Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad was the American imam of the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, New York.
Muhammad told journalist Daniel J. Wakin that he was attracted to Islam as a fatherless 13-year-old growing up in Harlem, New York.
Muhammad also bade farewell to his Masjid that he helped to build in Newburgh, New York, after being the senior imam there for 26 years.
[citation needed] Muhammad drew national attention when four ex-convicts who had been attending his mosque were arrested in the 2009 New York City bomb plot, a plan, stopped by the FBI, to shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh and blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City.
However, no member of the large congregation made any attempt to report the man they believed to be a jihadi to the authorities.