There was a report last week that a group of Muslim students
at St. Anthony University in Lebanon staged a small protest to demand a prayer
room for Muslim students inside the university.
St. Anthony is a Christian university and to establish a prayer room for
another faith would go against its bylaws and principles. Just as Islamic universities have the right
to say “no” to making a chapel for Christians on their campuses, St. Anthony also
has the right to stick to its principles.
If praying during university hours is essential for some Muslim
students, then they may have to find the nearest Mosque or transfer to a
university that does have facilities for Muslim students to pray. While
this event has made it into the news and people are discussing it, it was not
really a big deal. The students were not
very big in number, they simply lay down prayer mats and prayed together in the
middle of the campus and nothing has happened since then except that people are
talking about it. The ones who are
making a big deal out of it are political parties who are trying to use the
incident to their advantage. The politics
need to be kept out of the university campuses so that students can focus on the
reason why they are there: to study!!!
But I can understand why people are interested in this story and it has
raised discussion, especially in a country like Lebanon where this small
protest can incite feelings which are bound up in so much history and
politics. How do you think the university should have responded?
