Smiles filled room E203 as Muslim Student Association members took pictures supporting Palestine. As students’ faces lit with joy, they knew they could count on their community to support them.
“Sometimes in a community, Muslims don’t know where they can unite, and that’s what MSA is – a club where they can feel at home,” senior co-president of MSA Safiya Mohammed said.
MSA is a student organization that reaches out to Muslims and allows them to participate in various religious events with their faith, including teaching them Islamic values, ideals and philosophies.
Numerous MSA’s can be found in many high schools throughout Texas, especially diverse campuses such as CHS.
“In areas like Coppell and Irving, which are more diverse areas, you are going to find a lot of Muslims, but they’re Muslims who don’t know how to communicate with other Muslims, so a club where they can feel at home is what we’re trying to build,” Mohammed said.
Although the club did not have much engagement in the past two years, Mohammed and other members are trying to add more involvement for the 2024-25 school year and build their leadership team. Currently, MSA has 80 members, with many more interested students showing up at the first meeting on Sept. 18 compared to past years.
“MSA has brought together many students as they share a common religion and a place to share that religion for almost seven years,” MSA sponsor Gulshan Mir said. “It brings students of many cultures and you can see how they share that culture in seeing common values. Students in the club build important relationships and that is an important core value of CHS that is shown in the club.”
One of the main focuses of CHS MSA in past years was the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST), which will be in February. MSA is not strictly faith-based, so students who want to learn about Islam can join.
MIST is part of a wide network in which all MSA’s across various high schools compete in a range of events. The competitive events all come under an overarching Islamic theme based on its philosophies, such as trust or the importance of fellowship.
“MIST is very important to MSA and much of what we do here,” co-president senior Zaid Syed said. “It is big because multiple schools as well as many Muslim schools also compete.”
MIST events include sports, photography and 2D art.
“I did an event last year with trivia questions about movies and books, but we didn’t do too well because some of the Muslim schools make MIST a huge focus as it’s their main competition and they are highly competitive,” Syed said. “In previous years, Coppell MSA focused a lot on MIST and the events, but this year we want to change that, and focus more on our faith and principles.”
MSA has also been fundraising for Palestine, as many members originate from there. All funds go to Palestinians in need due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In 2023, the members hosted an event in which they made bracelets, with all funds going to Palestine. On Oct. 14, MSA held a photo event in which members wore traditional Palestinian scarves, known as kufiyas, and on Oct. 25, they did rock paintings with the colors representing the Palestinian flag.
“Last year, our fundraisers had a huge turnover with a lot of people coming over,” Syed said. “We had a lot of support from everyone and it was nice to see that not just MSA members, but people outside of MSA wanted to support Palestine. Lots of members brought their friends too, which was great to see.”
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