Blackface. "Spirit animals." Kimonos. In today’s day and age, cultural appropriation — the adoption of one aspect of a culture from another, often disrespecting the original culture — is something...
When three middle school girls refused to remove their headdresses in France in 1989 while at school, the government intervened, banning hijabs in public school. After three decades, France has continued...
When the word ‘prayer’ is mentioned, many people think of raising your hands together while you pray for what you want. However, Muslims’ five daily prayers are quite different from other religions'...
As the time of sunset, “Maghrib,” grows closer, senior Farhan Hassan’s stomach growls at the thought of food; he looks forward to eating the dates and drinking the water in front of him.
During...
Due to the demand for a Muslim Student Association (MSA) from Muslim members of the student body, seniors Areeba Naseer, Sara Imdad and Farhan Hassan appealed to their needs by creating the club. Naseer...
![“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to memorize the Quran — the holy book of Islam. It has 604 pages and 114 chapters. Memorizing the holy book has a strong significance in my religion and it is very rewarding. I recite it to this day to make sure I don’t forget it. I’m the co-founder and vice president of the Muslim Student Association [at our school]. It is a club formed to create a community for Muslim students here at West. I [moved] to West from an Islamic private school and homeschooling program, so I naturally yearned for that consolidated Muslim community at West when I joined in-person [school]. I got to know many Muslims at the school, but they were scattered. In Islam, forming an ummah (a muslim community) is very significant. However, when I first came to West, I saw that there was a population of Muslim [students], but they didn’t form one solid group. So, along with one of the new senior Muslim friends that I made, we took it upon ourselves to create a club forming a solid Muslim community, and it has been great. We’ve done volunteer opportunities, projects and even Islamic board games. It really has been such a fun experience that I want to keep up next year.” – Zahraa Sajid, 12](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/zahraasajid-900x600.jpg)
![Cultural appropriation is being called out in mass media and online, but the line between appropriation and appreciation can often be hard to identify. Recently, Asianfishing and Westernization have become more acknowledged by the media, but it’s important to understand exactly why they are harmful. “Cultural appropriation can give [people] the wrong concept of [certain] cultures. They’re seeing what the American media perceives these [cultures] to be, and a lot of times that’s not [what] it [is],” sophomore Anu Pidikiti said.](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Screenshot-2022-12-01-10.02.27-AM.jpg)
![Lined up outside of the theatre on the first Friday of Ramadan, junior Mohammed Kuziez and freshmen Waleed Abdulla and Areeb Hasan get together to pray “Jummah” (Friday prayers). Muslims are also obligated to pray five times a day, as “salah” (prayer) is one of the five pillars of Islam. “I like to think that I hold my religion very close to me; it's something that I was brought up on for the past 17 years,” Kuziez said. “It's one of the things that our religion holds the closest, and [prayer is] a basic [element] of it.”](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/edited-900x600.jpg)
