03:53]>> And I look and they're like, "Oh my god, after shooter." And suddenly it's like my mom calls. There's another school across the street. They got parents got notified immediately. Wow. School's on lockdown. there's an active shooter and all of a sudden text like within minutes and the first thing I said I'm driving and I see this I'm like what like I felt like my heart jumped out of me and like went black and my mom was calling and she's like get off the road >> because you're going through so much shock and fear cuz you we didn't know at that time there's an active show at the mosque and IU ICSD it's a it's a community center it's a school >> right Yeah.

[00:04:34]>> What would that look like? So, I had nothing but fear and I was like paralyzed. And for the next few hours, it was, you know, security guard this and then texts from literally I have friends all over the US >> and we're all messaging, oh my god, he he was shot, is he killed? Like, you just you don't know, right? There's a period of rumors >> and then there's a period of knowing. In fact, >> I've been glued to the news since and glued to my phone since. Yeah, we know now that two young men 17 and 18 years old um were armed were roaming the neighborhood. We we also know that one of their mothers um called into police that her son was suicidal and was armed and they were roaming the neighborhood and then shots were heard fired at this mosque compound, this systemic center.

[00:05:32]Children were in classrooms and a security guard was standing at the entrance.

[00:05:38]Can you walk us through what we know about what happened next?

[00:05:42]>> Yeah. Um he you know I mean may he rest in peace. He first of all I just want to say so sweet. I saw him every night during Ramadan when I would go in and out. My dad knows him. The whole community knows him. and can you knew every kid by name, every parent, like a walking angel that guarded our mosque and school. Um, but I guess, you know, he was there standing in front. The shiff had just talked to him and said, "I'm going to go up and prepare for prayer." He went upstairs. Within a few minutes, all of a sudden, he saw the shooters. They're shooting at him. He radio calls and says, "Active shooter after shooting." The kids are in the playground >> actually, not like um >> adjacent to the door.

[00:06:26]>> Teachers got kids inside, locked the doors, and in the interim, I think Abu Az came out um and uh Nad who lives across the street.

[00:06:36]It was like within seconds you have two other men that came out. They had already shot a mean and he had been firing back. They had made it inside.

[00:06:47]Um, so these three victims and now martyrs have literally saved what could have been horrible. You had 140 kids, I believe, in that in that building.

[00:06:58]>> So you mentioned that the funerals for those who were killed will be today, the day of our interview.

[00:07:07]>> Um, their names are Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kazha, and Nazer Aad.

[00:07:13]What should we know about who they were and what they represented?

[00:07:16]>> Yeah. Well, I could definitely speak to two of them. Um, I unfortunately did not know um Nadawad. I I knew that his wife is a teacher across the street. Um, and they were very involved and um in in the community.

[00:07:32]I will say Abu A has hit me and my family hard. And Kazha, our elder, he goes by Abu A, he is the pillar of the Islamic Center of San Diego. Um, we moved to San Diego 1992. It's 9 years old. And um, we immediately came to the mosque. Like it's just where you go. Got enrolled in school, Arabic school. And that's where we went. That's where we hung out.

[00:07:59]That's where we made friends. And Abu Gaz was there. He just ran the store. He cooked every dinner every week and his wife um is a sweetheart. His kids uh I grew up with my my siblings grew up with my brother's close to his sons. Um and actually his son is my mechanic.

[00:08:19]>> So this is this was a built-in you're I can just picture little nine-year-old Sarah and this is a built-in community.

[00:08:26]You're making friends. You're also making ties. Your parents are making friends and then they've lasted. Those ties have lasted. Yes. Since 1992, we've been here and you do everything together, right? And we've gone through a lot in San Diego, right? We went through 9/11 and we've gone through weddings together, births, deaths, right? So, that's what the beauty of community is that it's not just a place that you come in and pray and leave. You when a baby's born, we're all there. And Abula has cooks cooked for us. Um, when my best friend died in college, you know, the first place I had to call was the mosque. and you go there. And so we've gone through everything together.

[00:09:04]We know everyone's stories. That's the beauty of a community, especially a mosque, like um a religious center, I should say. And so losing Abu A hit me hard just because I I was just seeing him a few months ago during Ramadan and like he's he's like I would say like the godfather of the mosque or like the Santa Claus of the mosque. I would say Santa Claus in the reference that he gave everybody treats and there's my friends kids know him so we knew him and it's his generational thing and I mean you know admittedly it was more on a nod a high hello basis. Um very nice guy. I always I always felt happy he was there and he was very diligent uh making sure you do not cross the street unless the light is on. Um he was known for being very diligent about speeding and he did his job. He took his job very seriously and >> yeah clearly >> you know I know um his wife's good friend and um just beyond shock right now with his eight kids and >> so you went to a vigil on Tuesday in remembrance. What stood out to you from that event?

