CAIRO – An American Muslim of Palestinian origin has been praised as a role model for honesty after he returned a stolen MacBook Air to a Jewish family five months after it was stolen from their home.

“His name is Hamzah Hamad,” Dana Mintzer Leman, who lives in Missouri, wrote on Facebook on March 10.

According to Leman, Hamad helped the family to restore their laptop, five months after it was stolen from their Missouri apartment.

“In October of 2015 my 21 year-old daughter’s MacBook Air was stolen from her Missouri apartment after a break-in. It passed through many hands, landing five months later in the hands of Hamzah, a 21 year-old computer techie majoring in biochemistry in Illinois,” Leman wrote.

They needed him to erase the computer’s identifying information. Instead, he googled the name of the original owner, found her online and immediately returned her computer, triple bubble-wrapped.

Leman added that Hamad wrote a nice note on the MacBook.

“Nothing can describe how happy and blessed I am to be able to return this to you. Best of luck to you always,” the note read.

Recognizing his good deed, the mother said he reflected humanity and goodness.

“Hamzah is a Muslim Palestinian-American. We are Jewish. May Allah bless him and his family,” she said.

“I thank him for his humanity and inherent goodness….something we should all aspire to in our words and deeds.”

The post generated huge reaction on Facebook, receiving more than 16,000 likes and 4150 shares.

Comments also reflected praise for the young Muslims.

“We did the right brother and we are proud of it. That’s how we were raised,” one wrote.

“Way to go Hamzah! Your parents instilled in you a great sense of what is right! It is a privilege to know you!,” another added.

Others saw the incident as restoring belief in human goodness.

“Shows there are good people in this world and they should be praised for doing the honorable and moral thing,” one said in a comment on the post.

“I LOVE stories about righteous people! The media is saturated with the exact opposite. We are blessed to have a principled, righteous person like Hamza in this world,” another wrote.

Hamad is not the first Muslims to impress people for his honesty.

In 2008, a world-class violinist gave a free concert at a New York airport taxi stand to show his gratitude to an honest Muslim cab driver who reunited him with his lost 4-million-dollar violin.

In November 2014, a Muslim owner of a Burger King branch in San Jose returned to police a backpack which contained US$100,000 after finding it abandoned at one of the restaurant’s tables.

More recently, a Pakistani Muslim has been praised for his honesty after returning Dh50,000 he found on an ATM machine in Dubai.