124-year-old Muslim woman refused to sell her religion for money and fame

The head scarf was the only hindrance in the way for the oldest woman in the world to enter the so-called Guinness World Records.

 

124-year-old Palestinian Maryam Hamdan Ammash, her sons and grandsons refused to meet the condition of the Guinness team for the aged woman to take off her head scarf and appear on TV.

 

Maryam's family members said that their grandmother who has performed the Haj (Pilgrimage) five times in her life and performed Umrah ten times refused to commit a sinful act even for getting eternal with entering the Guinness World Records.

 

"There have been serious discussions about Maryam entering the Guinness World Records breaking the record of the French Jeanne Louise Calment who lived 122 and a half years. A team of the Guinness team visited Maryam and her family last March to this end", said Mahdi Helmi Ammash, a grandson of Maryam in an interview with Gulf News.

 

"Armed with official documents including her birth certificate, identity card and other documents, we will not give up our grandmother's right to enter the Guinness World Records for the longest human lifespan even after her death," he said.

 

Maryam died last Saturday after she lived for 124 years and scores of people from around the world are attending her ongoing condolence session held in her home village of Jisr Al Zarqa'a, near Haifa of the 1948 areas.

 

Maryam who held a Turkish birth certificate and an identity card which clearly stated that the woman was born in 1888, became undoubtedly the oldest woman in the world.

 

"This fact is beyond doubt and that all officials who paid visits to my grandmother have confirmed it and this is documented with the family", said Mahdi.

 

Maryam had ten children, the youngest of whom died a long while ago. With four sons and five daughters who survived, she had hundreds of descendants, estimated at 600.

 

"Maryam's grandsons were grandfathers when she died as the grandmother of four generations," he said.

 

"Maryam's relationship with her children, grandchildren and their children and grandchildren was astonishing, knowing them one by one and following their lives in details," he said.

 

"The wise Maryam, despite her old age, was the spiritual leader to all her family members who trusted her views and followed them almost blindly," he stressed.

 

The woman was known in her village to be totally focused and balanced and she acted as a paediatrician who provided medical treatment for the newly born and infants.

 

"We keep instruments which Maryam carefully kept since the Turkish rule in Palestine to treat the little ones", he said, adding that visitors from around the 1948 areas visited Maryam seeking treatment which she provided for free.

 

The aged Maryam was an active woman despite her years and known to be a social entity who visited people on all their occasions.

 

When a representative of the Guinness told her that they can make her a well-known personality, she answered with a question – "And will that make me happy?"

 

Representative, with a little hesitation, replied that probably it would make happy her and her family.

 

She asked a second question:

 

"How old are you?" To which he replied – 43.

 

She smiled and said – "And most of all, you are not a Muslim …?"

 

Surprised man asked why these issues may be of any importance and what she wanted to say?

 

To which Maryam replied.

 

– "You are old enough to distinguish between what is right and what is not. But you are not a Muslim. That means either you are too small to distinguish truth from delusion, or you are an imbecile. Because only a child or imbecile would believe that it will make him/her happy to be glorified among the same mortals like himself. When he risks being thrown into shame in the eyes of the Creator.

 

So what should I choose – the woman said – to be glorious amongst those themselves are inglorious or to be glorious amongst the lucky owners of the Contentment of the Creator, me, you, him and all those whom you represent"?

 

Guinness representative did not know what to say.

 

Maryam said:

 

– "Go away and grow up to start thinking if you do not have the answer. And I promise not to die until you get back – she joked at the end".

 

The most surprising fact was that the man embraced Islam in 7 months afterwards. And after another 4 months Maryam Hamdan Ammash died. 

 

It is quite a mystery – why Guinness Book needed the old Muslim woman to remove her scarf …?

 

Department of Monitoring

Kavkaz Center

Source http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2013/02/03/17338.shtml