Read the book: «A Reply to Hate: Forgiving My Attacker»

ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 About Me

Chapter 2 The Attack

Chapter 3 Hospital

Chapter 4 “Do You Forgive Him?”

Chapter 5 “Did you feel he wanted to kill you?”

Chapter 6 Don’t You Dare Look Back

Chapter 7 Section 18

Chapter 8 Close to Death. So What?

Chapter 9 Getting a Grip

Chapter 10 The Trial

Chapter 11 I4GiveH8

Ripples: Family & Friends

Syrsa Kurdy

Assma Kurdy

Oaiss Kurdy

Shahyda Chaudhry

Rabbi Amir Ellituv

Haitham Nadeem

Saima Alvi

Ripples: Nasser Kurdy

Victim Impact Statement

Birmingham Holocaust Memorial Day 2020

Knife-Crime Vigil, Manchester Cathedral 2019

Foreword

David Tucker

I first met Dr Nasser Kurdy in February 2019, where myself, Matthew Feldman and Amjid Khazir, the three of us representing Academic Consulting Services Ltd. (www.academicconsulting.co.uk), The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (www.radicalrightanalysis.com) and Media Cultured (www.mediacultured.org), had collaborated with Shazia Awan of Manchester City Council on a counter-extremism event for school pupils which was hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University. At the event, experts spoke on prejudice, extremism and violence, and there were two survivors of extremist violence discussing their experiences. One was Ahmad Nawaz, who on 16 December 2014 in Peshawar, Pakistan, was shot by the Taliban in an attack on his school; 150 students were brutally massacred that day along with teachers and educationalists. Amongst those murdered was Ahmad’s brother, Harris. Ahmad survived the attack and has since become an ambassador for education and peace working across the world. The other invited speaker was Dr Nasser Kurdy. On Sunday 24 September 2017 Dr Kurdy was stabbed in his neck as he was entering his local Islamic Centre in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. Dr Kurdy did not see the attacker coming, and he has only been able to speculate as to why he was the victim of this sudden, awful, and life-altering split-second attack. Nevertheless, through all the physical pain, the confusion and at times fear engendered by this attack, Dr Kurdy managed to come through it in just a matter of hours and profess his forgiveness of his attacker. Further on in the book Dr Kurdy discusses how he has thought about distinguishing between the forgiveness of an attacker and the forgiveness of an attack itself. For now, it suffices to say that it is very much this reflectiveness that comes through when meeting Dr Kurdy, a thoughtfulness always combined with good humour and kindness, a personality that has been brought to bear on the more impersonal abstracts of crude violence. It is of relevance throughout that, in telling contrast to his kitchen-knife-wielding attacker, Dr Kurdy is a surgeon. He brings his medical expertise to bear in fascinating ways on his own injury and in thinking about the implications his analysis has, or could have, for a criminal investigation and trial. In a sense, this book is a story of two users of knives, and the contrast between how the two deploy their respective tools tells us something about extremist violence and possible responses to it.

Dr Kurdy has been telling the story of his attack and forgiveness to many different audiences since, and by 2019 had started to think about setting it down on the page, so we discussed what such a project might look like. For one thing, Dr Kurdy is very busy as an orthopaedic surgeon, and he did not feel he could simply write the book himself. We decided, therefore, to conduct interviews, with the intention being that much of the book would be told in the first person, in Dr Kurdy’s voice, as well as I could capture and edit it for the page. Chapters 1 to 10 are derived from this methodology; they are Dr Kurdy’s voice, as spoken in interview, then transcribed and edited, with the interviewer’s voice removed along the way. However, we also wanted to include some more discursive work, some evidence of the conversational way in which much of the book had come about. To that end, Chapter 11 retains its interview format in order that the wider-ranging and reflective discussion therein, which looks back on the events of the preceding chapters, explores current projects Dr Kurdy is engaged in and looks forward, could be presented in a way closer to how it came about.

Towards the end of the book are shorter contributing texts by other people also affected by the attack. Family, friends and colleagues lay out how events had both short-term and longer-term effects on themselves as well as on the protagonist. These contributions set out multifarious manifestations of what Dr Kurdy has come to call in recent work with prison inmates a “ripple” effect, referring to the ramifications across a range of people that a single traumatic event will inevitably have. It is often a cliché to say that an attack is an attack on a particular “community”, especially if such an act might very well be intended as precisely just such a synecdoche. But it is not only a British Muslim community in general that these interspersed voices speak for, but also for the personal, familial and multi-faith community close to the person at the centre of these events.

Dr Kurdy always wanted the concept of forgiveness to be at the centre, the heart, of this book. In this very intention he even perhaps unknowingly spoke about his thinking of, his hopes for, other people. The book is less a record of events for Dr Kurdy to retain as memory might fade, times change, as priorities and focuses shift. I believe, though it has never been articulated as such throughout the process of producing this book, that the hope can be that the events surrounding this particular act of extreme violence might bring about some good, whether that is in speaking to others in comparable circumstances, or in filling out the academic records, for those producing policy as much as for those producing research, of what can happen following such an act. Personally speaking, it has been inspiring to see how an act of hate has been turned to good in such a way as described in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 1

About Me

I would like to begin this book at my own beginnings. I was born in 1959 in Aleppo, Syria, which is also where my mother came from. Given my name and my Middle Eastern looks, it can surprise people to learn that my mother’s maiden name is Gilbert Manjaka. It is a Christian name, and her surname is not Arabic. My uncles’ first names are Tony and George, and my grandmother’s name is Margaret, all from my mother’s side of the family, the Christians of Aleppo. They have lived in Aleppo for generations. I remember when my uncle George was married in a church service in Aleppo and I was probably just seven or eight years old, walking alongside my brother as we carried candles down the aisle.

My father’s side of the family is Muslim, and then on that side my grandfather is of Kurdish origin, hence the name Kurdy, and my grandmother is Circassian. Her origin is the Caucasus, a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea north of Turkey. Sadly, the late nineteenth century witnessed a Circassian genocide with many forced to migrate south, some as far as Syria where my grandmother’s family eventually settled. I know very little about my father’s family other than they lived in Damascus in the well-known Kurdish district of Rukn al-Din where he was born. I have only little recollection of my early childhood and I don’t recall my father mentioning much about his life when we lived in Damascus. I later found out that he had worked in the security services in Damascus and all over Syria. In 1966, when I was just seven years old, he had to flee Damascus after a coup, led by Nour el Din Atassi. There were personal conflicts between Atassi and our father and when Atassi became president our father had to make a swift exit to Jordan. He was helped greatly by his friends in Jordan and eventually he managed to gain Jordanian citizenship. This is why I tell my friends I am half Syrian, half Jordanian.

Looking at my father’s photos from the 1950s, I am not surprised why my mother fell head over heels for him. He was tall and handsome, he was a good swimmer, and he had a presence. As might be imagined, my parents marrying was part of a somewhat difficult story because they went against usual traditions at the time of Muslims marrying Muslims and Christians marrying Christians. I met one of my Christian cousins a few years ago and they told me about the impact the marriage had on the community at the time, but my mother was going to have it her way and that was that. She did finish high school, which was exceptional in the 1950s, but beyond that she was self-taught; she spoke, typed and used shorthand in three different languages. In her younger days she managed to work as a personal assistant to a number of high-ranking politicians in Damascus, which was where I spent the first ten years of my life. I recall starting my primary education at a French school, L’école Laïque, which was walking distance from where we lived, but the school was unfortunately closed after the six-day Arab-Israeli War that took place in June 1967. I still recall the tanks stationed outside our apartment building during that time. So many things changed for my family after this conflict and eventually, for a number of reasons, we all moved to Kuwait for a new start. First my father, then mother, a year later myself and then another year later my brother joined us.

