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

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

A chill shuddered through Rahimi Ahmad. Fumbling in the morning dark of his home to pray, he felt his way down the hallway and realised he wasn’t feeling well. Maybe the build-up and excitement of his wife’s graduation yesterday – the product of a long journey that had brought them from the white sandy beaches of Malaysia to a post-quake Christchurch five years ago – had been too much. Rahimi had the flu.

Feed the flu. After his salat al-fajr dawn prayer, he opened the fridge. He glanced at the dozens of fridge magnets and panoramic postcards – showing jagged snow-capped peaks, lush green mountains rolling down to secluded bays. Signpost souvenirs from roadtrips, pointing to Bluff, Te Anau, Queenstown, Mataura, Gore, Murchison, and at the top, in the middle, the Ahmad family’s adopted hometown: Christchurch.

He picked up a purple mangosteen fruit and a pineapple in each hand. He could hear his eldest child, 11-year-old son Razif, telling him to sniff them, sniff them Dad. “You have to smell them,” he’d always say, his brown eyes glinting like the Canterbury sun off Al Noor Mosque’s golden dome. Beloved Razif, always on the brink of bubbly giggles. “The sweeter the smell, the more ripe and juicy they are.” Rahimi remembered his son’s “fun fact” from yesterday: “Turn the mangosteen upside down, you count the petals and that’s how many fruit are inside. About six, on average.”

Rahimi decided the smell wasn’t quite right, and knew his son would tell him so. So he selected a spiky rambutan – his daughter Faiqah’s favourite. The 8-year-old loved the furry, sugary fruit’s interior, which she delighted in cracking open, either with her teeth or immaculate wee fingernails.

He peeked through the venetian blinds in the road-facing lounge of their rented classic 1960s home. Red brick, white mortar, narrow driveway. He looked across to Ray Blank Park – named after the former Waimairi councillor and sportsman and home to the annual Culture Galore festival, where Azila would cook up a storm every year. It reminded him that Ramadan was approaching and he and his wife would have to start planning for their iftar feast that they’d rustle up again for about 100 University of Canterbury students. Penang-style chicken curry and biryani, pineapple and cucumber salad, pickled red onion, vegetable dahl and tempoyak, the fermented pulp of a durian fruit. The sun was coming up but all the sniffling, aching Rahimi wanted was to be back in bed.

He sat down at the formica kitchen table, where the Ahmads would gather and eat, at least twice a day, sometimes up to four times at weekends. Moving quietly, so as not to wake his sleeping wife Azila – sweet, clever Azila who’s knocked it off and made Rahimi glow with pride – texted his boss. The robot technician at a dairy plant said he wouldn’t be in today, there’s no way he wanted to spread the flu. No worries, get well soon.

The kids could stay home from school today, he thought. He took some medicine, retired to bed, and closed his eyes. He dreamed of his little village of Kampung Binjai in Bayan Lepas, Penang and its crystal clear waters. He was a child again, back in the early 1980s, and he and his friends were larking around and around a cocoa tree, ducking the hanging rugby-ball shaped fruit, like the ones on his All Blacks 2015 Rugby World Cup polo shirt. And when he woke, he remembered that cocoa tree, how it’s gone now, replaced by palm trees, and how he misses it so.  

About the time Rahimi Ahmad was in his groggy slumber, across town Linda Armstrong was agonising over an email. She wanted to quit. It wasn’t easy and the words needed to be right.

She had given the last eight years of her life to Islam. The West Auckland-born Muslim convert had sponsored a Syrian refugee in Jordan, volunteered at a Refugee Resettlement Centre in Māngere, South Auckland, and been a vocal advocate for women's rights.

A “story-swapper”, her nephew Kyron Gosse described her, the 65-year-old with gammy knees loved sharing New Zealand with foreign arrivals, taking them to parts of the country they might never otherwise see and helping them to settle into their new home. Her perpetually tickled smile was a contagion that lasered barriers and prejudices.

