Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Where are the Muslims? |
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| ahmer |
| 09/30/01 at 17:39:09 |
| [slm] Hey Hey Ho Ho!! Racism has gotta go An eye for an eye makes everyone blind Justice not war! These were some of the slogans tens of thousands of people were chanting, marching in DC for the anti-war march on Saturday. As we walked down the penn ave, my friend waved, pointing me to the poster "Islam is not the enemy", upheld by a pop-cultured "white" girl, Posters like these were big in number carried by our American folks. There were posters and speeches for Iraq, Palestine and Sudan by different groups. Wait a minute, those are Muslims, right? No!, So where are the muslims? Nowhere!! We, a small group of bros/sis from NJ were really ashamed of the thin Muslim presence. We counted the bros/sis and we were around 15. While we prayed on the curb in front of freedom plaza, media frenzied to catch the glimpses of Muslims praying, and they asked "Are you all that you are now?". As we finished the march and were on the way back, an elderly guy came up to us, and said, "Be careful cuz there are some ugly people around here.. so stay safe" We really felt frustrated at the hypocrisy of major Muslim organizations too, What do they represent! where are they! MSA Natl president was there alhumdolillah, he had the same feelings too that it was such a great time to educate thousands of people about Islam and Muslims. My dearest convert friend, Jamal told me angrily, "If anyone says something against these kuffar, i am gonna punch them" It was an overwhelming experience to be at the event for all of us, though we did regret our non visible presence, yet insha'Allah it will spur people to think about justice and truth.! It is certain that supporting non Muslims who stand up for justice is obligatory in Sharia. I don't remember exactly but a Shaykh once told me of an incident at the time of Prophet Mohammad(PBUH) when he said that "He would have gone there had he been present", it was about going somewhere to speak up for justice in a fight between two people. Wallahu Alam It's time for Muslims to speak up the truth, and be active! May Allah help us all [wlm] ahmer |
| Re: Where are the Muslims? |
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| jannah |
| 09/30/01 at 21:19:55 |
| Ahmer we too attended the peace rally here where we live. There was an extremely sparse Muslim attendance. How sad. Do you know what the organizers said? They said, We are organizing this to let people express their grieving about the WTC, stop any more bombing of innocent people, we want peace, we are against any inroads to civil liberties, we are against the sanctions in Iraq, we want to stop racial profiling, we want to show solidarity to Muslims and Arab Americans who are victims of hate-crimes. I was like ...stunned... i said that's everything I believe in too!!! How sad. How sad that non-muslims have to organize this and we can't even *show up* to such an event? |
| Re: Where are the Muslims? |
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| bhaloo |
| 09/30/01 at 22:32:55 |
| slm Please get in contact with these non-Muslim organizations and ask them if there is any help you can provide for them in the future. Yes it is sad that the Muslim organizations haven't done a thing. Where is ISNA? ICNA? CAIR? |
| Re: Where are the Muslims? |
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| ahmer |
| 09/30/01 at 23:18:09 |
I talked to people there and you can help in many ways. You can organize a peace rally on your campus, just get an endorsement from them. You can also write for indymedia.org, a free press kinda thing, i was surprised to know that you can actually publish your articles whatever you want to write about. Insha'Allah i am planning to write something for them, and everyone should so that we can be heard. here are the orgs that need our help, you can endorse what they are doing and help them in many ways. i singed up for one of the lists, i don't remember but they were for students. http://www.internationalanswer.org/ http://www.iacenter.org |
| Re: Where are the Muslims? |
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| jannah |
| 10/01/01 at 01:13:04 |
| Muslim organizations are doing a tremendous job in these extremely difficult times. if you can imagine average people stressed out from going to inter-faith vigils, speaking to people, doing television interviews i cannot imagine the stress these organizations are going through. please just visit their web pages which don't even show an ounce of the things they are trying to do: http://isna.net/ http://icna.org/ http://cair-net.org/ http://msa-natl.org/ it was isna's muzammil siddiqui who spoke at the national ceremony at the cathedral in dc, it is icna who is trying to compile a list of missing/dead muslims as well and cair has been holding press conferences 24/7 practically and documenting all the hate-crime incidents. and lastly remember it is msa-natl who is trying to spearhead a campaign across campus's to help the palestinians in these precarious times. the handful of islamic organizations have to provide services for all muslims under difficult, underpaid, understaffed, underresourced circumstances. if you look at any major religious group in the US they have HUNDREDS of organizations to provide for the needs of their community. and with all the support they need. i think that if there is any muslim that is making any money they should make an effort to support these organizations monetarily inshallah |
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