Jihad Against Hunger

Muslim North Americans Continue Their Jihad Against Hunger When “action, not words,” became the unspoken rallying cry

BY ISLAMIC HORIZONS STAFF

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to keep millions of people out of work. Across North America, Muslims are living Prophet Muhammad’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) guidance, as reported by Ibn Abbas: “He is not a believer whose stomach is filled while the neighbor to his side goes hungry” (“al-Sunan al-Kubra,” hadith no. 19049).

We take a look at a few places nationwide.

The All-Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) of Sterling, Va., collected and delivered, either at pick-up centers or at home, packages of dairy products and fresh produce to at least 1,000 area families on June 12. ADAMS also sent food parcels to area soup kitchens.

On June 5, The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis helped distribute boxes — valued at about $30 each — from a truck loaded with 22,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables, reported KMOV.com on Jun 6. This distribution remains ongoing.

Volunteers at the Al-Hidaya Center in Latham, N.Y., prepared and distributed 1,409 meals on one day to homeless shelters and the needy on the 2020 Annual National Muslim Soup Kitchen Day, reported the Albany, N.Y. Times Union on June 6. Muslim Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students launched this project in 2003.

In Baltimore, the Muslim Social Services Agency and partners gave away food gift cards, hot meals, water and canned goods. Founder Hassan Amin told 2 ABC WMAR on June 14 that the recipient’s skin color or gender is irrelevant, for their effort is all about helping others.

The Zakat Foundation of America (ZFA), after learning that farmers were being forced to destroy crops even as fears of food shortages were rising, persuaded them to donate bags of potatoes. As of June 10, more than 500,000 lbs. of potatoes had been distributed in Illinois, California, Virginia, Michigan, Missouri and North Carolina.

In California, partnering with actor, comedian, director and producer Omar Regan (known for his work on Rush Hour 2, Internet Dating and American Sharia, among other films), ZFA gave out 44,000 lbs. of potatoes, half of which went to the Orange County Food Bank to be redistributed. The other half went to other organizations that requested help, including Access California and Anaheim Saddleback Church.

Mosques that have food kitchens — Long Beach Sharif Mosque, Anaheim Al-Ansar Mosque, Madina Islamic Center in Norwalk — also received shares. San Bernardino’s Sahaba Initiative Food Pantry received 7,000 lbs., and Corona Norco Mosque received 9,000 lbs. More potato distributions are coming, including a couple of thousand pounds to Riverside Pomona Day Labor Center. Each of these entities will distribute potatoes to families during their Covid-19 food drive.

On June 20, ZFA delivered nearly 35,000 lbs. of farm-fresh produce to food-insecure East Oakland — one of the heaviest hit parts of Alameda County — for free distribution at Masjidul Waritheen, the city’s oldest mosque.

The food relief comes after weeks of near-total shutdowns, impelled by violent police crackdowns on ethnically diverse anti-racist protestors outraged by police brutality against African Americans in general and ignited by the public police lynching of George Floyd.

More than 30 Bay Area organizations under the Northern California Islamic Council (NCIC) umbrella — including Lighthouse Mosque and CAIR-Calif. — helped pass out produce crates to some 7,000 people.

NCIC chair Hatem Bazian, co-editor and founder of the Islamophobia Studies Journal, director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project and a senior lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at University

of California, Berkeley, said credit should go to NCIC’s partnership with the leadership of the African American Muslim community.

In honor of George Floyd’s memory, ZFA joined hands with CAIR-Minnesota on July 2 to distribute another 22,000 lbs. of fresh fruits and vegetables in St. Cloud, Minn. — a poor area with a predominantly Somali BROTHERS HAMZA AND ANAS DEIB WERE NAMED NEW YORK POST’S HERO OF THE DAY ON MAY 25. SEEING THEIR RESTAURANTS LOSE 90% OF THEIR BUSINESS, THEY AND THEIR SEVEN SIBLINGS CLOSED THEM BUT CONTINUED TO SERVE OTHERS LARGELY OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS.

immigrant community. The rural communities of Faribault, Willmar and Rochester also received shares.

Over 50 tons had been distributed in Minneapolis during June.

On July 3, ZFA, in partnership with the NAACP Springfield, Ill., branch and Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, delivered 10,000 lbs. of farm-fresh produce (each package containing 25 lbs. of produce) to Springfield for free distribution to low-income families, the jobless, veterans and seniors.

Brothers Hamza and Anas Deib were named New York Post’s Hero of the Day on May 25. Seeing their restaurants lose 90% of their business, they and their seven siblings closed them but continued to serve others largely out of their own pockets.

Initially, they were serving about 100 meals a day to hospitals and police departments, using up the large stockpile of inventory at their two Taheni restaurants in Park Slope (Brooklyn) and Hell’s Kitchen (Manhattan). When food pantries, homeless shelters and nonprofit organizations started asking for help, the Deib family was cooking and serving 1,000 meals a day for the entire month of Ramadan.

Unlike dozens of Big Apple restaurants that have worked to feed others through corporate sponsorship and online donation drives, Deib said his family didn’t really start receiving donations until the last week of Ramadan, when the group Nowhere Men made a short video about their work. After it spread online, they started a GoFundMe page because people kept contacting them and offering to help.

The Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, one of the largest and busiest in the Twin Cities — the epicenter of the protests

Harris County Public Health executive director Umair Shah (right) briefs Pakistani Consul General in Houston Abrar Hashmi (left) as he visits the Covid-19 testing center hosted by the Masjid al-Mustafa Bear Creek Islamic Center — began distributing food and essentials immediately after South Minneapolis’ leading grocery stores were closed. Volunteers were handing out essentials daily, reported Mohamud Farah Dulyadey of Mshale.com on June 11.

Imam Mowlid Ali appreciated the fact that Somali small businesses contributed to the ongoing charity work. Abdullahi Farah (Abdi Wajid), the center’s executive director, is leading this effort and working with Muslim Youth and Family Services.

The center also acknowledged the theater-based University Rebuild group for helping communities in the Twin Cities board up their properties to protect them.

The Cleveland Muslim Volunteers group, which started its free grocery delivery program in March when Ohio began shutting down, conducted its food distribution drive from Rumi’s Market. It provided two weeks’ worth of free food and made daily citywide deliveries, regardless of the recipient’s religion or income level, reported News5 Cleveland ABC on May 22.

In London, Ontario, Muslims launched the city’s first Muslim Soup Kitchen on July 4. The sponsors include the London Muslim Mosque, the Islamic Centre of Southwestern Ontario, the Muslim Association of Canada, the north London Islamic Centre and the Hyatt Mosque. Local restaurants provided the food.

In the past, these organizations have donated food to the local Salvation Army and the St. Vincent de Paul Society and served food at Mission Services and the Salvation Army. Earlier, soup kitchen volunteers served meals to the women who use My Sister’s Place, but decided that they wanted to serve children and men as well.

“There is a crisis in terms of poverty, in terms of families not having enough food to eat in this city. As Muslims, it’s part of our faith and it’s part of other faiths as well to help those in need,” Zeba Hashmi, a volunteer behind the project, told CBC News on June 26. ih