At the time, Kuwait was one of the wealthiest oil countries in the Middle East, and it was there that my education changed from French to English, in a school which is still going strong today. The New English School was founded in 1969 by a visionary couple, a Kuwaiti man and his British wife. The curriculum was taught primarily by British teachers and over a relatively short period the school began preparing its students for O-level and A-level exams. My mother was a strong believer in education and we always had the best schools chosen for us, despite the fact that our means were, at best, moderate. Consequently, a good portion of who we are, of how we live and what we believe—my brother, sister and I—is owed to her. I still remember the first time we joined that school one summer. It was on the grounds of a large villa, possibly an embassy, where they had an outdoor swimming pool that I still remember swimming in. We would get changed inside the building and walk as a class to the outdoor pool which was built up off the ground like a large concrete tank, and we would dive into it. The joy of swimming at this school is something I still recall to this day.

At some point my mother realised that people who were aiming for a high-quality education were sending their children to Lebanon, so in 1973 my brother and I were sent to a boarding school there. This must have been a very big and brave decision for our parents. Fortunately, my older brother was much more streetwise than me and he was entrusted to look after us both! First, we went to a nunnery for the summer, a boarding school run by nuns. Here we were taught mainly French, but this also gave us an introduction to beautiful Lebanon. We had many school trips and I even remember watching my first Bruce Lee film, Fist of Fury, that summer, and for whatever reason the image of a gold Lamborghini is firmly etched in my mind. Lebanon was after all the French Riviera of the Middle East. When term started, we joined Brummana High School. This was a beautiful (and expensive) school situated on the mountain overlooking Beirut. The school had been founded by the Quakers and also had an English-based curriculum. We were there for two years and it was at this school I sat my O-level exams. Unfortunately, in October 1973, and while we were just settling at Brummana High, another Arab-Israeli war broke out. I still recall peering up at the sky from the school grounds with fascination, watching fighter jets chase each other, though I had no clue what was going on. The war did not last long and fortunately it did not have any immediate impact on our education or our safety.

By 1975 I was getting ready for those O-levels, when everyone at school started noticing heavy guns and various bits of military equipment settling on the mountainsides near the school. Then just a few weeks before our exams, in April, the civil war in Lebanon broke out. We were mostly locked in at school, but, despite the mayhem, the uncertainty and danger, we were still able to sit our exams. However, by the end of the exam period the situation in Lebanon had become extremely dangerous and we were trapped at school even though term had finished. I don’t recall all the details, but we were not able leave the grounds of the school because of all the warring factions. The Palestinian forces, the various Lebanese forces and the Syrian forces all had roadblocks. At these roadblocks one of the most sinister and depressing aspects of the war would take place: innocent people were being summarily executed based on their identity. It was rumoured that if someone were stopped at a roadblock without an ID card, the militia men would ask the person to pronounce the word “tomato”; because of the various dialects, each faction pronounced the word differently. How you pronounced the word tomato literally meant life or death. My parents were extremely worried, as we ticked the wrong boxes for most of these roadblocks. We were Muslim, carried Jordanian passports and were born in Syria! That civil war proved to be very violent, but we were extremely fortunate when for a couple of weeks, a truce allowed my brother and I to travel to Syria, all the way by taxi, to join our parents. It was just over a hundred-kilometre journey and we had to borrow the taxi fare from our maths teacher. We left in a hurry and we escaped with only our passports. We did return to Lebanon a few years later to collect our belongings from the school. I recall sitting in the back of the car looking at all the destroyed buildings riddled with bullet holes. The image of Beirut at the time can perhaps best be likened to that of bombed-out Sarajevo. That Riviera version of the place had disappeared. After escaping from Lebanon, we returned to Kuwait where two years later I completed my A-levels at my old school. I was doing relatively well in my studies and so I applied and was accepted to study medicine in the UK, at Dundee.

August 1977 was the first time I ever left home on my own. I remember landing at Heathrow and staying the night at one of the airport hotels as we had missed the connecting flight. I arrived at the hotel very late, I had no clue how to order room service and I ended up going to sleep feeling hungry and lonely. That was my first night away from home! Early next morning I took my flight to Edinburgh. It is difficult to put the experience of my first day in the UK into words. Everything I was seeing was new to me, there was a great deal to take in and I felt overwhelmed. At Edinburgh airport, I asked the taxi driver to take me to the train station as I knew I had to take a train to Dundee. I had never been to such a massive railway station before. As I arrived at Waverley train station, I recall seeing so many trains for the first time in my life. The thought of ending up lost on a train somewhere in Scotland was very daunting and I just sat in the taxi. Eventually I asked the driver if he could take me all the way to Dundee and I gave him the address, Belmont Hall of Residence. He was very happy to oblige! Two hours later we arrived at Dundee, but to my surprise, the driver did not know where Belmont Hall was and he needed to ask for directions! Finally, I was safely dropped off at my halls of residence to start what would be six years of medical studies in Dundee. As soon as I entered my room, I just fell onto my bed and started crying. It wasn’t the journey that had been the most distressing, it was the fact that when I arrived in Dundee, I could not understand anyone I spoke to. Yes, it sounded as if they were speaking English, but not the English I learned at school; Scottish English was something else entirely. In case you are wondering, the taxi fare cost me twenty pounds that day!

Neither of my parents were university educated, so when I left home to study medicine, my mother had little idea what it meant in practical terms. I was her pride and joy, and she thought that once I graduated that I would therefore be qualified, and I could go back home and start working as a doctor straightaway. Just six years at the most, and I would be home. Unbeknownst to any of us at the time was that, having graduated, I needed to go through a further training programme; a degree in medicine is no more than a starting point. I graduated in 1983 and started my training in Dundee. By 1988, eleven years after leaving home, I completed my basic surgical training and I managed to obtain my surgical diploma.

Unfortunately, during my time at university, my mother was diagnosed with leukaemia. Initially this was under control and I recall her optimism as she travelled to various centres in Lebanon, the US and the UK for treatment. Sadly, as predicted, and after seven years of battling, her condition started to get out of control. I remember in March of that year, my father called me to say that mum was in hospital and that she was quite ill. This was not unusual, but this was the first time that he said we should travel over to see her. Doing so, however, was far from straightforward. It posed some administrative obstacles in view of the fact that I was still a foreign national, so I could not just get on a plane and leave and expect to easily return. I had to send my passport away for a re-entry visa, and the process took a few weeks. Eventually I arrived with my brother back in Kuwait on 08 April 1988 and our uncle picked us up from the airport. Not much was said in the car, but as we were getting close to home, my uncle told us that our mother had passed away earlier that same day. I never managed to see her alive again. It was my birthday the following day and I went to see my mother in the mortuary, for the last time, before burying her in the afternoon. I remember meeting my Uncle George at the mortuary where we bid farewell to her. He was inconsolable; I still remember his crying. At home, my father just kept quiet. In a sense, even though my mother was the architect of everything that she wished for me to be, sadly she passed away before she could see it all come good.

