Mike Ghouse to Speak at Parliament of Worlds Religions

DALLAS – (November 28, 2009) – Mike Ghouse, board member of The Memnosyne Foundation, has been invited to speak at the Council for a Parliament of the World Religions in Melbourne, Australia. Co-Founder and President of The Memnosyne Foundation, Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk, made the announcement recently.

Continued - http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2009/11/mike-ghouse-to-speak-at-parliament-of.html

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Eid-al-Adha - What is a sacrifice

WARNING: If you do not believe in Ijtihad, please do not read the following. If you are binary Muslim who sees everything in terms of Halaal/Haraam, the following notes are not for you.

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/11/eid-al-adha-what-is-sacrifice.html

Dr. Lalani thinks aloud, but makes a valid point about Sacrifice.

We should be open to his idea, and as Muslims we should debate it and see the merits and alternatives for the same. It does not mean giving up eating the meat, it simply means finding the alternatives for the present day massive animal slaughter on the day of Eid.

The idea of sacrifice he has explained - of giving up things that are dear to one is meaningful. I request the Muslims who are free to think to propose a full idea on how to handle the symbolic sacrifice Muslims make on the day of Eid-al-Adha.

Two articles below talk about the the 300,000 animals being sacrficed by Hindus in Nepal and on Thanksgiving Day, we probably would slaughter more than 20 Million turkeys, that is one turkey for every 15 Americans.

That is our food..... think from a survival point of view...

Look at this way, the wheat we grind to flour and eat kills the future of wheaties from that seed of wheat we kill. The veggies we eat have life that we shorten. If we do not kill the wheat, it keeps growing and reseeding....

Every veggie has life too. We are part of it and animals are part of it. If no one kills the animals and veggies, and no animal eats other animal... there will be a huge problem.

Religions were wise to go along with the system of nature... we are each others sustenance.
Sounds bad, but what are the choices? Why show prejudice towards Veggies and not towards animals? No matter what you eat, you are killing the continuance of the life of that item.

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/
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I am a Muslim, and not just a MINO (Muslim in Name Only) and I admit I could do better in practice of my religion.

There is one Islamic ritual with which I have a great deal of trouble and that is Kurbani. I have never slaughtered an animal myself but I have seen a goat being dragged to the spot of sacrifice on Eid-alAdha and I have seen how desperately the goat struggles and resists. It is quite obvious that the animal knows what is in store for it (it is uncanny). And I have seen its throat being cut and its being exsanguinated and a painful death superveing slowly and inexorably.

I hold Prophets Ibrahim and Mohammad (praise be on them both) in highest reverence and I am not a vegetarian (although I wish I could have been). I also do not question God's commandment to Ibrahim to show his devotion to Allah by going through with the sacrifice of his only son at that time, (this must have been before the birth of Isaac, PBUH).

However, could it be that God's Commandment to sacrifice was for to him to give whatever it was that was most dear or his very valuable possession. In those days, livestock was a measure of wealth and meat was not pletiful so that protein deficiency must have been endemic, especially among the poor (the majority). Alll those facts pointed to a living animal as logical possesiion fit for sacrifice.

I performed Umra in December of 1993 and read an 'official' piece of Saudi government literature provided to the pilgrims (including Hajj). It clearly stated that money donation can emphatically substitute for animal sacrifice and that meat was allowed to Muslims but not mandated by our great faith.

I am a physician (now retired) and I have no doubt that dairy products (esp cheese) and eggs (unfertilized) can definitely furnish all the protein a human needs and in fact even those may not be indispensable (lentils and legumes have plenty of the so called first class proteins).
Jews used to practice Qurbani following the example of Abrham/Ibrahim (PBUH) until the destruction in 570 b.c. of the First Temple and - perhaps - until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD but they seem to have completely given up the practice since the diaspora. And still, we include them - and Christians - among the believers. Europeans used to sacrifice animals to Jupiter and Apollo and Minerva etc. but quit that practice when Christianity replaced idol-worshipping, polytheistic Homeric religion ( 'Hellenism'). Could we at least heed the kernel of their argument against performing anuimal sacrifice without becoming vegetarians?

