Muslim community outgrowing Murray-Dodge

Murray-Dodge, home to the University’s Office of Religious Life (ORL), is beginning to be “too small to house Princeton’s religious community,” said Mariam Rahmani ’10, president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA). “Religious life has outgrown it. During Friday prayer, we’re at capacity. If we continue holding [prayers] at Murray-Dodge, we won’t have room for [the] people who attend.”

In addition to Muslim prayer services, Murray-Dodge is used for Catholic masses, Bible study groups and Hindu satsang fellowship meetings. With a growing number of groups sharing the building, it’s not clear whether it provides adequate room on campus for religious activity, students and administrators said.

“I know that the available space in Murray-Dodge for Friday prayers for the Muslim community is becoming too small. The number of participants continues to grow,” Dean of Religious Life Alison Boden said in an e-mail, adding that the Friday prayer services may soon be relocated to the crypt of the University Chapel.

“I’ve only been at Princeton for 18 months, but I understand that before I came several students requested (after all decisions had already been made) that Campus Club become a center for Muslim life,” she added. “A center for every group would be ideal for each, of course. The current economic landscape, however, indicates that the creation of new religious centers won’t be thinkable for a while.”

Princeton is not the only university seeing growth in the size of its Muslim community.

In December 2008, Duke University opened a center for Muslim life to accommodate its growing Muslim community. Before the building opened, the Muslim community had no single prayer space that could accommodate everyone, Duke University’s student newspaper The Chronicle reported, noting that since the Center opened, the Duke Muslim Students Association has seen a rise in student involvement.

“We talk about [a center for Muslim life] all the time in the Muslim community,” said Sohaib Sultan, Princeton’s first Muslim chaplain, who came to the University last September.

“I think that, certainly in terms of space and accommodations, one could argue that there is a need for it, but practically speaking a Muslim life center would cost a lot of money to build and to maintain and there are also certain drawbacks to having a religious center that is separate from the Office of Religious Life,” Sultan explained.

Sultan added that though the growing Muslim community at Princeton has led to discussion of new accommodation, he appreciates the space they have.

“Murray-Dodge has been a wonderful resource for the Muslim community, and I can’t imagine us being in the place that [we are] without the help of the Office of Religious Life,” he said. “But it is a growing community, and that presents a challenge for the future as to how we’re going to accommodate Muslim students in this building.”

Another challenge facing the Muslim community is finding halal food on campus, Sultan said. Currently, dining halls are the only places on campus that Muslim students can find food prepared according to halal specifications, Sultan explained, adding that the relationship between the Muslim community and Dining Services is young and not very efficient.

“Limited halal options are available in all of the residential colleges, but they need to be asked for, and they are not readily available,” Sultan said. “Sometimes students don’t ask enough because it’s not in front of them, and they want something quick. We’re still working out the technicality of it all.”

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Some Muslim students often eat at the Center for Jewish Life (CJL) because they are comfortable with kosher options, Sultan said. He added, however, that kosher food cannot replace halal food for all Muslims and that many Muslims only eat food that has been prepared according to Islamic law.

Hindu students who follow strict vegetarian or vegan diets face similar challenges, Vineet Chander, the coordinator for Hindu life, said.

“For Hindu vegetarians, the main issues in communal eating situations like dining halls tend to be cross-contamination (e.g. shared grills) and non-vegetarian ingredients (e.g. chicken stock in a supposedly vegetarian soup),” Chander said in an e-mail. “There has been some discussion — informal, to be sure — of aspiring towards a Center for Hindu Life. I must add, however, that such discussion is more of an optimistic projection into the future rather than a statement of anything lacking currently.”

The model for such plans is the CJL, which provides prayer space and a kosher dining hall for the University’s Jewish community.

“The CJL building is important for the Princeton student body because, as its name indicates, it is a true physical center for the Jewish community,” CJL president Rebecca Kaufman ’11 said. “I believe that students really value the community that the CJL fosters.”

Chander noted that the CJL provides a positive model for other religious communities on campus.

“Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life does amazing things for the Jewish community here as well as the broader Princeton community,” he said. “I think it is natural that other minority faith communities at Princeton would aspire towards one day being able to provide their members the same type of amazing care.”

In spite of the spatial and dietary problems that having individual religious centers might solve, Sultan, Rahmani and Chander all said that the interfaith dialogue encouraged by the ORL is invaluable to the religious community as a whole.

Sultan said he would ideally like to see an interfaith center on campus that was spacious enough to accommodate all religious groups and was equipped with a kitchen that could serve halal, vegetarian and kosher food.

“I just feel that it’s better that religious life is integrated on a college campus,” he explained. “I’m not a fan of the idea of everyone having their own center. That would create too much isolationism.”

Rahmani noted that forming a separate center for Muslim life was not a top priority for the MSA, either. “The Muslim Students Association is more concerned with where it’s located in campus culture right now, not in physical location,” she explained. “I think that all faith groups on campus are committed to interfaith work ... That’s why Murray-Dodge is a great facility.”

Sultan said he would be sorry to see the interfaith nature of Princeton’s religious community altered or diminished.

“College is the best time for students to get to know people of other faiths and to broaden their horizons,” Sultan said. “When people are able to come to the same religious life center it is much more enriching for college students ... I would hate to see that any different.”