Muslim Man in DC Helps Feed Hungry on a Grand Scale

By TMO Staff

NBC Washington has reported, in this video (http://muslimobserver.com//?p=7621), that a wealthy Muslim businessman is feeding many of the homeless people in Washington DC.

An estimated 6,000 homeless people live on the streets of DC, and 365 days a year the Salvation Army provides mobile meals 6 times a night at places around the city.  The Salvation Army mobile meals program costs about $125,000 per year, and it is funded in large part by a Muslim man,  Lakani Haas.

Haas, who earned millions in oil and gas, has over the past two years given about $250,000 to the Salvation Army’s DC mobile meals program to help feed homeless people.

Haas grew up in Egypt but his family is originally from Pakistan, and he says one thing in Egypt that had a profound effect on his thinking through his life was seeing the “great pharoah, who had his hands raised like this–he didn’t take anything.”

But he said that it was his mother’s teachings, in his motherland of Pakistan, that set him on the path he is now on–”she insisted that he share,” explained the NBC report.

Lakani explained that “There’s 1.5, 1.6 billion Muslims, and not all of us are the ones who put a gun on you and say “my way or the highway.”

Said Major Steve Morse of the Salvation Army, who works in the mobile meals program, “People are getting fed, based on his dollar.”

“I believe in the spirit of sharing, the spirit of tolerance,” said Mr. Haas.

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