Astaghfirullah!

Inayat Lalani
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'World's biggest animal sacrifice' in Nepal

By Claire Cozens
Agence France-Presse

KATHMANDU, Nepal—Thousands of Hindu devotees have flocked to a village in Nepal ahead of the planned sacrifice of more than 300,000 animals in a ceremony condemned by animal rights activists, including French actress Brigitte Bardot.

Priests are preparing for the slaughter of more than 15,000 buffaloes and 300,000 birds, goats, and sheep during the event, which starts Tuesday and is thought to be the biggest ritual sacrifice anywhere in the world.

Every five years, the village of Bariyapur, near Nepal's southern border with India, hosts this religious festival dedicated to Gadhimai, the Hindu goddess of power.

"Thousands of people from Nepal and India have already begun arriving and preparations for the festival are in full swing," Mangal Chaudhary Tharu, the main priest at the Gadhimai temple, told AFP.

He said visitor numbers were expected to be higher this year because it is the first such ceremony since the end of Nepal's conflict in 2006 and he vowed to go ahead with the sacrifice despite the protests.

Tharu, the fourth generation of his family to serve as a priest at the temple, said he expected more than a million people to attend, over half from India, where many states have banned animal slaughter for religious purposes.

Nepal's government has refused to put a stop to what it says is a centuries-old religious tradition, and has pledged 4.5 million rupees (60,000 dollars) in funding.

"People have deep faith in the goddess and they believe that sacrificing animals will bring them good luck and prosperity for their families," said Tharu.

"I don't think the mood will be spoiled by the animal rights campaigners. They have the right to raise their concerns and we have the right to continue with our age-old tradition."
Armed police have been deployed to keep the peace and authorities have banned alcohol during the festival, which begins with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, a rooster, a pig, a goat, and a lamb.

The meat is distributed to the devotees and to local people, while contractors bid for the animal hides—making the slaughter a lucrative venture for the local community.

But the ceremony has been strongly opposed by animal rights campaigners, who are demanding an end to what they say is senseless cruelty.

The cause is supported by the well-known Indian animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi and by Bardot, a veteran campaigner who this month wrote to Nepal's president urging him to put a stop to the festival.

"Thousands of terrified buffaloes will have their heads cut off by drunken devotees," she wrote.

"Honorable president, I have dedicated my life to protect animals and the best gift I could receive for this lifelong struggle would be the announcement of the stopping of ritual sacrifice."

Pramada Shah, director of pressure group Animal Nepal, says the campaign has won strong support both in Nepal and abroad, although she accepts it faces an uphill struggle in this deeply conservative, majority-Hindu nation.

"In a country like Nepal it is very difficult to raise these issues," she told AFP.
"The idea of animal rights is very new here and people are so used to sacrifices, even well-educated people are resistant to change. There is a lot of work to be done here, but slowly, progress is being made."

She says attitudes toward ritual slaughter are beginning to change in Nepal, a view shared by cultural expert Chunda Bajracharya.

"Belief in these ancient rituals is deep rooted in our society," said Bajracharya, professor of cultural studies at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University.

"But there is evidence that animal sacrifices are becoming less popular, especially in urban areas, where people are instead choosing to 'sacrifice' eggs or coconuts.
"Mindsets are gradually changing."

Shared by Hasni Essa
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Op-Ed Contributor
Animal, Vegetable, Miserable
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22steiner.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&adxnnlx=1258906532-O4jMyLUNdeeDH51oBuwxrA&pagewanted=all
Karen Barbour

Related
Times Topics: VeganismLATELY more people have begun to express an interest in where the meat they eat comes from and how it was raised. Were the animals humanely treated? Did they have a good quality of life before the death that turned them into someone’s dinner?

