University Chaplains’ Perspective On Campus Protests: Interview With Imams Omer Bajwa And Abdul-Muhaymin Priester – [Part 1] “You Don’t Have To Be a Mufti to Know”

By Ibrahim Moiz for Muslim Matters

The academic school year of 2023-24 has been bookended in North America by major protests and encampments against Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. Efforts by both Zionist circles and governing establishments against these protests have often relied on vilification of and incitement against Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs, and black people; even many purportedly progressive university administrations have been guilty of this.

Much has been said and written about the uproar, but one perspective that remains relatively obscure is that of Muslim faculty and university chaplains. MuslimMatters caught up with chaplains Omer Bajwa of Yale University and Abdul-Muhaymin Priester of Grinnell College to hear their thoughts about these tumultuous events. Below is the first of a five-part series based on this interview.

Chaplains’ Experience With Recent Protests

Ibrahim Moiz: We’ve seen a lot of large protests in the last few months, especially in the last month or so, across different universities throughout the United States, against the Israeli attacks on Gaza and other Palestinian territories. What`s your experience been with regards to how these protests have been organized and how their conduct has been?

Abdul-Muhaymin Priester: Well, look, the pictures that we’ve seen regarding the murder and oppression of our brothers and sisters in Filastin, for myself I stopped looking at that stuff months ago. I think the last one that I looked at was the young girl, they were pulling her through the rubble, and she was making dhikr and reciting the kalimatain. And even right now I want to cry; I cried when I saw that, it was like I couldn’t look at it no more after that. That was like, because you was seeing that stuff which like, you just go down a black hole.

Because I come from a background where I’ve witnessed a lot of violence among people at some point in time, sometimes on a daily basis. Just understanding the nature of oppression, how people can be very abusive and disruptive and understanding that even Muslims, we allowed ourselves to become very naïve in regards to the oppression that the Zionists are capable of. It’s just, for me it was just like I need to just leave that alone and find a better way to start interacting with people in regards to the situation.

At some point in time, what’s going on is good and needs to be talked about… but we know that in six months when everything stops and the lights cut off, the majority of the people who are making noise right now, they’re not even going to be thinking about the situation no more. And that’s something, that’s another difficult conversation that Muslims really need to come to grips with.

Because we’re [saying], ‘Oh yes, they’re protesting, and the word’s getting out’ – okay, yes, but from my own personal feel of that is like, yes those things are necessary, we have to do it – but at the end of the day, when we look at all of what’s going in within the campuses and even in regards to what we see with the images and whatnot, we’re not the ones leading the charge. We’re participating in what others are doing, but we’re not the ones leading the charge. And that changes the entire dynamic and the conversation that is being had around what’s going on, how do we respond to it, why does it matter, you understand.

“I Didn’t Have to Pull Punches”

Omer Bajwa: Sure, Bismillah. So thank you so much for that context and the question. You know, I’m gonna split it [into] two phases…One thing as a context, this is my sixteenth year at Yale, alhamdulillah. I think after Imam Khalid Latif I’m currently the second oldest Muslim chaplain in terms of the time served and tenure. What [has] happened is that I have been able to build, alhamdulillah thumma alhamdulillah, really deep ties vertically, upward and downward. With the community, I’ve seen literally generations of students go. I get invited to student weddings and aqiqas now, right – kids that I saw as undergrads are getting married and having children now. So really to have that longevity and that sort of investment.

And then the second is through the administration, I’ve seen two [Yale] presidents come and go, multiple deans and whatnot. With that, alhamdulillah, you develop trust and respect with the administration.

Why am I saying all of that? Because after 10-7 [7 October 2023], I used every khutbah, every halaqa I had, I didn’t have to pull punches. I mean, my community knows very clearly my politics. I use the g word, genocide. This is also very rhetorically bombastic in many places. I’m very mindful of that, actually; I’m very careful about what time and place you have to use that, but in terms of my platform I don’t have to pull any punches, because I mean the rabbi knows where I stand, right, the Hillel knows where I stand. I go to the encampment, I go to the protest, on campus, off campus, etcetera, I’m there for my students.

That puts me in a unique place because I also have an institutional job, right? And I have this, like, embedded [position], where a lot of chaplains are part-time volunteers, or they have a very tenuous [position], because they’re new, they just don’t have that. And I’m very mindful of that, so in my mind, personally, what my mashaikh have said is that, if Allah Taala has given you this platform for this long, you’ve got to really cash that in now, right? You’ve got to use it for what it’s worth…

A Rainbow Coalition

(Omer Bajwa continues):

So really, six, seven months from 10-7 onward, our students were protesting, were doing stuff off campus, we were working with local, you know, Palestinian solidarity efforts, etcetera; there were marches on campus, we would go march at Jummah, etcetera. Many of my Muslim students were doing it, but it wasn’t exclusively [Muslims] as Sidi Priester said.

You know we had many students of colour, the black community, the Latinx community, the queer community, the indigenous community, it was a whole coalition, right? And I’m not saying this to be cheeky, but it was quite a rainbow coalition, right, of people on this…

So, by my record Columbia was the first encampment in the [United States] this year, and Yale was the second encampment, so we were just literally, I think, two days behind Columbia’s encampment. You know, Columbia became international news, with the violence, with the suppression, with [the New York Police], with this, like, Gestapo-like tactics and all of that.

Thank God, alhamdulillah, Yale was nothing like that. We had two series of arrests, one of them were violent arrests at Yale, but it pales in comparison to what Columbia did. Columbia is, I think, when history gets written about, that is going to be like a case study unto itself, right, on how they navigated this.

The Majority Have Been Women

(Omer Bajwa continues):

So all that’s to say [that] right now, before the encampment the Muslims were really one of the principal parties organizing it. I think when the encampment started, Muslims became one of many. There’s a lot more groups, right? A lot more non-Muslim groups, so we were a fraction in the encampment, but when we have the rallies a lot of our Muslims were coming out…

By my impression from talking to my colleagues across the country, this is the noteworthy point, the majority of the Muslim participants have been Muslim women. The Muslim women have been at the forefront, on the frontline, muhajjiba or non-muhajjiba, they have been in the trenches, sleeping overnight, praying maghrib and fajr, you know, literally in broad daylight in front of counter-protesters.

[And] where are the Muslim men? “Oh, sister, is protesting really jaiz? Is it halal? Should we be protesting? You know, why are we standing next to queers and to [Black Lives Matters] activists and to these radical anarchist communists? Is that how we want to be seen in the world?” And the sisters are like, “There are people walking around with their siblings’ body parts in bags in Gaza! You don’t have to be a mufti to know where you should be.” So these are the kind of conversations that are happening at Harvard, at Yale, at Columbia, I have to say.

Get An Imam’s Permission?

Ibrahim Moiz: I noticed two things – one, a lot of people sort of selectively feel that they have to get an imam’s permission for everything, and then the other is this whole thing of “How are we going to look to conservative Americans”?

Abdul-Muhaymin Priester: Personally, you know, I think that’s just a cop-out that people use, because at the end of the day it’s about communities. You know, the women are the ones taking charge of a lot of the things, they’re the ones taking the classes, showing up at the halaqa, things of that nature there. You know, and even if the husband does come, he’s sitting at the foyer drinking coffee and talking on whatever – they’re [the women] are the ones that are actually getting into the thick of it. It’s been like that for years.

So I think it’s really emblematic of just how much of a problem we have within our community, just in terms of how we’re supposed to be responding to things – how we’re supposed to be not so much responding to them, but actually – because we should have known this was going to happen…You know, it’s been quiet for about a year now, something’s about to happen. It’s just, the settlers are acting too crazy, something’s about to start happening, it’s time for something to happen. And if this intelligence would allow us to be a little bit more perceptive of these things.

That’s the other reason I got to say for myself, I come from a history of social rights activism and community development, my family’s done that for years, okay, and seeing what I’m seeing, personally, it doesn’t sit well with me. Because you know, most people would ask, you know, “Why don’t you do something?” Because I know I’m going to be the one at the front of the line, and when I turn around you’re going to be all standing back there looking at me, “Why did you do that?” What do you mean?

[Next in Part II: The Moment of Speaking Truth to Power]

Related:

American Muslim Scholars Express Support For University Student Encampment Protests

Protests: An Islamic Perspective