The last event of Islam Awareness Week took place at noon on Thursday. Members of the Muslim Students’ Association handed out 96 goody bags to students in the Brickyard. This is the fourth event in a series open to all NC State students for the purpose of spreading awareness about Islam on campus.
Maria Arfeen, the outreach director for MSA and a senior studying nutrition science, spoke about what inspired the idea of this last event.
“Honestly, we just wanted to do something nice for people,” Arfeen said. “We decided to call it Random Acts of Kindness because it’s a really common title, and people would generally get the idea of what we’re doing. We realize it’s really close to finals, so we made goody bags with a highlighter and a pencil, candy and a small quote.”
Quotes found in the goody bags included information about Islam and life advice that included phrases about love and spiritual wealth.
According to Arfeen, this gesture was well-received by students as they smiled and said thank you, and it serves as an important reminder for students to be considerate of others around them.
“I think it is important to be kind to everyone, and I think it’s a lesson that’s been lost throughout the ages,” Arfeen said. “I feel like particularly in our society, we’re really self-focused because there’s so much stuff going on. Almost every single person on campus is focused on getting a job, making a life really good for themselves, and often times we forget to care and to be kind to the people around us.”
Yaqeen Jabir, a senior studying sociology, thought the event was nice and said he enjoyed it.
“It was good to show a different side of us,” Jabir said. “People don’t usually view us in a positive manner, so it’s kind of good to combat what people think and show them that we’re regular students as well. We aren’t different, we’re helping out. What you see in the media doesn’t represent us.”
Safi Ahmed, a senior studying computer science, did not attend the event; however, he found it important for raising awareness about minority groups.
“I think we still have a lot of work to do,” Ahmed said. “Certain groups of minorities are viewed improperly because of the way the media portrays those minorities, and this is a nice way to show that people that look that way, we generally are just like you.”
Sinthia Shabnam, a sophomore studying political science, emphasized the message behind Islam Awareness Week, and added that everyone has a differing set of beliefs, and that MSA is trying to spread awareness and respect of differences betweens students through making friendships.
“We’re not trying to convert people,” Shabnam said. “This idea of religious groups trying to just convert people, it just has to go. We generally just want to outreach beyond our student organization because what tends to happen with activists in student organizations is we get so involved with leadership within our own organization that we never get to outreach to something else, and we never get to learn about someone else. So, it’s very important for people who are in these student organizations to reach out to others.”
According to Shabnam, members of MSA helped Mi Familia, a Latino student organization on campus, by calling state representatives regarding discriminatory policies and mass-immigration laws in an effort to show that despite cultural differences, students can support each other and provide help in similar struggles.
“Being able to find that we have so much more in common than you think, and being able to show that ‘hey, we all just want to be friends,’ and we want to allow our identities to be unifying and defying, and that is the most important thing, I would say, we do in MSA,” Shabnam said. “We want everyone to feel included, everyone to feel important, and everyone to feel that we can be friends no matter who you are or where you’re from.”
For more information about other Islam Awareness Week events, check out Technician’s coverage of Fast-A-Thon, Prayer on the Lawn and the Art Expo.
