When I left last April, we had been discussing the 5 pillars of Islam. We covered
#1. Allegiance to Allah and his prophet (3/17/09 - 4/2/08)
#2. Praying 5 times a day (4/3/08 - 4/6/08)
#1. Allegiance to Allah and his prophet (3/17/09 - 4/2/08)
#2. Praying 5 times a day (4/3/08 - 4/6/08)
#3. Fasting during the month of Ramadan (9/11/07 - 10/04/07)
So now we will resume our pillar talk with ...
#4. Giving of alms to the poor
My uneducated observations are that they do a very nice job of this. There are as many beggars as there are dogs on the streets....ZERO (I'll write more on the dogs later). The Sheik seems to take a patriarical approach towards his people. He sees them as his family and of course takes very good care of them. There is poverty among the guest workers from other countries and some are treated very poorly, but for the most part, I see a lot of good deeds.
The Red Crescent is their version of our Red Cross and for obvious reasons they would rather have a crescent as their symbol than a cross. In the West, the Red Crescent doesn't get much press, but they do amazing humanitarian deeds. When you hear the term "International Red Cross", this usually means a joint effort between the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.
So now we will resume our pillar talk with ...
#4. Giving of alms to the poor
My uneducated observations are that they do a very nice job of this. There are as many beggars as there are dogs on the streets....ZERO (I'll write more on the dogs later). The Sheik seems to take a patriarical approach towards his people. He sees them as his family and of course takes very good care of them. There is poverty among the guest workers from other countries and some are treated very poorly, but for the most part, I see a lot of good deeds.
The Red Crescent is their version of our Red Cross and for obvious reasons they would rather have a crescent as their symbol than a cross. In the West, the Red Crescent doesn't get much press, but they do amazing humanitarian deeds. When you hear the term "International Red Cross", this usually means a joint effort between the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.
This motto was from their mission statement....
"To provide aid and assistance to the needy
Rescue the grieved
Relief (sic) the victims
wipe the tears and draw smiles"
The good news is if you mess up on one of the other pillars, you can always make up for it by donating some extra alms. There are Red Crescent booths everywhere and this may explain why their donation jars are always full..."pillar guilt" is good for business.
No comments:
Post a Comment