Muslims call for justice at funeral for lslamic leader

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Upset yet content with God’s will, Muslims called for justice Saturday at the funeral of an Islamic leader who was killed by FBI agents in a shootout last week.

More than 1,000 packed the Muslim Center in Detroit in a spillover crowd that was at times teary-eyed over the fatal shooting of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a Muslim leader, or imam, who led another Detroit mosque. One speaker called him a martyr. 

 Muslims from metro Detroit, Virginia, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta attended the hour-long ceremony followed by a burial at Knollwood Memorial Park in Canton. At the burial, speakers urged the crowd not to seek revenge on the police or the informants they used in the case, saying that any punishment would come in the afterlife.

“We are looking for justice,” Imam Mohammad Elahi, head of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, told the crowd Saturday at the funeral. “We hope for a fair and just investigation in this case…because the closest road to Allah is justice.

Detroit FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena said his agents acted appropriately when they shot Abdullah during a raid Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn. Agents had gone there to arrest Abdullah and a group of nearly a dozen other men suspected of federal crimes and Islamic extremism. They said Abdullah shot at a police dog, which prompted them to return fire, killing him.

Elahi said at the service: “If you are saying they had to shoot, well, shooting is one thing, killing is something else.”

The crowd was primarily African -American, but included Muslims with roots in Asian countries, Iran, the Balkans, and the Arab world. In keeping with Islamic custom, the service was simple and featured a short funeral prayer known as janazah.

Speakers stressed that life and death are ultimately up to God.

“All power is in Allah’s hands,” said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a Muslim leader who heads the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in New York City and was a leader along with Abdullah with the Muslim Alliance in North America.

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