HUNDREDS REMEMBER ZAFFAR
MUZAFFAR A ZAFFAR
1970-197?

By Janice Haidet Morse

Dayton Daily News, 11/20/96
Recovering drug addicts mingled with governmentofficials at a memorial service

Tuesday—a fitting tribute to one man whoserved as a bridge between them, Al Hajj Muzaffar Ahmad Zafr. More than 500 people honored Zafr’s memory at services at the Dayton Convention Center. Zafr, 60, died Friday at Miami Valley Hospital. Zafr was executive director of Project CURE Inc., a drug rehabilitation center he founded after overcoming his own drug addiction 28 years ago. He was suffering from a liver ailment at the time of his death and was in need of a liver transplant, family members said. Mourners, many of them wearing prayer caps and head covering signifying they were fellow Muslims along with Zafr, remembered Zafr’s commitment to helping others turn around their lives. “He started from the streets and was made it to the top,” said LaVawn Banta of Pontiac, Mich., Zafr’s son. “If your life is a bad and rocky road look at what my father did. He’s an example of pulling yourself up and steering yourself straight.” During an era in which so many people seem to be focused on conforming to what is politically or societally correct, “Zafr was not a conformist. Zafr endeavored to being transformed,” said Rev. Elsie Parr Neal of Pittsburgh, Pa. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind and your spirit and your bodies,” she urged the mourners, who included former Dayton mayor Richard Clay Dixon and current city commissioners Idotha Bootsie Neal and Dean Lovelace, along with Dayton police Chief Ronald Lowe Sr. Zafr will be buried Thursday in the National Islamic Cemetery near Baltimore, Maryland.

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