Iftaar banquet reflects tradition and diversity of Muslim life at CU

Beverly Khadijah Blacksher, right, a senior lecturer at Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center, and her husband, Salik Mwando, sample the cuisine at the Iftaar banquet Nov. 9 at the Alice Cook House. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Linda Myers

On Cornell's campus, the final week of Ramadan -- the Muslim holy month of prayers, introspection and fasting during daylight hours -- has been marked for the past four years by an Iftaar banquet in which Muslims break bread and share their traditions publicly with people of other faiths.

"The activities and presence of the Muslim community do so much to enrich the Cornell community, especially the annual Iftaar banquet, which has become a special tradition," said Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services. Murphy was an invited guest at this year's banquet, which took place Nov. 9 at the Alice Cook House.

"Iftaar is the high point of the programming year for me," said Ross Brann, the Milton Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies and house dean at Cook House. The event, which began with talks and prayers, centered around a meal featuring a rich variety of dishes from around the Muslim world, shared by more than 250 students, faculty and their guests -- Muslim and non-Muslim.

One of most important aspects of Iftaar for Cornell's estimated 400 active Muslim students, organizers said, is to engage intellectually with invited guest speakers, and share with non-Muslim guests the cutting-edge thinking in Muslim discourse today. "It's a wonderful event. People really want to know more about Islam," said Omer Bajwa, a Ph.D. student in Cornell's Department of Near Eastern Studies, who noted that, contrary to popular perceptions, ideas within Islam in most places are dynamic, with continual efforts to find contemporary meanings in ancient texts.

This year's speaker, Omid Safi, traced contemporary ideas about social justice, peace and respect for the dignity of all humanity to core Islamic beliefs. Safi is an assistant professor of philosophy and religion at Colgate University and editor of the influential Progressive Muslims: On Gender, Justice and Pluralism, a collection of essays from leading Muslim thinkers.

Past Iftaar speakers have been other scholars of stature discussing, among other things, the Quran from a woman's perspective and such issues as sexism, racism and AIDS in the modern Islamic world.

Susan Murphy, Cornell vice president for student and academic services, talks with Fatima Iqbal '05 (CALS), who served as master of ceremonies for the Iftaar banquet Nov. 9 at the Alice Cook House. Iqbal also is an executive board member of the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association (MECA) and the president of HALO (Help a Life Organization). Frank DiMeo/University Photography

Interfaith engagement is another aspect of the banquet, which also featured a talk this year by the Rev. Janet Shortall, associate director of Cornell United Religious Work, who said that establishing trust and ease among people of different faiths, although not easy, was an essential "journey of the heart."

"Iftaar is one of the most diverse events on campus," noted M. Kursad Araz, a Ph.D. student in applied physics who is an officer in the Cornell Society for Islamic Spirituality (CSIS), one of the event's co-organizers. This year's guests included a Tibetan monk, two rabbis, several ministers, Muslim families from the Ithaca area and special guest Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson, who publicly expressed her hope that the city would become one where people from all faiths and cultures felt welcome.

"Being here and being with people of different faiths, it's almost like a family event," said Aziz Alkhalifa, a vice president of Cornell's Muslim Educational and Cultural Association (MECA) now in his third year in Cornell's bachelor of architecture program.

"Diverse" is the right word to describe Cornell's Muslim community as well. Those at the banquet hailed from places as close to home as Binghamton, Cleveland and Chicago and as far away as Bahrain, Germany, Kenya, Pakistan, Portugal and Turkey. "It was at Cornell that I first saw the true beauty of Islam, in its ability to unite people from all walks of life," said Shada Nabil El-Sharif, a senior environmental engineering student from Jordan who is the cultural vice president of the Cornell Arab Association.

The Iftaar banquet was especially welcome because it has been a challenging year for Cornell's Muslim community, organizers said. Along with other Cornell community members, they were disturbed when two campus student newspapers printed an op-ed piece and an ad that revealed deeply anti-Muslim sentiments as well as misunderstandings about what it means to be Muslim. While most saw the incidents as exceptions to their experience at Cornell, some wanted to work more vigorously to dispel stereotypes about what it means to be Muslim, particularly the notion that observing their religion might be equated, by some, with anti-American religious fanaticism. "My religion teaches me to be more understanding of other people," said Araz.

"Cornell has tried to be very supportive of the Muslim community," said Fatima Iqbal, a senior in applied economics and management and an officer in MECA, who introduced the Iftaar speakers. "It's hard when someone puts a label on you that's not accurate. Events like the Iftaar banquet help bridge the gap in letting others know that we are just students, just the sophomore sitting across from you in class taking notes."

"With Islam being quoted, represented or misrepresented even, through media outlets and academic discourse, we Muslims often find ourselves playing the role of spokespersons," noted El-Sharif. In addition to the Iftaar banquet, positive efforts that she and others have engaged in to counteract negative stereotypes about Muslims include the founding of a new campus newsletter, "Al-Rabita," and the joint peace mosaic project in Anabel Taylor by members of MECA and the Jewish student group Cornell-Hillel, which won the Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony last year. MECA also runs Islam Awareness Week during the spring semester, featuring talks and panels aimed at increasing awareness in the wider community about Muslims and dispelling myths about them as well as providing a forum for discussion on topical issues.

El-Sharif suggests the next step might be encouraging Cornell to add a Muslim chaplain to its interfaith ministry -- currently there isn't one -- "to assist in articulating a Muslim perspective on various issues, as well as provide support for Muslim students in these sensitive times." Bringing in a Muslim chaplain, she says, also may help make it easier for Muslim students to practice their faith, coping better with such challenges as finding a quiet spot to perform daily prayers at the prescribed times, which often fall between classes.

El-Sharif says that the Cornell Muslim community wants to continue to reach out to non-Muslims on campus and that people interested in learning more about Islam are welcome to attend Friday prayers in the One World Room of Anabel Taylor Hall at 1:20 p.m. and to visit the Web sites of CSIS http://www.rso.cornell.edu/csis/ and MECA http://www.meca-online.org/.

In addition to CSIS, co-organizers of the Iftaar banquet included the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Alice Cook House. MECA and 20 other campus groups were sponsors.