By Aditi Dholakia at Technician Online, 4-11-17:
As part of Islam Awareness Week 2017, at the North Carolina State University, the Muslim Students’ Association hosted a Prayer on the Lawn Tuesday on Stafford Commons. The event welcomed approximately 35 people, with both Muslim and non-Muslim students participating in the evening prayer, called Asr.
Rakan DiarBakerli, a graduate student studying art and design, recited the prayer, and later led the discussion on what prayer means and why Muslims pray. He started the discussion by explaining that each of the four parts (called rak’ah) of the prayer consists of reciting passages from the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and physical rituals including kneeling and prostrating.
“When you put yourself down on a low level and put your face — the nobility of a human — on the ground, you’re lowering yourself in the presence of the most High and the most powerful,” DiarBakerli said. “It’s a mixture of physical worship and spiritual worship.”
Safi Ahmed, a senior studying computer science, equated prayer to a break during a game.
“If you’re in the game, and you get tired, you take a break and get refreshment,” Ahmed said. “That’s what prayer is to us.”
The prayer began with the Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer before students lined up on a tarp facing the direction of Mecca to pray. The Adhan was performed by Mohammad Omary, president of MSA and a junior studying chemical engineering.
Mohanad Alsaftawi, a junior studying materials science and engineering and one of the event organizers, explained that prayer, which happens at least five times a day, is one of the essential parts of Islam and is one of the five pillars of the faith.
“We are required as Muslims to, as soon as the time comes, find an appropriate area in a clean, undisturbed area, and pray in it, whether that’s in the side of a classroom, or on a grassy field somewhere,” Alsaftawi said.
He said that the event was in part meant to make public Muslim prayer less alien to people, adding that many do not understand the ritual and are sometimes scared by it.
“The idea behind the event is to just normalize the prayer, normalize the expression — the physical prayer in public — so that people understand why we do it, how we do it, and they can come here and ask questions,” Alsaftawi said.
According to the MSA, the purpose of Islam Awareness Week is to educate students — particularly non-Muslims — about the religion and culture of Islam, and the rituals of practicing Muslims.
~~~~~~~~~
Why is it acceptable to host muslim awareness, but not Christian awareness? Why aren’t Christians teaching muslims about their faith? Why does the ban on religion in schools exclude Islam?
For a nation that goes to extremes to separate religion from schools and government, we’re seeing more and more muslim awareness efforts around every corner. From teen-age girls made to wear burkas, to classes teaching the five pillars of Islam, and now a whole week dedicated to raising our awareness of their prayer customs.
This is a soft encroachment that is creeping into the US in small fragments that seem harmless, but when you step back and look at the overall picture, you see a nationwide effort to normalize all things Islam, and that’s the scary part. More young people are warming up to this prayerful side of Islam, many out of curiosity, but the muslims are leaving out the violent side of their religion. They don’t familiarize the non-muslims with the sections of the Quran that call for the beating of wives, the chopping off of hands, the stonings and the demands for death as a martyr to get into heaven.
These muslims are every bit as hypocritical as the liberal leadership in our schools who allow this. The longer this is ignored, the more dominate it becomes.
~Kathy
ps. Did you notice the blonde guy in the front row, and how the female students are in the back row, behind the guys, as is the muslim custom?
Categories: General
Pesky Truth 
Idiots.
LikeLike
Would it be OK if I cross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? I’ll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. There is no fee, I’m simply trying to add more content diversity for our community and I liked what y6ou wrote. If “OK” please respond via email.
Autumn
AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com
LikeLike
That would be fine, Autumn, more people need to be aware of these attempts to normalize Islam.
LikeLike
The key to your excellent post is that the students sponsoring the event want to “normalize” Islam in the eyes of the infidels.
That’s true, they want to make it appear that Islam is just another option when it comes to choosing one’s religion and it happens to be the one they’re pushing. They say that they will answer questions. Why ask a question when there can be no expectation of honesty in the answer?
They won’t admit that the jihadists and terrorists are doing Islam’s work; they’ll lie because that’s what they’re directed to do in the advance of Islam.
I recently received the book by Nonie Darwish, Wholly Different. She is the woman who grew up Muslim and later moved to the U.S., renounced Islam and converted to Christianity. She exposes the “religion of peace” for what it is, a political movement concentrating on hatred and death, unlike any other religion on earth. It’s an easy read, but unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to devote to it. I’ll post something as soon as I get it fully digested.
LikeLike
So true, Garnet, these kids show only the good side (if there is one) of Islam without telling the whole story. They are suckering in the ‘nons’ to the idea that their religion is just another choice, like deciding to be a Baptist, a Methodist or a Church of Christ, when if the WHOLE truth were told, it’s nothing like that.
When a religion commands that you make a public display of praying five times a day with your butt in the air and your face to the ground, you’d think the kids could think through this and see that it’s not anything like our religious choices. But then we remind ourselves of that liberal influence on these kids and the indoctrination that comes from colleges, so the kids don’t really know how to think for themselves.
