Kamikaze pilot Mohamed Atta, who crashed the first jetliner into the World Trade Center, left behind a will barring women from his funeral and asking mourners to “pray for my forgiveness.”
In the document, found in a piece of luggage left behind at Boston’s Logan Airport, the 33-year-old terrorist gives a list of 18 instructions on how his death should be handled.
“No one should cry for me, scream or tear his clothes and beat his face – those are foolish gestures,” he says.
“Everyone should call God’s name and testify that I died as a Muslim, believing in God’s religion. All who take part in my burial should pray for my forgiveness,” he adds.
Some items reflect unusual attitudes about women.
For example, No. 5 says, “I don’t want a pregnant woman or a person who is not clean to come and say goodbye to me.”
And No. 11 says, “I don’t want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or any occasion thereafter.”
Atta and four other hijackers took over American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston and crashed it into the trade center.
Also found with the will in the bag was a four-page letter containing chilling instructions to the hijackers.
“Check all of your items . . . your bag, your clothes, your knives, your will, your passport, all your papers . . . Make sure nobody is following you,” the letter said.
The will, published by the German newsweekly Der Spiegel, was written April 11, 1996, and it shows he apparently did not foresee that he would be blown to bits.
In the will, Atta asks that mourners stay at his grave for an hour “so that I can enjoy their company. An animal should then be sacrificed and the meat be distributed among the needy.”
First on the list of Atta’s 18 instructions is that those who bury his body be good Muslims.
They should also “pray that I will go to heaven.”
No. 8 reads: “Those who wash my body must be good Muslims, and I do not want a lot of people to wash my body unless it is necessary.
No. 9 says: “The person who will wash my body near my genitals must wear gloves so that I am not touched there.”
Atta says that his funeral clothes should be three pieces of white material – “but not silk or any other expensive material.”
And he requests that during his burial, earth should be thrown on his body three times with the words: “You come from dust, you are dust and you return to dust. And from the dust a new person will be created.”
Experts said that except for its instructions governing pregnant women and the washing of the genitals, Atta’s will is an ordinary Muslim will.
“There is a tradition in Islam that women should not go to the grave,” said Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University.
But the barring of pregnant women “is a new one on me,” she said.
Azizah el-Habri, an Islamic scholar and professor of law at the University of Richmond, Va., agreed, saying Islam allows pregnant women to make religious pilgrimages.
Yidal Carmon, a Jerusalem terrorist expert, said it was not unusual for terrorists to often leave suicide messages behind “to assert their convictions, to serve as a model and to encourage themselves to go ahead with the task.”
Testament of madness
Here are some of Mohamed Atta’s bizarre last-will requests:
The Person who will wash my body near my genitals must wear gloves on his hand so he won’t won’t my genitals.
I don’t want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or any occasion thereafter.
I don’t want anyone to weep or cry or to rip their clothes or slap their faces because this is an ignorant thing to do.
I don’t want a pregnant woman or a person who is not clean to come and say goodbye to me because I don’t approve of it.