For Muslim family, faith complicates grief for loved one lost on 9/11
Edmond, Oklahoma (CNN) — His smiling image has been cut out of a snapshot and carefully added to a photo of his father, so it looks as if he is standing beside the man. It smacks of a bad Photoshop job, but it gives the two a shared moment, even though they never met.
The boy’s sister, Fahina, is 15 and clings to scant memories and aging photographs. But Farqad, almost 10, has nothing.
She remembers sitting beside their father on amusement park rides, his words — “Look at my daughter; she’s so brave” — soothing her nerves; she still thinks of him whenever she’s on a rollercoaster. She leaned on his legs when he watched basketball on TV and imagined him cheering her on when she played the sport after he was gone. She recalls being driven to see Harvard University, before she even started elementary school, and dreams of attending an Ivy League school to make him proud.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, she woke up extra early on her own. After her father and mother finished saying morning prayers, the young girl took his face in her small hands and enlisted the promise of a Chuck E. Cheese visit. Father and daughter then kissed and said goodbye.
Farqad was born two days later, after terrorists hijacked planes and killed nearly 3,000 — including 38-year-old Mohammad Salahuddin Chowdhury, who worked atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
