BETHLEHEM TWP. — Fifteen years ago, when the Sept. 11 terror attacks happened, Khola Ahmad was in first grade. She remembers a panic among the teachers about some event on television the children weren’t allowed to see.

Ahmad, of Bethlehem, learned soon enough what had happened in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, hearing eyewitness accounts from aunts and uncles who lived in New York and saw the twin towers burning.

Now 21, she was among the people who came out to the Bethlehem Township Community Center to donate blood on Sunday, the 15^th anniversary of the attacks and the sixth year of the Muslims for Life Blood Drive.

It’s the local edition of a national event sponsored by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a 127-year-old international movement that preaches against violent interpretations of Islamic teachings.

The group believes its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a messiah sent by God to end religious wars and bloodshed.

“He abolished the concept of the violent jihad,” said Asad Chaudhry, president of the Lehigh Valley chapter of the community. “He was persecuted by Muslims of his time, because he said it was not in the Quran.”

The national drive has collected about 40,000 units of blood since it was established on the 10^th anniversary of the attacks. Farid Ahmad,… read more at source mentioned above.