SINGAPORE, 10 July 2003 — Iranians gathered for a private farewell here yesterday for Ladan and Laleh Bijani, the twins who died within minutes of achieving their dream of being separated after 29 years joined at the head.

About 50 members of Singapore’s tiny Iranian expatriate community and other Muslims who had kept vigil at the Raffles Hospital during the sisters’ 52-hour operation arrived at the Imam-Bada worship center deep in mourning.

The women, their faces covered in black veils, sobbed throughout the 90-minute ceremony as they listened to preacher Mohammad Rosli Hassan talk of the sisters’ determination to live independent lives.

“The prayers were about the love of the twins, the faith they have and the wishes they have,” one of the mourners, Ameer Jumabhoy, told AFP.

Jumabhoy said the emotion and support that the Bijani twins invoked, not just in Singapore and Iran but across the world, was an inspiration for people of all religions.

“Their deaths were mourned by the whole world and across different faiths. That is the message of Islam, the true message of Islam,” he said.

Fourteen-year-old Iranian Elham Konjkav, who struck up a friendship with the twins during their nine-month stay in Singapore, took the day off from school yesterday so she could say good-bye.

“We were all very sad,” said Konjkav, whose father is a businessman in Singapore.

“I thought that after all the pain they had gone through they would survive but it’s God’s will.”

The bodies of the two sisters were to be taken to a second, bigger service at the Ba’alwi Mosque at 7:00 p.m. yesterday.

The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore released a statement ahead of the service reflecting the emotions of many Muslims and non-Muslims in the city-state, which had been the twins’ home since November last year as they prepared for the operation.

“Their passing away is a great loss to all of us. Their passion for life shall be an inspiration to all and their courageous wish to live independently will always be remembered,” it said.

“Although they were aware that their surgery was always going to be a complicated one, they persevered. Indeed their enthusiasm was commendable.”

One of the volunteers helping to organize the morning ceremony said the twins’ bodies would then be taken to the airport and flown back to Iran after the Ba’alwi service.

Reza Rezaie, second secretary from the Iranian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, confirmed the bodies would be sent back to their homeland but said the time was still to be confirmed.

“We are waiting for the necessary certificates,” Rezaie, who was in Singapore, told AFP.

Laden and Lalah died within 90 minutes of each other on Tuesday after the separating of their heads caused massive blood loss.

The twins were born to a poor farming family in southern Iran with the sides of their skulls joined and sharing a vital vein that drained blood from their individual brains.

They had been determined to have the operation even though they knew the odds were high that surgery could kill one or both of them.

Doctors involved in the surgery told a news conference after their deaths that the operation, the first of its kind attempted on adults, was far more difficult than anticipated.

“It was very disappointing for us that the blood loss was so tremendous in the final stages. This occurred mainly after they were separated,” Singapore neurosurgeon Keith Goh, who led the medical team, told reporters.