Mohammed Nabi Yusufi

Days after heading the eid prayer for thousands, On November 8, 2005, Yusufi suddenly suffered a heart attack on which doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York performed a successful angioplasty. Yusufi was in fine health with no indications of heart disease prior to this heart attack. Yusufi died on November 28, 2005, from pulmonary edema which occurred as a result of the original cardiogenic shock that he suffered twenty days before his death on the morning of November 8, 2005.

Mohammed Nabi Yusufi, despite coming from a religious, spiritual family known as the Akhounzada Khail, was a very modern man inside the conservative Islamic circles that existed in Kandahar and the U.S. He carried the same modern outlook and moderate views throughout his entire life while remaining connected to his faith. Those who knew him have said that he was an extraordinary leader during a critical era in the history of the Afghan people. He was a pioneer in the creation of the Afghan community in the western world for decades while publicly raising support for the millions of Afghans whose lives were affected by the Russian invasion inside of Afghanistan. In 1980 during a short stay in Pakistan Yusufi exhausted some effort to assist the Afghan freedom fighters. He wanted to remove Afghanistan from the claws of the Russians; however, he soon realized that these groups in Pakistan had their own political agendas which he did not want to be a part of and decided to work towards the freedom of Afghanistan from the United States.

During a time when the world did not know much about Afghanistan Mohammed Nabi Yusufi led groups to the United Nations to raise awareness about the Russian invasion into Afghanistan and to bring attention to the thousands of innocent Afghans that were being killed by the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. In 1985 Yusufi was asked to be the spiritual and community leader by several Afghans residing in New York City who began to realize that the settlement of Afghans in the area was increasing and they had no center for religious and cultural services. He selflessly served as the Imam of the Masjid e Syed Jamaluddin e Afghani in Queens, New York which doubles as a community center. As the Imam in New York he dealt with numerous needs inside the Afghan community and cared for all people who asked for his guidance with genuine concern for their needs.

Mohammed Nabi Yusufi (1923–2005) was an Imam of the Afghan community in New York City.

Mohammed Nabi Yusufi was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan on 10 March 1923. Mohammed Nabi Yusufi was born to an ethnic Pashtun and Akhounzada Khail family. Yusufi had a burgeoning export business in Afghanistan; he had homes both in the capital Kabul and his home town of Kandahar. Yusufi fled Afghanistan with his family shortly after the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979.