Allan Appel Photo
In 1968 he was Joseph Jordan. Then he began his studies at Mosque No. 40 on Goffe Street.
Jordan (pictured) eventually became Yusuf Ahmad. More than two generations later he was on the roof to help unveil a new sign renaming the Muhammad Islamic Center in honor of his teacher, Dr. Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan, who led him to a new name and way of life.
Jordan was one of 100 members, well-wishers, and officials from the tri-state area who Saturday morning participated in the renaming ceremony at the masjid or mosque at 870 Dixwell, just over the Hamden border, where the center has been located since 1997.
The renaming was announced last November when the local New Haven/Hamden Muslim community celebrated its 50th anniversary. At that gathering members hailed Hasan, who has led them for more than 40 of those years, with a particular emphasis on interfaith dialogue.
Mosques are rarely named after a living person, said center spokesman Shahid Abdul Karim. “It’s not traditional. Many in the Muslim world think when you put a name on a center it’s like worshipping an individual.”
But Hasan manner gave the lie to that fear. Affable, modest, and with self-effacing humor, Hasan (at left in photo) accepted the renaming honor on behalf of everyone. He cited particular “the pioneers,” beginning with Martha Shabazz, in whose house on Hamilton Street Islam first took root in New Haven in 1959.
Hasan himself arrived in 1961 and took on the imam or leadership role in 1968.
Saturday’s proceedings included presentation of an award to Hamden Mayor Scott Jackson, who accepted gracefully, after spending some time wrangling with his sons Eli and Max.
Jackson hailed Hasan for his interfaith leadership, which he called not theoretical but very real, a “Hamden-kind of thing.”
Under the leadership of W. Deen Mohammed, Hasan helped re-orient New Haven-area Muslims like Joseph Jordan/Yusuf Ahmad (who until 1975 called himself Joseph 4X to get away from his slave name) from the black nationalism of the Nation of Islam. The shift was to an internationalist message of universal brotherhood and an embrace of the American experience (troubling as it might be(, with a special respect for documents that protect religious freedoms.
Hasan called the masjid’s renaming “a tribute to Christian, Jewish, all of us.”
In the many moving tributes to Hasan, perhaps the most poignant was by his wife, Zakiyyah S.Hasan. She was all for a new tradition where the beneficiary could breathe in, like the scent of a rose, his achievements while he is alive.
Spokesman Karim said the gesture was also important historically. “We wanted to establish a tradition of African-Americans’ legacy in Hamden and New Haven. Our ethnic background, who we are as a people, Muslim and African-American.”
Yusuf Ahmad came to New Haven from South Carolina in 1951. He remembered one of his first lessons with Imam Hasan, that all men are brothers in everything.
Ahmad worked for 34 years, until 2000 doing maintenance at Yale University. That’s why in part he was on the roof. Since retirement, he has been one of the go-to guys for the maintenance of the mosque.
