Toronto, Canada : The Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at the University of Toronto (UoT) hosted last week the Annual Islam Awareness Week at the campus, The Varsity (University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper) reported. The event included lectures, coffee houses, and a night of the Islamic arts.
Islam Awareness Week is being held annually at the university since a decade. Several other university campuses across North America are also holding the week.
Dalia Hashim, Muslim Students’ Association vice-president, external at University of Toronto (Courtesy: IINA)
The theme for this year’s week was #WithMuslims and #AgainstHate, and it was designed to reflect the week’s goal of promoting awareness of Islamic knowledge and principles.
According to Dalia Hashim, MSA vice-president, external, Islam Awareness Week encourages the UoT community to engage with Muslim students and learn about the religion through Muslims rather than through the media.
Bushra Nassab, a third-year student, said Islam Awareness Week is now more important than ever. “During Question Period in Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper indirectly criticized Islam as an ‘anti-women culture.’ This small comment speaks about the unfortunate rise of Islamophobia that we are witnessing in Canada, and it is crucial that we have weeks like Islam Awareness Week to show non-Muslims what Islam is all about,” says Nassab.
“We need to show people that the religion is in fact a peaceful religion, and we should not define our perceptions on Islam based on what groups like ISIS do who most certainly do not represent Islam,” she added.
Noteworthy that the new things to Islam Awareness Week this year was Soul Food, a weekly event hosted by the Muslim Chaplaincy at UoT that offered attendees the chance to visit Muslim prayer spaces on campus.
When asked about what is unique to this year’s Islam Awareness Week, Hashim said that the present climate on campus indicates a need for larger discussions on Islam.
Pointing to recent Islamophobic incidents on university campuses, including the defacing of posters of a Muslim candidate running in the recent Ryerson Students’ Union elections, Hashim says that Islam Awareness Week may be especially needed this year.