Ask a Muslim: Why a Hamilton man took on all questions about Islam at Supercrawl

Amidst the chaos of downtown Hamilton's Supercrawl festival Friday night, sat a small booth with a simple sign "Ask a Muslim."

Malik Datardina has been taking turns at the booth at the city's monthly art crawl events over the summer alongside several others.

His goal? To "get people behind the headlines" in a time of social unrest, and clear up misconceptions about the Muslim community to anyone who wants to listen.

"It's our responsibility as the Muslim community to make ourselves available," Datardina told CBC News. "If we don't take this opportunity, it's our loss."

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So what sorts of questions do people ask? Well thanks to that well-documented Canadian politeness, sometimes you have to pry the queries out of them, Datardina said.

"Sometimes people have inhibitions the Canadian norm is just not to offend people."

The group has fielded questions about the basics of Islam, and how that religion compares to Christianity.

I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who were commending us for just being there and having the conversation.'-MalikDatardina

They spoke with 60 to 70 people Friday during Supercrawl, and prepped for difficult questions bracing for queries about Sharia law or the treatment of women in some cultures.

Strangely, those questions didn't come something that could be attributed to the largely liberal crowd that tends to frequent the art crawl and Supercrawl.

One man did visit the booth who had "racist views," Datardina said, who couldn't understand that there's no real concept of race within Islam, and who "had a hard time with that."

"Getting people over those kinds of things can be a challenge," he said.

It's a necessary conversation, he says, due in part to the current political climate the world over. It's easy to look at the U.S. election racewhere presidential candidate Donald Trump had proposed a blanket ban on Muslims entering the country as the worst offender in recent memory for cranking up racial tensions.

But it's also necessary to look around in Canada for political statements that can fan the flames of racism, he says. Take the last federal election, when the niqab became a focal point of the debate.

"When someone from the mainstream political parties ratchets up the rhetoric, it does result in more attacks on Muslims. It enables a kind of racism," he said.

"This type of rhetoric does hurt Muslims and we're trying to give the other side of the story."

But on the whole on the local level, he said, people have been very supportive of their endeavor.

"I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who were commending us for just being there and having the conversation."