NATIONAL CITY (KGTV) — Hundreds of members of the Islamic Centers and Muslim faith gathered at La Vista Memorial Park Cemetery in National City on Thursday to pay their respects to Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha, and Nadir Awad, who were shot and killed on Monday by two radicalized teenagers at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
On Monday, security guard Amin Abdullah helped save lives by exchanging gunfire with the attackers, preventing them from reaching more than 100 children hiding inside the mosque.
Nadir Awad and Mansour Kaziha also helped draw the shooters away from the building, sacrificing their lives to protect others.
Thursday began with a funeral prayer service at Snapdragon Stadium, where many attendees were still grieving and angry over what happened just three days earlier.
Yasмeen Elmezain, a youth leader, spoke at the service.
"These three lives of our martyrs were stolen from us as a result of hate speech," Elmezain said. "These died for us, and died for the sake of God, knowing they were protecting these children."
The focus then shifted from grief and anger to laying the three men to rest.
Tazheen Nizam, executive director of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke on behalf of the victims' families, who chose not to speak publicly to avoid reliving their trauma.
"We were here to bury our three heroes," Nizam said.
Nizam shared details of the Muslim burial tradition, describing it as a sacred process that brings comfort in times of grief.
Family members washed the men's bodies themselves, then wrapped them in biodegradable shrouds. No embalming or chemicals were used, which is why the burial needed to take place within 72 hours of their deaths.
Men in the community lowered the bodies into the ground by hand before closing the graves. Clergy members read verses from the Quran and prayed for the men to be welcomed into the highest levels of heaven, and also prayed for patience for the families left behind.
Abdullah, Awad, and Kaziha were honored as martyrs and heroes, and remembered not only for how they died, but for how they lived.
"Officer Amin, as you have heard over and over again, is a hero," Nizam said. "He stood by at the Islamic Center welcoming people for the last seven years. The brother who was part of the store had been cooking for the mosque and the community for almost 40 years. The other brother, who lived across the way, came to check on people when he heard the active shooter alert. He had been part of the community for years and years, his children grew up here, his wife teaches at the Islamic school, so these people were the pillars of the community," Nizam said.
The three men were buried together in one of the few Muslim cemeteries in the county, in three open plots next to each other.
Following the burial, Nizam said the families will decide what type of memorials they want to honor the three men, and whether those memorials will be shared or separate.
Nizam said Thursday's service was focused on laying the men to rest with dignity.
On Friday, Nizam said CAIR plans to publicly call for accountability, with the organization stating it believes more could have been done to prevent Monday's tragedy.
