Asad Shah family call on Scotland to follow shopkeeper's example
In a heartfelt tribute and plea for unity, the 40-year-old’s relatives said he treated everyone he met in his life with the same “utmost kindness and respect”.
His family also thanked their local community in the Southside of Glasgow and beyond for their support, explaining that the public response had helped them to start the healing process “sooner than we thought possible”.
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Hide AdMr Shah was found with serious injuries after an alleged disturbance outside his newsagents in the Shawlands area of Glasgow’s Southside last Thursday evening. He was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Tanveer Ahmed, from Bradford, appeared in Glasgow Sheriff Court on Tuesday charged with his murder.
The 32-year-old made no plea and was remanded in custody. Police Scotland had previously described the incident as a religiously prejudiced attack.
In a statement released through Police Scotland, the Shah family said they were still coming to terms with the loss of their “beloved husband, son, brother and everyone’s friend”.
“A person’s religion, ethnicity, race, gender or socioeconomic background never mattered to Asad. He met everyone with the utmost kindness and respect because those are just some of the many common threads that exist across every faith in our world,” they explained.
“He was a brilliant man, recognising that the differences between people are vastly outweighed by our similarities. And he didn’t just talk about this, he lived it each and every day, in his beloved community of Shawlands and his country of Scotland.
The family added: “One of our brightest lights has been extinguished but our love for all mankind and hope for a better world in which we can all live in peace and harmony, as so emphatically embodied by Asad, will endure and prevail. Asad left us a tremendous gift and we must continue to honour that gift by loving and taking care of one another.”