MSA’s much anticipated annual Marhaba (Welcome) Dinner is finally here! On Friday, September 29th at the William Doo Hall (located at 45 Willcocks Street) from 5pm – 9pm, join us in celebrating the beginning of the blessed month of Ramadan, and enjoy live Nasheed and Spoken Word performances. Hilariously disturbing videos are also part of the entertainment. This is one event you don’t want to miss!
Tickets are only $5 for Frosh and $8 for Returning Students, and can be purchased at the door.
Iftars for the rest of this week (Wed, Sept 27 & Thrs, Sept 28) will be held at the Koffler Center located at 214 College St. on the 3rd floor, Student Affairs.
N.B. The Welcome Dinner will replace the Iftar on Friday, Sept 29.
Other locations will be announced as the information is made available.
Dear MSA Member,
The MSA would like to wish you and your loved ones a blessed Ramadan, and pray that this month brings us closer to our Lord and that He, Glory be to Him, accepts from us, our fasting, our prayers, and our efforts to renew our intentions as we strive to better ourselves.
As always, the MSA will be providing FREE daily iftars on campus; please check the MSA Website or the MSA Blog for the latest updates on timings and locations. Additionally, taraweeh prayers will also be held on campus and we are currently looking for someone to lead the taraweeh prayers. Interested volunteers please email msa.religious@gmail.com
Once again, we pray that God guides us towards making this Ramadan a source for gathering numerous blessings and getting our major and minor sins forgiven.
Sincerely,
The MSA Executive
msa.exec@utoronto.ca
by Hajera Khaja
Once upon a time last Friday, there was a very cool student club at UofT, called the MSA, short for Muslim Students’ Association, that held its first ever orientation to welcome new students and to introduce them to the coolness that was the MSA. The frosh that came to know of this auspicious event were very excited and went traipsing off to tell all their friends and foes about it. As the days passed on, they gathered in huge numbers, flooding the MSA exec with lots of emails about their excitement and willingness to register and partake in the day’s activities. Their nights passed with much difficulty and they couldn’t wait for the day to come when they would be finally bestowed with the title of ‘MSA member’ and got to meet all the older MSA members.
Although the waiting seemed long and endless, last Friday finally did arrive, trailed by clear blue skies and sunny rays shining down upon the frosh. They started the morning early with presentations by the MSA President, Student Affairs and the Student Administrative Council. By the end of the session, the frosh were left amazed and speechless at all the wonderful ways they could get involved and thanked their lucky stars that they chose to attend UofT and not York. Next on the agenda was a tour of every cool place imaginable on campus – except that it wasn’t really a tour, but a scavenger hunt that had the frosh running around campus trying to find answers to mundane questions such as the number of stalls in the washrooms near the prayer space in the Bahen Center. And to the end the fabulous day, the 60 something frosh that registered met with the 200 something MSA members at the big barbeque at the SAC Lawn and shared many laughs, advice and wisdom over burgers and free popcorn and cotton candy.
Having been initiated into the MSA and crowned new MSA members, the frosh and all their peers who were a part of the orientation lived happily ever after. Except for the author of this fairy tale who wondered what sort of feedback the frosh would give if they were asked to comment on the day’s events and activities. The End.
——
Waiting for the food.
Asmaa, making a beeline for the frosh to sign them up.
Frosh forging friendships
Aasim: Man, this is hard work!
No room for the sisters!
Who knows how to operate the cotton candy machine?
Asim, the extraordinaire does!
Look at him go!
All fed and happy
Cleaning up, and Ilyas finally decides to help
… and makes sure he’s rewarded for it
MSA is excited to announce our first ever orientation for frosh, this Friday, September 15th! Enjoy a free breakfast at Hart House with brief presentations by representatives of MSA, Student Affairs, and SAC; scurry around campus in a bid to win a scavenger hunt and familiarize yourself with important locations on campus; stuff yourself silly over a BBQ lunch at the SAC lawn and enjoy an afternoon of merriment with lots of fun and games. This is your chance to get connected with your Muslim community on campus, so be sure to attend and get oriented! To register and for more details, please email msaoreintation2006@yahoo.ca.
If you are a returning student, there’s fun for you too. Enjoy the great food and the great company at the BBQ lunch. And be sure to spread the word!
by Hajera Khaja
The numbers haven’t come in yet, but the good news is, we got a truckload of new MSA members. If you are one of those brilliant individuals who decided to befriend the MSA for the transient (or not) time that you will spend at UofT, welcome aboard! I am certain that you will not regret the decision, even when you find yourself awake at 3am designing a flyer for an event whilst simultaneously trying to memorize a long list of organic chemical reactions for your quiz the next morning at 9:10 A.M. Trust me, it will all be worth it come the day after the event, when you run into numerous people that attended your event, congratulating you on a job well done and exclaiming what a fine time they had, and when you run into not-so-numerous people who were unable to make your event but heard such wonderful things about it, that they felt compelled to approach you and insist that you hold a sequel so they can partake in the grandiose fun that the gossip mills of the MSA were loudly proclaiming.
On a slightly more serious (i.e. official) note, the MSA has lots to offer you. We have eight committees, all striving to offer diverse and numerous ways in which you can involve yourself and enhance your university experience. You can keep informed of the myriad volunteer opportunities available via our listserv, fondly known as the MSA-L (If you failed to sign up for it, drop us an email at msa.exec@utoronto.ca). For the more ambitious amongst you, jump right in and head one of our various projects. We will be forever indebted to you and your enthusiasm.
Whatever your forte, we welcome you with outstreched arms and hope that you get involved, and have a pleasant undergraduate (or graduate) journey. And you can kick things off by attending the MSA Orientation, specifically designed for all those who are new to the MSA, frosh or otherwise. It may be the best and most fun you will have this year, so be sure to register by emailing msaorientation2006@yahoo.ca. To give you a sneak peek of what we have in store for you, think ice-breaker games, literally. I will leave the rest upto your creative imaginations.
And now, to the bad news. Although, I am hesitant to categorize it as ‘bad news’ but alas, a wind-swept tent making straight for our Sisters’ Events Coordinator, Israh Enaz, can’t be anything but bad news. But we are thankful to report that there were no injuries involved in the unfortunate incident.
Now its your turn – let the commenting begin! Let us know what you thought of the MSA table, the displays, the execs manning the displays, or anything else that you wish to comment on. If you thought it was all fabulous and felt we had reached the pinnacle of our existence, then let us know. And if you thought that we were the shabbiest looking table around and struck a new low, let us know as well. We promise to take both comments with a grain of salt. 
Clubs Day: A Visual
Look at that crowd!
Did you enter the draw?
All that traffic at the MSA table?! Surely, we must have rocked.
Asim and Israh, one looking dazed, and the other confused.
Tariq, eyeing Nasir suspiciously: “What could he possibly want with all those flyers?”
MSA veterans (from left to right): Akram, Faraz (former MSA exec members) and Mr. “why in the world are you taking my picture?” President.
A little too much MSA Pride, me thinks.
Asmaa, wanting to spread some peace.
The tent mishap – So how many guys does it take to hold down a tent? Apparently more than four, for it went flying away soon after they left.
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