"If those topics came up in conversation, it was because he brought those things up," Finnell said. "It was a self-fulfilling prophesy. He made himself a lightning rod by making his extreme views known to everyone."

Hasan, who was born in Virginia and had long worked in the region, moved to Texas in July. It wasn't always an easy fit.

Victor Benjamin, 30, a business student at Central Texas College, also spoke to Hasan after prayers on Wednesday. They talked about Hasan's struggle to find a woman to marry in the Islamic community here, which comprises only a few hundred people. "He told me he was praying to God for guidance," Benjamin said.

In Maryland, Hasan prayed two or three times a week at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, sometimes coming in uniform from nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"He didn't give an impression that he was a fanatic or angry," said Dr. Asif Qadri, an internist and cardiologist who directs the community center's medical clinic.

"He was very pleasant; he had a smile on his face," agreed Mona Ayad, an administrative assistant. "Always calm and peaceful. . . . That is not the person you would think would resort to this activity. It must have been personal problems."

Akhtar Khan, 64, a member of the center for 25 years, said Hasan would sit in a corner and read books about his faith, sometimes listening to lectures and, "once in a blue moon," attending a social function.

"He was not a real talkative person, but not a loner either," Khan said, describing Hasan as soft-spoken and unimposing. "You knew when you talked to him that you were talking to an educated person."

Like everyone at the center, Khan is mystified by what happened. "What made him do that?" Khan asked. "Were people making fun of him or fun of Islam? Because whatever people do, there is some kind of a reason behind it."

Noel Hasan, the suspect's aunt, said he had suffered name-calling and harassment about his religion after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and had tried unsuccessfully for several years to win a discharge from the military.

And at Ft. Hood, a community accustomed to death far away -- not here, not of their own -- other acquaintances of Hasan struggled to understand what happened.

"We're better than this," said Sgt. Fahad Kamal, 26, an Army combat medic who wore his fatigues to Friday afternoon prayers at the mosque, and who worked near Hasan at Ft. Hood. "It's not because he was Muslim. It's because of his mental problems."

bob.drogin@latimes.com

faye.fiore@latimes.com

Josh Meyer of the Washington bureau and Times staff writer Kate Linthicum in Los Angeles contributed to this report.