Flashpod: Being Muslim on campus at Leeds Uni

Attendees: Zoheb, Ammar, Syed, Ahmad, Abdulrahman, Tawhid, Shafiq

1. Why do you think this is and does it branch from something specific? (issue)

Non-muslims seem afraid to ask questions and are overly-apologetic.

The consensus was that due to a less-than-satisfactory level of understanding of Islam and Muslim practices (due to our own lack of engagement) people seem scared that they will offend us by asking more specific questions about things like prayer and fasting.

2. How does this affect you, as a Muslim?

Everybody agreed that although it showed a level of respect towards us, we would prefer it if our non-Muslim neighbours on campus were less scared about hurting our feelings and more able to learn about Islam through asking questions about issues they would like answers on.

3. How to overcome this problem positively?

It was quite obvious that all the guys agreed that we were the most culpable and that we should be engaging with our friends more and not simply avoiding talking about Islam and therefore contributing to this feeling of unease when our friends and colleagues want to ask about something or enquire about something they see us doing.

An example was somone saying "sorry" to Ahmad when she saw him praying. We should openly sense when they are interested and explain practices etc to our non-Muslim neighbours on campus.