Reply #19: Salaam to his family. This is from the Muslim funeral prayer:

[Obamarama]

I have to say that as a Jew, it's probably not comforting to a Muslim for me to post this snippet of a Muslim funeral prayer, but still I feel compelled to do it. The last eight years has really taught me to learn more about and have an open mind about Muslims, especially the ones that share my nationality. This is especially a difficult place for me to progress to as I happened to be in northern Israel visiting my relatives when everything erupted there in the summer of 2006. But we will never have peace if we keep pointing fingers and attacking one another.

Our people are of the same lineage spiritually and genetically, yet as followers of two separate religions we have allowed ourselves to focus on things that my God and their Allah would both abhor.
So it is in the spirit of peace, and a renewed sense of humanity, that I offer up this Muslim prayer for this young, Muslim man who appears to have embraced American ideals and fought for them in ways far more concretely than any of the so-called Christians who would point fingers at him and label him a potential terrorist, someone to fear as opposed to celebrate:

"O Allah, forgive him and have mercy on him, keep him safe and sound and forgive him, honour the place where he settles and make his entrance wide; wash him with water and snow and hail, and cleanse him of sin as a white garment is cleansed of dirt. O Allah, give him a house better than his house and a family better than his family. O Allah, admit him to Paradise and protect him from the torment of the grave and the torment of Hell-fire; make his grave spacious and fill it with light. O Allaah, do not deprive us of the reward and do not cause us to go astray after this"

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. Pace. Pax.