Islam Awareness Week 2019

The commencement of Carleton University’s Islam Awareness week has officially begun this week, despite the tragic and polarizing mosque shooting that took place in New Zealand last week Friday.

Muslim Student Association (MSA) volunteer and Carleton University student, Warda Saleh, explained some of the activities and booths that would be occurring all week, from March 18 to March 22.

“We are doing a bake sale to raise funds for the Yemen famine crisis, we also have Qur’ans given out for free with the translations… we also have a henna and calligraphy table. We have the hijab if you want to try on the hijab for a day, some of them have donated their hijabs, so if you want to take it home with you, you’re most welcome to,” said Saleh.

The event however did manage to pull together a small tribute for the 50 Muslim worshippers who lost their lives in the massacre with a small display of the New Zealand flag and a poster calling on attendees of the event to stand with them for a moment of silence for #ChristChurch.

Dr. Reda Bedeir, international scholar and speaker of Islamic Studies, who also volunteered to be an advisor and educator at the event, said “Man is the enemy of the unknown... If we raise awareness amongst people, we will stop those ignorant people for doing those foolish acts. It breaks my heart every time I think of someone prostrating in the house of God, only for somebody to come in and kill them.”

Bedeir was referring to the act of laying oneself flat on the ground, facing downward, especially in reverence or submission, to pray, which many of the Muslims were doing before losing their lives in the terrorist attack in New Zealand.

“An event like this is very important to spread knowledge about the faith of Islam so that everybody on campus will know and they won’t come up with their own preconceived ideas about Islam,” added Bedeir.

In fact, clarifying misconceptions about Islam was an integral aspect of Islam Awareness week for many volunteers, as well as a secondary theme, in a way, to the events official theme which was ‘the beloved prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him’.

“Not everyone is courageous enough to come and approach people and ask these questions, sometimes they have those misconceptions and they’re too afraid to approach a person and ask for clarification and not feel judged… we try to have an open, safe space for everyone, to have discussions and allow them to speak and ask their questions, which we do our best to answer,” said Saleh.

Fourth year political science student at Carleton and co-organizer of the event, Eric Tibbetts, noted that the planning of Islam awareness week begins essentially as soon as the last one ends, with the logistics of co-ordinators as well as the approximately 120 volunteers being selected from August of the previous year.

“Each year there’s usually a different hot topic, like this year it’s more of an anti-immigration issue that’s going around especially geared towards Muslims… we’ve seen in the last 2 years a huge rise in hate crimes towards Muslims, even in Canada,” said Tibbetts.

Hate crimes against religion accounted for 41% of all hate crime in Canada in 2017 and the number of such hate crimes was up significantly from 2016.

There were 842 hate crimes targeting religious groups in 2017, up 83% from the previous year, with those against the Muslim population reporting the greatest rise, according to a Statistics Canada report.

Other aspects of the event were much more cheerful and centered around educating the general public about the art, culture and faith of Islam.

“The Muslim community is extremely diverse, like we have people from all over Africa, the middle East, Asia, South America, there’s pretty much not one country that’s not represented. So, as the Muslim community started to grow at Carleton, it became a bigger and bigger event until it’s now the biggest event on campus and it just happened through communication and friendship,” said floor plan director and first year neuroscience and mental health student at Carleton, Ayah Gahelrasoul.

“We advertised as much as we possibly could to raise awareness and let people know that anyone can join: Muslims, non-Muslims, guys, girls, it’s for everyone. We actually have a few non-Muslim with us right now that are actually volunteering” she added.