More universities added Muslim chaplains post 9/11. Then came 10/7.

(RNS) — Saarah Abdul-Maajid chose to study at Rutgers University, in large part because she knew it had a Muslim chaplain and a Muslim center on campus where she would feel supported and valued. A junior majoring in political science, she said she now spends at least part of each school day at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, located in the heart of the New Brunswick, New Jersey, campus. She takes a noncredit class on Islamic teachings with the chaplain there and usually finds a quiet nook to study.

Many of her friends hang out there, and recently she has volunteered to be the center’s marketing intern. “As Muslims, we’re very proud of our identities,” said Abdul-Maajid, 20. “Almost every other culture and religion seems to have their own spaces, and I can say we definitely have now, too.” ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press.

RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. 11, 2001, attacks, universities across the country began to reckon with Muslim students in their midst, and within a decade, dozens, including Rutgers and all eight Ivy League Schools, added full-time Muslim chaplains to care for Muslim students.

There are now 80 full time Muslim chaplains on college campuses across the country, and some have designated spaces for Muslim prayers and programs, according to the Association of Muslim Chaplains. It’s a big change from 25 years ago when only a few colleges had Muslim chaplains, and nearly all of them were volunteer part-time posts, the association said. But that growth has collided with a more hostile moment for American Muslim students amid an increase in anti-Muslim political rhetoric, and in the wake of Israel’s war “Muslim students have to constantly tell people what they’re not,” said Kaiser Aslam, the chaplain at Rutgers’ Center for Islamic Life.

“It’s good to have a space in which they can understand what they actually are. So that’s probably the first big bucket of what I do — provide emotional and spiritual support to individual students on campus.” Rutgers was one of the first public universities to privately fund a full-time Muslim chaplain, beginning 15 years after 9/11. Unlike private universities, public universities funded by state and federal tax dollars cannot directly …