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Poem: Water for Life
Award Winning Poet Tariq Touré pays tribute to the impact of water projects. For the dried mouths of newborns And the cops that wait ages To taste the moisture of rain As the clouds form to perform And dance of hope above the heads Of entire communities thinned out From famine and drought and thirst That earthquakes them awake In nights that feel like eternity We work for water Water for life Water for now Water for forever For families that have forgotten The taste of fresh mango and yam And the farms waiting With trembling hands For the first field to be fed Hoping that beads of water Give…
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Water for Life
Innovation in sustainability makes water available to countless families Water is a human right. We believe that in a world where balance is present, no one should go without it. When it is absent, made scarce, and altogether restricted by man or nature it causes widespread devastation. For those of us who enjoy the privilege of uninterrupted water access, we can forget easily how the day-to-day difficulty of purifying, finding, and guarding water can be. Making water accessible to communities across the world has remained a priority to IRUSA because there are few substantial changes we can make in the lives of the families we serve without it. In Kenya,…
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IRUSA Launches Partnership with ShariaWiz
Innovative service makes Islamic inheritance a pain free experience. A duty upon us all The Prophet Muhammad, ﷺ, said, “It is not permissible for any Muslim who has something to will to stay for two nights without having his last will and testament written and kept ready with him.” August is National Make-a-Will Month and we are taking this opportunity to encourage everyone to take care of their religious obligation of preparing an Islamic will. A partnership that makes sense Islamic Relief USA has partnered with Shariawiz.com, a do-it-yourself, easy, and affordable platform that has an abundance of information about Islamic wills and a scholar-certified Islamic Inheritance Calculator. Shariawiz is the premier…
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Mighty Muharram
A new 1442 Hijri year sets in for us to prepare for better times New beginnings There are many important days and months in the Islamic calendar, but only one of those is the start of the Islamic year, and that’s just one thing that makes Muharram such a special point of the Hijri calendar. Muharram is blossoming before us, and at Islamic Relief USA, we’re looking forward to starting off a new Hijri year 1442, with gratitude and focus. The Hijri calendar was established by the second Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (ra), starting from the year that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) set out from Makkah to Medina. Blessed meanings Muharram itself…
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Covid-19 has Brought Out the Best of You (Video)
Your aid is reaching every city, village, town, community, and country we served with one reminder, we are in this together. At IRUSA we are experienced in disaster relief. More than 25 years of being on the ground when crises strikes allows us a breadth of knowledge about how to best provide during emergencies. The support of our community of volunteers, donors, and staff allows us to be among those first responders far before a single news camera lens can capture the devastation. We don’t take that responsibility lightly. The human toll of natural disaster and conflict can never really be measured. Our resolve was tested once again this past…
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Lebanon Blasts Shake Thousands
IRUSA Aids Beirut after an earthquake level explosion takes hundreds of lives. An city in shards Lebanon has been devastated by conflict and poverty, and is on the brink of famine and economic collapse, all compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, and is now facing another catastrophe. If that sounds like too much for one sentence, that’s because it is. Beirut is a city steeped in history, with an Ottoman past, Roman ruins and lingering remnants of the French occupation, it’s a city that can hark back to a time long gone. However, the recent past of this city, and indeed the country as a whole, does not bring the warm…
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EID PRAYER: THE DO’S AND DON’TS IN LOCKDOWN
Written by Shaykh Hasib Noor Alhamdulillah what a blessing it is to welcome Eid! We hope and pray deeply that we have all achieved our goals. Allah (SWT) gave us the opportunity to spiritually cleanse ourselves, to draw near to Him, and to help others. This of course includes those less fortunate than ourselves. Allah (SWT) blessed us and Eid is a moment of celebration! Eid is such a special blessing that it’s almost a reminder of how the joyous celebration of entering Paradise. It is a blessed day of eating, connecting virtually with loved ones, and remembering the favours of Allah upon us: Every nation has its day of celebration,…
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For this Eid, Gratitude Means Everything
A reflection on the bounties Eid Al-Adha reminds us of. The Lead up to Qurbani Dhul-Hijjah is upon us, a truly special time of the year where Muslims from all around the world can ask forgiveness from Allah for any potential shortcomings they may have had. Fasting is also sunnah during the first 9 days of Dhul-Hijjah. Bringing with it the equivalent reward to that of staying up during Laylatul Qadr, it’s really that powerful. “There are no days in which righteous deeds are more beloved to Allah than these days.” (Bukhari) The Big Day As the first 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah draw to a close, and we complete our…
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Srebrenica: A Look at our Beginning in Bosnia
IRUSA reflects on Bosnia and families looking for hope this Qurbani season. In 1995, one of the most harrowing tragedies took place in Srebrenica, Bosnia. Over 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were massacred, in just 5 days. Thousands of women went missing and were the victims of mass rape and torture. The children of those rape victims still have no legal recognition to this day. The Srebrenica genocide is one of the most brutal and horrifying events of our lifetime, but it is widely erased from our collective memory. Till this day, bodies continue to be excavated and buried, giving families an opportunity to finally pray Janaza on their loved ones and bury them honourably.…
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We can’t Afford to Look away
COVID-19 is still an active threat and everyone needs to pay attention Open Doors If you were an essential worker, more than likely you understand what it was like to walk out of your home unaware of COVID-19 would affect you or the people you loved a few months ago. But our essential workers were left with no choice. Heads of households who didn’t have the privilege of remote work had no choice but to continue while taking precautions and hoping for the best. Today many states are beginning a slow multi-phased return to normal public operations. This return should be celebrated because it means people who’ve lost the ability…
