TAMPA, Fla. — Video circulating online shows three men harassing Muslim students at the University of South Florida during their morning prayer on Tuesday.
Tampa Bay 28 reporter Jada Williams talked to some of the students who were there. The students tell Jada the men were shouting profanities, stomping around them and making racist remarks while they prayed on campus.
WATCH: Muslim students describe 'very scary situation' during USF campus prayer
The incident occurred during a monthly prayer gathering organized by the Muslim Student Association on top of Collins Parking Garage at 6 a.m. November 18.
Saajid Khan, a member of the Muslim Student Association, described the terrifying encounter that unfolded during what should have been a peaceful religious gathering.
"Right by our heads we heard stomping and profanities and screaming and a lot of really insulting things towards us and our religion," Khan said. "They continued to get in our faces, scream at us, preach to us and then just speak really xenophobic, bigoted, racist and Islamophobic remarks to us throughout the entirety of our prayer."
The Muslim Student Association has organized the monthly morning prayer and breakfast event for months without incident. The gathering typically includes a morning prayer followed by religious reminders from a community leader to promote community building among Muslim students.
"We came up here at 6 o'clock in the morning. Nobody's up here as usual. And then we began our prayer, and three men who we did not know approached us during our prayer and started screaming and stomping around us," Khan said.
The students say the men stuck cameras in their faces during the prayer and intimidated them by yelling and pointing fingers at them. One man wore steel-toed boots and stomped around the students in a circle while they prayed, creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
"When they came to us, we were in prostration, so our heads were on the floor, and all we could hear it was in front of us, in front right, right by our heads, we heard stomping and profanities and screaming," Khan said.
The harassment extended to their religious leader, an imam who was leading the prayer. Throughout the different movements of the prayer, the men stuck cameras in various directions toward his face and intimidated him by stomping around him in circles.
The harassers created a fake Kaaba from a cardboard box to mock the religious structure, which holds deep significance in Islam. The Kaaba is the most sacred site in Islam, located in Mecca, and Muslims around the world face toward it during prayer.
"They created this mockery of our culture, of our religion, of our traditions," Khan said.
The men also brought bacon to taunt the Muslim students with, knowing pork is not permissible in their religion.
Khan says they treated the bacon as if it were "kryptonite" and tried to force the students to eat it.
"They somehow had the time to make a trip to Wawa in the morning to pick up cups of bacon for each of them," Khan said. "They were eating it in front of us and trying to tell us to take bacon, telling us that our religion was wrong and that they were saying something about a 12th Imam and that now it's permissible, or something like that, which is all incorrect."
Khan said the men were spreading lies and misinformation about Islamic beliefs for their own personal gain, demonstrating their lack of understanding about the religion they were attacking.
The harassment escalated when the men began making racist comments targeting students of color in the group. They asked if the students had bombs strapped to their chests, called them terrorists, Islamic pedophiles and necrophiliacs, and told them to go back to their country.
"We're all U.S. citizens. We were born here, we lived here, our majority of our life, if not all of our life," Khan said. "So the comments he made weren't just wrong. They were just they were blatantly racist."
One of the harassers claimed to be a military veteran and made particularly disturbing threats.
"One of them was a veteran. He said that he served in our country and he killed our people, and that we should go back there," Khan said.
After the prayer ended, the harassment continued. One man came directly into the students' faces and stuck his finger at each of them. He then lunged at one of the students in what Khan described as "a very scary situation overall."
"He lunged at one of his brother right here. He lunged at him, and it was it was just a very scary situation overall," Khan said.
One harasser also spat on the ground near where the students had been praying. Initially, it appeared he was going to spit directly on one of the students before changing his mind. The man also cursed the Prophet Muhammad and made derogatory comments about his grave.
"He cursed the Prophet, peace be upon him. His name, cursed. Said things about where he was, about his grave, cursing his grave, and then spit on the floor," Khan said.