LikeLike
I started studying Islam after 911 to find out how they could kill 3,000 people then cheer the murders, and murderers, in the streets of their home countries. The conclusion of my 10 year study – Islam is a death cult. Reading the works of Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Bill Warner, and many others on the subject, along with the Qur’an, Hadith, and The Reliance of the Traveler as reference, no other answer fits the modus operandi of these savages. For me, the thing that sticks out above all else is how orthodox Muslims, True Believers, those who believe the Qur’an is the literal word of Allah, are the one who commit the atrocities we hear about almost daily. While good Muslims, those who would never dream of murdering Infidels, are, at best, nominal Muslims, Muslims in name only Muslims, or simply cultural Muslims. They completely disregard the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example. These are the ones calling Islam a religion of peace and telling us the same, when in fact that statement is demonstrably false. My belief is that Islam and Leftists make common cause because they have the same goal, the complete destruction of the West, which entails its freedoms, its Judeo-Christian roots, it equality of rights, etc. Ironically, it’s the Left who will be the first victims of this wishful overthrow. Their stupidity is astounding.
I truly hate Islam. I hate jihadists as well. But I can honestly say that I do not hate Muslims simply because they are Muslim. I feel sorry for them, as I would anyone trapped in death cult.
LikeLike
Great comment and thanks for adding the Pat Condell video. He doesn’t mince words and is always a good listen.
Those you refer to as nominal muslims are what I call backsliders – they aren’t fully committed to the entirety of Islam. I wonder if when their higher-ups call on them to kill, will they? When that SHTF moment comes, where will they stand? You say they wouldn’t dream of it, but their holy book commands it and I think they would if it means their life or ours.
Apparently the lefties who’ve brought this upon us, think that because they sympathize with them and are nice to them, that they will be spared when that moment comes. The ‘lone wolf’ attacks and their horrendous acts on 9/11 have proven otherwise, but the libs are too blind to see it.
I sympathize for the ones in the Middle East, but not so much for the ones here. They’re in a country that offers choices and they fail to see there’s a better way.
LikeLike
That’s a good question, Kathy. I can only give my opinion because there are lots of variables that go into determining which moderate Muslims will or will not kill. In general, I believe they would not kill if simply asked to. Especially if they grew up here, went to school here. Killing is way beyond human decency and if one grows up in a decent society switching off that norm is harder to overcome. They would if they were being coerced, and that happens often in the Middle East because sharia law applies. And they would if they somehow acquired “sudden jihad syndrome.” This is the lone wolf scenario you mentioned.
About “higher ups.” Generally speaking, a higher up would be an Imam. Here in the states Imams are careful to promote jihad in secret because they know it goes against Western values and there are severe penalties if caught. Online Imams, like Anwar al-Awlaki, preached jihad freely and had many followers. These followers are True Believers and the ones we should worry about. Many of them were called to kill and did, or at least tried.
Where would they stand? It’s been proven through several online surveys that Muslims in the West generally favor sharia and the awful things that go with it. I believe they would side with their own. it’s a blood bond to their family, their ancestors, and, by extension, their religion. But I don’t believe there is a direct correlation between support of sharia and actually committing murder. By that, I mean supporting sharia does not automatically make one a True Believer. There are ‘degrees’ in most everything.
If the Qur’an commands killing, which it does, but they are not really religious, one could assume they would not kill because they don’t follow such teachings. That’s one of things most people in the US don’t realize. The more religious a Muslim becomes, the more likely he/she will commit murder.
I believe it is not possible to tell for sure. Which is a major problem with Islam in the West. The jihadists operate freely within the wider Muslim community. Only rarely will one find an Imam, or friend, or family member report on other community members becoming True Believers.
I work at a company that has many Muslims. I know several of them personally and they are all very nice people. But if I had my way, Muslims would not be allowed in our country, moderate or not. No Muslims means no Islam (did I mention I hate Islam?), no sharia, no jihad, no wondering if there are True Believers among us. If that make me a bigot, so be it.
LikeLike
Ditto your sentiments on the muslims and Islam, because you can’t tell the difference between the good ones and the bad ones and you never know when one of them is going to snap. The same goes for all the illegals coming from Mexico and Central America.
Right now we have a psycho from Cleveland running loose on a killing spree. He’s described as having dark light skin (wut?) because they don’t want to flat out state that he’s muslim. It drives me crazy that we’re being PC while this madman is slaughtering Americans. Besides we already had enough of our own crazies before O started importing half the population from Mexico and the Middle East.
LikeLike
This was Holy Week…
LikeLike
That’s probably why they picked this particular week. It’s to flaunt it in our faces. Grrrr…
LikeLiked by 1 person
All I have to say is this really pisses me for everything that was said.
Or you see a picture of Muslims praying in the middle of a street.
LikeLike
Me too, bescher, big time. I hate to see how the libs have ‘normalized’ them while leaving out the violent and the barbaric things they do. These kids probably didn’t read about the female doctor who was recently arrested for mutilating young girls by removing some of their female parts. And they don’t know their parents are complicit for allowing it because it’s a custom. But yeah, let’s all pray with the heathens.
LikeLiked by 1 person