Religion is her life, but Noor Khalifa says being a Muslim student at Carleton has never created any obstacles for her.
A first-year student in biology and physiology, Khalifa says that even things like daily prayer don’t interfere with her university life.
Islam has five pillars that are the basis of a Muslim’s life.
One of these is praying five times a day. This can seem demanding of a person, especially a university student.
Khalifa says it’s easy to divide her time and pray.
“Thinking about [praying], it splits your time, it divides your time up equally, so I would think about being conscious about praying . . . throughout my day,” she says.
“Even if you have class, you can. There [are] time gaps between prayer and other prayers, so you can postpone it for two minutes or more.”
Reporting by Amna Pervaiz
Produced by Fraser Tripp and Oliver Sachgau
Dietary requirements seem like another obstacle, but Khalifa says that Ottawa especially makes it easy for her.
“Ottawa [is] a multicultural place, so there’s a lot of restaurants that serve the kind of food that we are supposed to be eating,” she says.
“Even if there’s no restaurant that has the specific food, we can just follow the vegetarian path and eat that food.”
Celebrating festivals is another issue. Khalifa says she moved to Canada from Dubai about five years ago.
Dubai is a part of the United Arab Emirates, where Islam is the official religion.
Celebrating feasts like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha is not as easy in Canada as it would be there, she says.
“In a place where your main religion is not followed, it would be hard to celebrate it and have all the freedom to do whatever you want,” she says.
Celebrating tends to be more complicated when it falls during exam time.
“Sometimes you would have exams on the day, sometimes you have stuff, so sometimes it’s not as easy as in a place where everyone follows the same thing,” Khalifa says.
The Eid festivals happen during the month of Ramadan, a time when Muslims fast during the day. Khalifa says fasting isn’t difficult for her, but has become a part of her daily life.
She points out that even in Dubai, students have to balance fasting and school.
“Over there they have university, they have stuff to do, the same applies here,” she says.
Going to Carleton, Khalifa says that people are friendly towards her, and she hasn’t experienced any change in the way people treat her.
“Talking to people — at least the people I know— everyone’s open minded, everyone accepts you, it’s perfect,” she says.