Shortly after that, my career almost came to a halt as I struggled to obtain a higher surgical-training post. If you cannot get such a training post, then you are no longer on the ladder to becoming a consultant. It took me another three years, but in 1991 I had my lucky break; I managed to get a temporary training post. However, those intervening three years of 1988 to 1991 had been by far the most difficult of my life, emotionally, professionally and financially. Unfortunately, the recession that kicked off in the second half of 1990 caused me to lose my house, but at least I was able to move into hospital accommodation. My self-esteem and self-belief were at an all-time low and I believe that a lot of how I approach adversity now, the resilience that I have, comes from me coping on my own through those years. I had graduated in 1983, but by 1991, after eight years of employment, all I had to show for it was a car, a stereo system, and a debt of £8000. But at least I was now back, even if only temporarily, on the training ladder.

What probably altered my fortunes for the better was getting British citizenship in 1991. Up until then, each time I applied for a job I presented myself as Jordanian, and I got nowhere. The very first time I presented myself as British I was offered an interview. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but anyhow I got a short-term job as a locum tutor in orthopaedics at the University of Manchester. For the first time since 1988 I was employed in an academic post. Getting this job gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction and a belief that I still had a chance at career success. I first started working in Manchester at Ancoats Hospital, which sadly no longer exists, and it was during that year that I bought my first computer and I started producing academic work. 1991 was a fantastic year for me. I worked my way up financially, getting back on my feet again and, on a personal level, that year gave me the belief that no matter how low things can get, given time, patience and perseverance, there is always a chance. My chance came after nearly 300 applications and I was determined to make the most out of this break.

I had my second lucky break when the one-year locum tutor post was extended to 18 months. I then got a third break when I worked for a year in research alongside an incredible Senior Lecturer who was very supportive. But then came the most incredible break in my career, which was Calmanisation. The postgraduate training structure in the NHS was being overhauled and, in simple terms, in order to streamline the training journey of medical graduates at registrar level, two major changes took place. Firstly, training centres needed to restructure themselves to provide a comprehensive five-year training programme. Secondly, and most important to me, once you had a Calman number, you were in line to compete for a consultant post. In 1994, and with the support of my Senior Lecturer, I was offered one of these Calman numbers.

When I started working in Manchester, I was living in hospital accommodation. I first lived in a bedroom, then I had my own ensuite, and by 1993 I managed to move into a rented flat. By then I had paid off my debt and was gradually getting back on my feet financially. But still, I was single, living by myself, and I felt I needed to settle down. As with most Eastern cultures, it is the mother who usually takes on the matchmaker role. With my mother having passed away, I needed the help of my aunt in Syria. Eventually I contacted her and said something along the lines of “I want to settle down and to get married, and I need you to find someone suitable for me”. This probably came as a bit of a shock to her, but she was happy with the idea and understandably she asked what I was looking for; a strange conversation to be reading about in the West in the 21st century, I know. My instinctive reply anyway was “As long as she’s pretty”. I guess anybody would say that. But I also said, “I need her to be a good practicing Muslim”. For a few years I felt that I had been drifting away from Islam, that I had become a little wayward, and I was not comfortable with that. To my surprise, before long I received a call from my aunt telling me that she had found someone she wanted to introduce me to, so off I went on a flight to Damascus. At 33 years of age, it was a very odd experience for me to be going with my father and my uncle to meet this family in order to be introduced to their daughter. I remember meeting the young lady and her family and I liked her very much. Having gone through the proper formalities, both she and her family were happy for us to become engaged, so that we could get to know each other better before taking the big plunge. However, as soon as I returned to the UK, I received a message from my sister informing me that they had already fallen out with the family and the engagement was broken off. How strange, you might think, but this exciting journey was very short lived. A few months later my aunt called to say, “We found you another potential bride”, so again I hopped on a plane to Damascus and again I met a lovely young lady, with a lovely family and we agreed to get to know each other. I came back to the UK with rekindled excitement and hope, but a few weeks later she informed me fairly bluntly “You know something, I don’t think you are the right person for me, let’s call it a day”. This time the roles had been reversed and I was unceremoniously ‘dumped’.

I started doubting if my approach to finding the love of my life would ever work. A short while later I received a phone call from my sister who said yet again “We found somebody”, and I thought here we go again, but she was determined and very excited, saying “No, we really found someone. Get on a plane right now.” This must be July or August 1993. Considering how my sister sounded on the phone, I was again very excited, but I had to keep my hopes in check. I sorted out a flight and arrived in Damascus on a Wednesday, early September, to find my sister still very excited. She told me about the girl that she met, speaking very highly of her, and that she lived in the neighbourhood just a few houses away from my aunt’s house. She kept saying that there was something special about this girl, called Syrsa. So, on Thursday I went with my aunt and sister to meet the girl’s family. Syrsa, wearing her headscarf, came in briefly to serve us the coffee and then stepped out. She looked absolutely gorgeous and I politely smiled and said that the coffee was very good, only for her to say it was her mother that made it! When we reminisce about our first encounter, Syrsa tells me that she was in fact not very excited about our visit. It is traditional that when meeting a suiter, on the first visit the girl will come in for a few minutes, and then step out. The rest of the family, especially her parents, will get to know as much about you and your family as they can, and then you hope that they will get back to you should their daughter decide that she would be happy to speak to you! Friday we were all waiting for her mother to call and hopefully say that we could come back for a second visit. We waited and waited, and finally we received a call late in the afternoon where her mother informed my aunt that Syrsa was happy to meet with me for another chat. I was over the moon.

The following day I went alone and knocked at the door. I don’t remember who opened the door for me, but I ended up sitting with Syrsa in that same room on our own for about three hours. It did not feel awkward to either of us, and we just kept on talking about ourselves; well, mostly about myself. I think I fell for her straight away and I could see why my sister was so excited about this girl. When I met her that day, my heart was pounding so hard but somehow, I managed to keep it together. I went again the following day and we chatted for over four hours before we parted company. I suppose she had heard enough by then and both of us had a decision to make, but I had a deep feeling in my heart that this was going to be the one. I could not describe it, but something about her felt exceptional and I was hoping and praying that she thought I was the one for her as well. On the Monday, just a few days after we first met, I asked my father and my aunt to formally request Syrsa’s hand in marriage and on Tuesday the answer came back as yes, Syrsa has agreed. Wow! I was absolutely beyond myself.

The following few days were extremely hectic as we needed to sort out the necessary paperwork for the registry office. We were officially married a week later. I remember it was a difficult day because we had to find an office that could register the marriage, but that day was a public holiday and everywhere was closed. We eventually found an office that agreed to register the marriage in a nearby little town. My father, Syrsa, her brother and I all went to register the marriage on 14 September 1993, after which we had a modest family gathering. I was in a desperate hurry because as soon as we got married, I needed to start a visa application for her. By then, I was a British national, but Syrsa was Syrian. It was tricky convincing the British Consulate official that we were truly married having met just over a week ago. Just like me, they were having some difficulty believing that this had really happened. It was amazing, it was like a wonderful dream, I was married, and it was all a whirlwind. When Syrsa asks me about those days I tell her that I honestly cannot remember much of the detail and everything still feels like a dream. In fact, she is the one that reminded me of what took place.

