With a student population of over 74,000, Texas A&M is the largest public university in the state of Texas. It is a common occurrence for freshmen to enter such a large university and struggle to find their place amongst hundreds of student-led organizations and thousands of students.
A&M’s Muslim Student Association, or MSA, aims to provide a faith-based community for those students with a plethora of events focused on socialization, education and giving back to the community.
“I think it’s really important that Muslims, or people that want to learn about Islam as a religion, have the opportunity to feel comfortable and feel at home even when they’re away from home, for example, here at Texas A&M,” said graduate finance student and MSA president Saad Akhtar. “And being able to have a community that can support you and make you feel less alienated, especially in such a big place.”
MSA also provides Muslim students with new friends and peers that they can relate and identify with, Akhtar said. This organization not only provides information about Islam to practicing Muslims in the community, but also to other students at A&M who have questions about Islam as a religion.
“We have this thing called Dawa table, and Dawa in Arabic means invitation,” finance junior and MSA fundraising officer Asad Ahmad said. “People can come up with questions about other faiths and other religions, or they can inquire about what Islam really is about.”
Despite attempts to correct misinformed ideas of Islam, there are still many preconceived notions about the religion that can affect how others see its followers.
Some believe Muslims are taught violence and oppression, but Ahmad said these narratives are ultimately false and harmful. He said Islam is a religion based on faith and serving God at its core.
“As a hijabi, as someone who outwardly presents Islam, I think that people, if they hadn’t met me, they would already have preconceived notions about the way that I act and the things I’m interested in,” political science sophomore and MSA campus relations officer Emaan Vagher said. “I’ve always been a very outspoken, confident person, but I think people automatically assume and put me in a box because I wear the hijab.”
While MSA does place an emphasis on education, the organization also provides a sense of unity and an opportunity for students to progress in their faith. Adjusting to college life is quite difficult, especially for international students and those who move from areas with higher Muslim populations to a community like Aggieland, where there is a large amount of religious diversity.
“MSA provided me with a really awesome community of people who are really guided by prophetic leadership, and are really interested in community work, and community for the sake of God,” Vaghner said. “There’s so many people in MSA that are from Saudi [Arabia], Morocco or Egypt, and they’re international students who also feel at home at MSA.”
The organization hosts events for members to get involved in the community, a majority of which has a focus on service and furthering relationships. The A&M chapter of MSA participates in an event known as “Showdown” where other MSA groups from other schools in Texas come together for a friendly competition consisting of sports and non-sports related activities, Ahmad said.
This event fosters a broader sense of community for Muslims students at Texas universities, and the service-led initiatives by MSA helps build relations within the Bryan-College Station community.
“Once a month, we have an event called Project Downtown, and that is pretty much where we go to downtown Bryan, and we just hand out food to people in that area,” Ahmad said. “Last semester we hosted a banquet in the MSC, and we had an auction. I kind of curated these items and they sold for a grand total of around $10,000 and we donated all of that to an organization called Charity Week.”
The group does not have any membership requirements, and they accept anyone and everyone, who attends events and/or meetings. More information can be found @tamumsa on Instagram, as well as information on the local Bryan-College Station mosque and community center on the ICBCS website.
“We are a 75,000 person university, and even if 1% is Muslim, that is still a lot of people,” mechanical engineering junior and MSA brother social officer Hadi Tameez said. “There’s always somebody for someone who can be there.”
