Tuesday January 17, 2023
The grieving son had to abandon his honeymoon to fly home when she died
Adnan was very close to his mother Zahra who passed away in October 2022 (Image: Adnan Hashim (Handout))
A young man from North London who had to rush back home from his honeymoon after receiving the heartbreaking news of his mother's death has raised enough money in her memory that he plans to build a mosque to honour her.
Camden resident Adnan Hashim, a 24-year-old law student at City University, has raised over £53,000 within a matter of weeks after asking for donations to create a fitting tribute to his mum Zahra Sharif Mohamed, who battled cancer as well as mental health issues.
He is now just a few thousand pounds short of his £60,000 target which he'll use to build a mosque and water wells in a deprived part of Gambia.
Adnan's mother, who he says "did everything" for him and his four brothers, died in October after a long battle with cancer and mental illness. Adnan was two days into his four-day honeymoon in Turkey when his tragic loss forced him to catch an early flight back to the UK, with him "crying the whole journey home".
Speaking to MyLondon, Adnan explains: "I left my mother with a kiss on the forehead. Two days later I was kissing her forehead again in the morgue.
"My mother was a great person. She was a mother, a sister, a cousin. She was a grandma. She used to take us travelling to multiple countries on holiday every year. She was a person who escaped war in Somalia and came to London to find a good life for her kids.
"She gave us everything we needed. We never had to go out and ask anyone else for a handout. She was there for us. She used to cook for us, to feed us, take us to school, and play with us. She gave us an education, a home and clothes to wear. She did everything for us."
Adnan's mum suffered from cancer which also took a toll on her mental health (Image: Adnan Hashim (Handout))
Saying his efforts to build a mosque and water wells in his mother's memory is the least he could do for such a "great" mum, Adnan continues: "As a Muslim, I believe that when you do a good deed in honour of someone who has passed away, whenever someone benefits from that good deed in this world, it elevates the heavenly status of the person who has passed.
"Whenever someone drinks from a well built in memory of my mother, her status in Heaven goes up. The same way whenever someone prays in a mosque that has been built in her memory, she will continue to be elevated."
Now just over £6,000 shy of the target on his GoFundMe page, Adnan says anything that exceeds his target will go towards setting up an organisation to help people cope with depression and anxiety. In the meantime, work has already started on the water well project in Africa. "We're going to build a water well in Gambia in a place where kids have to travel about two hours to get water," Adnan explains.
He added: "We've found a location and we're about to get started with that. We'll be building multiple wells in the area that will provide people with fresh water for up to 50 years. We don't know yet where the mosque is going to be, but wherever it is, it'll be named after my mother, Zahra."
If you would like to donate to Adnan's fundraiser, you can visit his GoFundMe page by clicking
here.