On April 10, the Center for International Students and Scholars (CISS) hosted the 17th NAIST Tea Time for NAIST international and Japanese students. This event, as written in the NAIST Top Global University (TGU) project plan, was held as part of NAIST's mission to maintain a global campus and promote understanding among our growing community.

Considering NAIST's large Muslim population from various countries around the globe, this Tea Time was held to introduce the history and culture of the Muslim religion, covering areas from daily life and prayer to religious teachings and central ideas of the Muslim Faith. With the cooperation of Md. Rejaul Karim, a doctoral student of the Graduate School of Information Science, NAIST was able to invite Mr. Mohsen Shaker Bayoumy, Imam and Director of Osaka Ibaraki Mosque, and both gave presentations to enlighten the audience about the second largest religion of the world.

The event opened with Imam Mohsen Shaker Bayoumy giving an introduction to the terms and ideas central to the Islamic religion, using specific examples and textual explanations to give a concrete, easily understood image of various philosophical and religious points. After this informative presentation, Bangladeshi snacks includes nimki, chomchom and kheer mohon were served with Bangladeshi tea. Many of the audience members were not familiar with the dishes and the families of our international students answered questions about them while handing out samples and seconds to the crowd.

While people were still enjoying the snacks, a Q&A session started with a list of questions that were collected prior to the event and then Imam Mohsen Shaker Bayoumy accepted questions from the audience. He responded to all the questions and many common questions about Islam were made clear. Following this Md. Rejaul Karim gave a presentation focused on Muslim daily life which many NAIST faculty and staff expressed interest in learning about.

Roughly 60 people gathered for this event, which was full of valuable information that gave the audience a look into Muslim life and religion, and we would like to thank both Imam Mohsen Shaker Bayoumy and Md. Rejaul Karim for their efforts to promote multi-cultural understanding on our campus.