Some of these questions, which reach a fever pitch in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, pertain to the ways in which animals are treated. (Did your turkey get to live outdoors?) Others focus on the question of how eating the animals in question will affect the consumer’s health and well-being. (Was it given hormones and antibiotics?)

None of these questions, however, make any consideration of whether it is wrong to kill animals for human consumption. And even when people ask this question, they almost always find a variety of resourceful answers that purport to justify the killing and consumption of animals in the name of human welfare. Strict ethical vegans, of which I am one, are customarily excoriated for equating our society’s treatment of animals with mass murder. Can anyone seriously consider animal suffering even remotely comparable to human suffering? Those who answer with a resounding no typically argue in one of two ways.

Some suggest that human beings but not animals are made in God’s image and hence stand in much closer proximity to the divine than any non-human animal; according to this line of thought, animals were made expressly for the sake of humans and may be used without scruple to satisfy their needs and desires. There is ample support in the Bible and in the writings of Christian thinkers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas for this pointedly anthropocentric way of devaluing animals.

Others argue that the human capacity for abstract thought makes us capable of suffering that both qualitatively and quantitatively exceeds the suffering of any non-human animal. Philosophers like Jeremy Bentham, who is famous for having based moral status not on linguistic or rational capacities but rather on the capacity to suffer, argue that because animals are incapable of abstract thought, they are imprisoned in an eternal present, have no sense of the extended future and hence cannot be said to have an interest in continued existence.

The most penetrating and iconoclastic response to this sort of reasoning came from the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer in his story “The Letter Writer,” in which he called the slaughter of animals the “eternal Treblinka.”

The story depicts an encounter between a man and a mouse. The man, Herman Gombiner, contemplates his place in the cosmic scheme of things and concludes that there is an essential connection between his own existence as “a child of God” and the “holy creature” scuffling about on the floor in front of him.

Surely, he reflects, the mouse has some capacity for thought; Gombiner even thinks that the mouse has the capacity to share love and gratitude with him. Not merely a means for the satisfaction of human desires, nor a mere nuisance to be exterminated, this tiny creature possesses the same dignity that any conscious being possesses. In the face of that inherent dignity, Gombiner concludes, the human practice of delivering animals to the table in the form of food is abhorrent and inexcusable.

Many of the people who denounce the ways in which we treat animals in the course of raising them for human consumption never stop to think about this profound contradiction. Instead, they make impassioned calls for more “humanely” raised meat. Many people soothe their consciences by purchasing only free-range fowl and eggs, blissfully ignorant that “free range” has very little if any practical significance. Chickens may be labeled free-range even if they’ve never been outside or seen a speck of daylight in their entire lives. And that Thanksgiving turkey? Even if it is raised “free range,” it still lives a life of pain and confinement that ends with the butcher’s knife.

How can intelligent people who purport to be deeply concerned with animal welfare and respectful of life turn a blind eye to such practices? And how can people continue to eat meat when they become aware that nearly 53 billion land animals are slaughtered every year for human consumption? The simple answer is that most people just don’t care about the lives or fortunes of animals. If they did care, they would learn as much as possible about the ways in which our society systematically abuses animals, and they would make what is at once a very simple and a very difficult choice: to forswear the consumption of animal products of all kinds.

The easy part of this consists in seeing clearly what ethics requires and then just plain doing it. The difficult part: You just haven’t lived until you’ve tried to function as a strict vegan in a meat-crazed society.

What were once the most straightforward activities become a constant ordeal. You might think that it’s as simple as just removing meat, eggs and dairy products from your diet, but it goes a lot deeper than that.

To be a really strict vegan is to strive to avoid all animal products, and this includes materials like leather, silk and wool, as well as a panoply of cosmetics and medications. The more you dig, the more you learn about products you would never stop to think might contain or involve animal products in their production — like wine and beer (isinglass, a kind of gelatin derived from fish bladders, is often used to “fine,” or purify, these beverages), refined sugar (bone char is sometimes used to bleach it) or Band-Aids (animal products in the adhesive). Just last week I was told that those little comfort strips on most razor blades contain animal fat.

