Words: Kurt Bayer
Editor: David Rowe
Design: Paul Slater
Cover illustration: Rod Emmerson
Video: Ella Wilks
Motion graphic: Phil Welch
Additional reporting: Anna Leask, Derek Cheng

Click here to read:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

All able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the Hajj once in their lifetime, with many saving for years to make the journey. The annual pilgrimage draws nearly two million Muslims from around the world to Mecca and sites around it to perform a series of ancient rites and prayers meant to cleanse the soul of past sins and bring people closer to God.

Temel Atacocugu, shot nine times at Al Noor, was among those who travelled to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The kebab shop owner who thought he was going to die after being shot in the face, left arm, legs and hips, felt the trip helped with the long physical, mental and spiritual healing process.

For Farid Ahmed and his daughter Shifa, a year without Husna has been hard, sad, dark. It’s passed so fast, but at times felt excruciatingly slow. They are determined not to let grief, fear or hate overwhelm them. 

“I can’t describe the pain and agony we have been going through. It was a tragedy that shocked us terribly and changed our lives dramatically,” Farid says.

“Life will never be the same, but life is moving on like the saying, ‘Time and tide waits for none’. Our life journey is like waves in the ocean, they never stop moving.”

And like many others, he’s tried to keep himself busy. And that’s meant many speaking events, both here in New Zealand and abroad, promoting peace and teaching about Islam. 

In July, Farid was invited to Washington as part of a group of 27 survivors of religious persecution from around the world, including people from China, Myanmar, Iran, Turkey, and North Korea. US President Donald Trump welcomed the “very important group of people” in the Oval Office and Farid made sure he took his opportunity.

“Mr President, thank you from New Zealand,” he broke in. “Thank you for your leadership, standing up for humanity, standing up for religious groups and their rights and thank you for supporting us after the March 15 tragedy in Christchurch. God bless you, and God bless the United States.”

Trump replied: “Thank you very much. You went through a lot. I know all about what happened and that was a terrible situation.”

Over the past year, Farid has also found solace in writing a book. Husna’s Story – My Wife, the Christchurch Massacre and My Journey to Forgiveness, which was published this month with royalties from all sales donated to St John Ambulance. It follows the mother-of-one’s life from birth to death.

Farid started thinking about writing three days after Husna died. He wanted to return something to the people of Christchurch - for their love, thoughts, prayers, messages and flowers.

“On March 15, 2019, my wife and many others were victims of hate,” he says. “I wanted to do the opposite, with love and forgiveness in return ...  I wanted to spread the message of love and peace.”

In August, a wee baby girl born in Christchurch was named in memory of the father she will never meet.

Noor e Omar – the first child of shooting victims to be born since the attack – was named after Mohammad Omar Faruk and the city mosque Masjid Al Noor where he was shot dead on March 15.

"This girl is very special," says a University of Canterbury PhD student who has taken in 20-year-old mother Sanjida Jaman Neha and another Bangladeshi widow since the tragedy.

"Neha remained very upset throughout her delivery time and kept on crying for Omar.

"New Zealand owes a lot to this little one."

The two “country cops” who nailed the suspected gunman. Those first Armed Offenders Squad boys who stormed into Al Noor, stepping over dead bodies, not knowing what lay in store for them. The off-duty cops who pitched in for days on end without question. Police Commissioner Mike Bush, the big boss, loves them all.

“I will never be more proud of police and emergency services as to how they put their lives on the line to save and help others in their absolute time of need,” he says, looking back on New Zealand’s darkest day.
Pix of arrest scene?

Bush is haunted like the rest of them. He saw the shooter’s livestream footage. The realtime horrors, its bloody aftermath. Images from that day, he knows, will stay with him forever.

“Nothing will take away from me what those people had to go through,” Bush says. “What’s stayed with me most was the images of how those people were suffering, inside particularly the Deans Ave mosque because that’s where we had the initial coverage, but also inside the Linwood mosque. What they must have been going through. And how important it was for their police service and other emergency services to respond in a way that kept them safe and prevented anymore harm coming to them.”

But the tragedy also fuels Bush and his fellow police officers, and colleagues in the security agencies, to prevent anything like March 15 from ever happening again in New Zealand. 

“That’s what drives us as law enforcement officers, to keep people safe, and we should always maintain that vigilance to ensure everyone in this country remains safe. I think it’s probably changed all of us. We saw things we never want to see again and it made me particularly more determined to ensure that everything our organisation does is about preventing harm in the community, knowing what the consequences could look like if we don't get it right.”

Rahimi, 40, offers advice from the couch while wife Azila rustles up some coconut rice with anchovies in the kitchen. He sits and folds clothes, wishing desperately he could be ground-level, helping, but he’s unable yet to crouch down on the carpet. Savage pain still shoots down his right side, from above his hip where the bullet entered, and down the right leg to his foot. Some bullet fragments are too close to his spinal cord to safely remove and will probably stay inside him forever. He still endures appointments – physio, gym, occupational therapy, acupuncture, swimming – every week. More surgery is likely.

