CALLINGS
This is the second installment of a weekly three-part series showcasing Pittsburgh-area faith leaders, written by PETER SMITH and photographed by NATE GUIDRY
Hamza Perez Imam
Hamza Perez grew up as Jason Perez in Puerto Rico, New York and Massachusetts. He was confirmed in his family’s Catholic faith, but he also had competing influences from the street life around him and for a time was dealing drugs.
“I always felt a connection with God,” he said, but like “all young people I tried different things. They never quenched the thirst” spiritually.
In 1998, he saw an old friend from the streets who appeared transformed and learned the man had embraced Islam. “He looked like he finally tasted happiness without needing anything” such as drugs or alcohol, Imam Perez said.
He recalled also being moved by the recitals of the Quran on the cassette tape his friend played in the car.
Mr. Perez asked to borrow it, and within days, on the streets of Worcester, Mass., his friend brought along an imam who helped Mr. Perez take the shahada, or Muslim profession of belief in one God and in Muhammad as God’s prophet.
That was when Imam Perez took the Muslim name Hamza. Later, he began a course of rigorous study through the Sankore’ Institute of IslamicAfrican Studies International, eventually being licensed to teach under a lineage with roots in West Africa.
He came to Pittsburgh in 2004 with a group that started the new Light of the Age Mosque. Located in a Central Northside walkup house, it is made of a handful of small rooms for prayer and study.
Imam Perez said Latino Muslims such as himself trace their connection to the expression of Islam in West Africa to at least two sources — the shared experiences of Latinos and African Americans, and the historic connection between West Africa and Spain during the medieval centuries
when Islam had a strong presence on the Iberian Peninsula.
The mosque is attended mainly by U.S.-born converts, of various ethnicities, although it’s open to anyone, and for Friday prayers it also draws participants such as Muslim staff members from nearby Allegheny General Hospital.
Imam Perez, 43, is the father of nine children, ranging from 1 to 23. He and his wife, Aisha, and their children live on the North Side.
He also works as youth director at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, a mosque in Oakland. Often he works to build understanding between youths, strongly influenced by American culture, and their parents, many of them immigrants or refugees from other lands. He believes in showing youths “age-appropriate respect” and not to “dumb down their development.”
“We often see them as children and do not give them the ability to develop themselves as young adults,” he said.
At Light of the Age, Imam Perez puts that into practice.
“Every Friday, we have a rotation of people that we use, and even some young people,” he said. His son and another youth, both 15, recently gave sermons. “We like to promote young people,” he said, and “not just be a bunch of old guys holding on to religious positions.”
For a time after his conversion, Imam Perez and his brother formed a rap group, putting Islamic teachings to the rhythms of hip-hop. Their work was featured in a 2009 documentary that aired on public television. Eventually he gave up the hip-hop, saying with self-deprecation: “I’m not a fan of old rappers. I’m too old for that stuff.”
With the mosque closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s taught a class by phone, and he did some livestreamed reminders to members to keep up their Ramadan observances.
But he doesn’t preach sermons online. “I’m not a big fan of livestreaming,” he said. “As far as transmission of sacred knowledge, it needs to take place in person.”