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A
MOVING
HERO'S
TRIBUTE
TO
MOHAMMED
SALMAN
HAMDANI
[By Natasha Rafi -- The Friday Times of Pakistan -- May 31,
2002]
New York recently bestowed its highest honors on a young
Pakistani- American who gave his life saving others on September
11, 2001.
In a home on a quiet street in Bayside, Queens, a
Pakistani-American family and a dog named Ulysses mourn the loss
of a son, brother, and best friend, an unusual victim of 9/11.
Twenty-three year-old Mohammed Salman Hamdani lived here and
worked far from the Twin Towers in the relatively secluded Upper
East Side of Manhattan. He had no known reason to be near Ground
Zero that day, but apparently rushed toward the burning towers
to help. His selfless act was completely misunderstood at first
and his disappearance that morning fed rumours that he was in
some way linked to the attacks. Later it became clear that Sal,
as he was known by his friends, gave his life at the World Trade
Center in a courageous attempt to save others.
Now, after six long months, Hamdani's reputation finally has
been cleared and he has been eulogized as an American hero and
martyr. At his funeral service on April 5, 2002 New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and dozens
of his fellow police cadets sat barefoot on the carpeted floor
of the Islamic Centre mosque in Manhattan, as family members and
others paid their tributes to a young man who was a Star Wars
fan and whose license plate read Yung
Jedi. Congressman Gary Ackerman presented the family with a U.S.
flag that had flown over the Capitol building, noting that
Hamdani was "a hero and a real martyr in the finest sense."
"We have an example of how one can make the world better," said
Bloomberg. "Salman stood up when most people would have gone in
the other direction. He went in and helped people."
For his parents, Saleem and Talat Hamdani, there was never any
question; they knew Sal would have gone to help. Still, they
hoped he was alive, even hoped he was one of those detained for
questioning by authorities, as dozens of Muslim men were at the
time.
That fragile hope came to an end on the night of March 20 this
year, when two police officers from the local precinct drove up
to the Hamdani home to deliver the news that Sal's remains had
been identified and he had indeed perished in lower Manhattan on
that infamous day. At Hamdani's long-delayed funeral, attended
by several hundred mourners, his mother addressed her firstborn
in a heartfelt tribute. "The day you were born I came to know
the joy of motherhood," she said. "Today I understand its pain.
Salman, you wouldn't let me celebrate your graduations. 'This is
nothing to be proud of, Mama. I will tell you when to
celebrate.' So you did. You told the world loud and clear when
to celebrate-today."
Hamdani was born in Karachi and was just 13 months old when his
family moved to the U.S. in 1979. He was a trained medical
technician and member of the police cadet corps. Last year, he
graduated from Queens College with a major in chemistry and was
applying to medical school while he worked full time at
Rockefeller University as a lab analyst.
Just the weekend before September 11, Hamdani was writing his
application essays.
On the night of September 10, 2001 his father recalls, "I was
not feeling very well so Salman checked my blood pressure and
told me to call him if I needed him." That was the last time Mr.
Hamdani saw his son. The next morning Mrs. Hamdani left home at
7:30 a.m. for her job as a seventh-grade English teacher.
Salman usually left for work at around 8:15 a.m. No one knows
for sure when he left that fateful morning of 9/11, or how he
managed to get to ground zero, since traffic in Manhattan had
been halted shortly after the disaster. The best guess is that
Hamdani may have seen the Towers burning from the elevated
tracks of the Number 7 train he used to take from Queens to his
job in Manhattan. As fate would have it, he did not bring his
cell phone with him that morning, having left it at work the
previous day. Police say that it is likely he was able to hitch
a ride on a police car or ambulance, since he carried police ID.
Later that afternoon Hamdani's uncle went to Rockefeller
University and found out that his nephew had never shown up for
work. Three days later his parents officially reported him
missing and discovered something about their son which they had
never known before. Hamdani was a registered bone marrow donor,
a fact that eventually helped in identifying his remains through
DNA analysis.
A month later, on October 11, a U.S. Senate bill was passed that
mentioned Hamdani as an example of patriotism under section 102
(6). "Many Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans have acted
heroically during the attacks on the United States, including
Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani
descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center
to offer rescue assistance and is now missing."
Mrs. Hamdani has established a memorial fund in her son's name
at Rockefeller University to provide scholarships to
Pakistani-American students who wish to pursue medicine.
Immigrant Muslims are painfully aware that the attacks on
September 11 have affected their image in their adopted
homeland. "My son's actions that day are a glimmer of hope for
the community," says Mr. Hamdani, who owns a general store in
Brooklyn. "His example is now a part of
U.S. history."
Al-Huda 11/12
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