THE MIRROR Thursday, June 12, 1997, page 3

THE LORD SEED UNTO US..

Shaista, 14, finds message from God in tomato

Click here to see the photograph of the tomato [384K JPEG file].

By Ian Key

PILGRIMS were last night flocking to see a message from God - in a TOMATO.

Schoolgirl Shaista Javed, 14 sliced open the fruit to make a salad for her gran and found the holy words spelt out by its pips and veins.

On one half was written: "There is no God but Allah," and on the other: "Mohammed is the messenger."

A holy man verified that the words came from sacred Moslem book the Koran. Now gran Niamat Bibi's modest terraced house has now become a mecca for pilgrims.

Important

More than 100 Moslems have flocked to her home to see the amazing tomato in her fridge.

Shaista said yesterday: "I cut the tomato in half and saw what looked like Arabic lettering. I iust couldn't believe it.

"It looked like the word for God, I recognised it from the Koran.

"Then when I looked closer I could see it was a whole phrase, a very important one saying, 'There is no God but Allah'."

She cried out and Niamat rushed into the kitchen. They looked closely and found more writing.

Niamat said:"I saw the second holy phrase and I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were some letters missing and it was hard to decipher but the message was clear."

News of the discovery spread fast. Niamat said: "At first there were just a few friends, neighbours and relatives, but as news spread they were. coming from far and wide. Even people from different towns have made the journey.

"They knock on the door and I take them through to the kitchen and open the fridge door for them to have a look. What has happened is amazing."

A spokesman at the local mosque said: "We don't consider it a miracle but it is certainly a blessing." Niamat says the tomato will stay at her home in Huddersfield, West Yorks, until it can be preserved.

In March last year another family from the town found 'Praise Allah' written inside an aubergine.

And a rock from Ben Nevis which has been engraved with 'Allah' by the wind and rain is kept in a mosque in Burnley, Lancs.

Two years ago, Hindus across the UK besieged temples when statues of elephant-headed god Ganesh 'drank' offerings of milk through its trunk.


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