The MSA hosts a series of events to spread knowledge and awareness
The University of Guelph is celebrating Islam Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is the Golden Age of Islam, which includes a celebration of the contributions made by Muslims in the realms of science, art, engineering, architecture, and other aspects of society.
The events being held at the U of G are hosted by the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and will consist of a lineup of guest speakers and weeklong exhibits in the UC Courtyard.
On Monday, Feb. 8, 2016, The Ontarion had the opportunity to speak to both Amreen Kadwa and Amatulraheem Al-Abassi, who are members of the MSA, as well as students, at the University of Guelph.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…we are all representing ourselves as human beings in the end.[/pullquote]
When asked about the MSA’s goals, Kadwa responded that their “main goal is to just put up a positive image of Islam and really invite everyone in the university, Muslim or not.”
“The better view of Muslims, who are Muslims,” added Al-Abassi. “Because media nowadays is giving a misconducting image about Islam so they don’t know, really, what Islam is. So this lets us present ourselves as undergrad and grad Muslim students, and lets people know more about Islam—what it is in reality. Everything we have here is basically representing that.”
Kadwa also pointed out that “being on a university campus, a lot of students are educated about history and science and this event is just bringing it together and filling that missing gap of information that just isn’t portrayed through [the] media,” to which Al-Abassi added: “All of this happens in an environment of multicultural students, which is good. So combining all cultures, all religions—we are all representing ourselves as human beings in the end.”
This year’s theme creates an opportunity for members of the university community to explore Islamic history and learn about contributions that are often left out of Western history.
“Islamic Awareness Week [is] an event that happens every year with a different theme,” explained Al-Abassi. “This year’s theme is about Islamic scientific discoveries from the Golden Ages to [today]. This is a perspective about Islam that all historical people know and all politicians know, however, local people in society don’t know about the Islamic discoveries. So we let this happen to give them this idea or this image about Islams and Muslims that is not commonly known.”
U of G’s Islam Awareness Week events run from February 8 to 12, 2016, and includes a main exhibition that runs all week, as well as a Women’s Exhibition, a screening of a documentary called Science and Islam, and discussions led by guest speakers Amjad Tarsin, Hamza Tzortzis, and Mohamed Ghilan.