For over 30 years, Hashem Ahmad Alshilleh helped to bury a generation of Muslims across SoCal.

He never charged for his services, relying only on donations. In many cases, he’d pool those funds to pay for the funerals of strangers, Muslims and not.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-31/muslim-funerals-islamic-burials-covid-19

His five children — two police officers, two construction contractors, and a nurse — knew their father was an important part of the local Muslim community.

But it wasn’t until Alshilleh died that they realized the magnitude of the man.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-31/muslim-funerals-islamic-burials-covid-19

Alshilleh came to his vocation by necessity. When he was a teen, his father died and no one wanted to prepare his body.

So Alshilleh took it upon himself to learn how to do the task.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-31/muslim-funerals-islamic-burials-covid-19

As COVID-19 swept through the region, Alshilleh could no longer enter burial plots to position bodies toward Mecca.

By the fall, he would leave home at 4 a.m. on most days.

“He’d say, ‘Everyone I’m burying, it’s all COVID,'" his son Mahmoud said.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-31/muslim-funerals-islamic-burials-covid-19

On Dec. 21, Alshilleh had a bad cough. It was COVID. He died three weeks later.

Over 40 people showed up at his funeral to fulfill a hadith that stated, if someone had that amount of people praying for them at their burial, Allah would accept their intercession.

Read the full story from @gustavo now at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-31/muslim-funerals-islamic-burials-covid-19