Remembering Mukit Hossain

On November 27th, Mukit Hossain, a beloved co-worker and friend, made his transition back to Allah at the age of 54. His passing was sudden. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and numerous relatives and friends in his native
Bangladesh and throughout the United States.

Mukit will be remembered for his numerous contributions to the Muslim community of northern Virginia and the larger community of the United States. Mukit a member of the board of trustees of the ADAMS Center, and he was also among a very small group of Muslim leaders who had the foresight, and insight, to recognize the importance of voting and civic engagement as a process for empowering Muslims in America.

Since 2001, he was active in the leadership of the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, where he worked tirelessly to register and mobilize Muslim voters. Mukit's efforts were rewarded in 2006, when he worked to coordinate the MAS Freedom Voting is Power (VIP) initiative. This effort was instrumental in energizing the Muslim electorate in northern Virginia, which provided the margin of victory for a victorious candidate for the United States Senate. He also was recognized for his interfaith work with Christian, Jewish, and Unitarian congregations, and for his successful organizing efforts on behalf of legislation that demanded "truth in advertising" for both Halal and Kosher food products.

He was the founder of Food Source, an organization dedicated to feeding homeless people in Fairfax County. And more recently, Mukit and his family left the more frenetic pace of city life to raise Halal goats on a farm in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Mukit would describe his transition to country life and farming as "one most peaceful job of his life."

Mukit, though, was more than an accomplished political activist, farmer, and leader. He was a beloved friend to many of us who will remember his rapier-like wit, his bright smile, his humor, and even his hilarious accounts of life in the United States as a Bangladeshi Muslim graduate of Duke University. And most of all, we will remember Mukit as Muslim who would always take time to remember Allah (SWT) in prayer, while encouraging his brother and sisters to join him.

MAS Freedom joins with the Muslim community, and with the wider community of faith, in sending our condolences to the family of Brother Mukit. May Allah (SWT) receive him and grant his Paradise, for truly, from Allah we come, and to Him is our return.