Friday 21 May 2021 Ahmed Idris Nasreddin returned to his Creator.
Born in Eritrea and arrived in Italy in the ’50s, he has been one of the first Muslim activists in this country.
Nasreddin was a successful businessman and Kuwait appointed him as Honorary Consul in Milan, at a time when it didn’t have any representative office in Italy, establishing the Kuwaiti consulate in his Hotel Nasco in Corso Sempione.
The hotel was also home to the first prayer room in Milan, that still exists, and soon became a place of reference for Muslim diplomats in the city and for all those who had nowhere to pray.
His commitment to Islam and to the Islamic community is notorious. He was a pioneer who established and supported several mosques and Islamic centers in Italy and in Switzerland, including the Islamic Cultural Institute; he was the first President of the Islamic Centre of Milan and Lombardy (mosque of Segrate) and the first President of the Islamic Community in the Canton Ticino.
During the ’80s he promoted the project to build a large mosque in the Garibaldi area of Milan.
There is an episode that well expresses his great love for God and Islam. In the ’80s a cartoonist made offensive and blasphemous cartoons against the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), so he contacted the author and bought the copyright of the images so that no one could ever publish them again.
The funeral took place Saturday 22 May at the Islamic Cemetery of Lugano.
May God have mercy on his soul and grant him Paradise.