When I look back at that fateful week, I cannot help but be grateful that Syrsa saw something in me that convinced her to take such a decision. Financially, I was not fully on my feet yet, but she later said to me that what struck her about me was honesty and humility. She had many suiters before me, but she felt comfortable and safe with me. Now and again, she teases me about who her suitors were before I came along, saying she married me because I needed looking after! We did eventually manage to sort out the visa application and everything felt as if it was falling nicely into place. Having only taken two weeks off work, I had to get back, and sadly there was not enough time to arrange a proper wedding. In next to no time, I was on a plane back to Manchester, by myself but married. Syrsa arrived a couple of months later. She had her previous commitments too, of course, such as completion of her MSc in Microbiology and she needed to sort out many things because she had never expected in her wildest dreams that she would be leaving Damascus for good. She did actually manage to have what one would call a ‘girl’s wedding’ with all her friends and family, but I was not there. In fact, we never actually had a wedding, and our ‘wedding’ photos were taken when we returned to Damascus together. I had promised Syrsa’s mother that we would travel back within three months, and we had a mini celebration then. When Syrsa joined me in Manchester, she completed another MSc in Microbiology at the University of Manchester before starting to apply for a training post, but she couldn’t get anywhere. After a number of applications, she decided that she was probably better off putting her energy elsewhere. In fact, her struggle finding a training post brought back painful memories of my own journey. When I speak to her about that decision, she tells me that she was happy with it and that she never felt that her role was compromised.

I passed my speciality exam in 1997 and received my certificate of completion of training, and I became a consultant in 1998. Four years later we moved to Hale Barns, where we have been living since. Within a few months of moving here I got to know many of the people at our local Islamic Centre. As I became more involved with the community, I eventually joined the committee of the Altrincham Muslim Association, where I later served as chairman. I started taking the time to learn more about Islam, so my knowledge of Islam progressed, particularly when I began teaching as part of a study circle. When we were married, Syrsa’s knowledge of Islam was far better than mine, but with her support I gradually picked up. I started delivering sermons at our centre and over time I gained a good standing within my community. I later became involved in interfaith work, getting to know our local synagogues and churches. I regularly represented my mosque on Remembrance Sunday, for example, first attending the Sunday service at All Saints Church before I would proceed with the vicar to the Hale Barns war memorial. There we gathered with other local vicars and rabbis for an interfaith memorial service. We then all proceeded to a buffet at the neighbouring synagogue. I also had the privilege of serving as the mayor’s chaplain for two years, where one of my duties was to open the council meetings with a prayer. These meetings took place on a Wednesday evening after my clinic. I would dash over there in the car arriving just in time to give the prayer, and I would occasionally stay and observe these meetings as I found the political ramblings invariably amusing. I built a number of lasting friendships over these two years.

I suppose all this is to say that by the time of 2017 when I was attacked, perhaps I was not just some random guy. I was well known in the area, in my community, my local churches and synagogues, from my work at the hospital and with our local council. Still, I had never felt like I was, or could be, a target. Until, of course, that fateful day.

Chapter 2

The Attack

It was Sunday, 24 September 2017. We had a committee meeting at the Islamic Centre I attend which was scheduled to take place immediately after Asr prayers, the mid-afternoon prayers, at 17:30. As it was towards the end of September, there was a fair bit of gardening to be done, and that meant being home for longer on a Sunday doing what was necessary with the garden. Consequently, I was running slightly late, so when I got into my car and saw the time was just short of 17:30, I knew I would be a couple of minutes late. I drove along Hale Road, down Delahays Road and onto Grove Lane, a short journey of only a few minutes from home. Along Grove Lane, as I approached the Centre, I looked for a place to park but by then most places were already taken. I drove further up the road, turned back, and eventually found a place on the opposite side not too far from the Centre, probably about a hundred yards or so. I locked the car, went to cross the road—I parked on a narrow strip with a bend so had to look carefully as I crossed—and walked past a few houses before entering the mosque. We don’t normally refer to the Centre as a mosque as essentially it is a community cultural centre, with just part of it used for prayers. Originally, it was a church known as St. David’s. Built in 1915, it is already past its centenary and probably it is well beyond its sell-by date, so to speak. The centre has two buildings: the daily prayer hall on the left-hand side as you go up the entrance path, then towards the end of the path is the larger back building; our activity hall. For the five daily prayers we routinely used the smaller left-hand hall. At the front of the Centre there is a set of waist-high iron gates, a number of iron fence panels and a few mature trees. The two buildings are set on a slight elevation, so you have to walk up a slope between the entrance gates and the hall doors. We had CCTV cameras installed a few years ago following several racially motivated attacks.

Having crossed the road, and as I was walking towards the Centre, I spotted someone on the other side of the road no more than 50 yards away. At the time, this seemed innocuous, and probably the only reason I noticed him was because he was the only person around on that quiet road. Perhaps if there had been more people then I might have been distracted by them, but I clearly recall he was the only person I saw. I do not remember if he looked back at me, but everything seemed entirely normal. From that glance I recall noticing that he was tall enough to have his head above the car he was next to. As I turned away from him, I remember sensing that he was about to cross the road. It seemed that as soon as he saw me walking towards the centre, he crossed the road and walked towards me. I do not remember at what stage he passed me, and I only vaguely sensed that someone was there. It was just something normal that you do every day walking down the road. You sense people walking towards you and past you but there is no eye contact, and you don’t stare. In any case, I was focused on rushing to the mosque, knowing I was already late.

But then I recall a silly thing that I did as I passed the last house before the Centre’s gates. Because of my newly acquired interest in gardening, I had started looking at other people’s gardens to get some ideas; I would look to see what they had planted and how the garden is landscaped. As I passed the front garden of this house, for whatever reason I remember being critical of some brickwork that had been done. Basically, it was just a very ordinary Sunday. Eventually, I entered the front gate which is invariably kept open during prayer times, and I started walking up the path, a clear path with little of note. But then out of the blue, and this is one thing I have never really been able to articulate, it still seems somewhat indescribable, but I felt a sudden, massive pain. I described it once as seeming like somebody had put a hammer drill into the back of my neck. I do not know why, but it was as if the pain had a sound and that is perhaps the best way I can describe it. At the time, in that instant, and I do not really know why, I imagined I was hit by a baseball bat. It seems to have been an instantaneous rationalisation, probably a reflection of watching too many films and crime series. Whatever it was, there was no doubt that it felt extremely painful. I also recall that as the pain struck, I was thrust forwards, but still with no clue what the hell just happened to me. It was not so much frightening at that point; it was simply extremely painful and nothing else. I did not even notice the presence of someone who had snuck up behind me, and I think on reflection I was somewhat fortunate. Fortunate because if you experience a horrendous event, some of the lasting emotional and psychological trauma can come from events leading up to the physical pain, from the anticipation of harm, from seeing the weapon and from the experience of helplessness and fear, for example. Perhaps if I had experienced such emotions leading up to the stabbing, they may have had a lasting impact on me. In that sense, I was lucky, it was sudden, but nevertheless I was thrust quickly into a different world.

