Helping Gaza: From baby steps to further actions

Helping Gaza: From baby steps to further actions
To members of What Is Islam? What does it teach? An invitation to Islam.


Asalaamalaikum,

One of my friends posted this and I wanted to share it with you guys. I hope this helps you guys. Remember that everything has to start off at baby steps and then lead into other things. Use these steps to build a foundation inshAllah.

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As many of you know, this past week, Israel has been bombing Gaza and has now moved in with troops. I've spoken with numerous people who want to help, who want to make it end, but are frustrated because as much as they want to do, they can't do anything to do what we all want - to stop the massacre.

Yet even if you can't stop what is happening, does that mean we abandon doing anything we can to help out? Do we simply turn our heads and say, "Well, there are wars everywhere, there's people dying everywhere, I can't do anything."

If you believe that, then you're deluding yourself for two reasons:

1. You Have More Power to Affect the Situation Than You Think: Although you cannot stop the situation, there are other ways you can provide help, help that reaches those people directly. You simply have to either learn or recognize how.

2. Something is Better than Nothing: A common mistake people make is that when they cannot accomplish something 100% to satisfaction, they abandon trying to accomplish that goal even partially. That's a huge huge mistake. The 10% - 15% of help you can provide will insha'Allah be magnified in ways you don't even realize.

So let's get to it - what can you do? MuslimMatters.org has created a post located here:

Actions You Can Do to Help the People of Gaza

This post is a one-stop shopping area for all the things you can do in 60 - 90 minutes. They include:

Du'aas you can make to Allah subhaanahu wa ta'aala for the brothers and sisters of Gaza.
Links to all relief organizations you can donate to
A Special Facebook group dedicated to DIGG'ing stories that need to get out that the mass media ignores (we've found DIGG to be useful in spreading news to 100s of thousands of people)
A How-To of how to call the people of Gaza and offer them support!
…And a whole bunch more, if you want to write congressman, sign petitions, write letters to the editor with talking points listed.
Don't wait to do it - do it now, and spread it out to anyone you know (that's another thing you can do) so that they too can learn what they can do, and insha'Allah, as an Ummah, if we build up enough resources and help, we can bring an end to this crisis and bring help to our brothers and sisters.

If you want to see change, it starts with you - here it is again:

Actions You Can Do to Help the People of Gaza

A Final Note
One thing that needs to be made clear - as much blame as we can put on the Zionist Israelis, or the US government, or the West, or corrupt Muslim governments that stand idly by, realize very clearly that nothing can harm us unless Allah allows it, and nothing can benefit us, unless Allah allows it.

If Allah has given our enemies authority and power over us, it means that as a community, our own sins, our own evil, our own heedlessness of our Lord and Creator whom we are to obey is the #1 reason and root cause for this entire mess.

I know, I know, a lot of you will say, what about technology, what about education, what about political involvement, what about this and that? I say to you, how can you be successful in raising yourself up in any fashion when your Creator, who controls everything, is disappointed with you?

Open up the Qur'aan, and read in Surat al-Baqarah about what happened to the Children of Israel, those whom Allah allowed to escape with Musa. They were the chosen people, but even after being saved, even after seeing all the miracles of Musa, they still disobeyed, and Allah punished them. And after the punishment, they sought forgiveness, and then after a while they sinned again, and were punished, and repented, and then they were given relief again.

These stories are not just to criticize the believers of Bani Israel for their own mistakes, no - it's also a reminder which can be encapsulated in a famous adage I'm sure you've all heard of - "Those Who Fail to Learn History are Doomed to Repeat It."

How bad do things have to become for Muslims worldwide before we return ourselves back to Allah subhaanahu wa ta'aala, return back to the primary purpose of our creation, to worship Him? To obey Him? Should we wait til the oppression, repression, and suppression of Muslims becomes a local phenomenon, or can we finally say, "Enough already, I'm going to change myself, not only for myself, but for the greater good of my ummah."

This is the first step of what you can do for the long-term to prevent genocides, rape camps, oppression, and petty 3rd-world dictator governments. After that, we can look at all the other means (media, education, technology, etc).

Remember, change starts with you.