Abdul Jabbar, also a white Kiwi convert to Islam, first met Armstrong – who’d moved to Christchurch to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren – shortly after the Linwood mosque opened on January 1, 2017, in an old wooden back-section building at 223A Linwood Ave. It was designed to cater for Muslims in the east of the city and ease pressure on Al Noor Masjid, which was often full-to-overflowing for Friday prayers.

About eight months before March 15, the Linwood Islamic Charitable Trust’s Facebook page started receiving a flurry of concerning messages, according to Jabbar. Real hate messages. Things like, “We hope you die” and “We’re watching you”. It was apparently reported to police, who suggested online safety group NetSafe.

Al Noor Masjid had experienced similar things over the years. Local white supremacist Philip Arps was filmed delivering boxes of pigs heads – pork is considered unclean by Muslims - to the mosque just three years earlier. The video, intended to be shared within a 20-strong cell of local neo-Nazis, shows Arps declare: “White power, my friends, my family, my people. Let's get these f***ers out. Bring on the cull." 

Arps, whose business Beneficial Insulation features various Nazi symbols and white supremacist messages, was convicted of offensive behaviour and fined $800.

Very late at night for her, with Bangladesh six hours behind New Zealand time, Sanjida Neha kept calling. She was restless. Pregnant with their first child, she was excited and nervous and wanted to hear her husband Mohammad Omar Faruk’s reassuring, calm voice. Mates say he'd been glowing with pride.

Omar was up early to be at work at 8am that day and asked his wife nicely if she should get some sleep. He told her he expected a long day working outside at a construction site on a moody autumn day. It was humid but temperatures were only in the high teens. It felt like rain.

But it wasn’t humid like back in Narayanganj, a city of two million people near the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, where they both were from. Their families knew each other and when Sanjida, studying business administration, was told her marriage with Omar was arranged, she was delighted – even though she’d never seen him before. He’d left a couple of years earlier after a good welding job took him to Christchurch, via Singapore, where he’d worked for a few years.

So when she finally laid eyes on him one week before their wedding, she was overjoyed with the match.

"We were very happy, very excited," she said.

They got married in Bangladesh on December 29, 2017. Wedding photos show the couple in traditional dress. Afterwards, Omar looks sharp in a dark suit.

After a long holiday in newly wedded bliss, Omar returned to Christchurch, and his job, in February last year.

He worked hard all year. Omar and Sanjida spoke everyday via video calls and talked of their plans.

Omar wanted to finish building work on their family home where they talked about living in the future. But they also thought about coming together in Christchurch.

In November last year, he returned home for an eight-week holiday.
Sanjida soon fell pregnant.

While in Bangladesh, Omar worked hard on the house, and was keen for his wife to stay indoors as much as she could to avoid sickness and any complications.
It was a gruelling wrench when he had to return to Christchurch on January 18.

But at least they could speak every day. It made Sanjida feel like she was there with him. Except, she didn’t think Omar was going to the mosque that day, what with the big job on at work. But around midday, it started to rain. And his boss said he may as well knock off early. Omar's eyes lit up. He hardly ever got the opportunity to attend Friday prayers at the golden-domed mosque across Hagley Park - work came first and his religion allowed that. He would usually just pray in his own time. So he took the chance to pray. And be thankful for all he had in this life.

Farid Ahmed was tired. He would have been late if his wife Husna hadn’t been there, as she always was for him. While he rested though the morning, she’d been busy; dropping 15-year-old daughter Shifa at school; cooking and chatting with friends on the phone. Husna helped get him ready, eased his wheelchair into their car, and headed off to Al Noor. They chatted about their family and lives on the way.

After a drunk driver crashed into Farid and left him paraplegic 21 years earlier, they made a  decision to lead their lives however they wanted. Husna wanted to be a full-time volunteer, helping women, children, neighbours, communities. They both took classes at the mosque every Saturday and Sunday. They shunned holidays, preferring to give to others. It's what they loved.

Just after 1pm, they pulled into a special car-park reserved for them. Husna headed for the women’s room while Farid wheeled himself inside. Making for his usual spot in the main hall, he noticed a brother who had been having a tough time with cancer treatment. He stopped to spend some time with him and, as they talked, prayers began, so Farid stayed in the side-room.