US Students Form Protective Wall Around Muslim Classmates

Hundreds of non-Muslim students at Michigan University, USA, formed a circle around their Muslim classmates so they could pray safely after a woman wearing a headscarf was threatened. According to the police, a man ordered the woman to remove her headscarf and said he would set her on fire with a lighter if she refused. The college’s Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) organised a public prayer session following the incident and invited non-Muslim allies to attend in solidarity. Farhan Ali, president of the MSA, said he was “overwhelmed” when hundreds of people arrived to stand guard as they performed a group Isha prayer in the University’s main square. Mohammed Ishtiaq, the university’s Muslim chaplain, told the Huffington Post that both the Jewish and Christian communities on campus came out to show their support with the Muslim students.