When Abdul Aziz saw a terrorist approach his mosque, he ran towards him and grabbed his gun.

The Christchurch terrorist attack has become the deadliest mass shooting in modern New Zealand history.

When a white supremacist opened fire in a Christchurch mosque on Friday afternoon, hundreds of people were gathered inside for their afternoon prayer. As it stands, 50 people have been killed by the terrorist, with many still in hospital.

Now as the world mourns the callous attack on religious freedom, the names of the victims are being revealed. And those who attempted to stop the attacker to protect their fellow worshipers are being hailed, rightly so, as heroes.

When Abdul Aziz saw the gunman approach the Linwood Mosque armed with deadly weapons, he didn’t seek protective shelter, but instead confronted him.

Grabbing the first destructive thing he could find, which happened to be a credit card machine, he ran towards the terrorist and shouted: “Come here!”

The mosque’s imam, Latef Alabi, said when he realised there was a terrorist just outside their gathering, he ordered the congregation to get down. As they crouched, they heard shotguns being fired and saw bodies fall to the ground.

But Alabi has since explained there is one reason why the congregation of more than 80 people was saved: Abdul Aziz.

“Then this brother [Aziz] came over. He went after him, and he managed to overpower him, and that’s how we were saved,” Alabi said, according to ABC.

“Otherwise, if he managed to come into the mosque, then we would all probably be gone.”

Aziz explains he was trying to distract the terrorist when he ran outside to confront him. The shooter returned to his car to replace his gun, as his boot was filled with semi-automatics.

But the terrorist, who is a 28-year-old Australian-born citizen, left his first gun on the ground. Aziz picked it up, turned it on the killer and pulled the trigger.

After realising it was empty, Aziz hurled it at the shooter who was in his car. All this was happening reportedly while the terrorist was shouting he was going to kill them all.

"He gets into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window," Aziz explained, reported by ABC.

Aziz's throw smashed the windshield. "That's why he got scared."

The killer then got in his car and drove away, while Aziz chased him through the traffic. Shortly after, police caught the terrorist.

While Aziz was heroically fighting a terrorist, his four sons were inside the mosque with many others, not knowing what would happen to their father.

Aziz is being hailed a hero for scaring away a man who had killed 50 people, but according to ABC, he says that anyone would have done the same thing.

It's not the gunman's name we should remember, but rather the names of the heroic people who saved lives, including Abdul Aziz.

For more on this topic:

"If humanity had a face": The woman showing the world what Christchurch is made of.

"These won't be my best words..." Waleed Aly's moving monologue on Christchurch.

Brenton Tarrant: Before the Christchurch shooting began, a manifesto was published.

Why news outlets should think twice about publishing the New Zealand shooter’s livestream.