Crystal Luong
Assistant News Editor
Ben Young / Photo Editor
Mohamed Hasan Ali’s memorial service was held
Oct. 14 in Stauffer Chapel.
Inna lillah wa inna ilayhe rajeoon.
“We are from God, and we are returning to God,” reads an Arabic prayer for loved ones lost.
The Pepperdine community suffered the passing of sophomore Mohamed Abdulla Mohamed Hasan Ali after a traffic accident claimed his life during the early morning hours of Oct. 7.
Ali and a high school friend, who was driving, were headed to Ralphs grocery store about 2 a.m. when their car spun out of control at a sharp curve on Civic Center Way, hitting several parked vehicles from the passenger side. Ali, 21, sustained fatal injuries while the driver was unharmed.
With loss has come remembrance and appreciation by friends and mentors who said Ali was a promising figure whose intellect balanced honesty, jovial laughter reflected good humor and firm convictions marked adherence to the Islamic faith.
“He was the most loyal, genuine friend I’ve met in my life,” said sophomore David Pelio, Ali’s roommate and prep school companion. “No matter what happened, he would always be there for the people he loved.”
Ali, better known as “Mo,” was a student from the kingdom of Bahrain, a developing island off the eastern shore of Saudi Arabia. As a scholarship recipient from the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Foundation in that country, he first attended Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Wallingford, Conn., before coming to Pepperdine in January 2003.
“Mo had tremendous potential as a leader of tomorrow for the kingdom of Bahrain,” said Dr. Ronald Koller, director of the Crown Prince program. “He was a true leader and was held in high esteem by all of the other 44 scholarship recipients.”
Jon Reynolds, the program’s former Higher Education Adviser, was present to welcome Ali when he first arrived in the United States to begin his studies.
“I was impressed with his kindness to others, his polished manners, his keen sense of humor and his ability to reach out to strangers,” Reynolds said. “He was quick to adapt to new environments.”
Such regard for Ali manifested in the memorial efforts following his passing.
In memoria
Circumstances prevented his parents, both educators from modest backgrounds, from flying to the United States to retrieve their son’s body.
However, grieving in Islamic culture could not begin until the completion of a proper burial.
Upon hearing news of the accident, Rich Dawson, director of the University’s Office of International Studies, began the process of contacting authorities to arrange the release of Ali back to Bahrain. Cutting through red tape, the University condensed a process, which usually could consume six weeks, to five days.
Ali’s uncle, AbdulGhani Al-Najar, served as an English-speaking intermediary for communicating with the parents, while Bahrain’s cultural attache flew from the kingdom’s embassy in Washington, D.C., to the west coast to conduct prayers.
Dawson, who accompanied Ali back to Bahrain, said he arrived to a community anxiously waiting but prepared to pay proper respects.
About 1,000 males dressed in shades of white, bearing headdresses, lined the roads from a mosque to the cemetery, Dawson said. The kingdom’s dignitaries also attended Ali’s funeral on Oct. 15.
“It was very solemn and reverent,” he said.
As the open casket passed from hand to hand along the procession, prayers resounded in melody.
“It was wonderfully enriching,” Dawson said. “I really experienced grace.”
At Pepperdine, a memorial service was held Oct. 14 in Stauffer Chapel. On the night following the accident, Ali’s friends also gathered to paint and sign “the Rock” outside the entrance to the Waves Café. The memorial’s design bore the Arabic mourning prayer and personal messages in remembrance.
“From RAs and SLAs to concerned students, friends, faculty and staff, the Pepperdine community came together in the last week and a half to honor Mohamed’s time in this community,” said Tabatha Jones, associate dean of Student Affairs.
Living by example
Ali’s closest friends are coming to terms by appreciating the unique roles he played in their lives, from Ali’s supportive nature and example of faith to his passion for hookah and music.
“We were there for each other, the good and bad,” said junior Josh Kam, whose family in Hawaii Ali spent last winter break with. “It was Mohamed that tied the group together and kept the conversation going.”
Junior Ryan Purol, Ali’s roommate last year, said he admired Ali’s ability to communicate.
“He always told me what was on his mind, and he expected the same,” Purol said. “He subsequently broke down all religious and ethnic barriers I thought of Arabs.”
As a Muslim at a Christian university, Ali faced challenges to his religion. But his response was, “It makes me stronger in my faith,” according to Purol.
“He made quite a few promises to his dad, things he wouldn’t do and would do,” Purol said. “And he fulfilled all of them.”
Ali, a Shi’a Muslim, often expressed discontent with people who gave Islam a bad name and Sunnis in his country who received special privileges, preventing those from his sect to rise to higher positions of influence, according to Purol.
“The saddest thing to me about his passing — with the potential he had, he was destined to change a lot of people’s lives,” Purol said.
The night before Ali’s accident, Ali presented senior Seweryn Sztalkoper with his personal prayer rug from Bahrain, an intricate tan tapestry lined with gold thread, bearing the semblance of a mosque lined by a grove of trees. He was supposed to teach Sztalkoper how to pray the next day.
Sztalkoper, who also learned from Ali how to play the duombek, an Arabian drum, remembered the way in which his friend sought to instill knowledge about culture and Islam.
“It’s not like he forced it, but he said it in such a way that made you want to learn more about it,” Sztalkoper said. “But as much as people saw him as a teacher, he also liked to take in someone’s point of view. He used that to shape his worldview.”
Ali also forged and solidified his relationships with the smooth pipes of the hookah, an Eastern tobacco-smoking device.
“That consumed a lot of our time,” Purol said. “It was a way to bring us together. That’s what it was really about.”
Purol and Kam recalled the splendor of a night spent with Ali and former Pepperdine student Joe Bendawald at the Gypsy Cafe, a hookah bar in Westwood.
Amid a lively atmosphere with food and rhythms, the friends noticed a stunning female who made every head in the room turn as she passed, Purol said.
She began to dance nearby Kam and Ali, as Ali sat in dismay of her moves and how she chose their group among the crowd.
That was the first night Ali introduced their close friend Bendawald to hookah, and Ali called that experience his “most magical night,” Purol said.
“The music was perfect, the food good,” Kam said. “Somehow that night, everything fit.”
Friends, faculty and staff agree that Ali will continue to leave a lasting impression.
“It is clear that Mo made a tremendous impact on the lives of Pepperdine students,” said Mark Davis, dean of Student Affairs.
“He taught us to look deeper than superficial stereotypes and to find common ground to bring unity and civility to this broken world.”
10-28-2004