MINDEN – Showing exemplary honesty, a Syrian refugee in Minden near Hannover, Germany, has been hailed a hero after he handed €50,000 (£41,000) cash he found hidden in a donated wardrobe over to the authorities.

“For the police and the town he is the hero of the day,” the local police said in a statement cited by The Telegraph.

“This young man has behaved in an exemplary fashion and deserves major credit,” a police spokesman said.

“It’s quite often the case that someone finds a smaller amount of cash and hands it in to the police. But for it to happen with such a large sum is absolutely exceptional.”

The Syrian refugee, named as Muhannad M, found the money in a wardrobe he was given by a charity after being granted asylum in Germany.

As well as €50,000 in cash, he also found savings accounts books worth more than €100,000 (£82,000).

Though the huge amount of cash would have changed the life of Muhannad, he handed it in to the authorities in Minden near Hannover, the small town where he has been staying after fleeing from the war-torn Syrian city of Homs last year.

The cash was in €500 (£410) notes, the highest Euro denomination, would have enabled him to bring his two younger brothers to Germany if he had kept it.

“But Allah would never allow it, to finance your own interests with someone else’s property,” he said.

Muhannad is not the first Muslim to make news headlines for his honesty.

In 2008, a world-class violinist gave a free concert at a New York airport taxi stand to show his gratitude to an honest Muslim cab driver who reunited him with his lost 4-million-dollar violin.

In November 2014, a Muslim owner of a Burger King branch in San Jose returned to police a backpack which contained US$100,000 after finding it abandoned at one of the restaurant’s tables.

More recently, a Pakistani Muslim has been praised for his honesty after returning Dh50, 000 he found on an ATM machine in Dubai.