Group gives insight on Islam
 By
Emily Baldauf
Senior Writer
Attending Purdue was a dream come true for sophomore
Aida Ahmud.
"I have dreamed about coming to the United
States to study all of my life," said the student in the School
of Technology.
Like many international students, Ahmud, from Malaysia,
had a lot to adjust to when coming to Purdue.
She had to cope with being homesick, learning a
new city and adjusting to cold weather for the first time.
But one of the biggest challenges for Ahmud was
incorporating her Islamic religion into her new life.
For Ahmud, and many Muslims, her religion is a
major part of her lifestyle. Little things that she had once taken for
granted were suddenly very different.
She now has to order her meat from a special butcher
in Chicago; she has to explain many times to people why she needs to
pray five times a day; and she endures stares when she wears her head
scarf to class.
However, Ahmud was able to find solutions to these
problems and the support she needed at Purdue’s Muslim Discussion
Group.
Every other week, Ahmud and about 35 other students
come together to hear a video lecture. They break once for prayer, and
then return to talk about the lecture.
Although the students are there to learn more about
Islam, they are there for another, more pressing reason.
They are seeking answers to the questions they
have to struggle with every day.
Typical questions include: Where can I pray with
other Muslims? How can I get my classes scheduled so they don’t
conflict with my prayer schedule? And how do I answer typical questions
from non-Muslims?
In their two-hour session, the members of the group
share their knowledge with one another. And over time, for many students,
it becomes easier to be a Muslim on Purdue's campus.
The group is not only for international students
who have been Muslim all of their lives; it is also a resource for students
who have recently converted.
For Jon Schuck, Islam was not something he grew
up with. Schuck, a junior in the School of Technology, grew up in Muncie,
Ind., in a Christian family.
A couple of years ago, he became interested in
learning more about Islam from some of his Muslim friends.
"I had no prior knowledge of Islam before,"
Schuck said. "But I ended up finding out it was truly what I believed."
Although he had been a Christian all of his life,
he had always had some conflicting ideas about the religion.
For his parents, the news of his conversion came
as an unexpected change and although his dad was more curious than upset,
his mom took the news harder.
Although religion was at the focus of the issue,
she also had problems with what others would think about her son and
how his new religion would affect their Christian family.
"After a while, I was able to explain my beliefs
to them," he said. "They were eventually happy that I had
my strong beliefs."
He found activities like the Muslim discussion
group made his interactions with the non-Muslims he loved much easier.
Besides being there for Muslim students, the group
also tries to help non-Muslims understand Islam better.
"We really want to educate ourselves within
the group and eliminate the misconceptions others may have," said
Ahmud, who is now president of the organization.
Many of those misconceptions have arisen in recent
weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Although many Muslim students
said they have not experienced any harassment first-hand, they fear
that many students misunderstand their religion.
Group member Atif Mahmood, a senior in the Schools
of Engineering, said, "You can’t just be a Muslim by saying
you are; you need to believe in God in your heart, and if that were
the case with these people (the terrorists), they would not have done
what they did."
The terrorist attacks are an extreme example of
the many times Muslim students have used the group to cope with the
negative misconceptions they face every day as Muslims in America.
But many of the Muslim students appreciate the
rights they have here to practice their religion freely, according to
group member Hafiz Rahmn, a graduate student from Bangladesh.
"This is a wonderful country because everybody
had the right to obey their religion and do their practice," he
said.
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