With nobody immediately in view, in all my naivety my next thought was that a tree branch had fallen on me. I looked around to see where the tree was, where the branch was, because this surely was the only thing that could have hit me, but there was nothing there. Then as I turned, there was this man, and I saw his face. It had been a couple of seconds, but I still could not figure out what had happened; even when I saw him, I still had no idea. Despite the horrendous pain in my neck and this man appearing just behind me, it did not occur to me that he had struck me. It took me probably another couple of seconds, the two of us just standing there, me still looking for a tree branch, but, of course, there was nothing, just him. I wasn’t yet sure, but I was starting to realise it must have been him just because there was nothing else around. All I was looking at was his face, and I remember from the corner of my eye I glimpsed something metallic under his right arm. I later realised that this was just the frame of the iron gate and not what I instinctively thought, which was that he might have hit me with an iron bar. Throughout these few seconds, I never noticed his hand and never saw the knife held there. Again, perhaps that was a blessing because if I had seen a knife my reaction might well have been different.

We stood there with no more than a couple of yards between us and I remember his face, at least I remember what I started to see in his face. He was angry. There was no doubt about that, he was very angry, almost animal-like as if he was baring his teeth. He shouted at me, he used the f-word I remember, but then he said something else. I wasn’t fully registering what he was saying, I was looking at his body language rather than listening to him, instinctively asking myself what he might want to do. But then I believe he said, “This is for what you’ve done!” I have tried to make sense of that statement since, but I cannot even be sure if that was exactly what he shouted at me, never mind why. Perhaps I will know one day. Nonetheless, it is this phrase that has stuck with me, though in all honesty I could not put my hand on the Bible and swear by Almighty God that this was exactly what was said.

I still wasn’t aware that he had just stabbed me though, only that I had pain in my neck, but then his anger gripped me, and it seemed that he was poised to do something else again. He moved towards me and at that moment it became clear to me that he meant further harm. That said, the phrase “became clear” does not really tell the whole story. It was an instinctive inner sense rather than a logical thought process. In such a situation there is no time for thinking. My instinct told me that something is not right, that this person did something bad, and even though I still did not realise there was a knife, instinctively I turned around and ran away as fast as I could. I think the speed I ran at is something I only realised subsequently because my legs were still hurting three days later from that sprint. I think I must have run at what was for me some exceptional speed, and I just ran in a straight line, directly away from him.

The people who were in the Centre praying, who could have helped me, were on my left-hand side, but I didn’t even think of turning to the left because that would have taken time. My instinct was to run in a straight line, so I ran the 20 yards or so to the back main hall. Not that I was expecting anybody to be there, I was not so much running for help, I just ran. There were a few steps to climb and I think I cleared them with a single jump, whereupon I reached the entrance. The time between me turning from the attack and arriving at that door was probably no more than three to four seconds. The back hall has a large pair of solid wooden doors that are normally kept shut. On that afternoon, fortunately, these doors were open, but then immediately on entering you face another entrance door, a glass door with an upper frosted panel and a self-closing hinge. There is no lock on this door, but it only opens outwards! As I reached this door, I had to stop. I vividly remember that moment of realising that I would have to stop running. I had to pause and take a step back to be able to open the door. The moment that I had to stop running away was the most distinctive for me in the whole scenario. It was probably no more than a split second, but as I realised that I would have to open the door outwards, that was the moment where I actually felt the fear. As I stopped to open the door, even without knowing whether he was following behind me or not, I feared for my life; I was petrified. I still recall the thoughts that raced through my mind: I needed to hide, where could I hide? I don’t remember ever feeling so petrified in my life. I pulled the door back and as I entered I immediately saw two women in the hall.

That was when something amazing happened to me. As suddenly as it had gripped me, in that split second, the fear suddenly disappeared. I have no idea how my instincts took over, but on reflection it is most likely that my instincts dictated that I had to protect these two women. It was not that I felt safe or reassured by their presence, but I believe that I went from being afraid to being protective. To me, the presence of these two women in the hall when I entered was a life-changing moment. It may seem strange to claim that, but I truly believe that I may have ended up as a totally different person if they had not been there. I knew what being petrified felt like and I think it would have taken me a long time to be able to confront and to overcome such fear, if I could have done so at all. I still cannot explain it, but as soon as I saw these two women, the fear simply vanished. All this took place within the space of a few seconds and as far as my experience with running away and with fear went, it was done.

As soon as I saw them, I think I shouted, “Call the police!” and I grabbed a chair and ran back towards the door. I was determined that he was not going to come in. That was the overwhelming issue with the presence of these two women. Perhaps the fact that I felt this way, with that determination, is what completely changed my attitude and took away the fear. I ran out and I saw that he was no longer there. He was gone; a few seconds of my life and that was it, he was not there anymore. I looked around a bit more to make sure he was not hiding, but there really seemed to be no-one around. Later, at the trial, I saw the CCTV footage, and I saw that he had ran after me. But then a few seconds later I think he might have realised that there could have been more people inside. CCTV showed him running out of the Centre’s grounds, back in the direction he had come from.

Once I became confident there was no-one around, I went inside again, I put the chair down, paused, and then that horrendous pain started to really take effect. The two women asked me what happened, but all I could tell them was that someone had hit me. I think they themselves had a look outside and didn’t see anyone and then probably rushed to the prayer hall and called the others for help. Quite quickly, people started to come into the back hall where I was. By then, I was sitting on one of the wooden benches at the back of the hall grabbing tightly onto my neck. The pain was horrendous; I felt that if I were to let go of my neck that my head was going to fall off. I remember someone grabbing my right wrist to check my pulse and someone else asking me what had happened and if I could describe who attacked me. Still, there wasn’t any obvious wound or mark visible. But then someone wanted to have a look at my neck so they asked if I could let my left hand go. It was a struggle to let go. I slowly raised my head and made sure my neck was straight and gradually I was able to take my hand off. It was then that I heard: “You’ve been stabbed in the neck.”

I don’t recall clearly what immediately went through my mind when I heard that. I did not experience anxiety or panic. I simply looked at my left hand and saw there was no blood. I was able to move everything in both arms, my fingers, my wrists and my elbows. There was no tingling or heaviness anywhere in my body. My breathing was normal and so was my voice. I remember saying “I am OK”, “Alhamdullilah (praise the Lord) I am OK.” My surgical and trauma training seemed to have spontaneously kicked in, and even though I did not know where exactly the entry wound was, I knew straight away that none of the vital structures in my neck were damaged. I was able to reassure myself and others that there was no need to panic.

I was not aware that during this period someone started filming me on their phone and producing what would later become the short video that was circulated online. The video was no more than a couple of minutes long, but it did capture the moment. I still watch it with a sense of joy and relief as I believe it was a good reflection of me and I am just really glad I did not say or do something too embarrassing. I know I am a fairly level-headed and serious person, but I also like a laugh and I cannot help myself using a cliché now and again. When I realised I had been stabbed, I was heard saying on the video “The bastard got me in the neck.” This was later relayed back to me from a friend who said her little child told her “Uncle Nasser said a bad word.” That was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of the entire event; an Imam using the “B*” word. I remember that I asked ITV who requested permission to air the video to be kind enough to bleep or remove the “B*” word. It was a great relief when I watched the video on TV the following day and true to their promise, the “B*” word was gone.

So, there I was sat on the bench, again grabbing my neck firmly having realised that I had been stabbed. Unbeknownst to anyone, I had just been off work for a week on study leave to attend the annual British Orthopaedic Association conference. This week off meant that I had literally hundreds of emails to get back to. If I end up taking another week off, I thought to myself, I might end up with even twice as many emails on my return. I resolved there and then to not take any time off, silly as it may sound, but by then this is what was running through my mind, the fact that I need to go back to work the following day. I’m not sure if thinking about the next day is a consequence of the shock of what had just happened to me, but I do recall that at some point I started thinking ahead about my immediate future, probably convincing myself that there was indeed going to be an immediate future. I don’t know. Perhaps I was just not looking forward to hundreds of emails.

There was no external evidence of significant bleeding, but even so a few minutes down the line I started feeling a little faint and I knew I needed to lie down on the floor. I was aware that feeling faint was not unusual now that the adrenaline rush was winding down. The most important thing for me was to lie down and get blood to my head before I ended up fainting altogether. So, I was not so much worried about fainting, but I was also feeling a little bit queasy. I did have a minor concern in that I had just eaten before leaving home, and I knew very well that if I didn’t get down on the floor quickly, I might throw up. I really did not want to do that. I untied my belt to get comfortable, I started to breath slowly, I lay down on the floor and turned onto my right side, in a sense doing my own airway protection drill in case I did faint and throw up. In just short of a minute, it was a great relief that the sickly feeling passed and I no longer felt faint. A few moments later, the police and ambulance crew arrived.

Still the magnitude of the event had not really dawned on me. I was in my little bubble and apart from that horrendous constant pain, I was somewhat fine. The paramedic arrived and the time came for them to put a drip in my arm. Of course, it is standard procedure to put that big needle in the arm, but of all things, I hate needles. Anyway, I said to the paramedic “It’s OK”, I opened my right arm and held my breath, and fortunately the paramedic was brilliant, I felt nothing. They wanted to immobilise me like they would do for a suspected blunt neck injury, but I reassured them that I did not have a blunt neck injury and there is no likelihood of me having suffered a broken neck. Anyhow, standard procedure carried on and I was put in a scoop. As they were about to carry me away, I remember people saying they needed to inform my wife, and I said, “Please don’t, please don’t tell her anything yet.” I just could not bear the thought that she wasn’t in a position to know what had happened to me, and to know that I’m physically and emotionally okay. I did not want her to be upset, but I later found out that by the time I was scooped, she had already been made aware of the attack. So, there I was on a funny little trip to the ambulance parked just outside the Centre, strapped into this narrow flimsy scoop, having to cede all control. As we went down those four steps that I earlier cleared with one jump the scoop felt wobbly, and I wondered if I was going to fall out. Soon I was being secured in the back of the ambulance. That drive was not a comfortable ride by any measure. It was an experience; the siren, the flashing lights and flying through the streets with no concept of time or direction, but I was not physically comfortable. Very soon, the back doors of the ambulance were flung open, and I was carried into Wythenshawe Hospital, my hospital.

Chapter 3

Hospital

This is insider information, but if you are unfortunate enough to be stabbed in Manchester, it is very likely that you would be rushed to Manchester Royal infirmary. This is neither my local hospital nor the hospital I work at and I did not want to end up there. I had somewhat cheekily asked the ambulance crew if they would take me to my local hospital. It was my decision, and I wanted to be treated where everyone knew me. By the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital I was no longer strapped to the scoop looking at the ceiling. I was now sitting slightly up, starting to get a sense of my surroundings.

As per protocol, the ambulance crew would have called in the incident and the trauma team were waiting, ready to receive the injured victim. The team would normally include one of my orthopaedic trainees, but it also happened that at the time, one of my consultant colleagues was attending the emergency department along with the on-duty orthopaedic registrar. I did not expect that they would be present, but equally, no one had a clue who the victim was. Later, my consultant colleague informed me that on that afternoon, she was about to leave but decided instead to wait in order to make sure her services were not required. She was not prepared for the shock that would hit her. No one was. As I was wheeled into the resuscitation room the stretcher gradually turned around and I came face to face with my colleague and trainees standing side by side. I instinctively smiled at them, but all I could see was three white faces, wide eyed and totally stunned. The site of my junior trainee was unforgettable. His jaw literally dropped, and I watched his face turn white. They were totally dumbfounded, but they rushed to hold my hand and comfort me. The reality was that they also needed some comforting, some reassurance that I was alright. The shock on their faces at that moment was priceless, but in that moment I could see what they meant to me and what I meant to them, and I was grateful to be there with them.

It did not take long before we all had to snap out of this emotional encounter and start acting professionally. After all, there was a potentially critically injured patient in need of emergency assessment and care. Despite their initial resistance, colleagues were formally asked to vacate the resuscitation area while the accident and emergency team took over in order to begin their standard ‘resus’ protocol. They were very professional and equally courteous. For a victim with a penetrating injury, the immediate imperative is to make sure that there is no imminent threat to life. This may sound gruesome, but it is essentially making sure that a) the victim is breathing soundly and b) not bleeding to death. Once these are checked, the examination then follows a well-defined structured and systematic sequence to determine the nature and extent of the ‘primary’ damage. In essence, this involves looking for the immediate damage caused by the knife penetrating my neck. The young A&E doctor proceeded to examine me, much as I did in my own assessment earlier. Of course, he had to get it right and to his credit he did not seem to be phased by the fact that he was examining a senior colleague, knowing full well that his own competence was also being assessed! By the end of his examination, it was reassuring to learn that I had not missed anything earlier! The nurse took my vital signs again—pulse, blood pressure and oxygen saturation—before starting to prepare another intravenous drip. It was simply not my day. The A&E doctor had the last laugh. Once he finished his assessment he smiled at me and said, “I need to put another needle in your left arm.” I remembered why; for a penetrating injury, two large bore cannulas, one in each arm, is the standard Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) protocol. After all, I was an ATLS instructor, and I should have seen it coming. For the second time that day I opened my arm and held my breath.

It was a very unusual experience for me to be on the receiving end of an examination that I had so often carried out and to see how this young A&E doctor was trying to reassure me and keep me calm about what he was doing and why. Once he cleared my arms and legs, he asked me to lean forward so he could examine the back of my neck. He told me the wound did not look dirty and was not bleeding much, nonetheless I still needed to have a tetanus jab, so that meant, yes, another needle. With my surgical background, I knew very early that the penetrating knife has missed all the vital structures in my neck, but I also knew that I had to go through a rigorous examination just the same. I wasn’t frightened or distressed, and I found myself reassuring others that apart from the pain, I was feeling fine and calm. Perhaps if I was not a doctor, I would have felt very different. But there I was, in very familiar surroundings and with people that I knew, going through their usual business, all of which was very comforting for me. Even though I was aware that so far I was ‘clinically stable’, I knew that the A&E doctor would still consider me to be in a potentially critical condition. The potential for secondary life-threatening internal damage needed to be excluded before I would be off the critical list.

