Allan Appel Photo
They did not come out to praise Dr. Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan at length. They came to bury him — with the simplicity, modesty, and deep faith characteristic of one of New Haven’s pioneering religious leaders.
Imam Hasan died on Monday at the age of 83 after leading a New Haven Muslim community and reaching out to other faiths since the 1960s.
The janazah saleh, or funeral service, for the long-time leader of the eponymous Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center, on Dixwell Avenue near the New Haven/Hamden border, drew 200 people to the Colonial Funeral Home on Circular Drive in Hamden.
There were very few speeches about a man whose interfaith and other achievements much has been spoken. The one-time jazz musician followed a path forged by the late Malcom X in helping to establish a Nation of Islam congregation and then a breakaway institution of humanistic Islam in New Haven and Hamden.
A large contingent of family, including seven biological children and six stepchildren (including Leah, Michael, Deborah, Regina, Joy, Dawn, Abdul, pictured above), along with friends and admirers across faiths and communities thronged the small funeral home space greeting each other with hugs and “a salaam aleikem“s.
The traditional greeting was followed by the reply “wa aleikum a salaam,” which filled the anteroom of the hall where Dr. Hasan’s coffin rested.
The phrase means “peace be with you:— God’s peace, which is the ultimate peace. So explained Imam Saladin Hasan, one of Dr. Hasan’s sons, who leads the Ashura Islamic Community, on Sanford Street in Hamden.
There were no flowers or other adornments and the simple pine coffin. It was covered by a brown drape and remained in the corner. “You take nothing with you,” said Saladin Hasan. As a U.S. Air Force veteran, Hasan was to have an American flag draped on his casket.)
What’s important is what you have left behind, in terms of how you have lived your life and taught, and the child, or children who pray for you, said Imam Nasif Muhammad.
Muhammad (pictured) led the service, which lasted less than an hour.
As people filed by into the room that held the coffin, another family member repeated to each entering group, in Arabic, “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his last prophet.”
The oldest of the children, Michael Hasan, led a brief prayer, followed by a recitation of Koranic verses, all in Arabic. Joy Hasan Jones, one of the daughters — she said with a wink, the very favorite daughter —read a printed obituary.
Imam Muhammad, in the only formal encomium, likened Hasan to a tree growing and thriving from the top and anchored in the soil and rocks below, and providing shelter to other creatures even as strong winds blow.
“From Allah we come and to Allah we return, we are always returning,” he said.
“The actions of a person stop, but the learning continues, and the actions of the virtuous child who prays for him.”
The centerpiece of the service followed: A call to all Muslims in the room, who comprised a majority, to approach the coffin and line up facing east.
Quietly people moved into place. When the room was ready the leader called out “Allah hu akbahr” three times. Between each call and the response that followed there was an interval of deep silence as people whispered the designated prayers or were enmeshed in their own thoughts.
And then the service was over.
Without any pomp or a lining up of a gauntlet of attendees, the pall bearers, among them some of Hasan’s children, carried out the coffin to a waiting black hearse. Then two dozen cars lined up and began the journey to burial in Middletown.
Outside, before the procession left, the reunions and camaraderie continued.
Shafiq Abdussabur, who has been attending the masjid on Dixwell since his retirement after 20 years as a New Haven police officer, offered a quick assessment of the significance of only one aspect of Dr. Hasan’s life and work. “He was a pioneer of Islam in Connecticut” and beyond, he observed.
“Before re-entry was popular, he was a chaplain in the prisons. He was doing it years. He set the foundations for a lot of Muslims to be more serious about second chance.”
“He gave of himself to everyone he touched,” said Michael Hasan, the oldest of the children. “He’s my father, but he was also our father.”
Abdussabur said most janazehs are often even shorter than this one. “It’s preferable to have at least 100 people to pray for you,” he added, and to send you off. Hasan’s service certainly had fulfilled that aspect of the tradition, and more.
