Progressive Imam Fondly Remembered

BY LESLIE CASIMIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Originally published on December 5, 2005

The late Imam Mohammed Nabi Yusufi, a longtime spiritual leader of the New York area Afghan community, accomplished the unthinkable in conservative Islamic circles:

He made sure that all six of his daughters got a college education.

"Every chance he had, he talked about women and how important of a role they play in our society," said Manizha Naderi, the director of Women for Afghan Women. "He made sure that all his daughters had an education. He was considered progressive."

Yesterday, Yusufi, 82, was eulogized at the Syed Jamaluddin Afghani Mosque in Flushing, which he has led since 1985.

The Flushing resident died last week of congestive lung failure, sparking an intense outpouring of sadness and grief among many Afghan New Yorkers, a community that numbers about 20,000 throughout the metropolitan area.

"He was a very good person for whom everyone wanted to take the expenses on his own for his funeral and burial," said Ismat Ullah Nawabi, 69, a hematologist from Short Hills, N.J., and member of the Queens mosque. "We paid the funeral home, but the funeral home did not want to accept our money. That's the kind of impression he had on many people."

Yusifi's youngest daughter, Afifa Yusufi, 26, a project manager for a language resource center in Maine, said her father comes from a long line of spiritual leaders in Afghanistan, including the late Mullah Abdul Fayaz. Earlier this year, Fayaz was brazenly assassinated in Afghanistan after he spoke out against the Taliban.

Born in Kandahar in 1923, Mohammed Nabi Yusufi fled the country with his wife and oldest children after the Soviet invasion in 1979.

He first moved to Ohio, but came to New York in the early 1980s. He is one of the founders of Syed Jamaluddin Afghani Mosque, which also doubles as a community center for many Afghan immigrants.

"My father loved to serve, he was handling all kinds of needs and disputes in the community," said Afifa Yusufi. "That's what he lived for really - to unite Afghans."