On April 19, the San Francisco State University Muslim Student Association held its 15th annual Eid Banquet in Jack Adams Hall of the Cesar Chavez Student Center. 

Maria Anjum, the co-vice president of MSA, was hoping to see attendees create a sense of community building by bonding with new people. 

“I think that having an MSA on campus really is no use if the community is not a community — if people see each other, but they don’t know each other, and if they’re sitting with each other but they’re not really sitting with each other,” Anjum said, a third-year biology major. “This kind of allows everyone to go and mingle with one another.” 

Although Eid al-Fitr was formally celebrated the night of April 9, MSA staged its celebration for SFSU students on Friday to mark the end of Ramadan and the first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic year.

The event began with a prayer and featured dinner, guest speakers and games that created a lighthearted and joyous affair for the families and students — both Muslim and non-Muslim attendees participated. Games like Kahoot and human bingo allowed for more engagement and interactions. 

Many students expressed gratitude towards SFSU for providing accommodations and space for the Eid celebration to be held on campus. Najah Egeh, a first-year computer science student at SFSU, said the university’s actions helped foster a safe space for the Muslim diaspora on campus.

“With everything that’s going on right now, not a lot of Muslims feel safe,” Egeh said, referring to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “However, SFSU allowed us to host this event and celebrate and be with our fellow Muslims, which felt amazing, and we felt very safe.” 

MSA board members also honored the upcoming spring graduates at the banquet by awarding them with certificates and gifts for their achievements at SFSU. 

Yousef Alghethy, a fourth-year business management major and one of the event coordinators, reflected on his past visit to SFSU with his uncle, whom he saw graduate from SFSU many years ago. He was overjoyed seeing that same uncle attend his graduation celebration years later and hoped his personal experience would give future insight and motivation for current students.

“I had my family here and they were all cheering me on,” Alghethy said. “I had my friends here, and that motivates the others that are still in school that are maybe [in their] first year, second year, and they’re like, ‘This is going to be me one day.’” 

Event attendees included non-Muslim students like Mabel Sum, a third-year psychology and sociology student at SFSU, who felt welcomed to experience and learn more about Islamic culture as someone who grew up outside of the Muslim community. 

“All the food, the environment and all of the clothing – it’s really beautiful to me,” Sum said. “I love to share cultures like that.” 

Nadir Ali, a fourth-year computer science major and another event coordinator, reiterated the idea that events like community iftars and other celebrations are always open to non-Muslim students, who are always welcome to celebrate with their Muslim peers. 

“We’re very welcoming to non-Muslims because you never know who might be interested in Islam, or this just might change your perspective on Islam,” Ali said. “A lot of things about Islam may not be accurately portrayed in the media or anywhere else, so they might come here and they might have a different opinion about it —and that’s why they’re always welcome.”