Islam: The Best Deal.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.
Just after spending one month in the Kingdom, where he was treated with kindness in a spiritual atmosphere, American businessman and pilot Richard Patterson, converted to Islam.
Richard, who is now called Abdulaziz, owns a company providing services in critical care. It has a capital of $50 million, and a fleet of two aircraft and two helicopters, specializing in medical flights.
Abdulaziz arrived in the Kingdom on a contract with the Saudi Red Crescent to train students for air emergency. During his stay, three members of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance invited him out for dinner. The members who worked with the “Guide Me to Islam” project, talked to Abdulaziz about Islam and it’s real essence.
“I came to the Kingdom for a commercial deal. I was so thrilled to make the best deal of my life with God Almighty by converting to Islam,” said Abdulaziz, during the conversion ceremony, commending the Saudi attire and describing it as comfortable and beautiful.
When Abdulaziz was in his country, he used to hear negative things about Islam through media channels, which were aimed at distorting its image.
“Just reading about Islam is not enough to understand Islam. It’s meeting people who best represent it and reflect its true spirit,” said Abdulaziz. He considers himself lucky to discover through Muslim friends he met and dealt with in the Kingdom that Islam is a religion of righteousness and tolerance. “Muslims and Saudis are kind, humble and open to others,” said Abdulaziz, adding that he felt they were like family to him, and never experienced alienation or ill treatment from their side.
What attracted Abdulaziz the most to the Saudi society is that it is religious. That helps people relate to religion as a part of their daily life. “I wish I could bring all my colleagues to the Kingdom to experience what I have and change their viewpoints on Islam,” he said.
Abdulaziz called upon fellow Muslim businessmen to work on attracting foreign businessmen to Islam, accusing them of not taking serious initiatives to call their peers to this glorious religion. “We can provide books on Islam to delegates during business meetings which help present true image of Islam to others,” said Abdulaziz.
Teacher and scholar Esam Abdul Razzaq, who translated for Abdulaziz, said that celebrities and key figures play a greater role in their societies in projecting a certain image. “Successful people have a credibility among members of their society, as they are considered important. Therefore, when they choose to convert to Islam, they trigger curiosity in others, who in turn, want to know more about this religion,” said Abdul Razzaq.
Arab News.

Palestine Non-Existent For American Red Cross.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

The American Red Cross was hosting a blood drive at my university today so a friend and I stopped by. I would find out an hour later that my identity as a Palestinian was unverifiable.

Before donating any blood, nurses drew a blood sample and, following standard procedure, asked me a series of questions about my medical and travel history. When asked if I had traveled out of the United States within the last three years, I told the nurse that I had spent time in the Gaza Strip in Palestine. She couldn’t find it in the database.

For the next fifteen minutes, the nurse searched every plausible variation of the words Palestine and Gaza and even searched entire geographical regions.

“I remember seeing it there before,” she told me just as she called a field office for technical support.

By this time, she had committed the details of my travels to memory. “The donor flew to Cairo and took a four hour car ride to Gaza, in Palestine. He stayed there for four weeks and then returned, by car, to Cairo.”

The call lasted for quite a while. The nurse was put on hold repeatedly as managers on the other end of the line searched for themselves.

After just under an hour of waiting, the Red Cross’s support line instructed the nurse to list my travel destination as Israel. I had finally been verified to donate blood — but only at the expense of my own personal, cultural, ethnic, and political identity.

According to the nurse, the Red Cross updated the software system used by its mobile units a few months ago. One of its changes apparently includes the removal of Palestine from its database of international travel destinations.

I doubt that the Red Cross no longer recognizes Palestine or its people but in today’s climate, when Presidential hopefuls liberally deny Palestine’s existence and international news agencies such as the BBC actively defend their censorship of the word Palestine, I’d be hard-pressed to rule this conclusion out completely.

The Red Cross has an extensive history of working with the Ramallah-based Palestine Red Crescent Society (equivalent to the American Red Cross) and has even gone as far as pledging financial support to hospitals in Gaza. This non-recognition is therefore rather surprising. But it is also quite telling of how far reaching the effects of an illegal occupation can be.http://smpalestine.com/2012/02/08/american-red-cross-erases-palestine-from-database/