A Romford local since he was a kid, Peter came to Islam via a stint in prison. Whilst serving time he got into a fight with another inmate and earned himself some more time in solitary confinement. All he had was a bed and a desk with one drawer. The contents of that drawer would change his life. It contained a book – a copy of the English translation of the Quran.

Peter was a captive audience – literally. He opened the Quran and the first passage he read said “This is a book in which there is no doubt.” In a typical Essex manner he remembers saying to himself “Hmmph. I’ll be the judge of that.”

Before he left that dark lonely solitary confinement cell, Peter had become a Muslim.

Today as he was lying in the bed across from me, paralysed from the waist down by cancer that had spread to his spine – Peter (or Saeed to go by the name he adopted) was full of wisdom, wit and inspiration. He spoke about how lucky he was that his little message requesting some Muslim company in his final days was met by such an amazing response. The message had gone viral and people up and down the country were getting the same message I was.

In just over a week, over a thousand visitors had come to spend time with him. There were many who had driven for hours from towns the other side of England as well as many like myself from his local mosque. Some had even come from as far afield as Pennsylvania and another had flown in from Saudi Arabia just to see him.

When I visited him he was upbeat. He talked to me about the opposition from local residents to the mosque being open at Isha and Fajr times. “They just looked at the differences before they looked at the similarities” he said. In a single sentence he had deconstructed the entire anti-Muslim bigotry industry and irrational fear of “the other” in many societies – Muslim and non-Muslim.

As I left my meeting with him I felt happy… an emotion I’m not used to when walking away from the bed of a terminally ill paralysed man. I walked back into the waiting room where the queue had become  a little longer. There were brothers of all backgrounds, colours and ages in the waiting room meeting each other and sharing inspirational stories and reminders. When you see a Somali bus driver, a Pakistani teacher and an Arab doctor who just met each other talking like old friends whilst waiting to meet an English mechanic – and all they have in common is Islam, you cannot help but be truly humbled.

I’ll leave the last words to Saeed: