Harvard accomodates a public call to prayer

Though Harvard’s trial of female-only gym hours and a broadcast of the Islamic call to prayer in Harvard Yard earlier this year grabbed the attention of the national media, members of the Princeton community do not foresee similar developments on campus, and many feel that the reaction to the events at Harvard action is overblown.

In late January, six female students asked the Harvard administration to set aside times for women to exercise without men present. One month ago, during Harvard’s Islam Awareness Week, students walking through Harvard Yard in the early afternoon heard an unexpected broadcast: the adhan, Islam’s call to prayer.

Women only in the gym

The trial for gender-segregated exercise began Jan. 28. Harvard’s Quadrangle Athletic Recreational Center (QRAC) is now open to women only on Mondays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Some Princeton students said they felt Harvard’s change was unfair.

“I don’t feel like it’s right to infringe on others just because of religion,” Charles Wright ’11 said. “It probably could have been handled in a different way.”

“If you are setting a specific time aside for a particular religious group you have to take into account the possibility of showing preference to one religious group over another,” Doug Lavanture ’08.

Similar changes could take place at Princeton, however, if students raised concerns.

“If a sensible request is put forth, which can be reasonably accommodated, it would be worthy of consideration,” Princeton’s Associate Athletic Director for Campus Recreation David Leach said in an e-mail. “Many factors need to be taken into account, particularly regarding the numbers of individuals potentially negatively and/or positively impacted.”

Leach added that “it is important to note that Harvard has more than one facility,” whereas Dillon Gym is the only exercise facility open to all undergraduates.

Administrators at Harvard tried to minimize the inconvenience that the change posed to male students. Harvard spokesman Roger Mitchell told The New York Times on March 21 that QRAC was the “least-used athletic facility.”

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The potential of restricted access to the only facility open to all undergraduates at Princeton worried some students.

“I think it’s legitimate if there are other gyms available, if there are gyms where men can go at that time,” Jon Monk ’08 said of the QRAC decision.

As for a potentially similar occurrence at Princeton, he explained, “the reaction might not be too favorable — Dillon is the only gym here.”

Wright also said he thought the change would not go over well with students. “The inconvenience would probably get some people ticked off,” he said. “It would stir up trouble.”

Wasim Shiliwala ’09, president of Princeton’s Muslim Students Association (MSA), said he did not believe that Princeton students would call for such a change.

Broadcast of the adhan

On March 13, The Harvard Crimson published an op-ed asserting that broadcasting the adhan was proselytizing and offensive, more so than lighting a menorah or ringing church bells, because the adhan is “a declaration of religious superiority and a declaration against all beliefs that conflict with” the statements made by the adhan.

Harvard’s Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser in a March 18 blog entry responded, “Is it in fact the case that other religious rituals do not convey their performers’ affirmation of core principles of the religions with which they are associated?”

For the most part, though, students at Princeton said they do not feel pressured by the religious community on campus.

“We have a pretty good deal of openness in regards to specific cultural groups,” Lavanture said. “The religious groups do a pretty good job of sponsoring cross-cultural events.”

The MSA will sponsor Islam Awareness Week from April 7 to 14, but Shiliwala said there is no adhan planned for the Awareness Week on campus.

“If it were up to me and you asked me now if Princeton should conduct the adhan in public, I’d say no,” MSA Secretary Nabill Abdurehman ’11 said in an e-mail.

Juliane Hammer, a visiting fellow in the Near-Eastern studies department, said in an e-mail that the debate spurred by the two events does not necessarily concern the events themselves, but rather is driven by people’s beliefs.

“It seems to be that the debate at Harvard reflects larger fears and misperceptions in American society and is less about actual practical challenges or limitations,” she noted.

“Both Harvard and Princeton have chapel/church bells ringing throughout the year, and no one feels coerced into being a Christian,” she said.

She supported the QRAC decision, and said the Harvard administration “emphasized that the decision to have women only gym hours will be reviewed at the end of the semester.”

She added that Muslim students’ asking for means to meet their religious needs is a “sign of integration,” and that their doing so causes them to encounter “existing tensions about the role of religion in the American public sphere.”