Do Arab Christians Pray To Allah

Going green Islamic way

From almost last one decade you have been propagating environmental responsibilities and linking it with faith. What inspired you for the noble cause?

My life as a Muslim has always centered around the environment. The first moment I remember connecting Islam to the environment was as a five-year-old, when my father took me to Bear Mountain — a gorgeous natural preserve about 90 miles north of New York City. Before going to Bear Mountain, my entire world was Brooklyn — concrete buildings, concrete streets, concrete everywhere. I was used to praying at home or in a mosque.

But when we arrived at Bear Mountain and began hiking — observing the trees, the streams, the moss growing on rocks, my father stopped and directed me to pray Asr with him. He cleared an area of leaves and branches and faced towards Makkah. I was confused, thinking that one can only pray indoors. That is when my father relayed the Hadith, “The Earth is a Mosque.” He continued to explain to me that one can pray anywhere, that Allah has created the entire world to be a place of worship for Him. From that day onward, I realised that loving Allah included loving His entire creation.

What is the connection between your religious and professional life?
Professionally, I come from an organising background, working in social justice, with people of colour and young people. Woven through all my various jobs and along my entire career path has been a love of the planet. Today, I am an adviser of environmental policy to the City of New York, helping to ensure that the next 20 years of infrastructure planning that is done in the city is done so with sustainability in mind.
The connection between my religious and professional life is this — my world is first and foremost centered around being Muslim. Being Muslim to me means praising Allah and loving His entire creation. All aspects of my life — including my career — are for the sake of Allah.

One Nation No Longer Under God, by Gadi Adelman

On June 23, 2011 I released a four and half minute video “ Gadi Adelman On God ”. The video concentrated on the fact that during the PGA U.S. Open on television, NBC had played the “Pledge of allegiance” on two occasions; however both times it was played they edited out the words “under God”.

It seems to be more and more common these days in the U.S. for the word “God” or any reference to religion to be removed. Just this past June, American Thinker reported about a ban on the word God at military funerals,

The director of the Houston VA National Cemetery, Arleen Ocasio, has ordered the burial teams to instruct that religious references, as well as prayer, are no longer to be included as part of the burial services. Requests for messages or prayers can be formally submitted for her approval, but the mention of “God” is not allowed.

Ocasio has also ordered the closing of the cemetery chapel, which used to be available for grieving family and friends to gather and pray. The space is now used to conduct personnel meetings, and for storage.

It seems that we as a Nation have become some so politically correct that in order not to offend the non-believers we have actually made God a four letter word.

The Pew Research Center conducted an extensive nationwide survey in 2007 of more than 35,000 adults (age 18 and older) in the U.S. The Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that 83.1% of Americans believe in God and consider themselves to be affiliated with a religious group, while only 16.1% say they are unaffiliated .The other 0.8% either didn’t know or refused to answer.

I somehow doubt that those numbers have changed drastically over the last 4 years. I also doubt that the overwhelming majority of 83% of Americans are very pleased that the minority of 16% are able to dictate whether or not prayer or the word God should be allowed at certain venues.

There are some places where prayer or the word God are expected to be heard, you know, places of worship, funerals or memorial services. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect some type of spiritual reflection at a memorial service.

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