STARKVILLE — The arrest of Muhammed Oda Dakhlalla and Jaelyn De’Shaun Young sent shockwaves through the region, but some local Muslims say they are not worried about negative pushback from the Golden Triangle community.
FBI agents arrested Dakhlalla and Young, both former Mississippi State University students and residents of Starkville, on Aug. 8 at Golden Triangle Regional Airport, where they were attempting to board a flight. Both have been accused of attempting to join the Islamic State group and face federal charges.
The arrests generated concern for local Muslims, but three officers for MSU’s Muslim Student Association say they think the storm will blow over. They credit this in part to the vibrant interfaith atmosphere that exists around Starkville and MSU and the long-term efforts the MSA has taken to engage with the community.
On Sunday, MSA president Ibrahim Abdoulahi, vice president Hasan Toprak, and secretary Sivas Vivekanandan sat down with The Dispatch in the Colvard Student Union to discuss their thoughts on the incident and its aftermath, as well as their own experiences living as Muslims in Mississippi. MSA Faculty Advisor Rani Warsi Sullivan also joined the conversation.
Each of the officers is a graduate student at MSU. They are international students — Abdoulahi is from Niger, Toprak is from Turkey, and Vivekanandan is from India.
Dispatch: What’s the experience of coming from your home countries to live in Mississippi been like?
Abdoulahi: I was actually in France for my undergraduate degree, so I’m used to being out of my home country. When I got here, it was very easy, actually, for me to integrate. Here we usually have activities within the community or interfaith programs to participate in. The people are very welcoming here.
Toprak: I didn’t have any difficulty coming here. I am very comfortable and I haven’t had any problems.
Vivekanandan: Most of the time, my fellow graduate students or teaching assistants knew I was a Muslim. For instance, when I was in kinesiology and used to teach classes (when the Boston bombing happened) my fellow TA’s were very straight forward. They asked me straight away, ‘What is this and what does this have to do with Islam?’ I clarified those things to them and they were fine. Whenever there was an issue, they were straight forward in asking why I don’t do this or don’t do that.
I didn’t have any problems interacting with people, because I think they understand that ISIS or any of these terrorist groups don’t represent mainstream Islam, and they want to know what mainstream Islam has to say about these things and how do we view these kinds of organizations that come up.
Dispatch: What would you say the response from the community has been like after the arrests?
Abdoulahi: In light of what happened recently, we’ve had a good bit of support from the church and Jewish community here. MSU’s very well integrated in terms of the interfaith community. There is worry, but there’s no real fear at all. On the contrary, people have been very balanced and understand that this is an outlier that has nothing to do with us or Islam. I guess many people also understand that many victims of this are Muslims first. If you look around, it’s Muslims who are being killed — it’s Islam being hijacked.
Sullivan: It was the Christian and Jewish faith leaders that were the very first to reach out. In fact, (Sunday) I heard that the University Baptist Church has offered their services to actually escort anyone in our community wherever they need to go if they feel that they need some support. That is a mighty big helping hand.
Dispatch: Is it concerning for you to see young Muslims making decisions that ultimately lead to things like this happening?
Abdoulahi: It’s very concerning to see young people caught in these matters. I knew Muhammad very well. I didn’t see any sign of him taking this path at all. I cannot really tell what happened. Of course, it’s very sad to see.
Dispatch: What sort of efforts does the Muslim Student Association take to better know and be a part of the community?
Abdoulahi: We have different events. We have Coffee with Muslims. We have panels … we get questions from students. We also are active in MSU community activities like the Big Event, Habitat for Humanity and Casserole Kitchen, where we go out to serve in the community.
Sullivan: Our entire Friday sermon was about the duty of a Muslim to their neighbors, and this is part of it. This is a very strong part of Islam itself and it’s called Da’wah. That’s one of the primary mission statements of the Muslim Student Association. It’s more than just getting together to have fun. We like to do that, but it’s got some things that are tied in to the faith as well, and we want to promote this neighborly-ness. We find that it is critical. It’s critical in times like this when we have a crisis, but it’s also critical on an everyday basis, in the good times as well. You cannot combat the crisis times if you have not laid the groundwork during the peace times … I think we all realize that we have people that feel isolated. We’re trying to use the MSA to pull these people in and get them integrated into the community and get them involved. Our mission is quite critical.
Abdoulahi: For the help of the Christians like from the University Baptist Church and Jewish leaders to come and say ‘Hey guys, we are here if you need help,’ that’s a really important part of feeling welcome and safe.
Dispatch: You sometimes hear that Muslims need to do more to condemn that acts of groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda. Is that true?
Vivekanandan: One thing I tell my students is if you want to know something about Islam, there is one group of scholars and one institute you can look at in California at Zaytuna College. They recently got accredited and are the first Muslim college to be accredited in the U.S. Whenever anything starts off like ISIS or any terrorist activity happens, they immediately have a statement put up on their college website.
Sullivan: Every single major cleric and political leader has come out with statements and has unilaterally denounced (groups like IS) in very, very strong words. It’s just that denouncements don’t sell very well. Nearly every major credible organization has published these condemnations.
Over and over we hear that. We’re doing the best we can, but we don’t own the media. A very large group of clerics got together and actually used Quranic verses — our own Islamic scripture — in a letter to these terrorist organizations outlining to them exactly how their activities are counteracting the Islamic faith and how they are violating Islamic principles of peace. This is not just to let the non-Muslims know. This was a letter issued to these terrorist organizations using the scripture they claim to believe in.
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