A Chaplain Creates Community for Young Shiite Muslims

In 2005, Faiyaz Jaffer, then a freshman at Stony Brook University, walked into the campus prayer room on a Friday. He was there for a weekly Jummah service with the Muslim Student Association. Jaffer began to pray as he always did. He let his arms fall to his sides, instead of across his chest like the people around him. He placed a turbah, a clay tablet, on the ground at his feet. When he bowed, he put his forehead on it, in accordance with the Shiite, or Shia, tradition to prostrate on a natural surface. A couple of Sunni students approached him. Jaffer says they didn’t want him using the prayer room again -- not if he was going to pray like a Shiite.