Muslim Student Groups on Farber Campus
There are many on-campus Muslim groups at Farber that were established to strengthen the student Muslim community and give a voice to our people within the campus. Check out these groups and see if their beliefs align with yours. If so, join! The more people active within the greater community, the better things will become for the community as a whole. If none of them do fit your needs exactly, then start your own! Chances are, there are other Muslim students out there with similar outlooks and opinions.
Students Against Israel
SAI is a NON-VIOLENT, Muslim student group that was formed in protest to the unfair and cruel treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, military, and political policies. If you feel a strong tie to your suffering Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine, and want to make a difference in their treatment by the Israeli government, please join!
Muslim Students’ Association at Farber
The Muslim Student’s Association (MSA) was formed in order to meet the specific needs of the underrepresented Muslim community on campus and to create a sense of unity while developing Muslims to be leaders within the community.
Muslim Union
The Muslim Union (MU) was created in 2002 to unite the Muslim community here at Farber under the commonality of adherence to the Islamic faith and interest in Islam.
Muslim Law Students Association—Farber Chapter
MLSA exists to provide an accessible resource to Farber students and faculty on Islam and Muslims in order to educate and promote tolerance and understanding on campus and in the greater community. It is also to establish a strong student network that provides academic support, and to develop a network of Farber alumni to facilitate and furnish summer and post-graduate opportunities.
Links to Islamic Scholarships
http://www.collegescholarships.org/scholarships/muslim-students.htm
http://www.enotes.com/scholarships-loans/
http://home.comcast.net/~aymanfadel/fef.html
Advice From Young Muslims, For Young Muslims
Dealing With the Family: Relationships
There are many gifts which Allah our Creator has blessed us with; despite some of us being ignorant to them, His love and blessings are continually showered upon us. Unfortunately, those things that are most accessible are most abused and that even could include those who are closest and dearest to us. It is highly important for us to bear in mind constantly that our family is one of those gifts that we have done absolutely nothing to deserve.
In our day-to-day lives, we often come across the challenges of problems pertaining to our family members. In order to deal with some of the problems, we have to take the utmost care in the way we communicate with those whom Allah has chosen to be our family.
In order to perfect our manners, we should proactively try to emulate role models found in the most perfect source of revelations for mankind that is the Qur’an. In Surah Luqman, there is abundant wisdom from a father addressing his son:
“Be modest in thy bearing and subdue thy voice. Lo! The harshest of all voices is the voice of the ass.” [Surah Luqman, Verse 19]
From the verse above, we learn that the etiquette of communication rests in how we speak. More specifically, the verse indicates that we should always speak softly, even if we find ourselves in an argument with a brother or sister!
There may be other slightly awkward, heart-cringing moments that we may face - like the dreaded family dinner! Sadly, it is one experience that, if not dealt with correctly, may lead to disaster. So, some tips for the family dinner, even if it includes your auntie or uncle:
- Remember this is a blessed ritual, especially when eating together. Therefore remember Allah before commencing and finishing your meal.
- Smile! Sometimes it’s the hardest thing to do but even if it means you have to practice in the mirror, do it!
- When and if you make conversation with family members, remember to speak humbly - meaning not to raise your voice.
- Try not to speak fast or slow; speak in a clear precise manner.
- When engaged in a conversation, turn your whole body to that individual or group of people. In other words, don’t just turn your head left and right like a robot.
- When in a conversation, try to smile even when listening. If you find that hard, try to think about something positive.
- When in a conversation, if you are too shy to look at the person’s eyes, just look at the point of their nose. It helps!
- Before going to the dinner table, try and think of some current events or issues to discuss during or after the meal.
- If there is talk of an awkward subject like marriage, just be natural and don’t panic - it won’t be the end of the world! After all they will all forget about it the next day....hopefully! If you have to answer, just say it is not your ‘top priority at the present moment in time’.
- If there is talk about university or school, once again don’t panic! Just think about something positive to say about it. Remember: always see things in a positive manner.
