Imam says ‘tragedy’ will not ‘stop us’
By Alex Kane
Imam Lahmuddin in the aftermath of an arson attack on the mosque he leads.
(Photo: T. Rob Brown/AP)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is now offering a $10,000 reward for information about the fire that leads "to the arrest and conviction of whoever may have caused [the] fire."
The July 4 arson was caught on camera, but no one has been arrested yet.
For more on the mosque burning, I spoke with Imam Lahmuddin, who has led Joplin’s Muslim community in prayer since 2008. Lahmuddin uses one name. Below is a transcript of our phone conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
Alex Kane: Lay out what exactly happened on Monday, what you know about the arson.
Imam Lahmuddin: Well, during the month of Ramadan, we meet at the mosque for the prayers, and Sunday evening I was the last one to leave the building at about ten minutes after 11. I closed the door and the gate and went home and expected to come back the next morning at 5 o’clock to do the morning prayer.
But at 3:15 I got a call from the sheriff’s office. I missed the call and got a message that the call is from the sheriff’s office. When I heard “sheriff’s office” at that time, early in the morning, I sensed something wrong with the mosque. So I was preparing myself to eat suhoor [the meal before the Ramadan fast begins] and to begin fasting and I delayed that and left the house and drove to the mosque. It takes five minutes to get to the mosque, but from a distance I saw smoke from the sky, from the location of the mosque, and I hoped it’s not from the mosque. But when I arrived there, it is from the mosque–it was on fire. Part of the roof was covered by fire and the sheriff’s car was on the property of the mosque and I saw one fire truck behind the mosque. And I stopped at a neighbor’s driveway to look at the mosque for about five minutes, and the roof collapsed into the building and burned everything. And then I left.