The morning 14 people were killed at a California office party, Hassanah El-Yacoubi was on her way to class at the University of California at Riverside.
Around noon, her classmates started asking, “Did you hear about the shooting?” Ms. El-Yacoubi, a Ph.D. student in religious studies, had not.
She checked her phone and saw a text from her husband: A couple had attacked a social-services center in San Bernardino, Calif., just 15 minutes from the Riverside campus.
“The first thought that came to mind,” she said, was, “Please God, don’t let the shooters be Muslim.”
After class she went to the library, watching the reports come in. Two shooters, 75 rifle rounds. And then, finally, the names: Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, both Muslim.
‘The first thought that came to mind was, Please God, don’t let the shooters be Muslim.’
Muslim leaders worried that Wednesday’s rampage — which occurred less than three weeks after major terrorist attacks in Paris — would lead to an anti-Islamic backlash. Across the country, Muslim advocacy groups publicly condemned the attackers.
But on the Riverside campus, those concerns took on a different sense of immediacy. For two years, one of the shooters had regularly attended services at the Islamic Center of Riverside. The center isn’t on the campus, but many students walk by it on their way to classes.
Ms. El-Yacoubi planned to leave the library at 10 p.m., but she worried about walking alone at night. She called the university police, hoping an officer could walk with her.
“I am a Muslim woman,” she told the police over the phone. “I wear a head scarf, which makes me even more of a target right now.”
Because Ms. El-Yacoubi hadn’t received any direct threats, the police department didn’t send an officer. Instead, someone from the Campus Safety Escort Service walked with her. The escort was cordial and respectful, Ms. El-Yacoubi said. But she would have felt safer with an officer in uniform.
Now the university’s Muslim Student Association is working with students who don’t feel safe on the campus. Students are driving together in carpools and walking home in groups.
“No one’s trying to walk home alone,” said Ahmed Abdelgany, a senior computer-science student in the Muslim Student Association. “Everyone’s parents have definitely texted them. My mom called me all the way from Egypt to tell me, ‘Don’t go out.’”
Mr. Abdelgany learned of the shooting on social media. At first he felt a mix of grief and worry.
“Muslims kind of take the blow twice,” he said. “First they mourn the pain of the tragedy. And then, if it’s a Muslim, they suffer from backlash or fear of backlash.”
The Muslim community on the campus hasn’t experienced a backlash so far, he said, but there is still a culture of fear. When he walked past the Islamic Center of Riverside, he was jarred by the sight of police cars in front of the building.
In an email to the campus on Wednesday, the university’s chancellor, Kim A. Wilcox, asked people not to blame Muslims as a group. “It is important that we avoid falling into Islamophobia or other forms of intolerance, which cause harm to members of our community,” he wrote.
That kind of statement is rare, Mr. Abdelgany said, and he thanked the chancellor in a Facebook post.
Unique Environments
Muhamad Ali, an assistant professor in the religious-studies department who is on sabbatical in Indonesia, said that his students have talked previously about their fear of an anti-Islamic backlash.
“They are concerned about this all the time in my classes,” he said. “But now it’s not only in the media. It is very close to them.”
He wonders about the environment on the campus but thinks that college students will be able to respond appropriately. “In educational settings, the stereotypes in the media are not quite as prevalent,” he said.
‘For much of the Muslim community, we hate these acts of terrorism that occur in the name of our religion probably more than anyone else does.’
On Thursday nights, Jamaal Diwan teaches a study circle. As a Muslim chaplain, Mr. Diwan serves students at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. The day after the shooting, instead of a study circle, he helped lead an open discussion for Muslim students dealing with the aftermath of the shooting. He asked local mental-health professionals to attend, and Muslim students at other campuses watched via live stream.
“Students expressed they have anxiety or fear,” he said, “especially those who wear head scarves.”
At the discussion, the mental-health professionals talked about how to handle fear and stress. Students voiced their concerns, which predate Wednesday’s shooting. Last week, Mr. Diwan said, posters appeared on the UCLA campus purporting to tie Muslim student organizations to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Mr. Diwan said that the administration had been very supportive. On Thursday, UCLA held a rally to mourn the victims of the shooting and to raise awareness of Islamophobia.
“For much of the Muslim community,” he said, “we hate these acts of terrorism that occur in the name of our religion probably more than anyone else does.”
