Friday 11 December 2015

Reasons Why ISIS is not about Islam

Some interesting Analysis by Loren Thompson for Forbes (from back in February 2015) called "Five Reasons The ISIS Fight Isn't About Islam". He lists these as:

1. Numbers: prospective ISIS supporters would be a minority within a minority:

"Four out of five Muslims aren’t Arabs and don’t live in the Middle East. Among those who do maybe a quarter are young Sunni males, and most of them show little inclination to actively support ISIS."


2. Non-Muslims have committed similar atrocities.

3. Everybody in ISIS doesn’t believe the same thing.

4. For many ISIS members, Islam is a pretext:

"It appears that every culture produces large numbers of young males who can be mobilized in the pursuit of millenarian philosophies, not because of the specific content of the vision, but because young men yearn for power and status and resources"

5. ISIS says more about human nature than about Islam.

You can read the full article here.














Muslim Canadian Dentists Provide Free Care for Syrian Refugees

The Canadian Newspaper Global News (7th December 2015) picked up the story of two Canadian Muslim sisters who have travelled to Jordan to provide free dental care for Syrian refugees. The sisters, Asile and Asraa El-Darahali, raised funds for equipment and spent five days treating up to twenty patients a day:

"The two volunteered at the Zaatari refugee camp, one of the largest communities in the country, as part of a trip by the Syrian American Medical Society.

The women, who live in Dartmouth, skipped lunch breaks to treat up to 20 patients per day, which is double the normal amount of people they treat. They paid $3,000 each for travel and accommodations.














image source

You can see more in the original article and video here. and a video about their work here.


Thursday 19 February 2015

The Muslim Free Hospital in Burma

The Huffington Post recently (13th February 2015) carried a story about the Muslim Free Hospital established in Burma:

"In 1937 the Muslim Free Hospital was established in Rangon, Burma. It was created by a group of Muslim leaders to care for the poor of Rangoon that had no other access to medical care. The initial investment came entirely from Muslims. The Muslim Free Hospital still exists and is still funded by the donations of Muslims of Myanmar.

From to the beginning the hospital did not discriminate on the basis of religion, ethnic group, or income. The Muslims of Myanmar have been and still are paying for the medical care of poor Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, or member of any religion.

It is particularly remarkable that this is occurring in Myanmar. Muslims are a minority in Myanmar, about 4% of the population. Many Muslims in Myanmar live in fear. Violence against peaceful Muslims is on the increase. Militant Buddhist monks openly incite violence against Muslims. In parts of Myanmar businesses and homes are burned. Muslims are killed. Buddhist monks openly ask all Muslims to leave their country and call them animals.

The outpatient clinics care for 450 outpatients a day. The hospital has 160 beds. In the year 2000, a year for which there are statistics, there were approximately 6000 cared for as inpatients. The hospital has medical, surgical, maternity, and a special unit for eye patients. Currently an average of 220 deliveries occur a month. The hospital has x-ray facilities, pharmacy, ultrasound unit, and operating rooms."



















You can read the full story here.