Muslims Raise Money To Rebuild Burnt Churches

A group of Muslim friends have raised money to rebuild the eight churches that were burnt in the wake of the shooting in Charleston, USA.

Fatimah Knight, one of the organisers, said she and her Muslim friends felt the pain that members of the churches felt. She explained that the stories of Muslims and blacks in America were connected.

“We wanted to show that as a Muslim community, their pain did not go unnoticed by us—that we did, if fact, feel deeply for their loss,

“The Muslim community and the Black community are connected in integral ways, one cannot tell the story of one in America without telling the story of the other. We hope that these churches might stand tall again as a testament to the power of human goodness over human vileness and to one day be a place where God’s name is oft-remembered.”

NBC News reports that the group used a Muslim-run funding platform to raise $20,000, which is about N4 million, in two and a half days. Knight said they hoped to use “the notoriously generous Ramadan spirit that is infectious among Muslims this time of year.”

Knight’s family had earlier raised money through  a platform“From Muslims to Emmanuel AME Church, with love‘, after the Charleston shooting.

Some of the churches were burned in arson attacks, although others caught fire accidentally, including being struck by lightning.

On June 17 a white gunman opened fire at a historic black church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, USA, killing nine people before fleeing.