By Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent
BAGHDAD, July 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Against a backdrop of towering unemployment rates and appalling living conditions under the US-led occupation, Sunni bodies and charities are championing a matrimonial service to help youth tie the knot.
The Sunni Waqfs, one of the leading Sunni bodies in Iraq, in association with Al-Afaf (modesty) charity have allocated 750,000 dinars ($500) for each of a total of 500 couples, who once feared that having a family had become a far-fetched dream in occupied Iraq.
"We just wanted to bring a smile to the faces of desperate Iraqis and give them hope that a new Iraq is on the horizon," Waqfs chairman Adnan Al-Delemi told a ceremony held in Abu Hanifa mosque in Al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad, celebrating the ambitious and successful project.
"It started with granting 100 youths money to help them get married and now we have 500 couples whose dreams have finally come true," he added enthusiastically.
Delimi said that 500 more couples will be married on Rajab 27 on the occasion of Al-Israa’ and Al-Mi`raj [the night journey from Makkah to Al-Quds and the ascent to the Heavens by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)].
The ceremony also saw generous donations from benevolent Iraqis amounting to some 1.4 million dinars.
Delimi further thanked Iraqi President Jalal Talabani for supporting the matrimonial service with $100,000.
Other Woes
After US-backed successive sweeps that mainly targeted Sunni areas and wiped off smiles of people’s faces, Delimi said they will further help widows, orphans and handicapped Iraqis.
He added that one and a half million dinars ($1000) will be earmarked to each widow when getting married again.
Many Iraqi widows and wives of prisoners and unemployed Iraqis have been forced to seek inferior jobs, like housemaids, to make ends meet.
With doctors putting the number of Iraqis, including children, maimed by random US raids at thousands, the Sunni Waqfs has spent so far some 350 million dinars ($225,000) in an effort to rehabilitate and ease the sufferings of the handicapped.
Iraqi mosques and charity organizations have also been channeling Zakah money into productive projects to help provide for the poor and generate jobs for the unemployed, in line with fatwas allowing the practice.
As unemployment hit the scary mark of 65% according to unofficial statistics, job opportunities have become the overriding concern of many Iraqis.
Economic experts have said that the US occupation of Iraq has left some 10 million Iraqis in both the private and public sectors jobless.