Title is a tad bit misleading, I highly doubt I'll be posting daily in this. Nonetheless, I decided to stop filling my other books with news articles and such so I've created this one. In this book I'll be sharing articles, stories, and sometimes pi...
And by IT I mean of course helping out their community and serving humanity.
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Texas Muslims are turning Mosques into shelters to help Harvey victims (by Anna Swartz)
As devastating flooding from Harvey continues around the Houston area on Tuesday, the city’s Muslim community is stepping up: turning mosques into 24-hour shelters and bringing in diapers, water and food from their own homes.
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M.J. Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston — an organization that represents 21 Islamic centers in the area — said in a phone call on Tuesday that four of ISGH’s member mosques are now open as round-the-clock shelters.
“This is an obligation, a religious obligation to help others,” Khan said. “When you give, you don’t give only to your own family. … You give to anybody who needs help.”
Khan explained that with Harvey bearing down on Friday, the ISGH had the idea to offer mosques as shelters to anyone who needed refuge. The problem, he explained, was that many of the roads weren’t passable.
Luckily, Khan said, “we have a pretty good networking and communication system.” With just a few phone calls, volunteers began showing up to local mosques with bottled water, sleeping bags and supplies.
As of Tuesday, Khan said, four mosques were operating as fully equipped shelters, staffed and stocked by local volunteers. In fact, there were so many volunteers from Houston’s Muslim community that Khan began sending them to help in city shelters and at Houston’s convention center.
Houstonians of all stripes have come to stay in the mosques, Khan said: “mostly families,” some with young children or elderly relatives. In one of the mosques, classrooms that are normally part of a school were turned into private rooms for families.
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In addition to the immediate relief that the shelters are providing, Khan said aid in the form of money and supplies has been coming in from Islamic organizations all over the U.S.
“We have truckloads of supplies coming,” Khan said. He added that the ISGH had put together a list of 50 doctors from the Muslim community who were willing to be on call and offered it to the city of Houston.
With even more Harvey-related flooding expected in the Houston area over the coming hours and days, Khan had a message for the rest of the country: “We appreciate your sentiment and goodwill, and especially your prayers.”
And for anyone in Houston who might be in need of help? “We have mosques all over the greater Houston area,” he said. “If you have no place to go, go to your neighborhood mosque.” -------------------
But when are you gonna see Trump tweeting about what these Muslims are up? It took a flood of hate and criticisms to get a gigantic megachurch to open its doors to flood victims finally, it only took humanity for these Muslims in their Masajid to open their hearts and do good works. Now all we need is for them to start (peacefully) declaring, "Allahu Akbar" as they do the charity, and then perhaps people will see a different side of things.
It's almost Eid. Can you imagine how many curious and grateful souls may listen in on the khutbah and daily prayers? Whose hearts may be softened towards Islam upon seeing this kindness and devotion? Some people may simply become allies for when things go bad again and they'll speak up in our defense, and some may become Muslims by Allah's permission, and further still some may go on to become Muslims who go out and work to serve humanity and spread their story to show the goodness of Islam and argue against the mooks who protest when a community wants to build a Masjid or acquire lands for a graveyard.
Speaking of stories, I'm now interested in hearing some of the real stories from this, and also if one of you guys (hint hint ahem) writes a story about a scenario like this and it was nicely done, that'd be great lol. Or if someone incorporated it into their actual current stories, so that their Muslim characters who may be volunteering and interacting with the people already has a personality and life. That way you don't just write a blank character whose only job is preaching and smiling.
Oh, and plus that would avoid turning it into a cliche romance of "Brad McAbs, the bad boy with blue eyes, was forced to seek refuge at a Mosque, he hated Muslims with a passion because his dad died in 9/11. But Loozaira Gerl is a volunteer at the Masjid helping to serve Brad and all the community. She brushes off his rude remarks and taunts about her scarf and somehow, despite being amongst tons of potentials who are good, practicing, generous Muslims actively involved in charity, Loozaira falls for the jerk guy who's an atheist or christian meanwhile he still pretends to hate her and insults her with various abuses. Then suddenly one day he loves her and wants to watch them pray and bam in a week he proclaims shahadah and they're married."
-.- we don't need that. Keep that trash in the bucket in your brain. And don't think it's too different if you switch the genders. Sure it's against the wattpad norm but still cliche. But if you've got something unique and different and cool..... Write it up. Any takers? Eh? Eh?
