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Praying for the deceased victim, imam Abdul-Qayyum branded the London attacks as "a heinous crime".
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LONDON,
July 16, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Shahara Akhter
Islam, a 20-year-old British Muslim woman seen by many as the
embodiment of multicultural Britain, became Friday, July 14, the first
victim of the grisly London bombings to be laid to rest.
"Today
our dear daughter -- cause of our joy and light of our eyes, our
Shahara -- is returning to her Lord, an innocent and blood-stained
martyr," her family said in a statement cited by Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
"The
flame of her life has been cruelly extinguished from this beautiful
young woman in her prime, who had the whole world ahead of her."
The
young Muslim girl, a Co-operative Bank cashier, was on her way to work
when she died on the Number 30 bus at Tavistock Square that was one of
the four targets of Britain's first-ever suicide bombings on Thursday,
July 7.
"We
are not finding it easy to come to terms to our immeasurable loss, our
sorrow, our grief," said the grieving family.
"She
was a simple girl from a simple family who led a simple life.
Unfortunately she was at the wrong place at the wrong time on that
unfortunate day."
At
least 54 people, including for bombers of Pakistani origin, were
killed and more than 700 others wounded on three underground trains
and a double-decker bus in London.
The
bomber on the Number 30 bus has been identified by police as Hasib Mir
Hussain, 18, from Leeds in the north of England.
The
Muslim minority in Britain has vehemently condemned the terrorist
attacks.
London
attacks had also drawn condemnation from scholars, officials and
individuals from across the Muslim as running counter to the teachings
of Islam.
True
Muslim, Briton
The
family remembered Shahara as "an Eastender, a Londoner and
British, but above all, a true Muslim and proud to be so."
Shahara's
family maintained that it has been "a painful week, not only for
us, but for all those fellow Londoners who, like us, suffered similar
loss of their dear ones. Today our thoughts are with them all."
Prayers
for the deceased British Muslim girl were held early Friday at the
East London Mosque in Whitechapel.
Imam
Shaykh Abdul-Qayyum branded the bombings "a heinous crime"
carried out by people with a false understanding of Islam.
About
20 senior British Muslim scholars Friday said those who carried out
the bombings could not be considered martyrs.
"We
regard these acts as utterly criminal, totally reprehensible, and
absolutely un-Islamic," they said in a statement read by the imam
of the central mosque of the English Midlands city of Leicester,
Mohammad Shahid Reza, on their behalf.
