Many of you will already know our Mum, whether you encountered her for a brief moment in your lifetime, whether she was a friend or a family member to you. You'll know she was the most kind, most gentle and most humble amongst us. She taught us to see the world from her lens, a lens that hasn't always been easy to navigate.

Her story starts in 1993, a year after she moved to the UK from Kenya to build a new married life with her Husband, at her beautiful young age of 29. After the birth of her first child (our eldest sister), my mother suffered a severe brain hemorrhage 🧠 which left her speech impaired and paralysed, in a coma for months. If you know my mother then you know she has always been a fighter, and why she defines a soldier💂🏽‍♀️

She fought through it and with the support of her loved one, she recovered her speech and went on to live a healthy life 6 - 12 months later. She had 2 more beautiful children (my younger sister & I). She faced challenges in raising all of us, with a disability that included complete right side paralysis, but she never let it define her. You didn't know her bad days because she didn't show the world how hard it was! You'd never know that she was only ever operating at half capacity of what the rest of us might, that she had to work that much harder to live a normal life. Her laugh was so contagious, her hospitality so grand and why she truly lived to inspire the world around her!

A few years ago in 2019, she suffered another major Stroke, which left her severely speech impaired. Unfortunately that did not recover and sometime down the line, began to have mobility challenges, which meant that she now needed assisted care.

In October 2022 as a family, we decided to travel together for the first time to Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 to complete Umrah 🕋 She was the most excited of us all to go and the most calm! A few days before our trip was ending in Madinah-ul-Munawarah (city in Saudi), she suddenly fell severely unwell which meant that she had to be hospitalised.

She remained in hospital for two weeks. This meant we missed our prebooked flights home ✈️ and could not travel back. We had no anticipated date of return. We found ourselves amongst a challenge, in a foreign country that we had a language barrier with and a much less developed healthcare system.

Nonetheless, with the utmost help of one particular Doctor, a Sheikh and an Uncle we met on our travels, working extremely hard with us to get her repatriated back to the UK, she sadly passed away on November 6th 2022.

Indeed Allah SWT tells us “And Allah is the best of planners.” – [Quran, 3:54]

The few we met there, we couldn't thank enough for helping us to quickly arrange any legal paperwork and her beautiful burial in the holy land of our Rasool SAW, Madinah-ul-Munawarah.

May Allah SWT grant her Jannat-Ul-Firdous, elevate her station, make her amongst the people with our Prophet SAW, on Youmal-Qiyam and light her grave with nour and be an abundance of Paradise. Ameen 🤲🏽

In a time of discomfort and pain that no doubt has left an empty space in our hearts, the only thing we can now do and ask of everyone else is to continue to keep her beautiful memories alive, and continue to pray for her and contribute Sadaqah Jariyah (charity) on her behalf.

The Project:

In memory of our mother, and to continue her Sadaqah Jariyah, we are raising funds to build a Mosque for her in Kenya.

Kenya was my mother's home country, where many communities still struggle to access religious facilities, including clean water.

The Prophet (PBUH) said: “Whoever builds a mosque for Allah, Allah will build for him likewise in Paradise.”

[Sahîh al-Bukhârî and Sahîh Muslim]

A mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together not only for prayers, but for information, education and meetings. Mosques are the centre of any community where people can congregate for their five daily prayers 🕌

------------------------------------ UPDATE ----------------------------------

30.12.2023

We began the construction of the mosque earlier this year, that will be named 'Masjid Fozia'. We had anticipated to have completed the project by December 2023, however, unfortunately, we haven't raised the total funds we need and additionally the project has faced some challenges due to the current adverse weather conditions in the country (monsoon season).

Thank you all for your kind donations. May Allah SWT put barakah in your monies and in your homes and continuous blessings in your lives.

We ask you to continue to kindly donate as much or as little as you can.

Ameen