Muslim University of Maryland Students Demand Prayer Rooms in Every Major Campus Building

In this July 13, 2015, photo, Minhaj Uddin Syed prays at a temporary musalla (prayer room)
male prayer room in Australia (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

Muslim students at the University of Maryland are asking administrators to put a prayer room in every major campus building as part of a long list of demands.

Students at the University of Maryland have put together a list of 64 demands to administrators in their ProtectUMD initiative to make the campus more hospitable to “marginalized student populations,” including Muslims, Campus Reform reports.

Other demands by Muslim students to administrators include being provided shuttle bus services to the local mosque and a request that “their names be kept from President-elect Donald Trump if he creates a nationwide Muslim registry,” the Daily Mail reported.

Students said they had difficulty accessing the current prayer room and “often resorted to praying in stairwells as a result.”

Donald Trump said he is still considering the registry after the Islamic extremist attack on Berlin’s Christmas market Wednesday.

Students asked to be protected from a potential Muslim registry because the university has information on each enrolled student.

“It would provide a sense of safety if we knew the university wasn’t the one giving the government that information about us and feeling like our administration is protecting us and willing to do that carries some value,” Sarah Eshera told student newspaper The Diamondback. 

Other “marginalized” groups also included their own list of demands into the master list. One demand from “undocumented students” would require the University of Maryland to become a “sanctuary campus.”

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