MOSQUE PRAYER SHATTERED BY LONE MADMAN

GOING to mosque is a rite of passage for many young Muslim men.

When we were young we would beg our fathers to take us with them and they would say, just a little bigger and then you can join me.

And when we finally got to go into these sanctuaries, tripping over ourselves with joy and excitement in our oversized kurthas and toupees, it was overwhelming even at that young age. I always remember the people, so many people.

So many different faces. All there to pray to the Lord Almighty. And the sheer quiet – a different kind of silence – the kind that captures and holds you in awe.

Later in life, the mosque becomes a strong focus of any Muslim man and his community.

Men often congregate outside after prayers to talk politics, religion or sport. If you are missing for a few days, expect a call from the Imam to check on your well-being.

If you are a traveller you will always find a common brother at the mosque. It is where we get married and where our final prayer is done before we are buried. It forms the core fabric of any Muslim society.

And in modern times, it is open to any other person from any faith seeking knowledge of the Islamic religion.

The New Zealand mosque attacks shook the world to its core. That sheer brutality to attack fellow human beings while they were in prayer and solitude. The vile audacity to use technology to broadcast the sickening video to the rest of the world. The shattering of the silence by a white supremacist terrorist.

I wake up each day still numb from the pain inflicted on our brothers and sisters in a distant part of the world. I think of Mucad Ibrahim, the 3-year-old toddler, and how his joy turned to fear and death on that fateful Jummah (Friday) morning.

In the face of indescribable violence, in the face of unconscionable evil, there are moments of hope that we cling to desperately. The support of the world and the community. The strength of those who put their lives on the line to stop the attacker.

The world must ask itself some hard questions. We cannot tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true.

No single law and no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

If there is even one step we can take to prevent another tragedy, we must take it.

It starts with learning to embrace those who may look different, love differently, learn differently and live differently. It starts with caring for our children enough to teach them that there is no fault in loving another.

And it reflects in the leaders we elect to represent us. Those who only seek to divide will only bring us more of these tragedies.

Fifty good, decent human beings lost their lives last week. They lost their lives in a mosque that could have been any mosque in a town full of good and decent people anywhere in the world.

May they be granted the highest stages in paradise. Carrim is the chief executive of the National Youth Development Agency

They lost their lives in a mosque that could have been any mosque in a town full of good and decent people anywhere

in the world