A latecomer entered a mosque in Christchurch and he saw, among the larger human forms, a child.

The NZ Herald reported:

Mucad Ibrahim.

 

At just three years old, Mucad Ibrahim is thought to have been the youngest victim of the massacre.

The toddler had gone to the al Noor mosque with his father and older brother Abdi when the family were caught up in the deadly attack. Mucad was lost in the melee when the firing started, as Abdi fled for his life and his father pretended to be dead after being shot. The family searched in vain for the toddler at Christchurch Hospital and later posted a photograph of Mucad, smiling with Abdi, along with the caption: “Verily we belong to God and to Him we shall return”.

 

 

Rachid was the one I thought of first. I sent him a note.

 

Stunned with grief, Rachid, we reach out to you and to your family with love.

In the synagogue today, a great and heavy solemnity.

Someone offered a public prayer for “our cousins” in NZ. 

It came to me as I stood and mourned I was glad my father was not alive to hear and know this.

How much more so, your father, the peace-loving Mufti .

Asalaam aleikum

Shalom

 

Rachid wrote back:

Thank you Goldy.

How true about how our fathers would have felt about this.

What a beautiful gesture from inside your synagogue.

 

Rachid.

 

 

I wondered whether Farooq’s parents knew of the attack.

Yes, my parents heard about it back in Iraq. They were upset.

I wondered, Aren’t they used to that sort of thing? Fifty killed – that wouldn’t be so rare, would it?

No. No, it’s not. Sometimes many more. Once six hundred died; a truck loaded with bombs drove into the Mall.

Three storeys collapsed. Six hundred – burned. But this, last Friday, we all feel upset.

I said quietly, I’m sorry. Everyone I know is sorry. We feel sad.

Farooq said, It helps.

 

 

 

The bloke on the phone, quoting on my car insurance, said: The premium would be sex hundred and sexty-two dollars…

I said, I’m sorry about the events in Christchurch. Everyone I talk to is staggered. In grief. We’re a nation shaking our heads.

The phone fell silent. A throat cleared, a voice followed, now hoarse: Excuse me. You caught me off guard. Hasn’t been easy being the chirpy salesperson these last few days… You know, we’re a close team here, we’re all nations, all creeds, one of us a Moslem.

He can’t work at present. We sent him home.

 

 

 

I sent a text to Waleed: I have nothing I can write, nothing adequate for the need. Nothing equal or useful or valuable

in any way beyond the human need to share the wound. To express my grief. I need my cousins to know I am with them.

Waleed replied: Thanks for sending it. The human need to share the wound is among the most important, most civilised needs we have. So that act of civility means an unbelievable amount. Thanks, cousin.

 

 

 

Speaking on TV, Waleed said: I know what the worshippers were doing in the moments before the attack. I know because I go to the mosque on a Friday. I know the prayers, the quiet, how far they were from this world, in the meditation, in the perfect quiet, in the peace inside the Mosque.

 

 

 

A mosque called Al Noor – ‘the candle, the light.’ So close to the Hebrew of my prayers. I thought of bodies bowed, of backs turned to an intruder, of those moments of innocence when the worshipper turns away from the world, turning inward in faith. As I entered my synagogue from the rear I saw anew how, in those sublime moments, we all are children, all undefended. In churches too, the faithful face forward, turning trusting backs to any entering latecomer.

 

 

 

***

Suddenly we all were Kiwis. Suddenly a change; we gasped, we shook our heads, we wept. We saw Al Noor, a light. Suddenly the Moslem was not the stranger. 

 

What will follow?