I Am a Campus Muslim Leader. Has Harvard Been Captured?

A few days ago, the Harvard Islamic Society — which I lead as one of its presidents — hosted a festival. We were celebrating Eid al-Fitr, one of the most important holidays in Islam that invites joy, hospitality, and community across differences.

Eid is a holy day that marks the end of Ramadan, a month where Muslims fast from dawn to sunset to increase piety, better control desires, and cultivate sympathy for the less fortunate. HIS invited food trucks, dessert stalls, coffee carts, and fashion vendors to recreate the festivity associated with Eid. We spent months planning the event, securing every approval needed, and — thankfully — it was a massive success for the Harvard community.

Then, the Harvard Republican Club sent out a message of their own. They claimed that Harvard had been “captured,” implying that our celebration was not a typical gathering of University affiliates and guests, but a uniquely fearsome and threatening occupation.

I am appalled by such bigotry from a recognized student organization, as their post appears to violate Harvard’s policies and institutional values, and reflects an increasingly worrying trend across our campus. When student organizations within our school start attacking others for their mere existence, Harvard has a responsibility to respond.

HRC’s spiteful online attack, featuring blatant lies about our event’s nature and audience, points to a much deeper issue at Harvard: we are failing to live up to our ideals for a campus where everyone can thrive.

The University’s guiding principles toward campus life were outlined by a 2018 Presidential Taskforce that established five broad community values. One of these values is to “cultivate bonds and bridges that enable all to grow and learn from one another” — the very principle upon which Harvard’s presidential initiative on interfaith engagement was founded.

When the HRC mischaracterized our religious celebration, suggesting that it was a threat, they made a statement antithetical to “cultivating bonds” or building understanding of any kind. As far as I am aware, they also made no attempt to engage with HIS leadership or ask clarifying questions before lying about our festival.

A Harvard that embodies religious pluralism must empower people from different traditions to uphold their practices and participate fully in their celebrations. Whether that’s installing Christmas decorations, observing Yom Kippur, or participating in Holi, faiths must flourish visibly.

Harvard Muslims are not a threat to be neutralized. We are students, celebrating a holiday, on a campus we belong to. Describing Muslim students lawfully gathering in a shared campus space as evidence of Harvard’s “capture” suggests that our visibility and existence itself is illegitimate.

Such attacks reverberate. Now, many Muslim students painfully ask: Is there room for my freedom of expression, my traditions, my holidays? Is there room for my faith here? Is there room for me?

The anxiety around belonging and the self-censorship that follows corrode any metric of wellbeing, campus climate, or intellectual vitality that Harvard aspires toward.

This moment is painful, but it is not surprising. The final report of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias found that 72 percent of Muslim respondents feeling uncomfortable expressing their religious beliefs or ethnic affiliation around campus. The HRC post leaves us with very little doubt as to why.

Since the HRC chose to engage in flagrant conduct with no remorse, they must face consequences. A formal university complaint has been lodged; if there is no further University action or intervention after such a public attack, then Harvard’s stated commitment to religious pluralism is only in writing.

Of course, the problem extends far beyond Harvard’s gates. Figures at the highest echelons of American society have labelled all Muslims as terrorists, called for the expulsion of Muslim citizens, demanded the surveillance of mosques, and worse. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate tracked Islamophobic and xenophobic posts on X during the final four months of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent campaign, finding a 450 percent increase in Islamophobic narratives from September to October 2025 alone.

These examples are not fringe cases; they illustrate growing mainstream hostility. As a proud American, born and raised in this country, I am aghast at the normalized dehumanization of Muslims and the rise of Islamophobic vitriol within the halls of Congress.

The struggle for equality and justice is not new, though who is under fire changes with every era. Islamophobia, in its many forms, is rising once again in America — a development exhausting in ways hard to put into words.

I am not asking for sympathy, but rather engagement. Remaining ignorant, especially at a university like Harvard, is no longer an excuse.

There are over 2 billion Muslims across the globe. Learn about who we are. Break bread with us. Question the stereotypes made online. Explore the possibility that you’ve been lied to for years about Islam.

Develop your own truths by “cultivating the bonds and bridges” Harvard asks us all to build. As God says in the Quran, humanity was split “into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another.” (49:13)

Some will read this article, detached, skimming to the end of yet another piece.

Do not.

Refuse to let hatred go unchallenged in your classrooms, your dorms, or your group chats. One day, you might find yourself in a similar struggle for equality, asking for the same basic human decency that — regardless of faith or identity — we all deserve.

Moeen M. Razzaque ’26 is an Electrical Engineering concentrator in Quincy House. He serves as co-president of the Harvard Islamic Society.