My Jihad is Autism, Faith and Everything In Between. What’s Yours?

What’s your jihad?

Mine is autism awareness and living with autism.

My jihad is my son, Lil D, and helping him (and our family) overcome challenges brought on by his autism, helping him be as healthy as possible and finding out what we can do to make him happy. My jihad is making a place for him in this world, getting this world to accept him, care for him, and help him to succeed the best that he can.

My jihad is my children — raising proud, well-adjusted, Muslim-American children who follow their faith, live as proud Americans and do good for the sake of Allah.

My jihad is to be a faithful Muslim and accept Allah’s will for my son and my family with grace and gratitude, not despair.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

Christians Under Siege in Syria

In January 1945, my mother, too young even for school, joined millions of other ethnic Germans fleeing westwards from Breslau as the Red Army advanced. My forefathers had lived in this region of Silesia (German since 1242) for at least nine generations that I know of. The forced repatriation – a process that might now be called ethnic cleansing – of my mother’s family and millions of other civilians from groups whose nationality would in future be inextricably linked to their ethnicity, was largely overlooked in the euphoria that swept the world at the end of World War II.

They never returned.

Now we are witnessing another wave of civilian displacement in the Middle East with hundreds of thousands of Christians being forced to flee  as they are banished from their 2,000 year old homelands in today’s remarkable surge in Arabian people power.

Their fate has been largely forgotten as the global media attention has moved on from Egypt and Libya and encamped in Syria to watch the terrible bloodshed in Damascus, Houla, Aleppo and Homs. Innocent people on all sides are enduring awful hardship, death and torture; civil war does not discriminate between young and old, rich or poor. In the ghastly bloodletting we are now seeing, no one seems safe from the prospect of sudden death and destruction of property.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE INDEPENDENT (UK)

UK Women Declare Jihad on Violence

CAIRO – In an effort to clear misconceptions about the term of jihad, a group of British Muslim women have initiated a new campaign to fight against all types of violence, terrorism and domestic abuse.

“People think ‘jihad against violence’ is a contradictory statement but our jihad is for peace,” Sara Khan, the director of Inspire campaign, told The Guardian on Monday, June 6.

Themed “Jihad against Violence”, the campaign, launched on Sunday, aims to fight all forms of violence.

It focuses on combating crimes, including terrorism, domestic abuse and female genital mutilation that some perpetrators attempt to justify in the name of Islam.

FULL ARTICLE FROM ONISLAM