MSA welcomes students with fall Welcome Back Dinner

Over 100 students gathered in Stamp’s grand ballroom for the Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) semesterly Welcome Back Dinner on Friday.

The Welcome Back Dinner provides new students a place to meet their Muslim brothers and sisters, allows returning students to get together, and helps build a sense of belonging amongst the Muslim community at UMD, according to Masah Farh, the MSA’s treasurer. 

The dinner consisted of introduction and welcome back speeches from each of the MSA board members, as well as a speech from the Muslim chaplain at UMD, Imam Tarif Shraim, before the commencement of maghrib prayer and dinner. 

“The first event I attended for the MSA was the Welcome Back Dinner, and I remember entering as a freshman, I knew no one,” Farh, who is a junior government major, said. “I remember coming in and just hearing the speeches that [Imam] Tarif had, and just feeling really at peace with the place that I am at and the community that I would eventually feel like I belong to.”

Aryaan Ahmed, a junior public policy major who serves as MSA secretary, shared a similar experience as Farh with finding community at the welcome back dinner.

“I am from Memphis originally, so coming in, I didn’t know anybody at this school. But I knew I wanted to find people like me,” Ahmed said, “From my freshman year, the welcome back dinner was always like a place for me to find new people to talk to.”

The MSA hosted an event every day for the first week back on campus. For many freshman and transfer students, this served as a place to meet new people and get to know the Muslim community at UMD. 

Amira El Toumi, a sophomore transfer student and psychology major, said attending the welcome back events helped her meet new people. She attended the Mocktail Social on the first day of classes and was able to exchange socials with other students.

“As a transfer student, it is a little bit difficult because a lot of people already know each other prior,” said El Toumi. “It [welcome back events] is a good way to be able to see familiar faces around campus, and so next time you run into them, it is like saying salam to an old friend.”

The Welcome Back Dinner was not only a place for current students to meet new people, but also for alumni to see familiar faces.

Huda Kemal, a UMD alumni from the class of 2025 attended the dinner with some other alumni. 

“I have been to this event almost every year when I was here, so it was just nice to come back, and it gave us a reason to come back, we haven’t been here in a while,” Kemal said.

Ahmed reflected on his experience now being an organizer of the Welcome Back Dinner.

“It was nice to be able to see the fruits of our labor,” he said. “It’s like my first few years, I was the person that got to make a community around me, and this year I was the one providing the opportunity for other people to build that community.”

_{Image credits: Cover photo by Omar Tawfik for Al-Hikmah.}