IOWA STUDENTS SPREAD ISLAM AWARENESS
Iowa, 28 Rabi’ul Akhir 1436/18 February 2015 (MINA) – Amid increasing attacks targeting Muslims, Iowa Muslim student association decided to offer a glimpse of their faith to their colleagues, holding their first Islam awareness week to bring students closer to their life.
“With all the issues going on in the news, with Muslims and Islam in general, we want to try to make the gap smaller between what people think they know and what is actually going on,” Moustafa Ibrahim, the president of the Muslim Student Association, told The Daily Iowan on Tuesday, February 17.
“[And] bring some closure to some unanswered questions that people might have on campus,” On Islam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
The event, held this week, will include a series of activities to raise awareness and understanding of Islam on campus. Starting on Monday, the Iowa University Muslim Student Association (MSA) held Islam Expo in the UI Main Library to offer answers about Islam to curious students.
The questions tackled different topics ranging from the Five Pillars of Islam to Islam and science and Islam and marriage. “I have a lot of friends who aren’t Muslim who have questions continuously about something they heard or something they don’t understand,” said Muslim Student Association Vice President Noha Karim.
“We just want people to understand what our views are about and why we have them.”
Other events held throughout the week include a “Hijab It Up” event on Tuesday, in which non-Muslim women will be invited to try wearing a hijab for a day. Later on, they will attend a panel on the issue.
Although the main purpose of the week is education and awareness, Karim said, bringing people together is also very important. “We also want to get the Muslim community together more,” she said.
“Everyone is so busy with everything going on, so it’s nice every once in a while to have these events where you see more Muslim faces around.”
Inspiring
The events of the week drew many visitors who found it a rewarding experience. “It was actually really cool, a bunch of people explaining how their religion exists to them,” Iowa City resident Leiden Cervantes, an atheist, said.
“It’s a lot easier than reading the creeds online where it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK, this is what it’s about,’ but what do people actually believe in their day-to-day lives?”
Cervantes said he will most likely attend some of the group’s future events, including an “Around the World With Abrahamic Faiths” panel on April 9.
Moreover, Muslim students found it relieving to share information about their faith with their community. “It’s not guaranteed that you’re going to have a Muslim classmate or people who are understanding of you,” UI junior Asaju Walker, a newly converted Muslim, said.
“For me, personally, it’s helping me see these faces, so when I see them in other settings I know they’re a Muslim person, or they’re there to build that friendship or community and hopefully, have it continue throughout the year.”
Amid the success of their first event, Muslim students acknowledged they have lots of work to do to fight misconceptions about their faith, especially with the increasing level of Islamphobic attacks.
“We’re all human. We’re all equal, regardless of what you believe or what you don’t believe, or what I believe or what I don’t believe,” Karim said.
“That shouldn’t get in the way of treating people as humans with justice and being more sympathetic and being more open to knowing people.” (P/P011/P3)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
