Year 7 News

Visiting the Islamic Museum

Throughout August and September, the Year 7 classes attended an excursion at the Islamic Museum. All of the year 7s had an opportunity to attend the museum, located in Coburg.

At first, we were very surprised to hear of a museum so far from the city, however as we learnt more about Islamic culture we learnt that there is a high population of Muslims in the area surrounding the museum. As we toured through the museum many more realisations came upon us.

A passionate person spoke to us about her family and what it is like to be a Muslim in Australia. We were walked through her family tree; meanwhile she cracked jokes about how her great uncle looked like a terrorist. She spoke about how her family had many different religions, cultures and nationalities intertwined within it and yet, they were all Australian. She spoke about how even though she laughs at who will get bomb checked at the airport, it does hurt to feel targeted. She showed us a new perspective of life. She showed us that many people don’t have the luxury of acceptance. After giving the inspirational speech about her life and culture, she continued to educate us on her culture and what their beliefs and practices looked like. She explained how even countries who were commonly known as “Muslim Countries” didn’t always follow the Quran in the same way in their laws. And that some of the strict interpretations were not in the Quran. She explained that the Quran was essentially a Muslim bible and that it was the book of their religion. Throughout this whole speech little parts of her personality and humour shone through the information. After, we were left with a sensation that we had just been spoken to by someone who was truly passionate and proud. She taught us things we never thought we would know and she was my personal highlight of the Islamic museum. The spectacular speaker proceeded to show us through the museum.

During our tour, I was surrounded by eager students rushing to get all the answers to the quiz we were given.  The museum had different galleries within it, all in which educated us in some shape or form on Islam culture. In each gallery, we all walked out knowing something we hadn’t known yesterday. The galleries each had a different name in which the information in the gallery was centred on. One of the galleries we were taken to was named Boundless Plains which was about four Australian men who wanted to discover first hand Australian Muslim history. Another, named Islamic architecture entailed information about mosques all over the world. The third one was named Islamic faith, this was the most interesting. It gave us knowledge about the Islamic names for characters from the bible; there are many links btween Jews, Muslims and Christians. In addition, the Islamic art exhibition was very interesting. It included artwork of infused Muslim and Australian culture and traditional Islam prints and patterns. Lastly, there was an Islamic contribution to civilisation gallery. This gallery was very fun and informative. Inside the gallery there was a giant chess set and many articles paired with images about creations that Islamic people helped to create.

That concluded our tour and our visit to the museum. Overall, we had an amazing time and learnt lots of new things. I know we would all be happy to go back and further expand our knowledge of Islam.

Jade Frame

7L2