Right after sunset, 14 students kneeled in the direction of Mecca on the floor of Touchdown Terrace at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Thursday night to take part in prayer before Jamillah Karim took the podium to speak to a crowd of about 40 people.
Karim, who was brought by Islam on Campus and Accent, lectured about a woman's role in the Islam faith.
Karim became the first Muslim professor of religion at Spelman College, an all-girls liberal arts school in Atlanta, Ga.
"I believe it has been divinely decided that I give the talk I plan to give today," she said, adding she had originally prepared a different lecture but was driven by Allah to speak on something different.
To help illustrate her main points, she shared stories of the different Muslim women who impacted her life and shaped her ways of thinking.
She first shared the story of her mother, an African-American Muslim convert, who Karim said would try to wash off the color of skin when she was a child because she was ashamed of its shade.
"She told us this to share the psychological impact on racism but also to show how Islam healed her," Karim said. "It broke the shackles in my mind to show that black was beautiful."
Karim also compared the views the America media and Muslim women have toward the hijab, the headdress Muslim women wear.
She said while many American publications depict Muslim women in passive poses, Muslim publications showcase more active women in the faith.
After Karim's 45-minute lecture, students had a chance to ask her questions pertaining to current events facing Islamic women, such as certain Islamic nations who participate in female circumcision.
"The reality is that the Koran does not support that," Karim said, adding there is a distinction between Islamic practice and cultural practices in Islamic nations. "The reason why the two tend to be confused is that Islam is a religion that is open to cultures, so many cultural acts will continue."
