“College Station’s Islamic Center hosts mosque open house,” by Rebecca Fiedler, The Eagle, November 4, 2018:

Graduate student Osama Qureshi worked with five black ink pens on Saturday afternoon, crafting ornate name signatures of Arabic calligraphy for visitors to the Islamic Center and Masjid in College Station. “Islam is very iconoclast,” Qureshi explained as he transformed names such as “Graham” and “Samuel” into works of art, each syllable becoming a shape.

What fun to have your very own name, transformed into exotic Arabic, by a practiced calligrapher. “Yes, of course you may take it home. No, there’s no charge. We want to share with you the art of Arabic calligraphy. Just as we want to share our faith with you.” Words to that effect.

“[We] don’t like doing images of people’s faces, which is why this [mosque] is decorated very sparsely. Images are very looked down on out of fear they might lead to idolatry. So going off of that, calligraphy developed within Islam to basically glorify the word of God. There’s a [Plato] quote, ‘beauty is the splendor of truth.’ What is more truthful for a Muslim than the word of God? Now it has become the pinnacle artform of Islam.”

Osama Qureshi knows, but is not about to tell visitors, why “[we] don’t like doing images of people’s faces.” The reason why Muslims over the past 1,400 years have avoided depicting images not just of people’s faces, but of any living creatures, is that in a hadith, Muhammad reports that the angel Gabriel said he wouldn’t enter a house where there is a “dog or pictures.” “Pictures” have been taken by Muslims to mean all depictions of living creatures, whether in paintings or in statues. Thus, because of one hadith, more than 1.5 billion Muslims today continue to severely limit their means of artistic expression.

Qureshi’s calligraphy station was just one feature of the Islamic Center’s biannual Mosque Open House.

These Mosque Open House events ordinarily offer demonstration of a craft practiced by Muslims (though not only by Muslims), usually resulting in something tangible the visitors can take home. It might be a woman applying henna decorations onto the backs of female visitor’s hands, which those visitors can then proudly wear for a few days. Henna painting is not limited to Muslims, but no one need be told that. A favorite at these Mosque Open Houses is teaching girls the proper way to tie, and wear, a hijab. And some of the girls, given the hijab as a gift from the Islamic Center, will begin delightedly to wear those hijabs at home and school, in a multicultural masquerade. At the Islamic Center of Texas A&M, the main craft conveyed was calligraphy, and each student who participated came away with a card on which his or her name had been carefully written in Arabic by calligrapher Osama Qureshi.

Each public school semester, the Islamic Center hosts the event not just for Texas A&M students, but for any non-Muslims in the area to come and learn about the religion and meet the Muslims who live and worship in Brazos County. “I would say for most part, a lot of students don’t know anything about Islam, which is surprising to me because of how prevalent it’s been in modern American culture,” said Texas A&M Muslim Students Association president Mu’ath Adlouni, also a board member at the Islamic Center. “I think a lot of people know what they hear or see on TV. Many don’t do their own research; it’s a small minority. That’s why we have initiatives to try and teach people about Islam.”

“How prevalent it’s [Islam has] been in modern American culture”? Whatever can Mu’ath Adlouni be thinking of? Less than 1% of the American population is Muslim. Muslims have had a scarcely discernible impact on American culture — on American music, art, literature, science, philosophy, political thought. The knowledge about Islam of “a lot of people” comes from “what the [Americans] hear or see on TV” — obviously, in reports about terrorism — and that is what worries Mu’ath Adlouni, the fact that Islam is “prevalent” in those news accounts. “Many [Americans] don’t do their own research.” He says, confusingly, that “it’s a small minority.” The meaning here is ambiguous. Adlouni might mean that “it’s only a small minority” of Americans who do their own research on Islam, and don’t just base their opinion of the faith on what they are shown on television, that is, Muslim terror attacks. Or he might mean that the Muslims you “hear or see on TV” — that is, terrorists, shown having killed or killing or threatening to kill — are “a small minority” of the Muslim population. Either way, he wants Americans to get beyond what they see or hear on television and learn about the real Islam. And what better way for those benighted Americans to “do their own research” than to come to a Mosque Open House, and be told the truth about Islam, by the people who know it best. That means Muslims themselves, so eager to share — no holds barred, ask-us-anything and we’ll answer! — that knowledge.

Several dozen college-aged men and women removed their shoes and entered the central prayer room of the mosque on Saturday, greeted by the aroma of hot pastries. Members of the mosque had cooked up multiple pans of a wide variety of foods from several different international cultures, spread out for the enjoyment of mosque guests. Two young women handed out shawls to any female visitors interested in trying out a hijab, answering questions about the garment. Visitors could pick up a brochure on different aspects of the religion, or even take home an English-translated Quran.

The food. At every single one of these mosque events, there’s always the savory, copious, and free food. The exotic delights of Arab and Pakistani cuisines. Visitors, first “greeted by the aroma of hot pastries,” enter a room where “a wide variety of foods from several different international cultures” have been “spread out for the enjoyment of mosque guests.” This food is not tangential, but central to these mosque presentations on Islam. A festive spread meant to create an instant warm feeling, literally and figuratively, for visitors, as they break bread with their kindly Muslim hosts, asking questions now about this strange food and now about that one, learning about spices new to them, such as zaatar, and even taking away a recipe or two, for curried chicken, manasheek, fattoush, umm ali.