"This is to honor the victims of the shooting and their families and everyone in the community. This is our way to show solidarity."
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| Photo: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times |
Source/Credit: Los Angeles Times
By Richard Winton, Cindy Carcamo and Angel Jennings
Posted December 13, 2015
[On] Sunday, the Los Angeles Ahmadiyya Muslim Community organized a blood drive at the Bait ul Hameed Mosque in Chino to honor those who were killed and "to emphasize the Islamic teachings of the sanctity of life."
"We're Muslims who give blood. We don't shed blood," said Ahsan Khan, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Los Angeles East chapter who drove to Chino to participate in the campaign. "This is to honor the victims of the shooting and their families and everyone in the community. This is our way to show solidarity."
The event was part of a larger national movement by Muslim leaders to reach out to the broader community and combat rising tensions in the U.S. in the wake of the mass shooting and terrorist attacks in Paris last month. A man was arrested Friday on suspicion of a hate crime and arson related to a fire Friday afternoon at a Coachella Valley mosque. Two other mosques were vandalized in Hawthorne over the weekend.
Zakaria Sayed, 26, who lives in Irvine and participated in the blood drive, denounced the actions of those involved in the San Bernardino shooting.
"We're not just keeping people in our thoughts and prayers, but actually doing something about it," Sayed said.
Sayed said it can be tiring to battle misconceptions about his religion but that he would continue to do so.
"I'm representing something much larger," he said. "I'm representing the entire community, not just myself."
A few minutes later he gave his blood inside a bus operated by LifeStream, a private blood center. The collected blood is distributed to medical facilities in Southern California. Since 9/11, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has given an estimated 40,000 pints of blood nationwide, Khan said.
Rabiya Chaudry, 25, another blood donor who drove from Brea, said she thinks it's important for the Muslim community to educate others that Islam is not about violence.
"You have to make the effort to show people that you're as normal as any other person," she said. "You do your efforts, then you leave the rest to God and you pray that all your efforts don't go wasted."
richard.winton@latimes.com
Read original post here: USA: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Hosts Blood Drive at Baitul Hameed Mosque in Inland Empire
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