Carter Henman
chenman@uwyo.edu
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) serves Muslim students and community members through activism, educational events and community building.
Omar Alrasheed is a senior at the University of Wyoming and MSA’s treasurer and is originally from Saudi Arabia.
“Our main goal is to educate people about actual, real, trying-our-best-to-do-so Islam,” Alrasheed said. “Showing our willingness to cooperate and help the community, the university and everybody.”
MSA meets these goals through events and activities on campus that raise awareness about Islam. For example, last month, they set up a tent in Prexy’s Pasture and invited anybody who was willing to come enjoy Turkish sweets, coffee and learn about Islam.
In the past, the group has also organized Islamic Awareness Week every fall, which includes daily activities and closes with a dinner and guest lecturer. Alrasheed said they’ve decided to postpone it until the spring semester this year.
Youness Alim is a Fulbright scholar from Morocco who receives a grant to help him pursue his education at UW while teaching Arabic to undergraduate students on campus. He is heavily involved with the MSA.
“It’s a good opportunity for some Americans, who have never met a Muslim before,” Alim said. “This exposure gives them much more information than they can get from the media.”
President Mohammed Okok said that the MSA is planning on hosting a guest lecturer from Colorado at the end of this month, which will give a talk on issues related to Islam. UW students as well as community members are welcome to attend, and yes, there will be snacks.
Alrasheed said the group is applying to receive financial support for the event from the ASUW Funding Board, which reviews funding requests from RSOs on a weekly basis.
“We have great support from ASUW,” Alrasheed said. “Last year, on very short notice, they funded us with five or six thousand dollars; it’s the usual support, but I’m very impressed.”
That money was used to host a dinner last fall to celebrate Eid al-Adha, a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world.
“We had a speaker, we had dinner and we had over 300 guests in the ballroom,” Alrasheed said. “That was really fun for us.”
Alrasheed said that the MSA is not only dedicated to serving the UW student body, but in the past they’ve had Muslims from Cheyenne, Buffalo and Riverton at their events.
MSA Secretary Suleyman Naqshband was born in Afghanistan, though he and his family have lived in the U.S. for 18 years. He has a PhD in water engineering and is a post-doctoral researcher in the department of Geology, where he focuses on particle tracking technologies.
“Before coming here I looked them up and I was very happy that I could meet people from my own religion and my own culture,” Naqshband said.
The MSA helps to build and sustain a Muslim community on campus that can provide individuals with crucial interpersonal support networks in an environment where many people may be ignorant of Islamic religious and cultural traditions.
Naqshband said the group has also been very busy advocating for UW to make an interfaith prayer room available on campus.
“ASUW is working very hard for us to get there,” Naqshband said. “They’ve put out a motivation letter to bring it to the attention of the Dean of Students.”
“Universities neighboring us, like CSU, all have some kind of facility for, not only Muslim people, but people in general who want just want to meditate,” Naqshband said. “This kind of thing, we don’t have it here, which is surprising.”
This initiative might have a major impact on the university’s ability to compete with other schools in recruiting Muslim students.
“Practicing Muslims look for a university that has a prayer room, because we have to pray!” Naqshband said. “That weighs much, much more than the rank of the university.”
