Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Bob Howsan ’s younger brother, Abdul Hamid ‘Abe’ Howsan (6465), of dark complexion’, was born in 1920 in Brisbane. When he was a young boy, he competed in school dance competitions at the Memorial Hall, at Mt. Gravatt School. Abe obtained a diploma in a technical course at the Technical College, Brisbane. He worked as a motor mechanic and then he would be a proprietor of Howsans’ for Holden on Logan Road. He was married and had one child. During the late 1940s, Abe was also a secretary of the Mt Gravatt Mosque.

His father Harry Mahomed gave his consent for his son to take an active part in the RAAF. Abe enlisted in 1939 in Richmond, New South Wales and served in the RAAF, holding ranks of Sergeant, Temporarily Calpain and Leading Aircraftman. He served in Australia for five years and 90 days and his conduct and character while serving in the RAAF has been ‘very good’. During his service he suffered from coronary disease of the heart and was recommended ‘for light supervision work in connection with his occupation’. When discharged, followed by the employer’s consultation with a Local Manpower Committee he, as a competent employee, resumed his civil occupation at the Boonara Motors’s workshop, Goomeri. He was issued the War Medial 1939-45, the Australian Service Medal and the General Service Badge.

Abe enjoyed resect by the Muslim community in Brisbane. He passed away in 2007 and was cremated at the Mt Thompson Crematorium, which is located at the back of the Mt Gravatt Mosque. The Muslim prayer was performed on his funeral program too. In his honour, the following lines of a Muslim supplication prayer (du’a) by the Muslim community also reads:

[O God], if you give me success, increase my humility,
And if you give me humility, preserve my dignity.
O God, if I forget you, do not forgive me.
Amen.

From the book:

Dzavid Haveric, A History of Muslims in the Australian Military from 1885 to 1945: Loyalty, Patriotism, Contribution’, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, London, 2024.