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This story was updated Friday, Nov. 6.

The scene outside the Muslim Community Center on Friday afternoon was one of grief and panic as national and international media outlets searched for an answer on why the alleged Fort Hood gunman, who used to attend services at the center, turned violent.

Those who worship at the center couldn't offer an answer.

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who reportedly killed more than dozen people at a Texas military base on Thursday, only stopped in for prayer services on his way home from work, they said, and usually left right after prayer.

"I would say ‘As-Salamu `Alaykum' [the common Arabic greeting] and he wouldn't even look up at me," said Mariam Omar, a community center member who knew Hasan for six years. "... He would just say ‘Alaykum as-Salaam,' look down and walk past."

Omar said she would sometimes ask Hasan to call her son in from the playground for prayer. He never spoke of his personal life and tended to shy away from speaking to women, she said.

"I did not see him through thick and thin with anybody, but he wasn't a loner either," said Akhtar Khan, a center member for the past 25 years.

Hasan stopped coming to the center when he moved about five months ago, Omar said.

Hasan is the reported gunman in an attack at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas that as of Friday morning had left 13 people dead and 30 wounded. Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer but is still alive. He reportedly opened fire at approximately 1:30 p.m. at the "soldier readiness unit" at Fort Hood, according to a statement released by the military. The incident occurred as soldiers were preparing to deploy overseas.

Hasan has ties to Montgomery County, where he reportedly lived at several different locations and graduated from a military medical school in Bethesda last year.

Hasan received a master's degree in public health in 2008 from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Services (USU) on the campus of the National Naval Medical Center on Rockville Pike. He was a fellow in disaster and preventive psychology at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at USU. He also completed medical studies at USU in 2001, according to Army spokesman George Wright. He was promoted to major in March of this year.

In his Virginia medical licensing records, Hasan also listed a home address in Silver Spring as of July 2004. According to some reports, Hasan also lived in Kensington and Bethesda.

Arshad Qureshi, chairman of the Muslim Community Center's board of trustees, said Hasan would greet him but their interaction stopped there. Hasan did not make use of the center's counseling services offered by an on-site clinic, Qureshi said before Friday's service.

Qureshi emphasized that the center and the Quran do not advocate violence, and that he believes Hasan's crime was unrelated to his faith.

"Why is it that whenever Muslims are involved in a crime, it's because of religion?" he asked. "It's a double standard."

Meanwhile, the center's imam, or holy leader, Mohamed Abdullahi, preached a message of peace and religious pride while delivering the 1 p.m. service.

"We are Muslimists and we are proud Muslimists," he said during the service. "Do not be ashamed... Islam doesn't allow us to harm anyone else unless someone harms us."

In an interview after the service, Abdullahi said the Hasan who committed the crime is not the Hasan he knew.

"When my friend called me and told me [about the shooting], I didn't believe him," he said. "I thought he was joking."

Now, the center is struggling as news stories and anti-Islam sentiments increase. During the service, Abdullahi said he was already approached by someone who received a threatening phone call. He asked that anyone who receives threats or "hatred talk" tell him immediately.

"I wish there was peace all over the world and doves flying all over, but that isn't the way it is," Qureshi said during a press conference at the center Friday. "I don't expect any adverse reaction" to the center, he later added. "But if it happens, it happens."

Members of the community center are still reeling from the news.

"It's shocking," said Tamseel Butt, a member of the Muslim Community Center. "I knew him, and I don't know what drove him to this."  Every time Hasan wasn't working, he would be in the mosque greeting people with a smile, he said.

Hasan was a pleasant but quiet person, Butt said, and kept to himself while attending services at the center.

His former neighbors at the White Oak Towers apartment complex echoed those impressions of Hasan. He always smiled, always greeted his neighbors, but didn't provide much more.

"He's a nice guy, he says ‘hi' to people," said Coumba Fall, a resident of White Oak Towers, located at 11700 Columbia Pike in Silver Spring. "I'm so surprised he would do something like this.

"When I saw his picture on TV I said, ‘Hey, I know him from the building.'"

A woman who answered the phone at Hasan's former residence in Bethesda on Cedar Lane said he had lived with her and Abdul Khan, who also lives in the household, for several months, renting a room. The woman would not identify herself.

She said Hasan kept to himself and she didn't know him well, but when she saw him in the yard he would always be friendly.

"He was very good, I don't know. He was in the Army," she said. "He not come upstairs with me, he didn't talk to me."

According to military records, Hasan was associated with the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress program located at USU. The center offers research and education on issues related to post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related psychological and health effects. It is the academic arm of the Defense Centers of Excellence for psychological health and traumatic brain injuries.

Staff writers Jason Tomassini, Jeanette Der Bedrosian and Jen Beasley contributed to this report.