“Muslims hate Christmas trees.” My elementary school librarian stated this bluntly to my younger sister’s class unprompted. This reductive statement was quite confusing and humorous to my sister and me, who have celebrated Christmas our entire lives with our mom’s family.
For most of my life, I did not feel comfortable telling even my closest friends that I am Muslim. My apprehensions and fears stemmed from the religious tensions in my family, the 2016 presidential election and the deep-cutting, careless ways adults and teachers around me talked about Islam. For years, I longed to openly embrace my religious identity.
Leaving my small-town, rural Minnesota high school three years ago, I was eager to engage deeply with Islam. I missed out on such commitment due to my home’s distance from the nearest Muslim community and the great religious diversity of my family. In my years before coming to Carleton, I harbored a mix of hope and shame when it came to my religion.
When making my college decision during my senior spring of high school, Carleton’s Muslim House, located in Page West, stood out to me. The house, while designated for women at the time, demonstrated to me that Carleton strives to make Muslim students feel recognized.
The following year, the Muslim House became a men’s space in response to decreased interest among Muslim women. Page West is where I found some of my most lasting relationships at Carleton. In that year, especially during Ramadan, I was deeply embedded in a Muslim community for the first time in my life. Between my frequent house visits, coursework in the Arabic and religion departments and Chapel programming, I slowly learned to let go of the shame I once felt about my religion.
I am ever-grateful for the opportunities Carleton gives me to embrace my religious tradition. My story is not an isolated one. To many students, Carleton is a place where they can engage the depth and diversity of traditions familiar and unfamiliar. College is a time where individuals can reevaluate their engagement with religion by sustaining, growing, exploring, wrestling or stepping away. The Chapel makes strides in opening religious life to all of these possibilities.
Though my eyes saw a strong Muslim community here, Northfield is a void, a drop-off for many Muslim students. They may have grown up hearing the call to prayer every day or fasted and cooked Ramadan meals with their community. Students who never had to explain their faith or justify their religion find the opposite to be true when coming to Carleton.
As a Chaplain’s Associate, I have struggled to build engaging programming for all Muslim Carls on campus. Some students have memorized the entire Qur’an, while others know none. Many pray five times a day, and many more do not. Students bring in incredibly varied levels of background knowledge, yet we tend to only create events with very low barriers to entry. While this allows everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to join us, it stifles engagement for those that want more.
How can we cater to the fullness of our Muslim community? While the many churches in Northfield ease the Chapel’s role in supporting Christian student life, the nearest mosques are each a 25-minute drive away. The Chapel and the Muslim Student Association are ill-equipped to fully meet every Muslim student’s needs. Our struggle to do so is a product of our limited capacity and isolation.
This isolation is being addressed this year with the first-time introduction of two Chapel-managed Muslim houses, one for women and one for men. Through shared meals, text studies and informal get-togethers, the houses offer students space to join in community outside of formal Chapel events, countering the Muslim life “void” many students feel. Despite our communal growth, the college denied our appeal for two Muslim houses in the 2024-25 school year. Next year, Page West will be a women’s house. The college has not agreed yet to continue providing a suitable shared living space for Muslim men.
In light of our struggle to uplift all expressions of Muslim identity and practice, I urge the college to maintain its support for two houses. We do not have traditionally-trained imams at hand for advice. We can’t pray all five daily prayers in congregation with our busy schedules. The Muslim Prayer Room cannot comfortably hold more than 10 people, restricting its role as a community space. I will not pretend the houses provide everything committed Muslim students look for. Although not every need is met with two Muslim houses, removing one would detract from what little we do have and overlook the benefits they have already brought.
For the 2026-27 year, the Chapel has advocated for the continuation of both women’s and men’s interest houses, but we have been met with misunderstanding and apprehension. We are asked 1) why we request gender-separated housing and 2) what happens if there is a year when there is not enough interest to fill two Muslim spaces.
To the first point, living in most campus housing is difficult for Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab. Even Carleton’s single-gender floors are inadequate for women who want a living space where they can remove the veil because men can access those floors. The house was originally established to address their needs. This leads us to ask for a second single-gender house, for men, so all Muslims who want a substance-free, halal-compliant, and identity-supporting living space can find one.
What happens if there is not enough interest to fill both houses in the future? From my conversations with administrators, the past variability of Chapel house interest is understandably fresh in their minds. I offer the following: in the last few years, the Muslim interest house has consistently received more applications than any other Chapel space. Muslims continue to demonstrate how strongly they desire these spaces, and they are disappointed the college has been slow to designate another permanent Chapel house.
Considering the college’s hesitancy to designate a Muslim men’s space, I suggest the following: establish a fourth permanent Chapel interest house without a specific community designation. When the Chapel houses moved to Eugster House for the 2025-26 year, a few possibilities existed for the fourth apartment. If it did not become a Muslim men’s space, it could have been an interfaith house, or, with further outreach, it could have accommodated another religious community.
I am painfully aware of how often Islam is the third among three in interreligious contexts. What do I mean by this? Islam, historically the last of the three well-known Abrahamic religions, is often the least understood. Also problematic is any notion that the number of religions ends at three. Interfaith spaces often, whether overtly or subtly, become Abrahamic-centric. Opening conversations around religious housing possibilities could uplift voices of those who may not feel they have a place at the table.
By maintaining four or more Chapel-affiliated houses, the college can expand its support for religious life. Such versatile living spaces could go to students of seldom-recognized religious traditions, become interfaith houses and serve as a home for Muslim men to continue supporting the minimum needs of my community. I hope that all students at Carleton, like me, feel empowered to come forward with their complicated backgrounds, shifting needs and developing hopes for what religious life can look like on our campus.