To go down this road is to stare headlong into an abyss that, to paraphrase Nietzsche, will ultimately stare back at you.

The challenges faced by a vegan don’t end with the nuts and bolts of material existence. You face quite a few social difficulties as well, perhaps the chief one being how one should feel about spending time with people who are not vegans.

Is it O.K. to eat dinner with people who are eating meat? What do you say when a dining companion says, “I’m really a vegetarian — I don’t eat red meat at home.” (I’ve heard it lots of times, always without any prompting from me.) What do you do when someone starts to grill you (so to speak) about your vegan ethics during dinner? (Wise vegans always defer until food isn’t around.) Or when someone starts to lodge accusations to the effect that you consider yourself morally superior to others, or that it is ridiculous to worry so much about animals when there is so much human suffering in the world? (Smile politely and ask them to pass the seitan.)

Let me be candid: By and large, meat-eaters are a self-righteous bunch. The number of vegans I know personally is ... five. And I have been a vegan for almost 15 years, having been a vegetarian for almost 15 before that.

Five. I have lost more friends than this over arguments about animal ethics. One lapidary conclusion to be drawn here is that people take deadly seriously the prerogative to use animals as sources of satisfaction. Not only for food, but as beasts of burden, as raw materials and as sources of captive entertainment — which is the way animals are used in zoos, circuses and the like.

These uses of animals are so institutionalized, so normalized, in our society that it is difficult to find the critical distance needed to see them as the horrors that they are: so many forms of subjection, servitude and — in the case of killing animals for human consumption and other purposes — outright murder.

People who are ethical vegans believe that differences in intelligence between human and non-human animals have no moral significance whatsoever. The fact that my cat can’t appreciate Schubert’s late symphonies and can’t perform syllogistic logic does not mean that I am entitled to use him as an organic toy, as if I were somehow not only morally superior to him but virtually entitled to treat him as a commodity with minuscule market value.

We have been trained by a history of thinking of which we are scarcely aware to view non-human animals as resources we are entitled to employ in whatever ways we see fit in order to satisfy our needs and desires. Yes, there are animal welfare laws. But these laws have been formulated by, and are enforced by, people who proceed from the proposition that animals are fundamentally inferior to human beings. At best, these laws make living conditions for animals marginally better than they would be otherwise — right up to the point when we send them to the slaughterhouse.

Think about that when you’re picking out your free-range turkey, which has absolutely nothing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. All it ever had was a short and miserable life, thanks to us intelligent, compassionate humans.


Gary Steiner, a professor of philosophy at Bucknell University, is the author of “Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status and Kinship.”


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Click and comment: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/11/eid-al-adha-what-is-sacrifice.html#comments

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Muslim countries seek blasphemy ban

A good debate is warranted on the issue. I am inclined to support the freedom of speech, hoping civility would ultimately prevail. Rules should be made for the general good of the population and not to address the exceptions, as the majority of the people in every group are moderate, law abiding, easy to get along and practice live and let live way of life. However, we cannot be blind to many a laws that have been the catalyst in bringing about a positive change.

Continued at:
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2009/11/muslim-countries-seek-blasphemy-ban.html

Mike Ghouse
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Allahu Akbar by Matthew Moes

I wrote an article about Allahu Akbar's significance, which I will publish after it is published in the news paper. Mathew commented on my face book and shared this wonderful poem. Allahu Akbar is about humility and not arrogance or incitement.

By Matthew Moes
YZK Institute for Islamic Scholarship and Research
Richardson.

