He made sure the bodies of the Muslim dead faced Mecca. COVID-19 claimed his life

Two of Hashem Ahmad Alshilleh’s children, Rayah, left, and Mahmoud, both police officers, place flowers at their father’s grave at Westminster Memorial Park Mortuary. “This is all my father’s legacy,” said Mahmoud, a 25-year-old Corona Police Department officer, as he waited for his siblings to arrive. He buried my father, my friend.’” “There’s no Muslim family in Orange County or the Inland Empire who hasn’t directly benefited from Abu Ahmad’s help,” said Hussam Ayloush, referring to Alshilleh with an Arabic honorific meaning “father of Ahmad.” The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office estimates he has seen hundreds of funerals, “and Abu Ahmad was the person helping in the overwhelming majority of them.” Including those of all his relatives. “His good deeds will always protect his family,” said Isa Farrah, who worked alongside Alshilleh at his father’s Olive Tree Mortuary in Stanton since he was a teenager. “He would always tell me, ‘Don’t ever fear death, son,’” said Mahmoud, who apprenticed under him for two years, “‘because it’s all going to be us one day.’” His children tried to slow down their father as the years passed, but Alshilleh always waved them off.