Secular Alliance of IU attends prayer service

Carly Jane Casper and a fellow member of Secular Alliance of IU braved eight flights of stairs to attend a prayer service called Jummah with the Muslim Student Union on Friday.

“I don’t know much about Islamic practices,” Casper said. “I’m looking forward to getting insights.”

The Alliance organized a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders earlier this semester and put out cups labeled with different religious organizations.

The Alliance would visit a prayer service with the group whose cup had the most money, and the Muslim Student Union collected the most donations. Secular Alliance also agreed to visit a Bahá’i service because they were the group with the second-largest amount of money.

“The idea was to raise money for Doctors Without Borders and do some education in the meantime,” Casper said.

Five members from the Secular Alliance attended the Friday prayer service.

“They seem to be a really nice bunch of people, and they’re socially conscious,” Casper said. “As nonreligious people, you need to be exposed to religious ideas. You can’t ignore them. It’s important for us to have close relationships with religious groups.”

Zain Ashary, president of the Muslim Student Union, said they sent an announcement about the fundraiser to their list-serve.

“It’s great they came, and we’re very happy to have them,” Ashary said. “I hope (they) learned something.”

The Muslim Student Union met in the William Lowe Bryan room in the Indiana Memorial Union.

They set sheets on the ground and separated the men and women. There was a call to prayer, and then a student gave a sermon on social justice.

“Are we really going out of our way to do what we can?” the student asked.

“It was very interesting,” senior Robby Bensinger said. “I enjoyed the sermon. I like the fact that they have different people give the sermon every week.”

Then the group prayed toward Mecca. Some of the members of the Alliance participated in the prayer, while others did not. About 20 students from the Muslim Student Union attended.

“I was surprised how low-key it was,” Casper said.

Casper said the group is having a “Flying Spaghetti Monster Feast” fundraiser in late April, in reference to the parody religion Pastafarianism. The proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. The Alliance is also selling tickets and T-shirts for the fundraiser.

“We’re hoping to raise quite a bit of money,” Casper said. “We hope to do more things with the Muslim Student Union in the future.”