On a crisp October evening, the third floor of Student Experience Center lit with the celebrations of hallo-weekend through laughter, stained glass making, and ghostly tales.
The Ettihad Cultural Center (ECC) and the Pakistani student association (PSA) collaborated to organize Spooky Stained Glass: a Halloween inspired arts and cultural night that had activities like small canvas painting, snacks and Jinn stories.
The ECC room was decorated with warm lights and festive decorations. Students were hanging around all over the room next to the tables stacked with paints, brushes, chocolates and pizza boxes.
For ECC’s President, Omar Ambon, a fourth year industrial-engineering major, the goal went beyond celebrating Halloween.
“It was mostly a vision to just have a fun time with arts and crafts and also kind of use the Jinn stories as a cultural bridge,” said Ambon
“Jinn is kind of like the ghost/demons of the Muslim religion … but it’s mostly just ghost stories people have either heard from their experience or they’ve experienced themselves. Even though it’s called a different thing … we all have our own creepy encounters,” said Ambon.
Ambon talked about teaming up with PSA again, saying the association helped to run the Jinn stories last year. “
“So it only felt appropriate to invite them out again. Cause I heard it was a hit last year.” Ambon said.
PSA’s president, Laiba Hashmi, a junior majoring in supply-chain and logistics management, claims the collaboration was all about connection. Explaining that PSA wanted to collaborate with the ECC, in way of welcoming every religion and culture through the culture centers.
“We want diversity – that’s why we did this event where we share the myths about our country and what ‘ghost’ means,” Said Hashmi.
“It helps to combine people together that have different religions, different cultures, different backgrounds in one place. It can also increase friendships and networking, too.” Hashmi said.
The night went on with further Jinn storytelling, which took the spotlight. Laraib Nadeem, PSA’s vice president and a second year, computer science major, leaned in to tell one of the night’s spookiest stories.
“I had this experience at the age of 12 where I saw the Jinn,” Nadeem said, her voice low. “After moving out of that house, those things followed us again, and it turns out that the house was not haunted, we had someone had put black magic on us,” Nadeem said.
“[Black magic] exists in a lot of religions, a lot of myths as well, and the way the person performs it is different, but the original concept is the same, that the person is trying to control the Jinns to harm someone else,” Said Nadeem.
The audience listened closely to these stories, some of them in seeming disbelief of such an eerie event, and some scared as her story blurred the line between folklore and lived experience.
Whether participants spoke of ghosts, exorcisms, Jinns, or spirits…this event showed how many people carry stories that still haunt them.
