The religion of Islam is rarely understood and more often looked down upon in the U.S. To try to combat this, the Hamline University Muslim Student Association will be running an Islamic Awareness Week to try and give some insight to the youngest of the three Abrahamic religions.

On Monday, there was afternoon tea in Anderson Center, and yesterday there was a food drive in Manor Lounge to support Feed Their Legacy, a movement by American Muslim leaders to collect and distribute food to the hungry. On Wednesday, there is a seminar in the Klas Center’s Kay Fredericks Room on the Prophet Mohamed. Wrapping up the week, on Thursday there is a Volunteer Day, and Friday is “It’s a Wrap (Hijab Day).”

Nadia Al-Mosawi, Hamline junior and president of the Muslim Student Association, has been working with the Hamline Multi-Faith Alliance and Better Together as well as the other students involved in the Muslim Student Association to set up Islamic Awareness Week.

“I have been brainstorming ideas for Islamic Awareness Week since February, even before I was made President,” she said.

As other students who have run week-long events such as this may know, this sort of endeavor is not easy to set up.

“Planning Islamic Awareness Week has been difficult. The Feed Their Legacy Dinner was the most difficult to set up, but we have also had to come up with events that we feel will appeal to college students, get influential speakers, and try to design the events so that anyone and everyone who attends them will get something out of it,” Al-mosawi said.

The event happening later today, the third event of the week, is the talk being given on the Prophet Mohamed, and Al-Mosawi highly recommends that people attend it.

“I would recommend that people join us for the third event, the ‘Prophecy: Who is the Prophet Mohamed (SAW)?’ event, because the guest speaker, Tamer Abdelaziz is an amazing speaker. He also is planning to talk about everything that is going on with ISIS and about the Charlie Hebdo incident and about how these events all connect to Islamic prophecy and about the most recent Islamic prophet,” she said.

For anyone who is still interested in attending one of these events, there are still three remaining. The talk today being given by Mr. Abdelaziz, the Volunteer Day where student volunteers will travel to Masjid Al Dawah in Minneapolis to assist in some yard work and to help in outreach preparation, and It’s a Wrap, where students can wear a hijab for a day and also hear a speaker from the Daybreak book store in Manor Lounge discuss modesty and the history of the hijab.

Above all else, this week is about learning.

“I want people to know that these events are beneficial for everyone and I hope that someone attending these events will learn something new. I also hope that everyone who is interested can attend at least one event,” Al-Mosawi said.

Islamic Awareness Week has its own Facebook page, so check it out if you are looking for dates, times and locations for each event.