LONDON: London’s busiest mosque will provide thousands of iftar meals to those in need and NHS workers at a local hospital this Ramadan.
Every year, the East London Mosque & London Muslim Center hosts hundreds of people at sunset during the holy month of Ramadan for iftar.
However, this will be impossible during Ramadan 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions, and instead the mosque will distribute iftar meals to front-line workers at the nearby Royal London Hospital and local people in need.
“One of the big things we do at the mosque every year is feed several hundred people who come and have iftar. However, government guidelines currently permit religious institutions to open for prayer only and therefore we can’t host the iftar,” Khizar Mohammad, the mosque’s media and communications manager, said.
The iftar initiative is funded through donations and each meal costs £3 ($4.12).
“We have an appeal every year and anyone who wants to feed the hungry will donate,” Mohammad said.
“Feeding people in Islam is a highly encouraged good deed whether it is your guest or the poor and needy. Many people donate to the iftar campaign and it is funded by them.”
Due to the large number of donations in 2020 and the mosque’s closure amid the national lockdown, the campaign funded iftar meals in Bangladesh as well.
“We had a lot of donations last year which enabled us to feed more people — not just locally but also internationally,” Mohammad added.
The meals vary, but there is always a meat and vegetarian option, and fruit, dates and a bottle of water or juice are included.
“We like to mix the menu up because we have regular recipients who are from not so fortunate backgrounds and we don’t want to give them the same meal for 30 days in a row. Biryani is always on the menu at some point due to its popularity,” Mohammad said.
The mosque has been providing meals to front-line workers on a weekly basis during the pandemic.
“The Royal London Hospital is close by and we have been providing staff with meals throughout the lockdown as a gesture of thanks. During Ramadan, these meals will become daily rather than weekly,” Mohammad said.
“We usually load the meals up into our van, drive two minutes down the road, and give them to a member of staff at the hospital who will then take them to the right department.”
The mosque also provides about 200 people in the London borough of Tower Hamlets with groceries, cooked meals and hygiene packs when needed.
Those who find themselves in financial hardship during the pandemic can ask for an iftar meal from the mosque as part of the campaign.
“As for providing meals to the vulnerable and those in need in the local area, they will usually phone in and request them. We have a list of around 200 people whom we provide with groceries, cooked meals or hygiene packs. People regardless of their faith can request to be added to the list or to have Ramadan iftars sent to them. Alternatively, they can collect the items themselves if that is more convenient,” Mohammad said.
“If we raise enough money, we will also fund iftar in other countries that are less fortunate such as Yemen,” he added.
London mosque provides iftar meals to key workers, needy during Ramadan
https://arab.news/jvf8z
London mosque provides iftar meals to key workers, needy during Ramadan
- Hosting iftar in the mosque will be impossible during Ramadan 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions
- The iftar initiative is funded through donations and each meal costs £3 ($4.12)
Trump says will ‘de-escalate’ in Minneapolis after shooting backlash
- The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week
MINNEAPOLIS, United States: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis after the fatal shootings of two civilians fueled a storm of criticism over his signature immigration crackdown.
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan met with officials in the city as the Republican attempted damage control after the killing by immigration agents of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday.
The president also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hard-line Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation.
“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump told Fox News after days of tensions following the shooting of Pretti, while adding that it was not a “pullback.”
Trump said that Homan — the top US border security official, who brings a less confrontational communication style — met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Tuesday.
The US president told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe protester Pretti. “I want a very honorable and honest investigation,” he said.
Yet Trump did not hold back from criticizing Pretti for carrying a licensed firearm that was taken off him before he was shot.
“I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines,” the president said.
‘Pretty out there’
Mayor Frey said in a statement after meeting Homan that he discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis,” and that the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws.”
Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz said he called for “impartial investigations” into shootings by federal agents in the city as well as a “significant reduction” in federal forces in the state.
Pretti’s death has sparked outrage nationwide.
Democratic former president Joe Biden on Tuesday said the situation “betrays our most basic values as Americans.” Ex-presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also spoken out.
Pretti, shot multiple times after being knocked to the ground, was the second US citizen killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis this month, turning the city into ground zero of national tensions over Trump’s mass deportation policies.
Protester Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point blank range in her car on January 7.
The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents have grabbed people suspected of violating immigration laws off the streets.
Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, top officials initially claimed he had been intending to kill federal agents.
Trump backed his under-fire Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, who described Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” saying she would not step down and was doing a “very good job.”
But he was less supportive of Bovino, a Border Patrol official famed for reveling in aggressive, televised immigration crackdowns who had also played up the narrative that Pretti had posed a threat.
“Bovino’s very good, but he’s a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that’s good, maybe it wasn’t good here,” Trump told Fox.
‘Sickened’
Concern over the violence and the attempt to blame Pretti for his death quickly spread to Washington.
Republican Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that agents involved in the shooting should be put on administrative leave, later adding that the heads of ICE, Border Patrol and Citizenship and Immigration Services would testify before the Congress next month.
Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Noem should be fired.
The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week.
“The whole community is just sickened by all this,” said 68-year-old retiree Stephen McLaughlin in Minneapolis. “The aim of the government is to terrorize citizens, it’s really frightening.”
