Islam encompasses the concepts of community service in its morals. Showing kindness to people and charity to the poor are the most emphasized moral virtues in the Qur’an.
Therefore, Polish Muslim Maciej Szczęsnowicz did not have a second thought when he saw migrants for the first time at the border, hungry and exhausted.
The chairman of the local Muslim community in the eastern Polish village of Bohoniki immediately decided to collect clothing and prepare food for them, ABC reported.
“It’s the sound of the crying and screaming of the children,” he said. “It’s the worst thing.”
For months, a growing number of migrants have been trying to slip through Poland’s eastern border from Belarus, hoping to make their way toward Western Europe.
With a buildup of forces on the border, Szczęsnowicz is also helping to feed soldiers and other service people.
On Saturday, Szczęsnowicz and other volunteers were preparing a large pot of steaming chicken and vegetable soup for soldiers and migrants.
“We are supposed to help everybody who entered the Polish border. Everybody, yes, because they are human,” he said.
With nine deaths reported on the borders so far, Szczęsnowicz hopes the migrants’ situation could be settled before the winter.
He fears that “here will simply be more deaths.”
According to a 2015 estimate, Muslims in Poland are estimated to number between 25,000 to 40,000 people, i.e. 0.1% of the population. They are composed of some 5,000 Lipka Tatars as well as more numerous recent immigrants.
The majority of Muslims in Poland are Sunni.