{"id":236171,"date":"2026-05-19T00:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236171\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T00:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:41:06","slug":"what-to-know-about-san-diegos-islamic-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236171\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Know About San Diego\u2019s Islamic Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Linda Sarsour, a New York activist, saw on social media that the Islamic Center of San Diego had been attacked on Monday, she immediately texted Imam Taha Hassane.<\/p>\n

Ms. Sarsour, one of four national co-chairs of the Women\u2019s March on Washington in 2017, has crisscrossed the country speaking at mosques and community centers. Shortly after the shooting, which killed three people, she said that the Islamic Center of San Diego was \u201ca model for the rest of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a wonderful place, and I\u2019m not even saying that to you just because it\u2019s this mosque,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cI\u2019ve been there so many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a news conference on Monday evening, Mr. Hassane said the community was in mourning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something we have never expected to take place, but at the same time, the religious intolerance and the hate, unfortunately, that exists in our nation is unprecedented,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of us, we are responsible for spreading the culture of tolerance, the culture of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mosque\u2019s website<\/a> says that its mission is to \u201cwork with the larger community to serve the less fortunate, to educate, and to better our nation.\u201d It holds prayers five times a day, as well as a Friday sermon.<\/p>\n

Ms. Sarsour said the mosque\u2019s diversity is its most striking aspect.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople from African Americans to African immigrants to Arabs to white converts to Eastern Europeans to Latinos,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s literally the most diverse mosque that I\u2019ve ever been to in my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Sarsour has been a prominent advocate for Islamic causes, championing the rights of Palestinians. She gained prominence as a voice for the rights of Muslims after 9\/11, and more recently has become a target for supporters of President Trump \u2014 and for Russian trolls.<\/a><\/p>\n

Her activism has taken her across the country, including to San Diego. The Islamic Center there, she said, does a lot of community service and mobilizes parishioners to go to pro-immigrant rallies. It hosts open houses for the general public.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir sermons are all in English because of the diversity of the mosque,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do it in Urdu, or Arabic, because of that diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Sarsour said that it was more than just a place to pray, and that there was always an activity. At the time of the shooting, parents would have been in the lounge area after dropping their children at the adjacent Islamic school, she said.<\/p>\n

She said that the imam, Mr. Hassane, was active in the larger community and part of many national interfaith efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not like a regular imam, like the ones who go to the mosque, lead a prayer and go home,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Linda Sarsour, a New York activist, saw on social media that the Islamic Center of San Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,92423],"class_list":["post-236171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-san-diego-county-calif"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}