A new club for practicing Muslims began meeting in October.

Abdulrahman Ahmadzai, the president of the new Muslim Student Association, said he started the club for Muslims to “come and pray.”

“I wanted … to join the Muslim club,” Ahmadzai, a first-year cybersecurity student, said. “But when I heard that there is no Muslim club, then I decided to create one.”

The original club, run by former student Hamza Iqbal, stopped meeting in 2023. Owen Silverman Andrews, an instructional specialist, was the faculty adviser for the club.

According to Ahmadzai, “no one was willing to take their presidential [role] and other important places for the club to be run.”

Ahmadzai added he wanted to start the club for Arabs and non-Arabs who are Muslim.

“A lot of people think that only Arabs are Muslims and they only speak one language,” Ahmadzai said. “So I wanted to show people that non-Arabs can also be a Muslim, and non-Arabs also can be Christian.”

Ahmadzai said he hopes to organize events for Eid al-Adha and Ramadan next year.

“Ramadan is in three months,” Ahmadzai said. “We are planning to, in Ramadan, … give food to the poor people, needy people. … We are planning to get money from our urban club members, [and] then give that to poor people.”

Ahmadzai said he’s excited to start a new club “for the first time in college.”