The Muslim Students Association (MSA) at the University of Wyoming will be hosting an Islamic awareness week April 4-8.
“Our main goal at MSA is to 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 MSA Bilal Madjour said. “It will help create unity among students, teachers and faculty members and families in the Laramie community.”
MSA is a small student chapter of a larger association in the U.S. and Canada.
“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,” Ahmed Eltouhky, MSA vice president said. “We want all our students and faculty members to come learn and share their ideas.”
The week will be commenced by the flower distribution, in the Union Breezeway from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
“It is an old tradition that MSA has been doing, which we have been doing in other chapters and campuses as well,” Madjour said. “We will be giving 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. We also want people to know about our events and helped them get involved.”
On Thursday, MSA will be having a panel discussion in the business auditorium, from 5:15-7 p.m., led by Hamid Rakhshi and Nisley Arshi, members of the MSA. They will be speaking on the topic ‘The Islamic Perspective on Women.’
“They are one of the organizers of [the] Women[‘s] March in Wyoming,” Madjour said. “They will be trying to cover all topics under the discussion, ‘The Islamic Perspective on Women.’ They will be talking about Islam in the 21st Century, growing up as a Muslim, the [importance] of advocating for Islam here in the U.S. and other various topics.”
On Friday they will host a community appreciation day, open to all for a prayer at noon at the Islamic Center of Laramie.
Following the prayer, we will have a dinner at 6:30 p.m. in the Islamic Center as well,” Elthouky said. “The food we are serving will be Arabic food and volunteers from our community are going to help us cook and serve it.”
Then MSA will end the week on Sunday with their Islamic Awareness Dinner. The doors open at 7 p.m. and their keynote speaker for the night is Samah Safi, a filmmaker from Washington D.C.
“Samah Safi is a filmmaker and producer and she is also an advocate speaker for Muslims in social media,” Madjour said. “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 U.S. is changing towards minorities.”
This will be followed by a Middle Eastern dinner catered by the restaurant Ali Baba in Denver. Dinner tickets can be picked up at the Union Information Desk April 5 and 6.
“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.”