At least Razif is happy, Rahimi thinks. They were so worried about his mental health after the shootings, where he escaped on his own, clambering over the mosque’s back wall and running away. For so long, he was quiet, not wanting to talk about it. But the four-month trip back to Malaysia at the tail end of last year helped. Away from Christchurch, fishing, playing with the local neighbourhood cats, feasting on fresh fruit – mangosteen, duriani, rambutan, pulasan. He was the gregarious Razif of old, while Rahimi reacted well to some traditional herbal treatments too. They’re leaning on their strong faith and tight-knit loving family unit. They’re getting there.

Azila, who graduated with a PhD in electrical engineering the day before the shootings, has put her career on hold to care for her husband. And a return to work is still some way off for service technician Rahimi. He keeps in contact with his old boss, who’s been supportive, and is talking with a New Zealand Spinal Trust vocational consultant. He’s desperate to return to his old routines and habits, but for now he still needs crutches or a walking frame, with a brace on his ankle, to get about. He’s making progress, but it’s slow.

“Yesterday the pain came again in the toes,” he says. “It feels like an open wound and someone is pouring hot water into it. I try to use my fingernails to massage and reduce the pain. If it gets really bad, I’ll take the medicine. And the numbness is like ... zzzz zzzz zzz. If I’m chatting, I can forget about it. But at night, in bed, it can be hard.”

But the best rehabilitation for Rahimi is being home, around his wife and two children. They eat meals together two to four times a day. And he’d swap it for nothing.

“We chit-chat together and have very good food together, we share everything – it’s what we always do  ... Because of their support I can eliminate the pain from my body. The mental support from them is very big for me to challenge myself on my real pain.”

A bright green Orbiter bus rattles along Linwood Ave with a big rear-end sign: “Something big is coming”. An ordinary piece of benign advertising but when it’s flashing past a mosque where nine people were slaughtered it feels somehow sinister and gut-gurgling.

It’s a welcome cooler January day today after a sweltering summer fortnight. Lazy flies divebomb worshippers, who sit cross-legged, hugging knees, on the new cushioned carpet and its brown leafy patterns. The eyes of a new high-tech security system perch upon high from the fresh white walls. A bold light pours in through the replaced windows that were smashed by bullets where Sister Linda Armstrong sat up the back, resting her dodgy knees. A helicopter passes overhead. Squawking, wailing seagulls circle. From Sister Linda’s old spot, you can see into the carpark to the southern side of the masjid, where the gunman crept. Footsteps of latecomers crunch on the gravel, leaving their shoes at the door beside wilting tribute flowers and fading messages of aroha.

Abdul Aziz, the Eftpos card-reader hero, got here early and did the vacuuming and tidying up. After checking the sound system, he stands back and surveys the masjid. “It’s okay,” he says, wiping his brow and re-tightening his trademark ponytail. “We are okay. It is taking time, but we are getting there, getting better ... slowly.”

Less than 20 Muslims are inside the masjid when Friday prayer begins. They’re still arriving at its end, filling up to more than 60. Imam Alabi Lateef Zirullah, the bulky Nigerian-born Islamic scholar, dashing in his white robe and dark crochet-knitted skullcap, sits on the bottom step of his wooden minbar. Certain things in life destroy everything, Alabi says. They split friends, brothers and sisters, societies. They can start minor but end worse than we can imagine. “And one of them is not forgiving,” he says. “Nothing good can come from that. Getting angry opens the door to dark things ... it will solve no problems.”

Worshippers, dressed in jeans, grey trackies and traditional robes, fidget and twitch. Nine months on and it’s still a nervy experience to be here. Eyes flit like starlings as tyres scrunch on carpark stones outside. The patrolling police presence, omnipresent for many months after the tragedy, is gone. Yet it’s a welcoming place. Late arrivals enter quietly, head bowed apologetically, shaking one hand with brothers while the other hand crosses their chest to their heart before finding a free spot on the carpet and offering both palms wide to Allah.

Some lean on the walls. One shooting survivor is still on a crutch, down to just one. Another sits massaging a leg. A few kids. Ali Elliot Marshall Dawson, who survived the massacre by hiding in the washroom and is dealing with his trauma by writing poetry, is kneeling up front, where he likes it, closer to Allah.

In the distance, a police siren wails. There’s a sudden shout from the street. “Zero plus zero will always be zero,” Imam Alabi says. “Two wrongs will never make a right.” Anger has no place in society, or in a Muslim’s life, he reminds his people. You can feel the brotherhood here, the love inside the room, between these sorrowful walls. It emanates out, through the replaced windows, into the high blue Canterbury sky, wispy with thin passing clouds.

The End

WHERE TO GET HELP
If you or someone else is in danger, call 111. If you need to talk, these free helplines operate 24/7

Depression helpline: 0800 111 757
Lifeline: 0800 543 354
Need to talk? Call or text 1737
Samaritans: 0800 726 666
Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234