Allahu Akbar - God is Great
Words I say
When I turn from the world to pray
Words I say
When I bow down
Words I say
When I put my face to the ground
Words I say
When I lift my head from the floor

Words that signal a return
Words that prioritize
Words of humility
Words of attribution

Tremendous Words

Words not to be abused by madmen
Words not to be mocked by media men
Words not to be perverted by terrorism
Words not to be distorted by charlatans

Words of reverence
Words of faith
Words of exalting joy

Words sung out in the call to prayer
Words to celebrate breaking the month-long fast
Words to commemorate the sacrifice of Abraham
Words to consecrate the life that becomes our food
Words for the funeral prayer, the final salute

Words of salvation
Words of adoration
Words of elation
Words of liberation

Allahu Akbar - God is Great!
Allahu Akbar - God is Greater!
Allahu Akbar - God is Greatest!

Beautiful Words
Words, just words, and yet
Powerful Words!
Words only fit for Him!
# # #

Fort Hood Tragedy

Fort Hood Tragedy

Every Muslim is saddened by this incident.
No one has a right to take another persons life.
Every religion condemns and discourages killing.

Alas, we the humanity understand the individual crises, and work with individuals going through a trauma of their own lives and help them into become productive Citizens.

We have to remember that it is the individuals who do good things and it is the individuals who do bad things, we have to hold the individuals responsible for their acts not their parents, kids, sibling or others.

May God bless the souls of the victims and, May God give patience to their family members.

I am pleased to invite you to a conversation on the subject on Saturday 9:00 AM at La Madeliene on Mokingbird at Central Expressway in Dallas.

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/
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The American Muslim Website has compiled several
statements from several groups.

http://networkedblogs.com/p16879129
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Senseless shootings violate Islamic faith
By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
On Faith at washingtonpost.com
The Huffington Post

November 6, 2009

I was so deeply saddened by the events at Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday. My prayers and sympathy are with the families of those brave American soldiers who were killed and wounded in this senseless act.

What this unfortunate Army major did was against the laws of Islam, even though news accounts said he was an observant Muslim. It is too early to understand his motivations and mental stability. He obviously was violating his faith when he undertook this act. Killing is as much a sin in Islam as it is in Christianity, Judaism and all the major religions. Taking the law into one's own hands is against Islamic teachings.

We do not know how our soldiers will react under the stresses of war. It is something that we as religious leaders should take seriously as we minister to our troops.

I am concerned that this incident will cause some Americans to react against the Islamic faith and Muslim Americans. Our fellow Americans should understand that every major American Muslim organization has condemned it in no uncertain terms. Thousands of American Muslims serve in the U.S. armed forces, and they are essential to the U.S. goal of bringing peace, stability and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. They are supported by millions of American Muslims.

This is a time for all Americans to draw together in our grief and sympathy for the victims of this senseless act, and to support the care and well-being of our troops with the hope that they will soon be able to return home.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, an independent, non-partisan and multi-national project that seeks to use religion to improve Muslim-West relations. (www.cordobainitiative.org) He is the author of "What's Right with Islam is What's Right With America."
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By Muqtedar Khan
Director of Islamic Studies, University of Delaware

The American Muslim community is experiencing shock, disbelief and apprehension as it watches the unfolding details of the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist and practicing Muslim, born in Virginia of Jordanian parents, turned against his fellow citizens and military colleagues and murdered 13 and wounded 30.

What happened at Fort Hood follows a nightmare script that has been one of the biggest fears of the American Muslim community since the appalling events of September 11, 2001. One crazy Muslim, acting on his own, causing significant mayhem and murder and inviting anger and backlash against millions of peace loving and hardworking Americans who are Muslims. National and local Muslim organizations immediately issued strong condemnation of the event and called for calm.

It is important to understand that Major Hasan is an isolated, alienated and sad individual who was clearly not well adjusted to his life. In a community that values family life, he was single at 39 and still looking desperately for a wife, according to his former Imam. He was in an army that was at war with his co-religionists and he had difficulty dealing with that. He was frequently taunted and harassed for being a Muslim by his own colleagues. After years in the military and after years of caring for soldiers as a doctor, he did not feel as if he belonged and perhaps that was the key to why he could turn on his own.

