In a random act of kindness, Muslim Americans are shattering everything Donald Trump and his supporters believe about them.
In the days following the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, a coalition of Muslim-led groups in Southern California and elsewhere around the nation has committed to raising $100,000 for the families of the shooting victims. The money raised will go toward various expenses like funeral costs, medical bills, and rent/mortgage payments for households directly affected by the recent terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Medical center.
As of this writing, $97,000 has been raised — $88,000 from a LaunchGood campaign organized by “Muslims United for San Bernardino,” and another $10,000 from the website for MiNDS, which is a non-religious 501(c)(3) organization focusing on economic, medical, and educational needs of low-income residents in Pomona, Inland Empire, and Orange County. The LaunchGood fundraising campaign was initiated by MiNDS co-founder Dr. Faisal Qazi, a neurologist based in Pomona, California.
While the effort was originally concentrated in Southern California, Imam Mohammed Fatiqh, of the Islamic Institute of Orange County, helped make it a nationwide interfaith effort led by Muslims.
“This is something that affects all of us; it affects us as (U.S.) citizens,” Fatiqh told the LA Daily News. ““This particular incident affected us as Muslims. This is the response that everyone, especially Muslim Americans should (have) in every case, regardless of who the perpetrators are.”
This outpouring of kindness from American Muslims paints a drastically different picture of Muslims than the image portrayed by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who called for banning Muslims from entering the US yesterday after it was revealed that the perpetrators of the San Bernardino shooting were Muslim. Trump has also called for every Muslim in the US to register in a database, and for each Muslim to publicly identify themselves as such. Trump’s campaign made it clear that US citizens who practiced Islam would be banned from re-entering the US if they left the country.
