Members of the Silver Spring Maryland Muslim Community Center where Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the soldier accused of shooting 30 comrades and killing 13 others at a Texas army base, said Hasan was a "quiet" and "private" person.
Mosque leaders told CBS 21 News that Hasan occasionally attended prayer service at the mosque before he was relocated to the Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen Texas.
"The last time I saw him was two years ago," said Arshad Qureshi, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Muslim Community Center. "He would come to the prayers maybe a couple of times a week,"
One man who asked to remain anonymous, said Hasan was always a "soft-spoken" guy. He said he often teased the 39-year-old suspect about being unmarried, something that the man said is very uncommon for middle-aged Muslim men.
"He was never married or had any relationship with the opposite sex and everybody in his family said that he was very much a loner, a nice person but a loner with odd behavior, so I think that was the prime motivation," said Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of The Institute for Gulf Affairs and an outside consultant for CBS News Network.
Witnesses at Fort Hood reported hearing Hasan shouting "Allahu Akbar," arabic for "God is Great." Members at the Maryland Muslim Community center told CBS 21 News that their religion promotes peace and they want the public to know that they do not condone his action.
"It's really bad," said Mirza Asif. "We really condemn this, it's shameless."
"I really don't know what to think," said Umu Kabba. "I mean it was an individual thing and I personally think it was inhuman, period, no excuse for religion."
They are hoping that the shooting will not cause animosity toward the Muslim community.
"Things like this make other people generalize like Muslims are the worst people in the world and that's not true," said Kabba. " I'm a Muslim and I wouldn't hurt a fly."
Ali-Almed believes that Hasan, a license psychiatrist, suffered from psychological issues himself.
"What ticked him off and made him commit this crime was his mental instability," said Almed. "That's a lesson for the army to find out if they have people like that."
