A SURVIVOR’S STORY:
an extraordinary tale of forgiveness after the Christchurch mosque tragedy
“Those walls there will potentially be turned into security doors,” a man says, gesturing towards the back of the Al Noor Mosque, the holy space where 44 people were killed last March. The Australian Women’s Weekly is inside the mosque just weeks before the one-year anniversary of the tragedy and it feels like both the mosque, and those within it, are existing somewhere in a new reality between the traumatic past and the present. There are pairs of hexagonal windows on many of the wall panels, looking out into a car park, the street and a flourishing little garden. The original windows are lined with an intricate pattern in the holy green that dominates much of the mosque’s interior, but they are at odds with the replacement windows that now sit below them, where desperate people smashed and crawled their way to safety when the shooting began during Friday prayer on March 15.
The noticeboards inside the mosque also represent this limbo state. Flyers for charities and prayer days supporting those affected by
more recent tragedies like the Australian bushfires and the Whakaari volcanic eruption sit alongside identification posters of those who still pose a potential threat: “Call the police if you see these men.” It is a very sacred place, filled with copies of the Koran, busy prayer rooms; the sense of quiet reverence such areas always have.
But, for some, it is also a very scared place. A door slams, and all heads immediately whip around at the burst of noise. When I ask one regular how long it took for the mosque to feel normal again, he shakes his head warily. Most members of the community returned when it re-opened at the end of March 2019, but a few are still unable to. For him, it is still very fresh. “My friend died close to where you are standing now,” he says, gesturing at my feet.
Even for a visitor like me, the mosque feels like a very heavy place to step into. The golden dome, the flower-laden gates, the curved half moon that makes up the door handle; like all New Zealanders glued to the news in the aftermath of the shooting, I am familiar with all these sights for all the wrong reasons.
Around the entrance to the mosque, painted stones with kind statements remain. We are at the mosque with Farid Ahmed, a senior leader of the mosque, whose beloved wife Husna died in last year’s shooting. As he drives us into the car park, there are two tourists sitting outside on a bench with one of the other leaders. This is a daily occurrence, apparently. People from all round the world turn up to pay their respects, and in the early months there were many from Australia, where the alleged shooter was from. They would turn up in droves, Farid says. Always in tears.
Inside the mosque, Farid sits in his usual position. He picks it because it has good wheelchair access, and it looks out one of the front-facing windows.
“Good deeds are very important in our faith because they will take us to a better future.”
It was difficult in the first few months to be able to look out the window again – it is the spot where his wife Husna, who like him was heavily involved in the Muslim community and taught classes at the Al Noor Mosque, was last seen alive; she was shot after returning several times to help others.
On that day, Farid had stopped at the side prayer room to pray with a sick friend, and they were running late for the main sermon when the shooting started. Because he is in a wheelchair, Farid was not able to flee quickly; having to wait until those who could escape had. Once the shooting paused, he and another friend went back into the mosque, to try to offer whatever help they could. It was the sheer volume of empty bullet shells on the floor that struck him. Like so many others (it’s estimated hundreds of people were in the main room when the shooting began), Farid stayed in Deans Avenue outside the police cordon for hours afterwards, waiting to hear what had happened. Eventually he was rung by a local policeman, who knew both Farid and Husna, and who told him she had died. On day one, Farid was interviewed by media, when he was looking for his wife. On day two, he made global headlines by saying he forgave the alleged shooter. On day three, he started writing.
Double tragedy
Husna’s Story is a love story about his wife and their marriage and the days that changed their lives. Even before the shooting, they had faced more than their share of tragedy. Since moving to New Zealand in 1988 from Bangladesh, Farid has not seen the best of our country, yet remains a great enthusiast for all things New Zealand.
In 1998, four years into his marriage to Husna, Farid was crossing the road on his way to work in Nelson when he was hit by a drunk driver. The injuries would place him in a wheelchair for life. It was Husna who immediately showed forgiveness. “Poor guy,” she said of the driver. “He must have been having a bad day.” When she was told that Farid, then a strapping young 36-year-old, was likely to die of his injuries, she refused to believe it, and she was right. Husna was often right; throughout the book, the characteristics Farid most commonly uses to describe her are stubborn, persistent, confident, ambitious, caring. She died, Farid says, as she lived. She had to be all those things to keep bravely going back into the mosque.
Death was often a topic of conversation in the Ahmed household between Husna, Farid and their teenage daughter Shifa. “One of the things we used to say to each other was if one of us is gone, then the other one should do as much as possible of the charity work, on behalf of the other person.”
It’s an important part of the Islamic faith. “We believe that here in our lifetime, there are two angels always writing our actions,” Farid explains. “One on the right hand shoulder, who writes all the good deeds we do, and one on the left shoulder, who writes all the bad deeds we do. There is a deed book, and it will never leave us, it will be continued until we are resurrected again for judgement. Good deeds are very important in our faith because they will take us to a better future.”
There are three deeds that continue even after death: anything that educates the wider community, followed by any charity work and, finally, leaving a good family behind who will pray for the person, and also continue their work. It’s why having a plan of action was front of mind for Farid after his wife died – how would he keep contributing to her book of deeds, to ensure she went to paradise?
“Lots of ideas came to my mind,” he says. “If I want to donate money, I’m not a rich guy. If I want to set up a charity, I don’t have those resources. What could I do?”
