A young British Muslim woman has been named among the victims of last week's atrocities in London.
Shahara Islam (20)
from Plaistow, east London.
She was a thoroughly modern Muslim, a young woman who loved her Burberry plaid handbag and fashionable clothes while at the same time respecting her family's wishes that she sometimes wear traditional shalwar kameez at home. She went shopping in the West End of London with friends but would always be seen at the mosque for Friday prayers. Shahara Islam, just 20 years old, was a second-generation Bangladeshi woman who made her family proud when she left Barking Abbey school with a clutch of A levels and took a job as a cashier at the Co-operative Bank.
Last Thursday, her usual hour-long tube journey - which took her from the family home in Plaistow, in east London, up to Islington's Angel tube station - was interrupted.
Alighting from the underground, she got on the number 30 bus and it was there that her path crossed with Hasib Hussain, the youngest suicide bomber, whose life in some ways mirrored her own.
Yesterday, as the family was given the news that Ms Islam had been formally identified at the scene of the bus explosion on Tavistock Square, a close relative, said: "I am speechless that an 18-year-old boy is responsible. There's none of us in the family that can understand it. I think there are a lot of people out there who would think 'how stupid is this kid?'. I have no idea what to think about this."
Minutes before the bomb went off Ms Islam called her uncle, Nazmul Hasan (25), but he missed the call, a fact that gave the family a little comfort since this was almost an hour after the three tube bombs went off. She may have been evacuated from the tube and boarded the bus in the ensuing melee.
Mr Hasan said his niece was a "simple and down-to- earth girl". He went on: "Her family were very happy and proud of her. Everyone who knows her, loves her dearly. There isn't one single person who could say a bad thing about her."
In the cafes across the road from the bank, situated just seconds from the bus stop where she would have got off, the owners and customers said that at first they had not recognised from the newspaper pictures of those who were missing after the bomb the smiling girl dressed in turquoise silk who stared out at them. They had been used to seeing her in her uniform but when they looked past the tunic and scarf, they saw the same woman who served them at the bank and came in regularly with friends for cakes or lunch.
Ms Islam's father, Shamsul (42), worked as a supervisor with Transport for London. His wife, Romena (38), stayed at home to bring up her three children, Shahara and her brother, Anahurul (17), and sister, Tasmeen (13). Mr Islam came from the Sylhet area of Bangladesh and his family moved to London in the late 1960s.