By Will Livingston | Staff Writer and Caroline Averitt | Life Editor

The Muslim Student Association (MSA) created a prayer room in the Reng Student Union in order to provide a convenient location for Muslim students to say their required prayers.

Islam requires its followers to pray five times a day. According to Pew Research Center, these prayers take place at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and evening.  

Salma Abdel-Karim, a sophomore biology and chemistry major from Jonesboro, serves as the vice president of the MSA. 

Abdel-Karim said a few of the required prayer times occur when students are in class and the only mosque is the Islamic Center of Jonesboro, located at 118 N. Rogers St. 

“The nearest mosque from here is one mile, which is a 20 minute walk, there and back and you only have maybe 15 minutes of free time,” Abdel-Karim said. “So, you want somewhere where you can go and pray quickly.”

Ibrahim Al Elamat, a doctoral student studying heritage studies from Irbid, Jordan, serves as president of the MSA. Both Al Elamat and Abdel-Karim worked with the Office of Title IX and Institutional Equity to reserve a proper space for their prayer room. 

Perdeta Bush, the director of Title IX and Institutional Equity, said she oversees the university’s compliance regarding bias, discrimination and religious accommodations.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time they’ve had a prayer room here on campus where they have access from eight in the morning to 11 o’clock at night and it’s the same room (every week),” Bush said. 

She said this space will help Muslim students adhere to their religious beliefs. 

“What I found out is that our Muslim students will skip class or they’ll skip prayer, because they don’t have that centralized space. For some of them, it may be difficult for them to get to the mosque, or to find a secluded space where they can pray,” Bush said. “So, knowing that they always have access to this place in the Union will make their lives easier.”

Martha Spack, vice chancellor for student affairs, helped find and secure a location for the prayer room. 

“I think it’s important for our students to have spaces they can utilize for a wide variety of reasons, and that’s really the purpose of the Student Union,” Spack said. “We just want to make sure that our students have places to go because this is their home and we want them to be comfortable while they’re here.”

Al Elamat said most of the schools he has visited in Jordan and the United States had prayer rooms. He said he wanted a space for people to be able to pray, but also to get to know each other. 

“It’s not a big community. They need each other, to help each other, to celebrate holidays and something to make those people feel at home,” Al Elamat said, “(We want them to) have a place for them to pray, to talk, to celebrate.” 

The prayer room is located on the third floor of the Reng Student Union in Room 3020, suite 1909. 

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