It's time to ask why they don't like like us.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 03 2001

Women shunned to the end by hijacker

BY IAN COBAIN

THE hijacker who flew the first aircraft into the World Trade Centre left a will barring women from his funeral and ordering those touching his body to wear gloves. He said that mourners should remain at his grave for an hour to keep him company after burial and pray that he be forgiven.
In the document, found in a car at Boston’s Logan airport, Mohammed Atta ordered: “No one should cry for me, scream or tear his clothes and beat his face — those are foolish gestures.”

The will, written in 1996 and leaked to the German magazine, Der Spiegel, gives 18 precise instructions for the preparation of his body for burial. “Neither pregnant women nor unclean people should say goodbye to me,” he orders. “Women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.”

Another says: “Those who wash my body must be good Muslims. And there should not be too many people, unless it is absolutely necessary.” He also says: “He who washes around my genitals should wear gloves so that I am not touched there.

“My clothes must be of three pieces of white material, but not of silk or any expensive material.”

He requests that during his burial, earth should be thrown on to his body three times with the words: “You come from dust, you are dust and you return to dust. And from the dust a new person will be created.”

“After that everyone should call God’s name and testify that I died as a Muslim, believing in God’s religion. All who take part in my burial should pray for my forgiveness.

“People should stay at my grave for an hour so that I can enjoy their company. An animal should then be sacrificed and the meat be distributed among the needy.”

Atta shied away from women during his eight years at Hamburg’s Technical University, and his father, a wealthy Cairo lawyer, described him as a “mother’s boy” who was reluctant even to shake hands with women.

Mohamed al-Amir Atta, 65, said: “Many times I asked him to marry a woman of any nationality because he did not have a girlfriend like his colleagues. But he insisted that he would marry an Egyptian. We found him a bride who was nice and delicate, the daughter of a former ambassador.”

But Atta said he wanted first to study for his doctorate. The woman’s father promised that she would be waiting when he returned. He never did.