The students say this type of harassment has never happened during their monthly gatherings or other Muslim Student Association events. While they have encountered people with questions or biased beliefs before, nothing has ever reached this level of aggression and hatred.
"We've had people approach us with questions. We've had people approach us with biased beliefs, but never to this extent," Khan said.
The incident has left the students feeling vulnerable and isolated in a place where they previously felt safe and accepted.
"In a world where we are already a minority, where we are already fighting our way up, it makes us feel more isolated," Khan said. "Whatever acceptance we felt here at USF, whatever safety we felt, it feels like that was stripped in that moment."
Despite the trauma, Ayaad Khan says that their faith teaches them to respond with restraint and dignity, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad.
"Even our Prophet, peace and blessing to be upon him, had like feces thrown on him while he would be praying, and he never responded to violence or aggression," Khan said. "He just let them talk, let the dogs bark, and so that's what we emulated in this recent incident."
The students say they would like to see some kind of repercussion for the harassment, whether through hate crime charges or other legal action. They are particularly concerned because the men posted edited clips of the incident on social media, and commenters have made violent threats against the Muslim students.
"They've posted on social media many edited clips, they have the live stream of the whole event. And in almost every comment section you can find people saying, 'oh, we'd like to bring our guns out. We'd want to kill them,'" Khan said. "Something needs to be done, because if there's, if it's one thing, if it's the three of them, which is already not okay, but if you have a community of hatred and it's only being fueled, it only makes it that much worse."
The social media posts have amplified their fears, with people commenting that they want to throw bacon at them, spit on them and physically harm them.
Khan acknowledged the fear but said it's important to stand up against hatred because the problem extends beyond USF.
"Of course, I mean, there's always, at this point, you don't know what's going to happen, right?" Khan said. "But in the face of fear, I believe it's even more necessary to stand up, because this is a problem that's bigger than us. It's bigger than just USF — this is happening. It happened at multiple universities."
He referenced a similar incident at Nova Southeastern University, noting that Islamophobia is on an extreme rise across college campuses.
USF Police Department issued a statement confirming they are actively investigating the matter and working to identify the individuals who disrupted the gathering.
"USF is aware of videos posted on social media that show a situation that occurred in a parking garage on campus. The university is actively investigating the matter. Any violations of USF policy or the law will be handled through our established processes."
The police department said once identifications are made, they anticipate referring the perpetrators to the State Attorney's Office for criminal charges and will issue trespass orders to prevent them from returning to campus.
"The USF Police Department is working to identify the individuals in the videos who disrupted the gathering. Once identifications are made, we anticipate referring the perpetrators to the State Attorney's Office for criminal charges, and we will issue trespass orders to prevent them from returning to campus."
The university is reaching out to the Muslim students who were participating in prayer to ensure they know about support resources available through the university. USF also said it will work with them to identify a location on campus to hold future activities.
As a precautionary measure, police will increase their presence around campus and at events in the coming days.
The Muslim Student Association issued its own statement saying they are working with law enforcement during the investigation and look forward to dialogue with university leadership to address Islamophobia on campus.
"We are currently working with law enforcement as they conduct an investigation and look forward to dialogue with the university leadership to address islamophobia on campus to reassure the Muslim students that they are safe. Additionally we have made 7 demands of the university and we will share those with you shortly."
Despite their fear, the students plan to continue their monthly prayer gatherings.
The students emphasized that their faith is more than just a religion.
"It's your entire lifestyle," Khan said. "We're told, you treat people with respect. You treat people with kindness, whether somebody agrees with you or not, you treat them as a human. It's the humanity above all, the religion teaches us how to be better people."
Khan described Islam as "the religion of peace" and said they wanted to uphold that reputation despite the harassment they faced.
"We don't entertain these ignorant people," Khan said. "Being a Muslim is a lifestyle, and it is the religion of peace, and we want to uphold that reputation..."
The emotional impact of the harassment was evident as Khan described feeling hurt on multiple levels: personally, religiously and as members of a minority community.