[00:10:18]>> I was so thankful for the different communities that showed up. It was there's a lot of people. I would say four to 5,000 people easy.

[00:10:27]>> Wow.

[00:10:28]>> And um it was massive. But it kept growing. I think for me the hardest part was seeing the kids and the families of those that were lost.

[00:10:37]>> To me, my dad was a role model. He was a best friend.

[00:10:42]He was the best, absolute best dad in the world. He was my protector.

[00:10:48]>> When I learned that, you know, his actions saved all the kids in the school and deter them from even, you know, going to the kids, you know, I I I felt proud and I felt comfort because I know like that's that's exactly how my dad would have wanted to go out was, you know, protecting people. And I think it's the same for um the children of Abul Khaz.

[00:11:14]Um their father was there since it they broke ground. The mosque was his life.

[00:11:20]He took a lot of pride in feeding the community. You could go if you didn't have a meal, you'd be there. Um and I the one of the thoughts I had was how fitting of a death, right? M >> in the sense where he died in a place that he loved and that he helped build, helped fund raise for and he knew everybody. There's a lot of beauty in their deaths. One of the speakers at the vigil actually said, "We could focus on the acts of hate or we can focus on the acts of love." and the acts of love for what these three men did without even thinking to protect uh our children, to protect the center, to give their lives.

[00:12:03]I'm sure in the moment they're not even thinking that. You're just thinking protect. Oh my, you know, I don't I can't even imagine. But >> and I've flipped my narrative instead of focusing on why did this happen? How did we get here? Right now, I'm coping by thinking about how these three men saved us. And it could have been a lot worse.

[00:12:24]>> It really could have.

[00:12:27]>> Um, well, you mentioned earlier the community kind of focusing now on what's next and how do we rise above? And in that conversation, inevitably is going to be accountability. How do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Why was this allowed to happen? And how can we change that? So, there's this clip that's circulating online of a presser that the San Diego mayor Todd Gloria gave after the shooting. direct result of your leadership. Your leadership of Muslim brothers and sisters have been talking to me for how long?

[00:13:00]You have to listen to that pod.

[00:13:02]>> Have you seen that clip?

[00:13:04]>> Yes.

[00:13:05]>> What do you make of that?

[00:13:07]>> I will say it has not helped the situation. Um, you know, since October 7th, sadly, we haven't felt a lot of support from the mayor. And so that's been really hard to not feel supported by your leader. And so, you know, one thing is that you have a responsibility to support all your constituents. And we definitely didn't feel that support. And so there was also an element of betrayal. You can't, you know, fund raise and be there and then once you take office, you don't feel that support.

[00:13:41]>> We know that crimes like this don't happen in a vacuum, though.

[00:13:45]>> Yes. You wrote an op-ed for the San Diego Union Tribune where you call this shooting a byproduct of misinformation and mean sentiments that other an entire faith and the results as we know are deadly. The Muslim Public Affairs Council um says it has documented an 11fold increase in threats and attacks against American Muslims from just January to March of 2026.

[00:14:12]What do you and your community members want to hear and see from elected officials?

[00:14:19]>> Yeah, and in San Diego alone, I think it's important to note that the Council of American Islamic Relations noted a 300% increase just the last couple years. One thing I will say what we need is we need more solidarity at our events, right? But not just showing up, but saying the right things, following up. Um, and also it's really important to have an equitable approach to all communities.

[00:14:42]And so we want to make sure that moving forward we really have a lens where we treat everybody the same. And I think we need to really think about what politics is truly driving and what it really means to be a leader.

[00:14:56]>> And we know that authorities believe the teenagers who carried out this attack exchange radicalized ideology. That's a quote from police. And authorities also said that they recovered a manifesto which covered a wide range of viewpoints on races and religions, hate speech found scrolled on one of the weapons and the attack. So there's a lot here um to wrap our heads around. How do you make sense of what we're learning so far?

[00:15:32]>> Yeah, it feels like the nightmare keeps getting worse and worse. Um, when I keep I'm actually very interested in learning more about these suspects in the sense where how did we get here? How do you have these two teenagers that have so much hatred against different races and different religions?

[00:15:53]I mean, where did they learn that? What's scary nowadays is that what our phones give us, the access at our fingertips, is designed and catered to their beliefs.

[00:16:04]So, it only reinforces what they think they believe or the perceptions and beliefs that they think are right. And that's what scares me is that they have a a view of this world and a view of other people that is wrong.

[00:16:21]>> They're not the only ones, right? And that's I think what what what keeps me up at night right now. And I think a lot of members of every community, I mean, the solidarity that I saw at the vigil from the Jewish community, the Asian community, the black community, a lot of minorities are feeling fear right now because there's something out there that we don't know where it is.

[00:16:42]>> Where does it live? How do you fight an ideology? And I think this is what we need to do is figure out how we can beat some of what these algorithms, this technology, this media, this hate speech that we're seeing. How do you overcome that and beat that?

