Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2016/09/11/911-tragedy-remembered-rochester/90016344/

the doors opened at the Baitun Naseer Mosque, housed in an inconspicuous structure on East Main Street in Rochester. For the sixth straight year, the mosque was hosting a Muslims for Life blood drive, part of a nationwide effort by the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community to give back.

“On 9/11, other people took blood and killed. This is the flip side. We are giving blood to help people live,” said Daud Munawar, a member of the community and a donor.

Said Mubarak Bashir, the mosque’s outreach director: “The Quran says if you save one life it is as if you have saved all of mankind.”

The Ahmadiyyah community is worldwide and was established in this country nearly a century ago. It is a branch of Islam that very publicly rejects terrorism and jihad and embraces human rights, separation of church and state and a peaceful attitude toward all.

The mosque’s iman, Hamid Malik, whose area of responsibility extends to Connecticut, helped address a situation where an angry, intoxicated neighbor fired shots at the Ahmadiyyah mosque in Meriden, Connecticut, last year.

Ahmadiyyah community members forgave the man, spoke on his behalf at his trial. Though he was convicted and is now serving time, the man admitted he erred out of fear and “is now our friend,” Malik said.

The blood drive is open to all and always attracts a number of non-Muslims, Bashir said. Penfield Town Supervisor Tony LaFountain stopped by Sunday to donate for the fourth year in a row, saying the event was “a great thing for the community.”

Last year the Rochester mosque collected 31 units of blood and the larger Ahmadiyyah community in America, working with the Red Cross and other places of worship, gathered 55,000 units of blood at 200 sites in 2015, Malik said.

“Giving blood is one way to act out our teachings,” he said.

In different ways, the events and losses of Sept. 11, 2001, where honored all over the Rochester area. At the University of Rochester, the… continue reading at source mentioned above.