The MSA's Official Response to Westergaard's Yale Visit

On Thursday, October 1, 2009, Branford College at Yale University will host Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who created one of the most offensive and racially charged representations of the Prophet Muhammad of the now infamous Danish Jyllands-Posten cartoons. The Yale Muslim Students Association is deeply hurt and offended that a prestigious academic institution such as Yale would welcome and provide a platform for an individual making historically baseless criticisms against the Prophet and promoting a profoundly racist agenda of hate by representing him as a terrorist. As an institution purportedly committed to making our campus an educational environment where all students feel equally comfortable, we feel that by hosting Kurt Westergaard Yale is undermining its commitment to creating a nurturing learning environment by failing to recognize the religious and racial sensitivity of the issue. Certainly, it would be unlikely for a white supremacist or a holocaust denier to be a distinguished guest speaker at Yale; hosting individuals who propagate hate is not only a disservice to the minorities that hate is directed towards but to the campus community as a whole. We reject the legitimacy of invitations to any propagators of hateful rhetoric directed against anyone and condemn them equally. As students, we are shocked that our administration would allow this speaker under the guise of freedom of expression, while in reality this visit will only continue to promote bigotry and Islamophobia. To invite the creator of such inflammatory and demeaning images is incongruous with the founding and continuing principles of this university – an institution intended to train and produce leaders for the future. It is our opinion that this visit will not embrace the ideals of free speech and open expression, but rather serve to disseminate a propaganda of hate speech and racism.


Sincerely,

Muslim Students Association
PO Box 200930
New Haven, CT 06520
yalemsa@gmail.com

Eid Mubarak 2009!

Assalamu Alaikum everyone,

Eid Mubarak!!!

The local Eid Committee confirmed Eid for tomorrow (Sunday, September 20). So Salatul-Eid will be @ 8:30 am at Yale's Coxe Cage (257 Derby Avenue). If you need a ride, we'll be carpooling from Phelps Gate @ 8 am SHARP.

Everyone is also invited & especially encouraged to attend the "Eid Party & Breakfast" @ Masjid al-Islam (please see attached flyer). It'll be immediately after the Eid Prayer, and it's FREE & open to everyone.

While the end of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr are times of great joy, we should also remember the following powerful hadith that encourages us to still engage in some worship on the eve of Eid:

"Whoever stands up (in worship) in the night preceding the two Eids expecting reward form Allah, his heart will not die when other hearts will die" (Ibn Majah)

And here's a short article about the Sunnahs of Eid: http://ilmintensive.com/articles/091109_eidFitr.html

Wasallam,
Omer