Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Tries to Rouse the Moderates

June 20, 2008 Wall Street Journal

The school year that just ended brought to the fore a couple of controversies over Muslim students on U.S. campuses. The University of Michigan announced in the fall that it would be spending $25,000 on footbaths for Muslim students. In the spring, Harvard’s decision to provide women-only gym hours to accommodate some members of the campus Islamic society sparked debate in the ivory tower and beyond. Yet away from the often-harsh media glare, a profound shift has begun across the country. Where dogma and conformity once defined the Muslim scene on campus, students with liberal outlooks are emerging to assert their voices on the quad. At some American colleges where the only official Muslim events used to feature gender-segregated seating, new programs are drawing diverse Muslim and non-Muslim participants to explore the complexity of the Muslim community.

Only a half-century ago, there was hardly any Muslim communal presence at American universities. In the 1960s, the Muslim World League, a Saudi charity, funded the establishment of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), initially to support foreign students studying in the U.S. and, according to the organization’s Web site, to advance Da’wah (proselytizing). The MSA established its first chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now can be found on more than 100 campuses across North America.

Critics have challenged the MSA founders’ associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Sunni radical movement (a Brotherhood internal memo from 1991 included the MSA in a list of “organizations of our friends”), and note the MSA’s publication in the 1980s of the writings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, the ultraconservative interpretation of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia. Others have also pointed out some of the more notorious MSA leaders — such as Rutgers MSA co-founder Ramzi Yousef, who is currently imprisoned for helping plan the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

This kind of radicalism does not appeal to most Muslim students, of course, who are simply trying to maintain a connection to their faith while they are at school. Nouri, a sophomore in Boston who asked not to be identified by his full name, recalls an outside imam lecturing his campus MSA about the “great sins” of looking at members of the opposite sex and missing prayers because of classes. “We were at a modern liberal university,” Nouri observes, “listening to an imam who stepped out of the medieval period.” When Muslims on his campus broke Ramadan’s daylight fasts at iftars, separate food lines and tables were set up for men and women.

The result on many campuses is a binary scene, divided between what Nouri calls “hardcore Muslims and cultural Muslims.” More than 70% of Muslim students on campus, he estimates, are not involved with any organized Muslim association.

Yusuf, a senior at George Washington University, notes the anger that surrounded the campus MSA’s decision to partially remove a gender- divider at prayers. “There is a lot of tension between more conservative and more liberal students,” he says. “We need more options for Muslim students, not a monolithic voice.”

It was precisely this need that inspired a group of Washington-area students to establish a new campus initiative last fall. We were young men and women, mostly but not entirely of Muslim background, who decided to create an inclusive space where people of all backgrounds could join together to explore Muslim identity and community. We chose the name Project Nur, adopting the Arabic term for “light” and “enlightenment.”

Some students initially come to Project Nur, an initiative funded by the American Islamic Congress, because of what it rejects — proselytizing and the politicized ambiance dominant in some Muslim groups. But what keeps students engaged is a positive civic agenda of promoting human liberty, spurring genuine interfaith dialogue and addressing identity challenges in the Muslim world and in our local communities. Inspiring professors serve as advisers, and speakers promote an open-minded embrace of American life and creative expression.

Our first activities were multicultural Ramadan iftars, which attracted a wide range of students, including MSA members and non-Muslims, for an open discussion of the holiday. The events recruited hundreds of interested students. By the end of the academic year, more than 1,000 students had joined our mailing list, and seven chapters along the East Coast had organized over 30 events.

One highlight was the first-ever Muslim Film Festival in Boston and Washington, which screened 10 movies around the theme of “think-different” Muslim women. Films included a documentary on a teen world karate champion, a look at Muslim-Jewish relations in 1960s Morocco, and a screening-cum-performance by Senegalese hip-hop artists.

Students also organized protests outside the Saudi and Afghan embassies to demand freedom for young activists jailed in those countries for expressing their opinions. We partnered with Darfur advocacy groups to challenge genocide in the Muslim world and helped organize a concert in solidarity with Iranian rock bands restricted from performing publicly. Many of these activities included non-Muslim participants and co-organizers.

Project Nur reflects the complex identities on campus — including cultural Muslims and students with only one Muslim parent — defying outsiders’ stereotypes and hardliners’ religious dogmas. Responsible leadership, on campus and beyond, is the remedy for the pressing challenges facing the American Muslim community.

Ms. El Horr and Ms. Saeed direct outreach for Project Nur, a student-led initiative of the American Islamic Congress.