“It was just a very misinformed piece saying that Islam promoted violence against innocent people and that we are less American than the rest of the nation. I am still trying to come to terms with it. It’s almost a loss of innocence for me,” Shah Mohammed said.

Although Shah Mohammed said this week has been the toughest of his life “without a doubt,” he has faced serious adversity before. Shah Mohammed’s father works as an engineer in the Kuwait government, and when Iraq invaded the country in 1990, the family had to be evacuated. For a week and a half he was a refugee, fleeing Kuwait through Iraq and Jordan. He eventually made it back to his homeland of Bangladesh.

While in Kuwait, Shah Mohammed attended an American school before coming to Harvard.

He was chosen as president of HIS because, Yasin said, “We can all be proud of his representation of Islam here on campus. He’s a very dedicated and very thoughtful individual.”

While Shah Mohammed is eager to explain his his faith, he refused to discuss his own political beliefs or fault the U.S. for its policies towards the Middle East, calling a discussion of geopolitics irrelevant after a tragedy of Tuesday’s magnitude.

With a glint of resolve--and almost anger--flashing in his eyes, Shah Mohammed warned against forgetting what he thought were the real issues.

“To tie everything into the supposed greater stuggle between the Muslim world and America is dishonorable to those who lost their lives,” he said. “A crime was committed and the people who committed it need to be punished.”

Perhaps surprisingly amidst the outburst of prejudice against South Asian people, Shah Mohammed is not althogether gloomy about the future. His biggest worry is that innocent people in countries like Afghanistan may fall victim to American retaliation. Many in the Islamic community at Harvard have families in Middle Eastern countries and fear what will happen, Shah Mohammed said.

“I’d like people to realize that Muslims in America are as American as anyone else. This was as much an attack on us as well as the rest of America,” he said.