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Open Thread + Interest-Free Student Loans
As-salaamu ‘alaikum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh,
An item that will no doubt be of extreme interest to all of you is that of Making Interest-Free Student Loans A Reality.
Team RICE, which includes members of the MSA, has been selected as a potential finalist for the RBC Challenge Competition to bring Interest-Free, 100% Islamically Compliant student loans to Canada. This project is endorsed by Dr. Azeemuddin Subhani of Islamic Finance Advisory Board. The proposal summary is available below and on the website link. If this Team is voted in, we might be one step closer to interest-free financial products being offered by mainstream banks in Canada.
Please click here and vote for Team 3. You can vote once every day up to Jan. 21st!
Check out True and Good Words for full project summary.
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Continuing with our coverage of the Gaza Massacre, we are happy to share with you all a message from one of the charities we’ve been supporting through our “Action-Gaza”:
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your generous support for our humanitarian relief work in Palestine. These are impossible times for the people of Gaza, and we are trying our best to provide some relief given the danger for our staff there to move and the inability to get supplies. However, we are able to do some immediate relief projects on the ground. Please note this report from our central Gaza field-worker, Mr. Khaled Najjar. Your kind support has made this possible.
Steve Sosebee
The following information, and pictures, were also sent to us.
Dear All
Urgent report for Gaza
The humanitarian situation in the central Gaza area is disastrous. A lot of families have lost their houses especially in the Al Jouher Al Deek and Al Moghraka area (Al Burij &Al Nuseirat ).
These families have harbored to U.N. school for safety, about 675 persons in the Al Bureij school and another 800 persons in the Al Nuseirat school. As you know the school don’t have any basic for life, So the basic needs in the each school camp are:
- Fast meals (canned food , yogurt – milk for babies and dried food)
- Mattresses , blankets and pillows .
- Basic kitchen tools.
- Medical supplies (diapers , diabetic medicine)
Classification according to age in the Al Bureij U.N. school :
This 675 persons are 130 families .
They are 3 camps in the Nuseirat U.N. camp schools, and the PCRF has met some of these families needs as we have distributed :
- 250 milk bags ,
- 300 hygiene kits .
- 200 blankets,
The things will be distributed in the Al Nuseirat U.N. school.
Thanks,
Khaled.
This is an opportunity for all of you to share your thoughts, ideas, comments, questions, and links related to the Gaza Crisis. Up-to-date commentary on the latest events would be greatly appreciated, especially from professional and respected sources.
Also, here’s another way for YOU, the reader, to take action and help our brothers and sisters in Palestine as much as possible: if you see a question or suggestion mentioned in any of the threads (esp. Action-Gaza), why don’t YOU follow up on it? See the Action-Gaza post for ideas and choose one to take on yourself. Email us at info@muslimmatters.org with your completed ‘mini-project’ and insha’Allah we can add it to one of the relevant posts.
Keep supporting MuslimMatters for the sake of Allah
Alhamdulillah, we're at over 850 supporters. Help us get to 900 supporters this month. All it takes is a small gift from a reader like you to keep us going, for just $2 / month.
The Prophet (SAW) has taught us the best of deeds are those that done consistently, even if they are small. Click here to support MuslimMatters with a monthly donation of $2 per month. Set it and collect blessings from Allah (swt) for the khayr you're supporting without thinking about it.
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abu abdAllah, the Houstonian
January 11, 2009 at 8:47 PM
innalhamdolillah. bismillah.
re: Gaza — may Allah deliver the people of Gaza from under the tyranny and brutal subjugation of Israeli despotism. to call Israel a democracy is to indict the institution. rather Israel is a land that has de-facto legalized murder, so long as it is the murder of Arab Muslims and Christians. that those murdered are babies, small children, widows, orphans, the elderly, or able-bodied-men who are nothing more than powerless fathers — none of those descriptions matter to the Israelis: kill one or kill a thousand, it’s all perfectly justified to the state of Israel. may Allah destroy the leaders who sanction such violence.
re: RBC competition
mashaAllah, is team Rice by any chance from Rice University? :) not saying that was my motivation in voting for team 3, but the possible link did not hurt.
ALGEBRA
January 11, 2009 at 9:10 PM
Aslamu-alaikum:
I am SOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED about the INTEREST FREE STUDENT LOAN………………
We all need to be supporting this EFFORT by STUDENTS it is just sooooooooooooo Inspiring to see young students volounteering their time and effort for the FUTURE of our children. It IS INCUMBENT for US TO VOTE and show our support for this endeaver. WE NEED TO DIGG it as well so OTHER non- muslim students can VOTE as WELL.
It is something that will be a benefit for everyone INSHALLAH.
i VOTED.
Oh and these pictures give us hope that we can make a difference by donating and seeing positive results. WE HAVE TO DONATE>>>>>>>>>>>salam
Amad
January 11, 2009 at 9:42 PM
I dont think RICE university has anything to do with it :) They are in Canada, they probably don’t even know RICE from rice ;)
Al Iskandarani
January 11, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Alsalamualaikum,
I realize that for a politician, outrightly (though justly) criticizing Israel (on any grounds) is career suicide. Fair enough – after all, it’s not called ideale politique. But the sheer number of politicians falling over themselves to loudly and publicly support the Zionist state is sickening.
Bloomberg and Patterson have, for the first time in a long time, made me ashamed to be a New Yorker.
Al-Madrasi
January 11, 2009 at 11:49 PM
Alhamdhulillah, nice to see a good initiative on student loans, may Allah give them huge success and make ummah benefitted……
IbnAbbas
January 12, 2009 at 3:47 PM
I just noticed the “EDIT” function being added on the blog.. welldone! it was very much needed.
Gohar
January 13, 2009 at 8:02 AM
I noticed that recent comments are being displayed twice on the front page, once at the bottom as usual, and then again on the right towards the top. I think it looked better how it was before.
ibnabeeomar
January 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
comments will be fixed soon inshallah.. its got to do w/ our theme needing an upgrade and the new version of wordpress
Ibnkhalil
January 13, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Assalam o alaykum. This is en eye opener
SubhanAllah! Look at this http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=6639088
Urdu poet
January 17, 2009 at 7:38 PM
Aslamu-alaikum,
There are concerns about this idea as it may be against Islamic code
http://campusinnovation.igloocommunities.com/forums/rbcinnovat/team1/team3
Amad
January 17, 2009 at 8:32 PM
I read the link, and frankly the person who is making the “refutation” doesn’t even cede the the Dow Jones fatwa, a fatwa that was approved by a majority of islamic experts, incl. Taqi Uthmani. This person also claims that personalities/names don’t impress her. Well, that is her problem, not the team’s. If you don’t recognize scholars/scholarship in this field, then really there is little reason to argue because this shouldn’t be argued/discussed by laymen. The team did enough to get the approval of a credible authority in Islamic Finance field.
Its one thing to disagree with the concept of Islamic finance, but quite another to try to publicly argue this, because it may hurt an effort that other muslims have vested a lot of time and effort in, and have scholar approval.
osman
January 28, 2009 at 4:06 AM
good news the islamic team won!!! however, it just means that it goes to the final where I’m guessing its viewed as the weakest option since it had to be voted in. Still nice to see our brothers and sisters are actually trying and getting involved instead of the usual arm-chair accusations and whines.