[00:17:00]>> Um, you know, the mayor who we mentioned earlier has declared that hate has no place in San Diego and that Islamophobia will not be tolerated.

[00:17:10]And I wonder if you believe that because it's that in addition to the easy access to guns and so it's the gun debate that merges with the Islamophobia debate and neither of those things seem any closer to being solved anytime soon. And yet when it hits so close to home, it is impossible to then ignore these two giant looming elephants in the room.

[00:17:33]>> They're they're statements. They're words, right? So you have to back up your words. It's great that he said that. Sure. Absolutely. There is no room for hate. But what is the mayor and our leaders are going to what are they going to do about it? Are we going to fund are you going to give us more access to security? Are you going to show up at events? Are you going to take our interviews?

[00:17:52]um there needs to be a genuine approach, right? Not just words. And I think what what happens now, what you're seeing is a lack of trust. There's been a lack of trust. And when things like this happen, it's a result of that. And leaders set the tone. Every leader sets the tone.

[00:18:12]And it doesn't help with our administration. And then if we feel like our leaders here in our own city aren't there for us, then acts like these could be these kids could have just they justified their actions. Um if there is no room for hate, then there should have been closer monitoring of where these weapons are going, who we're selling to, mental health issues, the loneliness epidemic. There's so many variables that we need to be addressing so that we minimize and reduce and eliminate these acts of hate.

[00:18:43]Yeah. Well, Sarah, we started this conversation with you telling us about your memories of the Islamic Center and um your roots there. And I know that you've spoken to other members of your community. So, I wonder how this tragedy is going to change the space that you so vividly and poignantly remember it being. Can it go back to being that warm, welcoming place where an uncle has food and treats for everyone and someone's standing guard or or does it change >> forever?

[00:19:20]I think it will change. It'll go back to a new norm. There's this term new norm and then it becomes a norm, right? With time communities heal. There will be new security guards. There will be someone else who will step in. And for those maybe of my generation and um maybe in 10 15 20 years it it'll be different.

[00:19:41]New leaders will step in. So that's what's beautiful about time is that time does heal. And I'm sure that you know these men will have their pictures in our administration office.

[00:19:54]This has forever changed our community.

[00:19:55]I mean like I said I've been here since '92. We've never had a situation like this. We've had threats. we've had um you know acts of hate or but never anything like this and so I think this will also change what we define as security maybe not having one security guard and I know other temples and other mosques all have security guards and that's sad across San Diego cuz we've had a synagogue that was um there was a shooting at a synagogue as well a few years ago and so I would love to get to a point where norm is that our centers don't need to have security guards but that's not the case I think we're going to become more started more careful for a long time.

[00:20:36]>> Is there even an inkling in the back of your mind that maybe you don't want to go back? That maybe there's a fear, have you talked about that with others?

[00:20:48]>> Yeah. You know what's sad? Um, one of the first things, we I've been talking to my parents non-stop. We've been, you know, connected at the hip since this happened and processing as a family. But my dad said, you know, sometimes when he goes to pray on Fridays, prays there, um, he can't help but feel a little nervous. And my friend, her, she drops her son off at Sunday school, and she's like, I always get nervous. And we don't know if that's a byproduct of the media and what we see and the stereotyping of the Muslim community, but we also have this fear sometimes. And I subconsciously always felt like, God, why do I have to walk by a security guard before I go into my mosque, right?

[00:21:26]So I think we we always have that fear because it's there. Um so people are devastated and maybe we're also shocked that it's us, right? You never think it's going to be your community. It's going to happen to us.

[00:21:41]And that's I think what's really hard is this is 10 minutes down the road from me. This is my mosque where I go pray.

[00:21:48]This is you know I I turn to them to find out when I eat is going to be what time. They're my resource.

[00:21:54]>> Yeah. And for this to happen just days before Eid and some of the holiest days uh of the religion um has to hurt that much more.

[00:22:03]>> Yeah. Yeah. I will tell you the next morning was the most beautiful sunrise and morning and wearing May gray in San Diego. Like this is a known thing for those of you listening. May is an ugly month in San Diego. And it was the sunniest, brightest sunrise. And it brought tears to my eyes. I'm like this is from Bob. Like we had horrible Monday. Monday was a horrible day. I never want to relive that. I don't wish that upon anyone. But the next morning we had sun.

[00:22:31]And so, you know, there's there's um hopefully I think this will be a very special one and painful.

[00:22:40]>> Yeah. Well, one thing in the news is that the headlines will disappear, but the feelings of course from a tragic event like this do not for the community. And so it's so important to keep feeling that support.

[00:22:55]>> Yeah.

[00:22:56]>> Thank you, Sarah, for this conversation.

[00:22:58]I really appreciate it.

[00:22:59]>> Thank you for your time.