WYOMING – The Muslim Students Association at the University of Wyoming, western US, have initiated an Islamic awareness week to be held between April 4-8.
“We bring our community together and help the practices of our religion and all our cultures and traditions, which will give us a base to have a better understanding and enrich the culture and diversify our community,” President of the association, Bilal Madjour told UW Branding Iron.
“It will help create unity among students, teachers and faculty members and families in the Laramie community,” he believes. In fact, the event is very special bearing in mind that Wyoming has an extremely small Muslim population representing as few as 0.13% of the state’s total population.
The association’s Vice president, Ahmed Eltouhky, expressed that “The purpose of organizing the Islamic Awareness Week is to unite all Muslim students on campus and to share our beliefs and traditions with other community members here at UW.”
“We want all our students and faculty members to come learn and share their ideas,” he continued.
The week has been commenced by the flower distribution; according to Madjour “It’s an old tradition that our association has been doing in other chapters and campuses. We gave away flowers along with quotes from the Qur’an. We think this is a great way to spread awareness about who we are and what we do.”
On April 5, a panel discussion was held by Hamid Rakhshi and Nisley Arshi, members of the association where they spoke about the Islamic perspective on women.
“Both speakers are one of the organizers of the Women‘s March in Wyoming,” Madjour said. “They talked about Islam in the 21st Century, growing up as a Muslim, the importance of advocating for Islam here in the USA.”
Following Events
On Friday, April 6, a community appreciation day will be held, open to all for a prayer at noon in the Islamic Center of Laramie. This will be followed by a dinner.
“The dinner we’re serving will be traditional food from Muslim countries and volunteers from our community are going to help us cook and serve it,” Elthouky explained.
Then association will end the week next Sunday with another Islamic Awareness Dinner. The keynote speaker for that night will be the Muslim Jordanian filmmaker and producer Samah Safi.
“Safi is an advocate speaker for Muslims in American social media,” Madjour explained. “Her topic for the night is ‘Now or Never’ and she is going to be talking about the importance of advocating for Muslims in this politically critical era and how the climate now in the USA is changing towards minorities.”
This will be followed by a Middle Eastern dinner catered by the restaurant Ali Baba of Denver.
“I think this week is a great way for us to bond with our community and share our culture,” Elthouky said. “We hope the students will join us to learn more about who we are and what we do, share and learn ideas and enjoy the delicious food.”