The International Herald Tribune wonders- “Muslim Students: How American should they be?”

It seems that Muslim student groups in US colleges are wrestling with the question of inclusion, which is coming into conflict with their faith. Efforts at broadening the proverbial tent have met resistance in several cases. At UC Davis, for example:

Some members push against the rigidity. Fatima Hassan, 22, a senior at the Davis campus, organized a coed road trip to Reno, Nevada, two hours away, to play the slot machines last Halloween. In Islam, Hassan concedes, gambling is “really bad,” but it was men and women sharing the same car that shocked some fellow association members.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Hassan said. “I am chill about that whole coed thing. I understand that in a Muslim context we are not supposed to hang out with the opposite sex, but it just happens, and there is nothing you can do.”

The rest of the article has more interesting anecdotes, including this one about the Muslim Student Association of UCLA:

Judgment can also come swiftly. Ghayth Adhami, a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled how a young student who showed up at a university recruitment meeting in a Budweiser T-shirt faced a few comments about un-Islamic dress. The student never came back.

Never came back! Was he imprisoned? Was he stoned? The article’s author never explains what happened to that young student, leaving us only with that silly nail-biter. The student probably just went back to his dorm room and got in his novelty Coors pajamas.

To many, the strict interpretation of Islam among some MSAs seems a bit too extreme. But don’t worry, says one UC Berkeley Professor, because the MSA at your college campus isn’t affiliated with an anti-American Wahabbi sect…anymore.

Hamid Algar, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that in the 1960s and 1970s, chapters advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations and would brook no criticism of Saudi Arabia.

And what is a modern feminist to to? If she speaks out against the poor treatment of women under Islam and supports the “Americanization” of college Muslims, she will be accused by her progressive peers of promoting American cultural imperialism. If she turns away, she gets to call herself an advocate of tolerance and sensitivity. During Islamo-fascism awareness week, we saw many self-proclaimed feminists at Cal follow the latter path.