Muhammad Shamsi Ali

Imam on a mission

He has been called an imam on a mission.

Muhammad Shamsi Ali, an assistant imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre and a pillar of the Muslim community in New York City, is a slight man; soft-spoken, yet forceful in his convictions. Foremost among those convictions is the belief that the only way for communities of different faiths to coexist is to begin contact on a person-to-person level. In his words, he has a passion for inter-faith initiatives.

Al Jazeera sat down with him on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to talk about how he feels his work has been affected by them, and how he has striven to break down barriers between religious communities in New York (a mission that has won him as much praise as criticism, from both Muslims and non-Muslims).