WASHINGTON - Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents' wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist.

Major Hasan was not married and had two brothers, one living in Virginia and another in Jerusalem, his cousin said. The family, by and large, had prospered in the United States, with various members working in law, banking and medicine, Mr. Hasan said.

Nader Hasan, 40, a lawyer living in Northern Virginia, described his cousin as a respectful, hard-working man who had devoted himself to his parents and his career.

Did suspected gunman shout 'Allahu akbar'?

Reports coming out of America suggest that soldiers who witnessed Major Nidal Malik Hasan gun down fellow soldiers in his crazed rampage at Fort Hood heard the him shout 'Allahu Akbar!', Arabic for God is great, before opening fire.

[See interview Lt. Gen. Robert Cone on NBC's "Today" show]

BLACKSBURG, Va., November 6, 2009 -- Virginia Tech has confirmed with the United States Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., that the alleged shooter at Fort Hood, Texas, once attended Virginia Tech.

According to Virginia Tech records, Nidal Malik Hasan first enrolled at Virginia Tech for Summer Session II in 1992, and completed coursework in spring semester 1995. He received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in biochemistry from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He minored in biology and chemistry.

Prior to enrolling at Virginia Tech, Hasan was a student and completed coursework at Barstow Community College in Barstow, Calif., and at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, Va.

Hasan was not a member of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, nor was he a member of any ROTC program at Virginia Tech.  

The motive for the shootings isn't clear. Military officials say they are still piecing together what may have pushed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades.

The base commander at Fort Hood says soldiers who witnessed the shooting reported that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire at the Texas post.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone told NBC's "Today" show Friday that Hasan made the comment, which is Arabic for "God is great!" before the rampage Thursday that also left 30 people wounded. Cone says Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.

His relatives in the West Bank said they had heard from family members that Hasan felt mistreated in the Army as a Muslim.

"He told (them) that as a Muslim committed to his prayers he was discriminated against and not treated as is fitting for an officer and American," said Mohammed Malik Hasan, 24, a cousin. "He hired a lawyer to get him a discharge."

Mohammed Hasan said outside his home in Ramallah that he heard about the shooting from a relative. "I was surprised, honestly, because the guy and his brothers are so calm, and he, as I know, loves his work."

Nidal Hasan is the eldest of three brothers. One brother, Annas, lives in Ramallah with a wife and daughter, and practices law. The youngest brother, Eyad, lives in Virginia.

"We don't mix with them a lot," Mohammed said. "Nidal like to stay alone, he was very calm. He minded his own business."

Hasan graduated from medical school at the Uniformed Services University in 2003, said Sharon K. Willis, speaking for the school.

He then entered a psychiatry residency program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which he completed in 2007. He returned to the university for the disaster and military psychiatry fellowship in 2007.

Hasan appeared less forgiving to Dr. Val Finnell when they were classmates in a 2007-08 master's public health program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

He said that at a class presentation by public health students, at which topics like dry cleaning chemicals and house mold were discussed, Hasan talked about U.S. military actions as a war on Islam. Hasan made clear he was a "vociferous opponent" of U.S. wars in Muslim countries, Finnell said.

"He made himself a lightning rod for things," Finnell said. "No one picked on him because he was a Muslim."

Hasan told classmates: "He was a Muslim first, and an American second"

His anger was noted by a classmate, who said Hasan "viewed the war against terror" as a "war against Islam."

Dr. Val Finnell, a classmate of Hasan's at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, attended a master's in public health program in 2007-2008. Finnell says he got to know Hasan because the group of public health students took an environmental health class together. At the end of the class, everyone had to give a presentation. Classmates wrote on topics such as dry cleaning chemicals and mold in homes, but Finnell said Hasan chose the war against terror. Finnell described Hasan as a "vociferous opponent" of the terror war. Finnell said Hasan told classmates he was "a Muslim first and an American second."

RAMALLAH, West Bank (The Telegraph) - In the house next door, Hasan's brother Anas had locked himself indoors with his wife, refusing to speak to anyone, including his relatives.

According to his cousins, Hasan was badly scarred by the deaths of his parents in 1998 and 2001. Along with his two brothers, he became increasingly devout, they said.

"They became very religious after their mother died," Mohammed Hasan said. "They were very observant. They prayed a lot."

Mohammad Hasan, cousin of U.S. Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan, watches the news about his cousin from the family home in Ramallah, West Bank Photo: DEBBIE HILL

Yet the two cousins insisted that the major's religion was not tinged with political fanaticism, although they said he had become increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative in recent years. Even so, they had little reason to believe that he was a man on the edge.

"Nidal is a very stable minded person," Mohammed Mohammed said. "Why would he kill? He was against violence.

"His actions could have been in self defence - we don't know. Maybe they angered him to the point of cornering him and he felt he had no option."

They angrily rejected suggestions that their cousin's shooting spree had been motivated by a hatred for America or as an act of terrorism.

"My cousin is not a terrorist," said Mohammed Hasan. "He was born in America, he graduated from Virginia (Tech) University. He was proud to be graduate. He was always preaching about the US education system. He was an optimistic person. He loved life."

Although he had always wanted to follow other members of his family into the army, Nidal Hasan was shocked that he was never accepted as a true American, the cousins said.

He was constantly taunted and provoked until six months ago, he hired a lawyer to sue the army, the cousins said, explaining they kept in touch with developments in Hasan's life either through telephone calls to him and his family or from Hasan's brother, who returned to the West Bank four years ago.

They heard that he had become increasingly unhappy, both at the treatment of his peers and also because he had been ordered to deploy "in Iraq and Afghanistan". But the two cousins insisted that Hasan's opposition to being sent abroad was as much because he was planning to marry.  

(CNN) - Mohammad Hasan remembered his cousin's trip to Jerusalem, 6 miles from Ramallah, 15 years ago to learn about his roots. "He acted normal."

More recently, Nidal Hasan may have attended a lecture in January at George Washington University involving the Israeli U.S. ambassador Sallai Meridor and other officials discussing Israel's offensive into Gaza last winter. Video from the lecture shows a person who appears to be Hasan dressed in military fatigues seated in the audience taking notes.

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CNN interview with Mohammad Hasan in Ramallah
CNN's Paula Hancocks talks to the cousin of Nidal Hasan,
the alleged gunman in Ft. Hood shootings.

(Huffington Post) - As Richard got to know Hasan better over the next several months, he found the major to be a pious man who was at the mosque daily. But Richard also began to garner a sense of Hasan's political views that troubled him. A black-and-white outlook on Islam and life that had no room for nuance or debate. Hasan had apparently attended a mosque led by an imam named Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni scholar whose political views Richard disagrees with.

Awlaki is a controversial figure among Muslims, and has been accused by the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 of serving as a "spiritual advisor" to two of the September 11 hijackers. While Richard is careful to say that he respects much of Awlaki's historical scholarship, he rejects his political ideology, which posits a black-and-white, us versus them, view of America's relationship with the Islamic world.

Richard and Nidal Hasan would often pray together, and during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the two men secluded themselves inside the local mosque for a period of reflection and worship.

And, fatefully, Richard and Hasan prayed side-by-side at the mosque the morning of the massacre, after they had engaged in a friendly competition to see who could recite the azan, the call to prayer, first. After prayers that morning, Hasan left while Richard and a few others remained behind to recite the Qur'an. Hasan appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous.