Businessman raises funds for mosque honoring slain hijab-wearing teenager
The news came to Fahim Aref while he was on pilgrimage in Mecca: a teenage girl in Virginia had been slain walking to services at her mosque during Ramadan.
Like Aref, she had been trying to deepen her observance of the holy Muslim month.
Aref’s umrah (religious pilgrimage) changed. He walked around Mecca’s Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam, not for himself, but for Nabra Hassanen, who was bludgeoned to death on June 18. Many Muslims and others believe she was the victim of a hate crime.
