“We never got our act together, but now we have more urgency,” Shah Mohammed says.

Abdul-Basser points out that HIS’s religious services have always been open to the entire community and are held in a University building. Only after the attacks, however, did HIS send out an e-mail specifically inviting non-Muslims to observe their Friday prayers.

“If you look back at it, we’ve always been open to everyone,” Yasin says. “Right now we’re taking extra effort to let everyone know. There’s no change in policy, it’s more a change in marketing.”

As part of its reinvigorated mission, HIS will also “intensify” its cooperation with other student groups, Yasin says.

In the past weeks, HIS has worked with other student groups to organize events and relief efforts. HIS has already spoken and worked with SAS, the Harvard No War Coalition, the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice and the Afghan Refugee Fund, according to Ali and Yasin.

“We’re strengthening our friendship with other groups like SAA and with the Harvard administration, who has always been supportive of us,” Shah Mohammed says. He says that HIS will be looking to make more connections with student groups than in the past.

“There are some natural points of interfaith with the Haitian groups and the African-American groups on campus,” Abdul-Basser says. “[With] some of the events that are coming up, it’s definitely in HIS’s interest to cooperate with other groups.”

Members of Chrsitian Impact (CI), the Catholic Students Assocation (CSA) and Hillel say they have all expressed their support of HIS in the past month.

“Even before the second tower fell, I was in contact with HIS offering my support to them,” says CI leader Benjamin D. Grizzle ’03, who is also a Crimson editor. “They know that the Christian community is in solidarity with them. I’ve told them if they ever need help, if someone is discriminating against them, that the Chrisitan community will be the first to condemn them.”

Grizzle says he and about a half-dozen members of CI and Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship attended one of HIS’s religious services several weeks ago.

Benjamin Z. Galper ’03, chair of Harvard Hillel, also says he is committed to supporting HIS as a fellow minority group.

He says that a few days after the attack, members of Hillel, Islamic students and members of CSA had brunch to talk about the ramifications of the terrorism.

CSA president Geoffrey A. Preidis says he hopes that “if [HIS] needs anything they feel comfortable coming to us. The greatest thing we can do is pray.”

Grief, Discrimination and War

While HIS and SAS are serving as the ambassadors of Islam and Arab culture, respectively, many group members have been left trying to cope with both their grief and their fear of a backlash.