{"id":341574,"date":"2026-06-01T16:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341574\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:19:09","slug":"san-diegos-muslim-community-stands-united-after-deadly-mosque-shooting-the-ucsd-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341574\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego\u2019s Muslim community stands united after deadly mosque shooting \u2013 The UCSD Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

On May 19, hundreds gathered at Lindbergh Park to stand in solidarity and honor those impacted by a deadly shooting<\/a> at the neighboring Islamic Center of San Diego.<\/p>\n

Religious leaders, elected officials, advocacy organizations, and community members mourned the deaths of Mansour Kaziha \u2014 nicknamed Abuliz \u2014 Nadir Awad, and Amin Abdullah. Throughout the vigil, speakers conveyed a common message: The community will not allow violence and hatred to define its future.<\/p>\n

The shooting occurred on May 18, the first day of Dhul Hijjah, a holy month when the first 10 days are widely regarded<\/a> by Islamic scholars as the most sacred period of the Islamic lunar calendar. The month is a time to gather, give charity, and forgive. Kaziha, Awad, and Abdullah died protecting<\/a> the ICSD\u2019s students and teachers \u2014 including Awad\u2019s wife \u2014 during the attack.<\/p>\n

For many attendees, the vigil was not only a moment of mourning but also a reminder of the values that united the community long before the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we move forward as a community, we should really focus on the love that we have between each other,\u201d Mathias Pretet, vice president of the Muslim Student Association of UC San Diego, said in an interview with The UCSD Guardian.<\/p>\n

Shaykha Muslema Purmul \u2014 the religious director of The Majlis, a nonprofit focused on religious education and service \u2014 spoke about the three victims during the vigil. Purmul said that the victims\u2019 actions demonstrated their devotion to both their faith and those around them. Pretet reflected on the message in her remarks, noting that the love reflected by the community will not be vanquished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want hate to overcome that love,\u201d Pretet said. \u201cAt the end of the day, the thing that is so moving for all of us with brother Amin, brother Nadir, with Abuliz, is that it\u2019s their love for the children in that school, for the mosque, for their community, that led them to give up their lives in defending that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day, students and community members gathered<\/a> at UCSD\u2019s Silent Tree in front of Geisel Library. Representatives from the MSA UCSD, the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Diego, and ICSD Imam Taha Hassane addressed attendees.<\/p>\n

In his remarks, Hassane emphasized the importance of confronting hatred before it escalates into violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see, every single time, that hate speech turns to be bullets,\u201d Hassane said. \u201cHate speech kills.\u201d<\/p>\n

While both vigils focused primarily on healing and remembrance, several speakers also connected the shooting to broader concerns about rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in the United States. According to CAIR, the organization received<\/a> 8,683 civil rights complaints in 2025, the highest number in its history. CAIR offers free legal assistance to those who report complaints about employment discrimination, immigration and asylum cases, and hate incidents. CAIR had the most civil right complaints submitted in those three categories in 2025.<\/p>\n

Marwa Abdalla, who recently completed her Ph.D. in communication at UCSD with a focus on critical Muslim studies, said conversations surrounding anti-Muslim discrimination often place the burden of response on the communities most affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust for a minute, I invite all of us to reframe this question,\u201d Abdalla said. \u201cHow much longer should it be marginalized communities\u2019 responsibility to counter a national political discourse bent on intimidation and division?\u201d<\/p>\n

As Muslims around the world observe Dhul Hijjah, Pretet said the lesson he hopes people take from the tragedy is the importance of recognizing one another\u2019s shared humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the same way that we hope that our own community would focus on the love that we have for each other, as human beings, as people who have dignity, as people who have a right to their safety and to worship and to be with each other, we hope people focus on loving each other and strengthening each other,\u201d Pretet said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On May 19, hundreds gathered at Lindbergh Park to stand in solidarity and honor those impacted by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134042,28225,74,76,75,35534],"class_list":["post-341574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-mosque-shooting","tag-muslim-community","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-vigil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}