- Please remember that it takes time to see the change take its effect, and so it’s highly important that you stay motivated and committed to bringing about this positive change. Bare in mind, it IS achievable and it helps if you visualize achieving these goals; it just needs time and practice.
After reading, knowing and understanding this article, the responsibility of acting upon it now rests with you to implement it and become a role model for others. ‘Others’ implies those closest, meaning your family and even your neighbors.
Fatima Adem, 19
What do you have to say about Fatima’s advice? Have you tried her suggested methods? What were the results? Is there anything you think she left out? Sound off in the Youth Forum!
Media Manipulation: Society and Culture.
Whenever we watch the news or read the newspaper, some terms the media and the politicians use to describe their view of the Western world are that the Western world represents the ‘free world’ or that the West is the ‘leader of the modern world’. Various tools within the media have been used to place horns over the heads of their enemies and have placed haloes over the heads of their own leaders thus subliminally equating Western style democracy with that of freedom.
Freedom meaning that our governments are freely elected so in a country where there is elections, the media and the politicians will view that country as a pure and stable democracy even though that country may be stricken with poverty, have no healthcare system and where the government is known for oppressing its people, according to the media but as long as it has elections, it’s a democracy, but that’s all together another issue.
Due to the current climate we are living in there us a lot of rhetoric about fighting for freedom. So much so that as an average Western citizen, we should ask ourselves the question ‘are we actually living as a free individual?’ It is no secret that many of us are what they call as products of our own environment, that is that our subconscious mind takes in subliminal information from what we see on the TV to what we read on the newspaper and the most dangerous thing is the information that is being subliminally taken in can play a crucial role in our judgment, particularly when it comes to right and wrong.
In America, a country that George Bush hails as a beacon of light and freedom in the modern world, contains within it a multi-billion dollar marketing and advertising industry with the sole purpose of influencing what you should buy. Newspapers are bought for our daily intake of news consumption but a more sinister side to this media is that behind it lies a vast interconnected network of businesses that fund many newspaper organizations in order to market their products.
As well as influencing what we should buy there are various parts of the media that can influence what we should believe and how we should behave. Media manipulation tactics are used in order to change the public’s view of the world around them.
For me the most blatant piece of media news manipulation and the most disturbing was the footage of the ‘supposed’ Palestinian celebration of 9/11. This footage was pumped around all over the world as an outrage, but now looking back, it can be understood that this footage was used to divert public sympathy of the Palestinian cause to that of the Israeli’s. Only after the damage had already been done to the Palestinian image it was revealed that not only was the footage several years old and that it was the Palestinian celebration of Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, but it was also revealed that the majority of the Palestinians didn’t even know that 9/11 took place. But by then it was too late because the tarnished image of the Palestinians had already been implanted into our minds.
The media is also used to promote and instill subconscious behavioral information to us without us realizing the change in our behavior or the consequences that our current way of thinking and behavior is having up
on the society that we are living in.
The entertainment industry has manipulated human creativity in a way that is detrimental to humanity. Films like Scarface have influenced a whole generation of youth, teaching them that crime pays, especially amongst the urban and Latin American youth, some of who now have million dollar recording contracts to spread that way of life to a whole new generation of youth.
What’s more surprising is that these entertainers and the people behind the industry seem to be oblivious to the effect that these types of audio and visual media are having on the public, especially the youth. For instance I was very shocked to get on a bus one day only to hear girls, probably no older then 14-15, singing vulgar and sexually orientated lyrics of a well-known R & B group. Girls at such a young age singing about sex on the bus?! Needless to say, I was very, very shocked.
With the monster that is the media surrounding us we should re-analyze our view of whether we are living free because the people that own the media can use it to promote a world view to the masses that is only vested in the interests of the powers that be, and the powers that be only, not you and me.
Ahmed Hosseini, 23
These are Ahmed’s views, but what do you think? Are we being brainwashed by the media? Join the debate by leaving a comment in the forum below…