Fund raising for mosques

Fund raising for mosques

From Panji Masyarakat

I come across fund collectors carrying charity boxes on the roadsides or on buses in Jakarta almost every day. They mostly come from the outskirts of Jakarta, asking for money from bus passengers to be utilized for mosque construction. They always begin Assalamu'alaikum... we, the committee of the mosque establishment...and so on. This opening phrase has become very familiar to me. Moreover, their number increases by the day.

As a Moslem myself, I am very concerned over this condition. Are the financial matters of our places of worships that bad? Is the Moslem local community so financially incompetent that it has to send alms collectors to beg on the roads and on buses in Jakarta?

I have talked about this matter and my concern with some friends. Shouldn't we feel ashamed of such a reality?

I believe there are institutions which can find the answer to this question. There are several foundations which can address this problem by holding fund-raising activities instead of having collectors moving around in Jakarta.

In this case we have to be efficient in terms of mosque construction. Imagine, one village which already has more than two mosques still wants to build another new mosque, while other districts are short of places of worship. The money received from whatever source should be evenly distributed among areas. We have to exploit the community's potentials as well.

ACHMAD RIDHA

Depok, West Java