This tragic episode presents serious dilemmas and challenges for both Muslim community organizations as well as for law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies. Muslim organizations do not know how to explain this and the law enforcement agencies will be puzzling over how to understand it.

This was an unpredictable and isolated episode, impossible to anticipate and guard against. Hasan is an American-born, highly educated, long-term military man who simply snapped with devastating consequences. How do we anticipate this and prevent it? The Fort Hood shooting reminds me of the Columbine shooting; shocking and unexpected. On scrutiny after the fact one discovers warning signs but not enough to trigger action before it happened.

Since the election of President Obama, Islamophobic rhetoric was on the decline as people in key administrative positions abstained from using "Islamic" as a prefix when talking about issues related with the war on terror. But this episode will once again provide fodder for talk shows and websites, which exploit such isolated events to ratchet up Islamophobia.

Muslims across the country have been working hard to build bridges with mainstream America, to establish interfaith relations and carve out a place for the community on main street America. Hasan not only fired at unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, but he also attacked the very foundations of all these bridges across the country. His actions will definitely weaken if not completely undermine the efforts of thousands of Americans to build bridges of peace and understanding.
According to some estimates there are over 10,000 Muslims in the U.S. military who serve loyally, with sincere and complete commitment. Many Muslims in the U.S. military have died fighting for America. General Colin Powell once spoke so eloquently about Cpl. Kareem Khan, a Purple Heart, who had died fighting for America. Let us hope that Major Hasan's dastardly actions do not hurt the careers of the thousands of Kareem Khans proudly serving in U.S. military.

There is nothing that American Muslims can do to prevent such events. But we must now allow them to weaken our resolve to combat extremism, prejudice and ignorance in our society. We must redouble our efforts to continue to share the message of peace, tolerance and pluralism that is fundamental to Islamic believes to our congregations and our communities.

The tragedy at Fort Hood is a major test for Muslims and Americans. They must face the challenge with determination. Muslims must not allow it to force them to recede from the public sphere and from their struggle for understanding, for civil rights and against religious profiling and Islamophobia. Americans must not allow this isolated event to fall back on stereotypes about Islam and resuscitate the prejudices that all of us have worked so hard to curb.

Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and a Fellow of the Institute for Social policy and Understanding.

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WASHINGTON, DC (MASNET) Nov. 6, 2009 – MAS Freedom (MASF), on behalf of and as the civic and human rights advocacy entity of the Muslim American Society (MAS), joins the chorus of American Muslim voices nationwide in condemnation of the tragic attack perpetrated against U.S. military personnel at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, where soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving 13 persons dead and 30 wounded on November 5, 2009.

"As an organization and as Muslim Americans, we stand in condemnation of Thursday's assault in the strongest terms possible," echoed MAS Freedom Executive Director, Mahdi Bray Thursday evening at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

"Let us be cautious, however, in drawing conclusions based on the ethnicity of the perpetrator of this tragic incident. A full investigation, is, of course, underway; however, as in any case, the perpetuation of negativity in such instances often unwittingly serves as an equally unnecessary exacerbation of the atmosphere of hate, violence and Islamophia under which the Muslim community already exists," stated MAS Freedom Executive Director Mahdi Bray.

Bray added, "Indeed this is a national tragedy and our American family is in mourning. Like any family in a time of crisis and tragedy, we will not turn on each other, but rather, toward each other as a source of strength and comfort."

Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Muslim, Virginia-born Army major and psychiatrist, set to be deployed to Iraq, is reported to be responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base; the second shooting incident in recent history at the base this year.

Another shooting incident occurred at Fort Hood on September 8, 2008. Specialist Jody Michael Wirawan, 22, of Eagle River, Alabama, who was scheduled to be discharged, fatally shot 1st Lieutenant Robert Bartlett Fletcher, 24, of Jensen Beach, Florida. When police arrived, Wirawan turned his gun on himself and died on the scene.

