It is not too late: End of year worthwhile charities.

It would be wonderful to be able to support charitable organizations that we like throughout the year. But let us be honest: something about the end of the calendar year brings the topic of charitable donations 'to the front burner' more frequently.

Could it be Christmas Spirit in the air?

Or is it the IRS and Uncle Sam's promise to be nicer to us if we share the wealth?

Or is it the usual human nature of wanting to do the right thing but waiting for an arbitrary deadline to get it done?

Whichever way, if you still have some room in your 'rewards savings accounts' for more Godly rewards, take a look at these favorites of mine.

The top 2 on my list, and the closest to my heart, are the UMMA community Clinic and St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Islamic Relief fund is a close third, and is also a great organization to support that has proven track record. But, please, also take a look as a very special organization brought to my attention by a posting on Tikkun Olam (a great news and commentary website of the progressive Jewish journalist, Richard Silverstein, a truly Righteous Jew).

Umma Community Clinic. This is a purely Muslim project we should all be very proud of:

It is a free clinic for everyone living in in a very poor area of Los Angeles. It is staffed by Muslim doctors and nurses, and offers top quality care to all those who need it. Check their web site, and see where your heart leads you.

Islamic Relief USA:
It numerous finds for people in need all over the worlds. Take your pick.




St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Research Center:

Absolutely worth every penny. Where else would children with cancer get all the help they and their families need REGARDLESS of insurance coverage or financial ability.

The last, but not least is a fund of a much smaller scale than the great groups mentioned above, but the nature of the project makes it VERY special.

It is Abir’s Garden in Gaza.

Abir is an 11 year old Palestinian girl, and the daughter of a Palestinian peace activist and a co-founder of Combatants for Peace, murdered by a the Israeli Border Police in 2007 and, in all likelihood, no one will be held accountable - not an unusual outcome in such cases.

Read the post on Silverstein's website, and consider contributing to the children playground for children in Gaza in her memory.

Project to memorialize Abir

May the New year bring you all happiness and content.

Khaled

On whether a person is or is not a Muslim

The title of the post was the subject of an email I received for Ali, a friend of mine. The topic is interesting with very thoughtful content that he was trying to bring to the attentions of the friends he sent the email.
I asked him to let me share it, and he kindly agreed.

I was reading this book and this one page really stuck to me and thought I share it with some of you. Sorry for the long email but bear with me.

In the early 1950's disturbances broke out between mainstream Muslims attacking Ahmadis (a muslim sect). These muslim groups attacked because some religious leaders called Ahmadis heretics and non-muslims. They supported the killing and looting of them in Lahore, Pakistan. After everything settled a court of inquiry was established to inquire into the cause of the disturbances.

So here it is...

"The question, therefore, whether a person is or is not a Muslim will be of fundamental importance, and it was for this reason that we asked most of the leading ulama (religious scholars) to give their definition of a Muslim, the point being that if the ulama of the various sects believed the Ahmadis to be kafirs (unbelievers), they must have been quite clear in their minds not only about the grounds of such belief but also about the definition of a Muslim because the claim that a certain person or community is not within the pale of Islam implies an exact conception of what a Muslim is. The result of this part of the inquiry, however, has been anything but satisfactory, and if considerable confusion exists in the mind of our ulama on such a simple matter, one can easily imagine what the differences on more complicated matters will be....

Keeping in view the several definitions given by the ulama, need we make any comment except that no two learned divines are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And we adopt the definition given by any one of the ulama, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim, but kafirs according to the definition of everyone else."

Source: Report of the Court of Inquiry on the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (Lahore: 1954)

You thoughts and input on this subject are welcome.

Khaled

Looking at Fort Hood masscre from an interesting angle

I received an email from a friend with this article from The Wall Street Journal.
It is a very well written article and it is unique as it is looking at the massacre from a the 'personal Islamic perspective' applied to the perpetrator.
I felt it is worth sharing and I hope it will lead to a good online discussion. Please give your input.

Major Hasan and the Quran
Repentance is the only option for the Fort Hood killer.

By SALAM AL-MARAYATI

Maj. Nidal Hasan's lawyer is considering an insanity plea as a strategy for his client. That might be the only legal option available to the man accused of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood. But Nidal Hasan should also consider a religious option: repentance.

He should take responsibility for his horrific act of violence. He should beg for forgiveness from God for murdering 13 people and injuring 31 more. He should apologize to the families of the victims. He should ask for forgiveness from his fellow members of the military, and from the American people, as he betrayed our entire nation—including Muslim-Americans who are paying the price for his shameful and un-Islamic actions.

Maj. Hasan is granted the presumption of innocence in our courts of law, be they civilian or military. His military-appointed lawyer will likely advise him not to confess to anything. Legally, that may be sound advice. But religiously that advice cuts against the grain of the divine value of justice. Maj. Hasan must take responsibility for committing two major sins in Islam—the murder of his fellow citizens and the violation of two oaths he took.

Maj. Hasan took an oath as a member of the U.S. military to defend our country. He also took a Hippocratic oath to protect his patients. The violation of these oaths is a violation of the Quranic principle which states that making a pledge to anyone is tantamount to making a pledge to God. The Quran states: "(Be not like those) who use their oaths as a means of deceiving one another" (16:92).

His now infamous PowerPoint presentation is rife with distortions of the Quran. Entitled "The Koranic Worldview As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military," it provides anything but a Quranic perspective. Maj. Hasan's critical fault in understanding the Quran was his failure to distinguish between two very important categories of verses: those tied to the specific context of seventh-century Arabia, and those that are absolute and permanent.

He ignores the Quranic mandates, for example, to stand for justice even if it is against your own interest, and to avoid transgression in the pursuit of justice. Yet the most troubling part of his presentation are his conclusions. One of them is: "Muslims are moderate (compromising) but God is not." There are two critical flaws in this one sentence.

First, to make any kind of declaration about God being unforgiving violates Islam's central teachings of mercy and compassion. The Quran makes it clear that human beings are meant to embody God's generous spirit. To argue otherwise is to violate God's will and Islam's goal of peacemaking.

Second, being moderate is about upholding religious values while working with other members of society for the greater good. Extremists believe they are compromising their Islamic values when living in the West. This is not true. And Muslim-haters oblige them with the converse, when they argue that the West should not tolerate Muslims. This is not just.

Maj. Hasan's hodgepodge of verses from the Quran and quotes from extremists left out the most important Quranic verse in his section on enjoining peace and forgiveness: "God invites you into the abode of peace" (10:25). Nor did he include the admonition by the Prophet Muhammad never to harm the innocent and never to target noncombatants.

Nidal Hasan doesn't just need legal support; he needs religious consultation that could help him see the enormity of his situation when he faces his Creator. Unfortunately, he may become an icon for violent extremism, leading other young people and civilians to their deaths.

So what should the U.S. government do? Consider allowing Muslim-American religious leaders to meet with Nidal Hasan. Muslim leaders could encourage him to repent. And they could engage Maj. Hasan on his deeply flawed understanding of Islam, explaining that the Quran is an instrument to take people from darkness to light, not the opposite.

Nidal Hasan is reportedly reading letters. I hope he reads this article, for his sake and for the sake of our country.

Mr. Al-Marayati is executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

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Khaled