NEW YORK (RNS) — Fahad Kiani knows he is making history by participating in the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses around the city. Over the past few weeks, Kiani, a graduate of the City University of New York, has demonstrated at his alma mater and at Columbia University. But while the heightened police presence and the 24-hour tent encampments dominate news headlines, Kiani found hope when a fellow protester decided to become Muslim just outside Columbia’s gates one night last week.
After reaffirming the young man’s decision, Kiani, 34, found two Muslim witnesses among the protesting crowd and, with bystanders looking on, they together recited the shahada prayer to accept Islam. “La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur rasoolu Allah,” the young man, with a kaffiyeh wrapped around his head, repeated back. Afterward, the two shook hands and embraced.
“It was the best experience of my night,” Kiani, a Pakistani American, said. “That really kind of turned it around from all of the wild hatred I’m seeing around me.”
As some campuses around the country enter a fourth week of student protests against the Israel-Hamas war and demanding that their universities divest financially from Israel, Muslim protesters express a sense of both religious solidarity and cautious unease at the watching world.
Some of the New York Police Department officers patrolling the campus, Kiani notes, wear uniforms bearing the word “counterterrorism.”
It reminded him of how the Prophet Muhammad would facilitate dialogue about Islam. “He would pray, and people would throw garbage at him and block his path,” Kiani said. “He had to just ignore it and be a better person.”
Kiani said his Islamic faith motivates him to be at the protests. Witnessing Muslim students praying and reciting supplications during the protests has continued to inspire him.
“Islam teaches us these values that — if someone is yelling at you and spreading the most vile hatred — just be calm and collective about it,” Kiani said. “When I make my prayers, I’m not just making prayers for myself, but I’m making prayers for the injustice in the world.”
After completing his Friday prayers on May 3, 2024, Fahad Kiani donned a kaffiyeh and reflected on his experience at the Columbia University pro-Palestinian protest. Photo by Dina Katgara
On Monday (May 6), Columbia announced it would not be holding its main commencement ceremony over security concerns. Meanwhile, in California, at least 100 more protesters were arrested at universities across the state, bringing the total number of protesters detained to more than 2,500 at nearly 50 U.S. schools since April 18, according to The New York Times.
The Israel-Hamas war, which has claimed the lives of more than 34,000 in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, has become a flashpoint of both religious and political tension in the U.S. On college campuses, protesters and counterprotesters have set up encampments and rallies to demand a cease-fire or to express solidarity with Israel’s military campaign, launched after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that left as many as 1,200 dead in Israel and more than 200 taken hostage, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Despite these external divisions, Muslim, Christian and Jewish students within the Columbia encampment have described a sense of interfaith cooperation and support.
During Friday prayers, non-Muslims in the encampment covered the worshippers with blankets to shield their identities from photographers, according to Columbia sophomore Ashar Khan. During that hot day, the protesters held the blankets up for about an hour. Afterward, Jewish protesters in the encampment held their Passover Seder dinners.
A protester waves a Palestinian flag outside the Columbia University campus gates at Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street, April 30, 2024, in Manhattan, New York. Photo by Dina Katgara
Khan, who serves as events coordinator for Columbia’s Muslim Student Association, has helped organize daily prayers at the encampment. He recalled the “surreal” experience of leading a call to prayer in front of counterprotesters.
“Allahu Akbar,” Khan, 19, bellowed through a megaphone from the center of the encampment, calling the camp to prayer. Khan said he initially heard a counterprotester from outside the camp call the phrase a “terrorist” chant.
When Khan continued the Maghrib prayer in the center of the encampment, he realized the counterprotester stopped yelling with a resolute “oh,” in what Khan deemed to be understanding.
“It was really weird to hear — if it is in a different context, like a call to prayer, then it’s OK, but outside of that, it’s a terrorist phrase,” Khan said. “It is a great opportunity to educate people.”
As others in the encampment looked on, Khan said, he felt grounded in his Muslim community. He felt thankful that he could start a dialogue to challenge common Islamophobic misconceptions that have gripped much of the world since 9/11.
Walking home from a protest, Khan said, he heard three people yell at him for wearing a kaffiyeh. He also said he had heard accounts of hijab-wearing women being harassed in the streets.
Just before 10 p.m. on April 30, 2024, police stand between Amsterdam Avenue and 114th Street, waiting for New York Police Department buses carrying arrested protesters to drive through. Photo by Dina Katgara
Khan feels that there is a lack of Muslim-specific mental health support for students on campus. The primary campus support for Muslim students is from Columbia Islamic chaplain Imam Ebad Rahman. Still, with what Khan estimates to be about 350 Muslims on campus active in MSA, one person can’t support them all.
Rahman did not respond to a request for comment.
The 11 board members of MSA rely on each other for support in the encampment by gathering supplies and organizing speakers and prayers.
“We’ve been trauma bonded over the past year,” Khan said.
Although Khan is confident in his stance to protest, he sometimes struggles with worries about the consequences.
“What am I going to do that will be perceived as a mistake that is going to get me expelled from the university?” Khan said. “Am I going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
He grounds himself in Muslim ideology. He said that the highest form of jihad, or struggle, is to speak the truth in the face of injustice.
“No matter who it is, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, you should stand up for justice, even if it’s against yourself, even if it’s against your like kinfolk, even if it’s against the rich or the poor.”
And standing with Palestine, Khan said, is a religious obligation because the Muslim community is like one united human body.
“When the head of the body or the arm of the body feels feverish, the whole body feels weak and feverish,” he said. “When one part of the community is hurting, all of us are hurting.”
Source link
