Islam Awareness Week has come to Carleton, with events running March 17 to 21 to educate and start a dialogue about Islam.
Colourful posters and boards are set up in a large circle addressing different subjects relating to Islam in the Unicentre atrium.
According to Mohamed Ashraf, president of Carleton University Muslim Students Association, the idea for the awareness week first came in 2008 and started with a single table in the atrium.
He said the initial purpose was to change perceptions on campus about Muslims. It has since expanded to cover a variety of topics, with this year’s theme focusing on the spiritual and materialistic balance in Islam.
“There are a lot of different reactions,” Ashraf said. “In general, people are happy to get new knowledge about Islam. There are some other people who like to have dialogues.”
“It’s open to different aspects of the Carleton community,” Ashraf said. He pointed to various themes being covered throughout the week such as arts and culture, purpose of life, racism and diversity, concepts of justice and law, and many others.
This is not the first religious awareness week to happen at Carleton.
Power to Change, a Christian group on campus, held an event in January called “Perspective” that was intended to address similar issues addressed at the Islam Awareness Week, but through a different lens.
Ryan Patrick Marshall, president of Carleton’s Power to Change, said the group tries to engage students on spiritual discussions on campus.
“’Perspective’ is a tool that provides conversations,” Marshall said.
The event was also a week long, and had volunteers set up a booth and colourful banners to attract students as they walked by.
Some of the conversation points included views on God, the purpose of life, and the source of spiritual truth.
“I think it was pretty good,” Marshall said. “We had somewhere around 200 to 250 surveys done.”
For all the surveys completed by students, Marshall said about half indicated they were interested in meeting up and speaking about different topics.
Marshall said awareness weeks do make a difference in engaging students.
“If you have visibility, people are going to come,” Marshall said.
Ashraf said this awareness week is just as much about community as it is about spreading the message of Islam.
“I want to see people smiling and being happy,” Ashraf said.
He said the biggest misconception about Muslims is that they are not open-minded and welcome. He said he hopes this changes after the event.
“We want people to come to our events, we’ll come to your events—let’s have a dialogue,” Ashraf said.
