We are gathered here to celebrate Khaled, Aboubaker, Abdelkrim, Azzedine, Mamadou, Ibrahima. We are going to have a prayer for those who could not finish their prayers. We pray for them.

Khaled, Aboubaker, Abdelkrim, Azzedine, Mamadou, Ibrahima didn’t choose their place of birth. But they selected the place they wanted to live in. They selected the society they wanted to be their society. They selected with whom they wanted their children to grow. And it was Canada. It was Québec.

They chose Québec to live in, and they chose the Canadian passport. It was up to the society to choose them the same way they chose this society.

They had their dream to send their kids to school, to buy a house, to have a business. We have to continue their dreams. They extended their hands to others. It is too late for others to extend their hands toward them, now. But it is not too late for us to learn from our mistakes.

The society that could not protect them – the society that could not benefit from their generosity – still has a chance. The hands that didn’t shake the hands of Khaled or Aboubaker or Abdelkrim or Azzedine or Mamadou or Ibrahima can still shake the hands of their kids.

We have six dead. We have 17 orphans. We have six widows. We have five wounded. We ask Allah to help them getting out of the hospital soon.

Did I go through the complete list of victims? No. There is one victim. None of us want talk about him. But given my age, I have the courage to say it. This victim, his name is Alexandre Bissonnette.

Alexandre, before being a killer, was a victim himself. Before he planted his bullets in the heads of his victims, somebody planted ideas more dangerous than the bullets in his head.



This little kid didn’t wake up in the morning and say “Hey guys, instead of going to have a picnic or watching the Canadiens, I will go kill some people in the mosque.” It doesn’t happen that way.



Unfortunately, day after day, week after week, month after month, certain politicians, and certain reporters and certain media, poisoned our atmosphere.



We did not want to see it. We didn’t want to see it because we love this country, we love this society. We wanted our to society to be perfect. We were like some parents who, when a neighbor tells them their kid is smoking or taking drugs, answers: ‘I don’t believe it, my child is perfect.’



We don’t want to see it. And we didn’t see it, and it happened.



Actually, my friends, here in Québec City, someone once came and put a head of a pig in front of the mosque.

The people responsible for the mosque said “No, it was an isolated act.” Nobody is against us and we aren’t against anybody. They acted very generously and I am proud of them and this is how it should be.

But there was a certain malaise. Let us face it. Alexandre Bissonnette didn’t emerge from a vacuum. Because of political reasons, and what is happening in the Middle East and unfortunately, because of ignorance, a lot of things have happened.



This guy was poisoned. But we want Alexandre to be the last one to perform a criminal act like that. We want to stop it. One of the definitions of madness is to do exactly the same thing and expect different results.



If we do exactly the same thing, my friends, we will have exactly the same results. Are we happy with the results? Are we happy with six dead, five wounded, 17 orphans, six widows and a destroyed family – which is the family of Alexandre Bissonnette and maybe his friends, too?



We don’t want that. So let us change. I am encouraged by what we have heard from our prime minister and premier, from our mayors of Montreal and Quebec City yesterday, from a lot of our leaders. I am very proud and I thank them, and I am not surprised.



Now, we should start changing words into actions. We should build on this tragedy.



God gave us a lemon, let’s make lemonade out of it. Let’s make lemonade. Let’s build on this negative and turn it into a positive.



Let’s go from today to be a real society, united. The same way we are united today in our sorrow and in our pain, let us start today to be united in our dreams, our hopes and our plans for the future.

Let us plan the future that our friends planned for their kids. Let us build this future ourselves too. In this way we will honor their memory.

Revenge will do nothing.

We don’t have enemies. We have some people who don’t know us.

Like I said in Arabic, our prophet was persecuted, thrown out of his town. He was alone. Eight years after that he came back to this town with 10,000 people.

Less than two years after that, when he did the last pilgrimage in life, he was accompanied with 120,000 people. From where did these 120,000 people come from in a period of 10 years?

Not from the planet Mars. Not from another universe. It was the same people who were his enemies. The people who wanted to kill him. The people who were persecuting him and his companions and his sympathizers.

He transformed his enemies into friends and followers. We don’t have enemies. I repeat we do not have enemies. We have some people who don’t know us. It should be easier to explain to these people who do not know us, it is easier to let them know who we are.

Mr Trudeau let me address you, you have your immigration minister here. He is Muslim like me. Is he different to the others? I don’t think so.

We are citizens like all other citizens. We have the same rights and we have the same obligations. We should build this country together.

In this way, we respect the memory of our dead. In this way, we take care of our orphans, in this way we will be good Muslims, we will be good Canadians, and we will be good Quebecers.

This is a translated and adapted version of the eulogy which Imam Hassan Guillet delivered for the Québec mosque shooting victims