Once he finished his initial assessment, the young doctor informed me that I would soon be going for a CT scan of my neck, and he left the bay. As he left, a young, awkward-looking police officer entered and requested a statement. I had been expecting to see the police at some stage, but I wasn’t sure why this particular officer looked out of sorts, uncomfortable and anxious. It was the first inkling I had that there were perhaps wider implications of the attack. I cannot recall exactly how the conversation went, but I remember he wanted me to go through the incident in as much detail as I could recall. Unfortunately, his awkwardness only increased during this questioning when Syrsa walked in. The questions just stopped, or probably I just stopped listening to them. I looked at Syrsa’s face and I could see she was calm. She wasn’t pale, she wasn’t hyperventilating, she wasn’t anxious, she just walked towards me and held my hand. I told her I was okay and she nodded to say “I know you are”. Her immediate words were “I’m so grateful to God”. I think when she first saw me, she could immediately tell there was nothing horribly wrong as I was sat up talking to the officer. It was probably that first eye contact as she entered. Perhaps I smiled and shook my head. She is a doctor herself, and when she saw me sat up on the trolley, she saw for herself that I was OK. We did not say much to each other; I was alright, and probably that was all that mattered.

The officer just stood there waiting for his moment to barge in, which he eventually did. But then it came to that critical question, “Do you remember what he said to you?” Up to that point, I never really thought about what my attacker said to me. It was then that I had to start remembering what was shouted at me as it might give a clue to why I was attacked. I clearly remembered walking onto the grounds of the mosque, I clearly recalled the moment of sudden pain and I clearly recalled the look on his face, but for the life of me, at that moment, I could not recall exactly what he said. As I struggled to remember, I think I mentioned to the officer that I recall he swore at me. Then I think I said that he had uttered one sentence, just one sentence, and that was all that I could come up with. Somehow, I found it difficult to recall his exact words and I wasn’t sure why. I told the officer that I needed some time to remember. To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed with myself that I could not recall what had been said. But even then, I was conscious of the fact that I should not put words into someone else’s mouth, and I needed to be careful as to what I might say. I may have told the officer that I would need to think this through more carefully and it would probably be the following day before I could complete my statement. But then came yet another embarrassing moment for a victim. The police officer asked me to get undressed and to give him my clothing as it was now ‘material evidence’. I proceeded to get undressed and gave him my shirt, my trousers, my belt and my socks. Fortunately, my underpants did not qualify as material evidence. Syrsa was not happy at all; the shirt and the belt were new, and they suited me! In any case, I thought what the heck, I am going to stay the night at the hospital as they would most likely need to observe me overnight. As for my shoes, I was somewhat lucky as they were still on the shelf at the mosque and thankfully they were not seized. I was now down to my underpants! I looked at Syrsa and we both laughed at the silliness of the situation as I tried to cover myself as much as I could with the flimsy trolly sheet. Syrsa then told me that around thirty people were waiting outside to make sure I was OK, and we agreed that she should go out and let everyone know that I was fine and to get the word around that the immediate worry is over. As she left, I closed my eyes and started to replay the earlier events to help me remember what the hell this young man had said to me.

Soon enough, the nurse returned to recheck my vital signs. At some stage I was given a strong analgesic for my pain, I think morphine, and it was ‘titrated’ in. As I saw the injection going into the cannula, I waited for that extraordinary experience of having morphine in my veins for the first time in my life. I waited in anticipation for this so called ‘trip’. This would probably be the only time I could legally experience such a trip, but sadly nothing happened, one of the more disappointing aspects to that situation. Anyhow, the nurse ran some more fluid through the cannula and everyone was ready for me to go to the CT scanner. This was the only trip I had that evening!

A CT scan is standard protocol for a penetrating injury. The scan is necessary to identify the depth of the injury and to check for internal bleeding, which is bleeding that does not gush out through the wound but stays inside the body and can put pressure on, and so cause damage to, vital structures. A few minutes later I was wheeled into the scanner room and was asked to slide myself from the trolly onto the narrow scanner bed. With a cannula in each arm, a drip line on the left and a painful neck, I was trying desperately to keep my dignity with this flimsy trolley sheet. But then I thought, at least for this night, I should just be a patient and give up on being ‘dignified’; it can’t get any worse. As part of the scan routine, a contrast dye needs to be administered through one of the cannulas. This contrast flows through the blood stream and has the ability to highlight blood vessels and so, most crucially, it can highlight internal bleeding. The protocol is for a scan sequence to be done before and after the contrast dye is injected. If there is an area of bleeding, the contrast will seep out where the bleeding is, and this can be picked up as a difference between the two scan sequences. I remember a warm feeling up my arm when the contrast went through me and I think I also felt a strange taste in my mouth, but nothing unduly unpleasant. A quick glance at my scans showed that the bleeding was very minimal and fortunately there was no major, or even minor, vessel damage. This was a big relief to everyone as the carotid and jugular vessels were very near to where I was stabbed. The smaller vertebral arteries were also missed and even the little veins that lit up on the scan were cleared by no more than a millimetre. None, absolutely none, of the important structures in my neck were harmed. The knife tore through my neck muscles with almost surgical precision, avoiding everything. The scan was quickly and formally reported as showing no primary structural damage, which I already knew, and no potential secondary damage, which was obviously good news. I was now officially off the critical list and everyone could take a deep sigh of relief. I believe my consultant colleague was soon notified, and she in turn passed the message to all my immediate work colleagues. The journey back to the resus room involved another gliding manoeuvre from the scanner bed onto the trolly, but by now I didn’t care much about the effectiveness of the trolly sheet.

Soon I was back in the resus room, where the A&E doctor reassured me again about the scan findings. He then proceeded to clean and stitch my wound. We always say “This won’t hurt much” as the local anaesthetic is being injected, and yes, I never really believed that myself entirely when I would say the same. But now I was on the receiving end, and it did hurt, even though the doctor kept on saying, with confidence, this won’t hurt much. I thought “Better keep my mouth shut and not have him become more anxious than he probably already was.” I still recall feeling every stitch. I thought I counted five, but later found them to be only four! I remember keeping very still and very quiet. He then asked me if I felt anything. Well, what could I say? By then Syrsa came back in to hold my hand and everyone was expecting that I would spend the night at the hospital. I was still lying there in my underpants when the A&E doctor said, “Dr Kurdy, you’re all clear, you can go home now.” Syrsa and I looked at each other and our immediate thought was that there was no way I was going to walk out like this! Fortunately, I was able to get a colleague to fetch me some scrubs and a pair of clogs. The cannulas were pulled out and Syrsa helped me get dressed. I sat at the edge of the trolley for a couple of minutes to make sure I didn’t feel faint and then stood up and leaned on her. I felt OK; we were ready to go home.

As we were walking out along the hospital corridor and we saw friends waiting, I started to realise the commotion that was simmering out there. There were about thirty people waiting for me and I started to get a sense of how they were interpreting the attack. Now that the concerns about my health had settled, I sensed anger, and for the first time I started to feel uncomfortable. Very early on, friends were already questioning things such as why me, why at the mosque? Throughout my time at the hospital, which probably took no more than two hours, I was virtually secluded and was totally unaware of what was unfolding elsewhere. A hospital’s resus room is a very particular type of place, and your mind does not take you much beyond where you are. At no time did I consider what might be happening at the mosque, never mind anywhere else. I was unaware of what the police had been doing and naïvely I had not expected the media to have been informed. However, it gradually transpired that it was nothing short of mayhem and I knew absolutely nothing about it.