An emerging profile indicates that Major Hasan, who, prior to being transferred to Fort Hood six-years ago, served and did his psychiatric internship at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center, may, himself, have suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Major Hasan, whose family members have stated endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years, is further described as a 'mostly very quiet', devoutly religious person, often seen attending prayers at a local mosque in uniform, while stationed in Washington. Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, is reported to have stated that Major Hasan never spoke ill of the military or his country, however, he had expressed hopes that President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and that Major Hasan had been proactively vocal in his opposition to the wars, in addition to having sought legal counsel in working to detach himself from the military.

MAS Freedom continues to urge and support its ongoing call for an end to the wars and deployments that have led to numerous severe mental health problems among U.S. soldiers, including mental depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, violence against spouses and family members, in addition to suicide; illnesses that reportedly affect some 20 percent of the troops returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

According to Pentagon figures, Fort Hood has the highest suicide rate over any Army base in the country, with 75 soldiers taking their own lives since 2003; an additional 32 Fort Hood soldiers have reportedly attempted, but thankfully failed, to take their own lives.

The San Antonio News-Express reported last August that the number of suicides at Fort Hood 'has been 26 per 100,000 people from 2006 to 2008, far above the civilian rate of 14.06 per 100,000'. The report further states that in addition to Fort Hood, Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Fort Bragg, North Carolina collectively logged 125 suicides in the same period, for a total of 183 since 2003.

MAS Freedom North Carolina Director Khalilah Sabra stated, "Most soldiers are aware of combat stress reactions from their training and from Army education campaigns. Reportedly, over 70 percent of soldiers have complained of war-related stress and have sought help for serious problems. These emotional health issues are intensified by long and multiple deployments in places that witness death and the violence of constant combat."

MAS Freedom further calls on our nation's Commander-in-Chief, President Barack Obama, to step-up efforts to insure more effective mental healthcare for soldiers experiencing chronic stress and mental instability as the ongoing campaign for health care reform continues.
Fort Hood commander Lieutenant General Bob Cone, has confirmed that contrary to earlier reports, Major Hasan was not fatally wounded in the incident and is currently in custody and in stable condition.

Also previously reported as being fatally wounded, was a civilian police woman and first responder on the scene, who has received surgical treatment for her injuries and is in stable condition.

A ceremony to honor the dead will take place at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where the bodies have been taken for autopsies.

"As American Muslims we join our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured," stated Bray.

Inquiries or requests for information can be made by contacting MAS Freedom at (202) 552-7414, (703) 642-6165 or 1-888-627-8471 or sending an email to: info @ masfreedom.org.
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ASSOCIATION OF PATRIOTIC ARAB AMERICANS IN MILITARY
"Patriotic Arab Americans Making A Difference"

STATEMENT ON FORT HOOD SHOOTINGS FROM ASSOCIATION OF PATRIOTIC ARAB AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY

At a time of deep sorrow in the midst of this horrific tragedy, our thoughts are first and foremost with the Fort Hood shooting victims and their families. One can only imagine the unspeakable pain and loss they are and will be dealing with in the weeks, months and years to come.

It is unfortunate that whatever demons possessed Nidal Hasan, that he chose to deal with his problems in this way.

In the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, it is more important than ever that we not make the same scapegoating and broad stroke mistakes that were evident in the aftermath of previous tragedies.

The Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military urges the media, government officials and all of our fellow Americans to recognize that the actions of Hasan are those of a deranged gunman, and are in no way representative of the wider Arab American or American Muslim community.

In fact, thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honorably everyday in all four branches of the U.S. military and in the National Guard. Additionally, many of us have willingly stepped forward to fulfill our duty with our fellow soldiers in both Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations around the globe for the defense of our national security, including most of the member of APAAM. Indeed, many of us are today currently deployed in both countries, honorably serving each and every day.

The Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military (APAAM) was created shortly after September 11th, 2001, in an effort to organize current and former Arab- Americans in the military to highlight the service and contributions dating back to the Revolutionary War. There are approximately 3,500 Arab- Americans serving in our Armed Forces.