On the third day, the idea of a book popped into his head. “I got excited – I’m not a very good writer, but I’m not a terrible writer either,” he grins. “I did a writing course with Victoria University many years ago, and never thought it would be useful,” he laughs softly. “I feel so much privilege to be still alive so that I can tell her story. It’s not my story, I’m just a storyteller.”
When he told his friends that this was his plan, they told him that he was crazy to tackle such an ambitious project so quickly. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m crazy for her,’” Farid laughs. “‘What else can I do?’”
It took five and a half months to write the manuscript, during an incredibly busy, emotional time. “I was always tired, but I had to do it – I was very passionate about it, even though it was very draining. Whenever I started writing, I would say to anyone at home: ‘Don’t open the door.’ Because writing meant sobbing.”
A blessing
While at the mosque, Farid’s demeanour is quiet and thoughtful, and that was the personality on display in many of his public appearances, when he spoke to media and when he spoke at the Christchurch memorial service in the weeks following the tragedy.
At home, however, he is light-hearted and relaxed, offering us food and tea – thanks to his delightful niece, Farhana, who helps prepare lunch. He talks with great enthusiasm about many things; the homeopathic clinic he runs from home, his daughter’s Year 12 NCEA journey, how much good Indian food is available in New Zealand compared with when he first arrived in the 1980s. When he talks about Husna, he still grins like a besotted school kid. They had a wonderful, enduring marriage. “To be happy, you don’t need a pile of books to study, to practise 101 qualities,” he rolls his eyes with a gentle laugh. “You need faith and common sense. I feel that everything about her
is a blessing for me, even after she is gone. When you are in a loving relationship, it’s like a seed and from the seed a good tree comes in. From the tree, you get lots of flowers and from the flowers, you get lots of fruit and it only gives benefits and benefits.”
One of the themes that runs through Husna’s Story is the fact that they had such a strong partnership. When I say this to Farid, he smiles. “We were a good team,” he agrees. “We are still a good team. And we always will be.” The grief spills over and for the next few seconds, we both cry. After a minute, he clears his throat and softly apologises for getting emotional. He adds, “But it is not good to hold too much in your chest,” with a gentle smile.
The idea of letting go of the pain was behind his response when he was asked, so soon after March 15, how he felt about the alleged shooter. He replied that he saw the man as a brother, because he was a fellow human, and he held no grudge. He was surprised that it garnered such an international reaction. “I didn’t have to think about it. It came out – and I believe Husna would have done the same thing.”
Farid says it was a conversation with his daughter that encouraged this belief for him. On that first awful night, when they knew Husna wasn’t coming home, he and his daughter sat at their dining room table until 2am. “I wanted to talk to her and I wanted her to lead me,” he says. “I asked her, ‘How should we feel about the killer?’ She said to me, ‘Dad, I’m only 15, do you expect me to answer that?’ And I said, ‘Yes, but you have been a leader from primary school, you are always involved in student council. You are a leader.’ She started thinking and after a few minutes, she said, ‘I feel sorry for him.’” Here, Farid starts crying again. “I said, ‘Then you are just like your mum.’ It was nice to hear that even our daughter has got our blood. So she and I are a good team as well. It gave me strength, that at least in our small family, we are not divided in this journey.”
In his speech at Hagley Park, two weeks after the shooting, Farid spoke about his decision to forgive. “I don’t want to have a heart that is boiling like a volcano,” he said. “A volcano has anger, fury, rage – it doesn’t have peace, it has hatred. It burns itself within, and it burns the surroundings. I want a heart that is full of love and care, and full of mercy, a heart that will forgive lavishly.”
Asked about that speech now, he simply says, “Hatred doesn’t take us anywhere. It’s like a rocking chair, we push it and push it but it keeps us in the same space.”
His daughter and the book helped give Farid a focus after the shooting, but he said it was the overwhelming love from New Zealand that buffered them all along. “That surge of flowers and love and messages came in and all of the suffering people felt, ‘We are not alone. We don’t have to grieve alone.’ And that was a big spiritual lift. New Zealand has become a role model to the world.”
Farid was invited to speak at the White House and was stopped all the time by people passing on their condolences and also their admiration for New Zealand. “Even Mr President, he gave me the most time, one-on-one,” he says of Donald Trump. “He came straight to me and lowered his head – he’s a tall man – and he said ‘I’m very honoured you have come all the way and I hope my country is looking after you well. You have a lovely country with lovely people.’ Even he was praising New Zealand! The compassion that came from New Zealand, it didn’t only affect the Muslim community here, but the rest of the Muslim world, and the rest of the whole world.”
It is this deed work for Husna, this never-ending quest to ensure her path to heaven, that drives Farid to take on all these opportunities, to fly across the world and tell the story of not only her life but also her death. There is a humble pride to her final actions, he says. “I do not know if I could be that courageous. It’s definitely not easy to put your life at risk to save somebody else. You have to be a risktaker. And you have to be loving,” he pauses, briefly overcome, and continues. “From her actions, it gives us courage.”
He has three aims for the book. “One, to pay respect to her through my writing. Two, to give a message of love, not hate. This love of ours, it should not just be limited to two people. It should spread to all humanity. And three, to make an example that as humans, we should care for one another.”
For this reason, he’s donating all the royalties from the book to St John Ambulance. “It will help look after our human family. I hope many people will take that on board and do the same thing.”
“Husna and I were not extraordinary people,” he says with a smile. “We were Joe Bloggs, very down to earth. We were not famous, we were not highly academic. Our position was not very high. But we were very happy, because we loved one another.”