With bowed heads, mourners watched as 4 caskets — every draped in a Canadian flag — have been pushed to the rostrum at a public funeral that drew a number of thousand folks on Saturday.
Within the baking warmth, the gang crammed a parking zone on the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario and spilled over onto an adjoining soccer subject the place they gathered to pay attention, pray and say goodbye to 4 members of a well-loved household killed six days earlier in what police have mentioned was a hate-motivated assault.
Saturday’s funeral was adopted by a non-public burial at an Islamic cemetery in London.
Earlier than their deaths, the 4 members of the Afzaal household had lived what many would contemplate to be the embodiment of Canadian dream. The household got here to Canada in 2007 from Pakistan and have become a well-loved and, by anybody’s measure, extremely completed.
Madiha Salman, 44, was engaged on her PhD in environmental engineering. Her husband Salman Afzaal, 46, was a bodily therapist who labored with seniors. Fifteen-year-old Yumna Afzaal, was an honour-roll scholar who painted a mural inside her faculty’s hallway that referred to as on her classmates to “shoot for the moon.”
Talat Afzaal, Salman’s 74-year-old mom, additionally died within the assault. The youngest member of the family, nine-year-old Fayez, was the one one to outlive and is recovering from critical accidents in hospital.
All 5 have been out for a night stroll collectively once they have been run down by a pickup truck in what police imagine was an intentional act. A 20-year-old London man is in custody, charged with 4 counts of first-degree homicide and one in every of tried homicide.
The ache of the tragedy is compounded by the actual fact police imagine the household was focused due to their Muslim religion.
Overtures of assist 1st step to therapeutic, relative says
Talking at Saturday’s funeral, Madiha’s uncle Ali Islam mentioned the tragedy had taken away “4 fountains of sweetness.”
However he mentioned the outpouring of assist from London’s 30,000 sturdy Muslim group and past within the days because the tragedy has confirmed him there’s much more love in folks’s hearts than hatred.
“As this week has progressed, we realized that our prolonged household is far bigger than we may have imagined,” he advised the gang. “The expressions of uncooked emotion, the prayers, the quiet tears, the messages of consolation from folks we all know and from folks which can be full strangers, it has been step one in direction of discovering a approach to heal.
“So long as we’re alive, the reminiscence of our household will likely be inside us.”
Islam referred to as for kindness and compassion in response to their deaths. “I ask you to take the time to study from somebody who would not look the identical as you,” he mentioned.
In his eulogy, he additionally quoted Yumna’s mural. “Be courageous, shoot for the moon, even in the event you miss, you land among the many stars.”
Calls to deal with Islamophobia in Canada
Saturday’s funeral was the end result of per week of grief within the wake of a tragedy that has triggered a painful dialogue about Islamophobia in Canada.
If the way in which the Afzaals lived embodied the Canadian dream, their deaths have highlighted the existence a hatred many Muslims say has grow to be far too widespread, even earlier than final Sunday’s assault.
Like Madhia’s uncle, Rayyab Rashid mentioned he hopes their deaths will proceed a dialogue that may result in optimistic change and deal with the Islamophobia in Canada. Rashid and his household made the two-hour drive to London from their house in Toronto to expertise what he referred to as “the unison in struggling” he mentioned is essential to therapeutic.
Identical to the Afzaals, Rashid and his spouse immigrated to Canada from Pakistan within the 2000s for a greater life — one he believes continues to be doable regardless of this week’s occasions.
“Their story is just about our story,” he mentioned of the Afzaals. “Our youngsters are Canadian, we’re proudly elevating them as Canadian Muslims. For me [the message of] this service was ‘we’re all on this collectively, it would not matter what religion it’s.’
“So we have to discover collective options.”
