Page created by: Sabila Khan

In the interest of time, I'm simply copying and pasting my Facebook entry about my father. Will update this properly later. Just want to add, however, that Parkinson's was the first indignity for my father. It robbed this vibrant man of so much over the years. The research and fight for a cure needs to continue. Any contributions in his name will be very much appreciated.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi rajioun
We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

My father passed away this morning. Our hearts are shattered. I wish I could have held him at the end, I wish he could have heard our voices. I can only pray that Allah SWT blanketed him in His mercy and grants him comfort in Jannah.

My dad was outspoken but honest, a bit gruff but kind, tough as nails but, when it came to his family, he was a teddy bear. He devoted himself to his family and to his community. He sacrificed everything for us.

I leave you with a letter I quickly drafted and included in a care package we sent to my dad when he was admitted to the hospital last Monday night. Even these words don't sufficiently capture the man Shafqat Khan was but I hope, for now, it gives you a snapshot of what our family, our city, and the world has lost.

To whoever is reading this note:
Thank you for taking care of my father, Shafqat Khan. He’s an almost 40-year Jersey City resident. He doesn’t currently have his phone, so we’ve transferred his number to this older phone we had at home. He can’t currently talk (we think this is due to Covid) but we’d love if he could occasionally call us, if he’s able, to hear our voices, and know that we are here, praying for him and waiting for him to heal. I’ve inputted our contact information—with relationship to him in parentheses—so we’ll be easy to find.
He’s also a Muslim, so I’m sending along a prayer book (it’s my kids’, but the only thing of religious relevance I could find in my panic). Please, please, if you could put this by his head, we’d be forever grateful.
My father is a proud man, a man of honor and integrity. He’s an intellectual. He sacrificed everything to raise me and my two brothers. After years of working tirelessly for us, he became a community organizer, who strove to give Pakistanis and Muslims a voice and a platform and worked post-9/11 to create dialogue between Jersey City’s diverse populations.
He may seem big and intimidating but know that he’s a softy. He was known to dissolve into tears when one of us got a scrape or a bump and go into a panic if we ever got sick. He never let my brothers learn how to ride a bicycle, because he didn’t want them to get hurt. He’s a voracious reader, who read just about anything he could get his hands on. He’s the best storyteller I know—and I have a high bar, as I work in book publishing!
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 10 years ago and we’ve all lost a lot to this disease. Over these years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about his mortality. I always believed we’d be with him when he eventually passed. Not once did I think that we wouldn’t be by his side.
Please, if things don’t go the way we hope, let him know that his wife loves him and is taking so much comfort in prayer, that all she wants is for him to come back home again. Let him know that his daughter and sons are everything they are today because of what he gave us. That his grandchildren love their Abbu, their Dhaddha, their Grandpa. That none of us would be here without him. He’s forever our hero.
And, please, if you can, please make sure he’s not alone. He absolutely hates being at the hospital without us (remember, he’s a softy).
I pray that he can find calm and peace during this storm, no matter the outcome.
Please stay safe and thank you, once again, for being the best of us.
Love,
Sabila Khan and the rest of the Khan family