According to their mission statement, the purpose of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) is to provide an environment for the development and networking of Muslims on campus while fostering a sense of community between Muslims and non-Muslims through education.<\/p>\n
Abdullah Johnson, associate professor of electronics engineering technology, is the MSA faculty advisor and has been in his position for more than four years.<\/p>\n
During his tenure, he has seen the group grow from a few students to the 12 members that it is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe group has grown and I\u2019ve seen the students grow,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt helps the students learn how to socialize and network.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MSA group started out as an informal group that met on campus but the second student president of the informal MSA asked Johnson to be the advisor of the club so they could start receiving the stipends that all formal clubs receive from the college.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students are multi-cultural and international students,\u201d Johnson said.\u00a0 \u201cMy job is to oversee; counsel and guide them.<\/p>\n
Students do not have to be Muslim to join the club, according to Johnson. In fact there is one member of the club who is non-Muslim already, and many non-muslims that attend meetings regularly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club is open to everybody,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s to raise awareness and for Muslims and non-Muslims to learn from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MSA club is partly religious, meaning that Muslim students will pray at various hours of the day but the group does not necessarily promote Islam.<\/p>\n
\u201cIslam is a way of life, more so than a religion; you can\u2019t get away from it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe don\u2019t go proselytizing around campus, but in case someone does want the info, we have Qurans on hand, which we provide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson says the club\u2019s biggest accomplishment at Sinclair came last year when the MSA gave out a scholarship to a Sinclair student.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year we gave out around two grand in scholarships,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe also received an award from Student Leadership. Islam is all about giving and helping and part of our mission is to help Sinclair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student president is Widad Boussaha and she says the club has been very beneficial to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want to bring students together and show them the truth, that Islam is peace\u2014and not terrorism,\u201d Boussaha said. \u201cPeople have misconceptions about Islam, and I like to show them the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MSA meets twice a month and meetings are based around a certain topic. The MSA will occasionally show a video about a topic followed by a discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur sole reason for the club is not to make you Muslim,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s so everyone can get together\u2026 and learn from each other. \u201d<\/p>\n
While the MSA has seen an increase in membership in its four years, Johnson hopes the club will continue to grow; but he believes the matter is not in his hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuslim\u2019s always say \u2018Whatever God wants,\u2019\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping it expands, but it\u2019s really in the student\u2019s hands to take the initiative and make it grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information about MSA contact Johnson at 512-2019 or look up the Sinclair MSA facebook page.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to their mission statement, the purpose of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) is to provide an environment for the development and networking of Muslims on campus while fostering a sense of community between Muslims and non-Muslims through education. Abdullah Johnson, associate professor of electronics engineering technology, is the MSA faculty advisor and has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1NP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6934,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933\/revisions\/6934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}