I think if it hadn’t been for us sending reassuring messages telling people not to come to the hospital, there would have been about three hundred people there. My stabbing had all the hallmarks of an Islamophobic hate attack. My community already felt vulnerable and under threat. The police had a potential terrorist case on their hands and the media had a story to tell. It was not taking much for people to start making up their own stories. I later found out that our Islamic centre and the police had already released official statements regarding the incident and I also became aware that an urgent meeting was planned for that evening, which would include representatives from the CPS, the police and members of the local Muslim community. Serious questions needed to be addressed: was this a planned attack on the mosque; is there an extremist background to this crime; was the immediate safety of our neighbours and the wider community at risk? I presume the police would have also been concerned about the potential backlash from such an incident. It was reassuring when I found out about this meeting and the fact that such questions were being taken seriously at a high level. It was partly as a consequence of this meeting that it was decided the attack would be officially classified as a hate crime.

By the time we arrived home, the short video taken soon after the stabbing had already been viewed in Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Israel, Russia, Australia and the UAE! It was on a global trip. The heading did not need much elaboration: “Muslim Imam and surgeon stabbed in an unprovoked attack as he entered his local mosque”. The sentiments were already heading in one direction and feelings were running high. However, as we arrived home and opened the front door, all seemed finally calm. We asked friends to give us some privacy that evening, reassuring everyone that we were fine, but we just needed time to recover and, God willing, we would take things from there the following day.

Both of my sons were at home when we got back, Ahmad is the younger, then 13, and Oaiss was 20. They both knew early on that I was OK. When we arrived home, they were calm and relaxed and already back on their computers. The house felt calm with no excitement and very little commotion. I did not feel like watching TV and Syrsa and I just wanted to sit together and get our breath back. My daughter Assma lived in London then, though at the time of the incident she was on a short break in Barcelona. She had already gotten the news and seen the short video! She needed to hear my voice and we quickly phoned to reassure her.

Even though I still felt calm, I was in agony. My neck was hurting a great deal and I had to move very slowly, taking my time, taking things easy. I sat with Syrsa in a small room next to the kitchen. Strangely, we did not feel comfortable sitting in the living room somehow, we needed to feel cosy and close to each other. Messages started to flood in via various routes. It was a surreal experience reading “Your story is now in Pakistan, you’re on Pakistani TV: ‘Muslim Imam Stabbed in the Mosque’”, though at this point I still had no clue that there was a video. The person who recorded it was very discrete, and I don’t think anyone knew about it until they were watching it later. Some of my friends were unhappy that this took place and expressed concerns that it intruded on my privacy. In all honesty, and seeing how the story eventually unfolded, I could not begrudge what he did. That short video depicted a genuine moment and genuine expression, and it became the focal point of my experience. Without it I would only have memories, and I cannot be thankful enough that these images exist. I remember speaking to my sister that evening, who lives in the UAE, but all I can recall from the conversation was her crying her heart out. She is my only sister, and she needed a great deal of comforting and calming down, especially after she saw me grabbing onto my neck in agony; the video was already there.

As we sat alone in that little room, I quickly became disinterested in what was taking place outside. Both Syrsa and I felt we were not yet ready for it all. It was distracting from what we felt was most important to us; the fact that I walked away virtually unscathed from a stabbing in the neck. I recall we sat together on our own, facing each other, and we were fairly quiet, just looking at each other and smiling. I then asked, “How do you feel?” She said, “I feel the mercy of God has touched you today.” She said it in Arabic, and the word we use for mercy is رحمة. At no point did she mention anger or frustration as to why this happened to us. She never questioned “What the hell happened to you” or “Why did he pick on you”; none of that. She did not feel threatened or vulnerable. She just kept on saying “I feel the mercy of God has touched you today”. But then she said something that is perhaps meaningful to people of faith but may not be fathomable by others. She said, “I feel an Angel held his hand”, “his” being the attacker. That was the feeling running deep in her heart. She knew the knife could have gone anywhere in my neck, and she felt that in her heart as this man thrust the knife in me, an angel grabbed his hand. I am not sure, but I think it is fair to say that Muslims and other people of faith tend to rationalise events in their lives based on their faith and the strength of their beliefs. We believe that there is a God, we believe in angels and we believe that there is a higher purpose in life. I know that this does not sit comfortably with some people, and I also know that some may view this as downright stupid. But that is who we are. Such belief is imprinted within our psyche and makes Syrsa and I who we are. The two of us differ in many ways from each other, but when it came to faith, I told Syrsa that this was exactly how I felt. Not the slightest hint of anger came to my mind, or indeed any negativity. I just felt I was blessed, and that God was merciful to me.

But then, and as we sat there talking, Oaiss walked in. He had been at his computer and he asked us if we realised what was happening on social media. Of course, we didn’t. “They’re starting to get angry” he told us. I had not read much of what was being circulated online, and in all honesty, I really did not feel it was time to engage yet. However, my son’s intrusion triggered something within me right there. I had sensed the anger earlier as I was leaving the hospital and now this. The calmness that we were feeling was not being mirrored by everyone else. On the contrary, it was exactly the opposite, and this did not sit well with me at all. I told my son we needed to send a message right now. It needed to be simple, clear and explicit; we did not want anyone to retaliate or to promote anger or hate. I remember that the message ended with “My father is not angry; he doesn’t want anyone to be angry on his behalf.” I just asked Oaiss to pass it to his friends and let them pass it on. By now, that air of contemplation and calmness was gone, and I felt very early on that I was already being forced to take a stand. If there was anger and frustration surfacing that evening, it was because of that. It just did not seem to me to be the right time to have to deal with that sort of behaviour, but there was little I could do about it. On reflection, and despite how I felt, I am grateful that this surfaced early as it had the effect of resetting my mood. Whether I liked it or not, my stabbing was somehow bigger than just ‘me’ and I felt I needed to step up. This changing perspective may well have had a big impact on how I started to think and behave.

Later that night we were visited by two police officers checking to see if we needed any help, probably just before midnight. We assured them that we were fine. We didn’t feel scared or vulnerable and by then we were again feeling calm. It may have seemed strange, but there we were like any other day ready to go to sleep. We switched everything off and went upstairs to bed. After all, it was Monday the following day and we needed to get ready! As Syrsa went upstairs that night, she literally hit the bed and fell asleep. So did my sons. But I could not sleep. Whichever position I took in bed, within a couple of seconds I was in agony. Even though I knew how to handle my pain, still I was in agony. I tried resting on my back, my side, curling the pillow and so many other positions, but the pain just kept on banging through. To some extent I now empathise more with my patients. Previously, I would perhaps wonder what they meant by “agony”, but now I knew. I think I took another couple of codeine tablets in the middle of the night and this at least eased the pain enough to allow me to think. I was trying hard to remember what this man said to me. But also, I was thinking through what could have happened if that knife had touched my spinal cord. The overwhelming sense that I had was of being grateful to Almighty God. The Arabic phrase is الحمد لله (“al-hamdulillah”), an expression meaning “All praise be to Almighty God”. These two words roll easily off the tongue. Throughout the night I was repeating الحمد لله. It somewhat temporarily distracted me from the pain, until I moved again. All night I was thinking “Thank God I’m still alive, thank God it wasn’t worse”. But one other thought that occurred was that since the moment I was stabbed, I had not done anything good, anything thankful. To simply say “Thank God” does not really cut it, so I promised God that as soon as I woke up in the morning, I would make a donation. But before that, I still needed to fall asleep. I remember I asked God, “Help me sleep”, “Come on God help me sleep”. But pain is pain, and no matter what I did, I could not get into any comfortable position. My head felt so heavy and the pain went on throughout the night, until finally, about 7:00am, I dozed off.