As a monster blaze consumed a London building in the middle of the night, most people were sleeping.
However, due to Ramadan, some Muslims were awake to eat before they began fasting again during daylight hours, and their actions saved lives.
“Muslim boys saved people’s lives. They ran around knocking on people’s doors. Thank God for Ramadan,” one local woman told HuffPost UK.
Khalid Suleman Ahmed, 20, recently moved into the eighth floor of Grenfell Tower with his auntie and when he realised there was a fire he started banging on his neighbours’ doors to wake them up.
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“No fire alarms went off and there were no warning. I was playing PlayStation waiting to eat suhuur (beginning of fast meal) then smelt smoke. I got up and looked out of my window and saw the seventh floor smoking,” he told HuffPost UK
“I woke my auntie up, then got clothes on and started knocking on neighbours’ doors. Every house opened except two – I saw the other guy later on so only one family unaccounted for. My next door neighbour was fast asleep.
“The whole corridor went black with thick smoke. I didn’t think it was serious at all me and my auntie thought it was an isolated incident but we’d just evacuate just to be safe.
“When we went out and were taken by the firemen to a safer place then we saw that it still hadn’t reached our house – 20 minutes or so later our house was gone.”
Ahmed added that he never would have been up at that hour on a “random midweek night” if not for Ramadan.
Many have donated clothes and necessities in the aftermath.
“There are a lot of Muslims living there and people choose up to stay up and wait so it was certainly a factor for me and others. It probably did save lives.”
Other locals at the scene praised their fast action and bravery.
“They just pushed past the police and ran to the tower block and started screaming at the people [inside] and trying to help them. They ran into the building,” one local said to HuffPost UK.
“If it wasn’t for all these young Muslim boys round here helping us, coming from mosques, ‘nuff more people would have been dead.
“They were the first people bringing bags of water to people, helping people and running and telling people from all around, not just from our estate.”
At least 12 people were killed and a further 70 injured in the “unprecedented” fire, with authorities expecting the number to rise.
