❊ The Antounieh Prayer Affair

In case you’re not familiar with the story, here’s what happened: A group of “Hezbollah students” have apparently decided to have a collective Muslim prayer in the middle of the yard of a proudly Christian and ecclesiastical University.

The university responded by issuing the following statement:

The identity of our Antounieh university is clear and invariable: A private, Christian, Catholic, Maronite, Antonite, open university that gladly admits students of all sects, religions and classes, but does not compromise on its identity and its ecclesiastical heritage

I am not familiar with why the students decided to pray so publicly in that establishment (update below), but I’m not buying the political talk that Hezbollah is taking over a Christian establishment to spread the wilalyat el Fakih.

What I do know is that timely prayers and group prayers are very important to some Muslims. The defiant public prayer at Antounieh could be seen as an act of protest against rules perceived to be too strict against Muslim students.

That said, this is a private university that is entitled to set its own rules, and the administration is absolutely right to be upset by this. Still, a little bit of pragmatism could have gone a long way in preempting this provocation and potentially nasty sectarian fall-out.

The Antounieh University would be wise to set up a small prayer room for Muslim students, and that would neither be a compromise of the University’s identity nor a capitulation to the Wilayat al Fakih, but a simple act of putting the University’s words about openness into action.

Update: I just read Rita’s post and found out that indeed the students were protesting the lack of a prayer room.