"There's the personal level, when you feel like you're accepted in a place, and then all of a sudden, you're told you've got a bomb strapped to your chest, ou should go back to a country that I've never been to," Khan said. "There's a religious level of it, where you practice something that you believe in your whole life, that you're raised in, and then all of a sudden you have people who don't understand it, who don't understand you as a person, who don't understand the religion at all, preaching ignorance."
Khan said the harassers were looking for confirmation bias for their hate, using whatever information they could find online, whether true or not, to push their agenda.
The incident was particularly frightening for the female students who were positioned toward the back of the group during the prayer.
"When we were together in the front, the men are, you know, there's more men together, but there's two girls by themselves towards the back, and these men are just dancing around, getting in everybody's faces," Khan said. "So I can only imagine how scary it was."
Christians on campus weigh in
Sam Rho, a young adult leader at Calvary Church Brandon who does campus ministry at USF, condemned the harassment after we showed him video of the incident.
"I could understand the passion, but I disagree with the method," Rho said. "Jesus said that you will know, the world will know that you are my disciples for your love for one another. And I would not say what I saw on the video was love."
Rho described what he witnessed as "misplaced zeal" and emphasized that the way Christians reach out to people matters significantly.
"You can be passionate, you can be fired about up about things, but the way you go about reaching people for Jesus, I think it really, really matters," Rho said.
We were there to witness his method.
Rho and his team set up a "solve the riddle" table on campus.
The riddles start simple with basic number sequences and gradually progress to more complex patterns like the Fibonacci sequence. The final riddle is designed as a conversation starter about faith to lead into a discussion about life and resurrection. When students solve the final puzzle, Rho and his team reveal their purpose and ask if the students believe in Jesus.
"We do conversations. We invite people in. We ask people questions, and it's kind of a fun way to do it," Rho said. "The method that we use is more conversational, and students here have actually commented, you know, we appreciate that approach, as opposed to just you being on a bullhorn, kind of yelling at us like you're going to hell."
The ministry team comes to campus every Thursday, offering not just candy, but also religious tracts and Bibles to interested students. They focus on building relationships and offering prayer for students' immediate concerns, such as upcoming tests or college applications. During one interaction, team members prayed for two high school students visiting campus, asking for success in their academics and continued faith as they transition to college.
"We're here to encourage Christians and also share the gospel with those that don't believe in Jesus," Rho explained to students. "How can we pray for you? If there's anything we could do to pray for you."
Rho said situations like the harassment make it harder for people to accept Christianity and cast a negative shadow on Christians overall.
"For thousands of years, since the beginning of Christianity, there's always been those that have claimed to be Christian, but with their actions, have not followed the teachings of Christ," Rho said. "Those that promote Christianity this way, they will close discussions, they will close any openness, any open dialog that people may have."
He emphasized that love should be the primary characteristic displayed by Christians, as it proves they are followers of Jesus.
"The number one display that you are a follower of Jesus is love. That's the chief characteristic," Rho said. "It's by our love that the world will know that we belong to Jesus, that we are His disciples."
Rho said his ministry has received positive responses from students who appreciate their conversational approach and relationship-building efforts.
"Students have come up to say, 'Hey, listen, we love the way that you're having conversations,'" Rho said. "When there's relationship, I think there's opportunity for love and opportunity for the gospel, which is all about God's love to be presented and receive."
The Muslim students say they have received overwhelming support from Christian groups, Jewish groups and people from many different backgrounds on and off campus following the incident. This support has helped demonstrate that the actions of the three harassers do not represent the broader faith communities.
"We've had Christian groups on campus, Christian groups off campus, Jewish groups on campus, many different people from many different backgrounds reach out and support in solid and support us in solidarity," Khan said. "...We know those actions are not representative of the faith itself."
The students believe the three men were there for selfish reasons.
"Those three people, I don't believe, were acting in a religious aspect. I believe that they were serving their own selfish desires and fueling their own hate that they hold for people," Khan said.
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