Date Posted: Friday, September 09, 2005

Alan Cooperman and Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post

September 9, 2005

With the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop, Muslim groups made a $1 million donation yesterday to hurricane relief efforts and said a portion of the money would be used to provide hot meals to all the survivors in the Houston convention center on Sept. 11.

Mahdi Bray, head of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, said the choice of Sept. 11 was not made by the Muslim donors, but rather was assigned to them by relief coordinators in Houston.

"Believe it or not, they pulled the date out of a hat," Bray said, adding that "some members of our community at first felt queasy about it." Because of the backlash against U.S. Muslims that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, there was some concern that perhaps the date had been chosen "to humiliate us." But Bray said he argued against such "paranoia."

"I think there's not a better way to honor the memory of those who lost their lives through the dastardly terrorist attack that took place on Sept. 11 than to take care of those who are here, suffering now as a result of Hurricane Katrina," he said.

In a ceremony yesterday on a terrace of the Cannon House Office Building, Bray and Ahmad El-Bendary, president of Islamic Relief USA, hoisted a giant check for $1 million. It was made out to the Healing Hands Project, an interfaith group that is caring for evacuees in Houston.

El-Bendary, who flew in from the charity's headquarters in Burbank, Calif., said the money had been collected before the disaster. "Emergencies don't wait" for fundraising, he said. Since Katrina struck, however, a broad array of U.S. Muslim groups, including the Islamic Society of North America, have collectively pledged to raise at least $10 million.

"A million dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to what is going to be needed, but we're glad to do it, and we hope to raise more," Bray said.

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