DANIEL WONG/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Islamic studies
graduate student Hisham Mahmoud discusses the religion.
By Sophia Chakos-Leiby
Daily Bruin Contributor
Holding two English translations of the Quran, Linda Lattiter, a
UCLA alumni and athletic counselor for the College of Letters &
Sciences, looked up and asked, “Who should I return these
to?”
Much to her surprise, the copies of the Quran were now hers
““ a gift from UCLA’s Muslim Student Association.
As a non-Muslim attending MSA’s first formal program of
the year on Tuesday, Lattiter said she wanted a better
understanding of the religion because she felt it had been blamed
and targeted for criticism since the Sept. 11 attacks. She had
asked MSA to borrow translations of the Quran to read and interpret
the text.
“This was an extraordinarily generous gift. It’s a
sign of faith that they would offer up text to a person who might
be there to criticize it,” Lattiter said.
Lattiter was one of about 50 people to attend Tuesday’s
program, titled “Toward Understanding Islam.” It was
designed to dispel myths about the religion and cater to the rising
interest in Islam.
“It was clear through what some of the audience said that
they wanted to be educated,” said fourth-year history student
Mostafa Mahboob.
The two speakers, Hisham Mahmood and Sakeena Mirza, discussed
the fundamentals of the Islamic religion from a Muslim perspective:
The belief in God and Mohammed as the final messenger; a commitment
to pray five times a day; alms giving in which people donate 2.5
percent of their annual income to the needy; fasting during Ramadan
and the pilgrimage to Kaba in Mecca ““ the place in Saudi
Arabia that marks the eastern direction Muslims face when
praying.
Mirza said that through the lecture, she hoped to clear up
stereotypes about Islam that have circulated since Sept. 11.
“A lot of confusion has been going around, there are
things getting thrown out right and left … The key to
understanding is not to see (Islam) as a religion, but as a
comprehensive way of life,” Mirza said.
Mahmood said that just because many Muslims see Islam as a way
of life, that does not mean the religion encourages
close-mindedness.
“(Islam) doesn’t mean turning off your brain. The
Quran always encourages questioning, reading and pondering,”
he said.
Participants at the lecture brought up the role of Islam in the
U.S. campaign against terrorism. Mahmood discussed the Arabic word
“jihad,” which the American media uses to describe the
religious motivation behind groups such as al-Qaeda, to which
suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden belongs.
“This is an over-encompassing word that does include
combat … But the Quran uses jihad in a number of different verses
where it’s not used in a war sense. … It also refers to the
struggle against yourself. The greatest jihad is the struggle to
transcend yourself,” he said.
Mohammad Mertaban, a third-year psychobiology student and
publisher of the MSA newspaper Al Talib, said many mainstream media
outlets randomly pull out verses from the Quran without explaining
the context in which the verse was written, thus leading to a
distortion of facts.
“It’s like pulling one sentence out of an essay,
without explaining what’s going on, and giving that essay an
“˜F’ based on that one sentence,” he said.
MSA has also focused on safety ““ an issue more personal at
UCLA than the media’s portrayal of Islam, members said. The
group has set up an escort service to cater to Muslims who
don’t want to walk by themselves. According to biochemistry
student Shazia Malik, many student groups have offered support to
MSA, including MEChA, whose members offered to work as escorts.
Mertaban said that though he has not personally experienced any
violence, he knows of people reacting to the threat.
“In terms of what I’ve heard across (UC) campuses,
people’s parents are encouraging them not to become involved
in MSA because of threats,” Mertaban said.
Though university police have not received any reports of hate
crimes toward Arab, Muslim or South Asian students, Mertaban, Malik
and others said they have experienced some discrimination around
campus.
Both said they get a lot of stares from students. Once, when
Malik and her friends waited in line at Baja Fresh, a man walked by
and said, “Killers, we should bomb the whole Muslim
world.”
Mertaban said that when visiting BruinWalk.com, an online site
with a message board where students post responses to various
questions, he saw racist remarks attacking Islam.
“You would hope that on an “˜educated’ campus
that wouldn’t be true … it’s disappointing,” he
said.
Malik said she knows one friend whose mother took almost all of
her scarves because she did not want her daughter so easily
targeted. Malik, too, tried covering her scarf with a hood, but
stopped because covering up her scarf would be like covering up her
face, she said.
Sofia Mazgarova, a third-year cognitive science student, said
she never had to worry about discrimination because, due to her
Russian heritage, no one thinks she is Muslim.
Malik said that when something like the Sept. 11 attacks occur,
one must never stop questioning all the cultures and religions
involved.
“When the news mentions it, you just have to question,
“˜Why?'” she said.