San Diego Mosque Shooting

David Vidmar

May 22

The Islamic Center of San Diego has long been more than just a mosque to me, to many of us at Peace Catalyst, and to the whole community. It has been a place of friendship, learning, hospitality, and our shared work for peace. Imam Taha and the community there have welcomed us for years as partners in interfaith dialogue, justice, and care for our city. For me personally, it is a place tied to close relationships and memories that have shaped my understanding of love, faith, and neighborliness.

So when I started getting texts from a San Diego faith leaders’ thread that there was an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego, the mosque near my house, I jumped on my wife’s electric bike to check on my friends there. A police officer told me there were multiple deaths, and I wept in deep sadness, great frustration, and trembling fear of the news. I made my way to the park where others had gathered, saw my friend, Imam Taha, and walked to him, stepping under the police tape. I had feared he and his family were among the dead. We hugged. I cried. Couldn’t say anything.

I heard that a security guard was among the five dead. My mind jumped to my new friend who worked security at the mosque, Amin Abdullah. My heart sank when I learned he was the guard who had been killed. My brief but impactful friendship with Amin began last month, when I rode my bike to the mosque to attend an interfaith gathering dealing with the attacks on immigrants in San Diego. As I was leaving, the always-present Amin came over to me and told me he had turned off the flashing rear light on my wife’s bike. We began to talk about electric bikes, and in great detail, he explained how to run wires through the bike frame to connect the bike lights to the main battery.

Pointing over to his own electric bike, he told me he had worked as an electric bike assembler. His bike, which he had built himself, was like the Harley of electric bikes. With a huge battery and frame, it could take him and his 220lb frame, accelerating to over 40 miles per hour, to LA and back on a single charge.

I was amazed - but what impressed me more than his bike was his desire to make time to connect and encourage this new electric bike user. He always greeted me warmly, but this encounter made me feel welcome as a new friend and left me wishing I could stay longer. I told myself that if I returned to the mosque for no other purpose, it would be to visit him. His spirit will live on, but I grieve the loss of that next visit, and the loss of all those who were murdered in this horrific attack.