Life, Family and Soccer: The Life of Muslim Auburn Students

Through the white and outdated hallways of the Harrison School of Pharmacy building, in one of the offices granted to those who pursue a Ph.D. in the field of pharmaceutics, behind the cold steel door there is a warm coexistence of a group of Saudi Arabian graduate students hanging out on a day free of class and free of stress.

With an espresso machine on the counter, a group of friends enjoy a soccer match that decides the next champion of the local league while they study and drink coffee.

The group constitutes four guys from different places and backgrounds of the Saudi Arabian territory. East coast, west coast, capital city, all places represented and mixed in the room. Once the conversation gets started the warm smiles offered due to my arrival are substituted by faces denoting seriousness, faces that engage in a topic that has been relevant for a while, especially during the past couple of months.

Ahmed, Ammar, Saud and Mohammed all gather around the imaginary table that we have set for the conversation. As I start asking the first questions, the room gets filled by a wave of optimism and good vibes. They reveal to me the reasons behind pursuing and furthering their studies in a country completely different from theirs. “They offered me a scholarship to complete my Ph.D. here, and we all know that the United States is the best place to further your studies in this field, that’s why I came here,” Ahmed says. All of them agree, they also have scholarships.

Their lives have changed a lot since arriving to Auburn. When asked about the main differences that they noticed when they first got to the United States compared to Saudi Arabia was one thing: independence. “We are not used to this open-minded society. It was amazing to see people from different cultures gathering in the same place, speaking one language,” Ammar said.

The freedom that characterizes America was a big change and contrast with the traditionalism that surrounds not only Saudi Arabia, but everywhere except the United States. “The freedom of making friends with anyone without people judging you was one of the things that attracted me the most,” Ammar said.

Although the way of seeing American society varies from individual to individual, they mention that the media did not portray the reality of how the American culture actually was when they first got here. “In movies and media, they do not reflect the reality. Before coming here I was really scared because of how media portrays the United States and especially Alabama as a place full of racism and things like that,” Mohammed points out. “I feel safe walking with my wife wearing the hijab, people just say hi and I have never experienced any sort of discrimination,” he added.

But it is not as easy as it looks to adapt to a new place being so far away from home. And Ahmed points out that family plays a big role in the way they face the challenge of studying away from family and friends. “It is difficult for us. For us, it is important to be close to our families. If my wife and my daughters were here, I would be more focused on school instead of thinking about them,” Saud says, the only one that does not have his family with him here in Auburn.

As we continue the conversation, Mohammed points out that his team, the Al-Hilal Saudi FC, has just won the championship of the local league, and the interview shifts into the topic that connects everyone in the conversation: soccer.

Thursday nights are the highlight of the week for most of them, and having the opportunity to interact and play with friends and strangers from different backgrounds it’s what makes Thursdays so special. “You can imagine how important that night is that my wife knows that I cannot miss that night,” Ahmed says. And it is because that night it is more than just soccer, it goes beyond that. They use the indoor court to forget about everything that happened to them during the week, forget about school and life, just to focus and enjoy the moment where they get to be a completely different person. Soccer is used as a way to socialize.

And since soccer is a team-based sport, it invites players to work together and to communicate with each other, breaking the barriers of language or race with a simple soccer ball. If you win, you celebrate together, if you lose, you wait together until the next team loses. It is a cycle that bonds people. “I like to play with people that I don’t know, because they never judge you” Ahmed says while –sarcastically- comparing himself with a professional soccer player.

Using something healthy like sports as a distraction is what makes the Saudi Arabian players really enjoy themselves when they are on the court. At the very exact moment when they enter the Recreational and Wellness Center, their moods change, they adopt a different personality and prepare to build relationships with everyone that goes to play there.

It wasn’t until I asked them, if they had to describe soccer in just one word what would that word be, when I realized just how much it really meant to them. “Freedom.” “Fun.” “Peace.”

That is the magic, the power of "the beautiful game."