Item Details

coverage

Winston-Salem (N.C.)

creator

Dudgeon, Hollis

Nasar, Rakin

date

2019-11-07T14:39:51Z

2019-11-07T14:39:51Z

2017-12-11

2019-11-07 (issued)

description

Rakin Nasar is a Senior at Wake Forest University majoring in biology, with minors in Neuroscience and Southeast Asian Studies. Nasar is on the Wake Forest Debate Team, and is also the former Vice President of the Muslim Student Association. In this interview, Nasar talks about how his faith has changed over the years, from highly spiritual approach in his youth to a more ethical approach to Islam in college, and the impact of racialization of Islam on social identities around the nation and on campus. He expands on his Muslim identity as a sense of advocacy for the familiar to his life, but highlights the diverse nature of the religious identity, and points to Islam being one of the most diverse religions in the US, that it is not tied to a national identity or a race, but is practiced in a multitude of ways by a multitude of peoples within this country alone. Nasar talks about ways to affirm muslim identities on campus, mentioning that he does not Muslim friends to tell him he is a good Muslim today but that simply saying hello affirms his existence and presence on campus. He discusses his personal negative experiences both in the classroom and on campus, as well as negative events that have happened on campus, providing insights into how the university can begin to rectify some of the damages done. He hopes that future Muslim students at Wake will continue to pressure the university as much as they can, but to be creative in the ways that they address the needs of the Muslim student body, expanding the offerings for halal food on campus as well as advocating for their identities as a whole.

790A Knowledge Dispels Fear: Islam and Islamophobia: Student Interview Project

Faculty director: Dr. Joshua Canzona, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Part-Time Assistant Teaching Professor of Theology, School of Divinity (Wake Forest University)

format

audio/mp3

1:15:51

oral histories

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/95596

language

English

relation

Special Collections and Archives

Z. Smith Reynolds Library

Wake Forest University

History of Wake Forest University Oral Histories (RG53.1)

rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Rights Statement

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subject

Muslim college students

Wake Forest University

Islam

title

Nasar, Rakin, oral history and interview

type

sound