A Muslim film festival will feature titles like "Little Mosque on the Prairie."
Muslim comics will seek laughs with jokes about being confronted by bigots and airport security checks.
And a local band, Sonz of the Crescent, will bring a little Muslim hip-hop to the house.
But beyond its lively entertainment, the first statewide convention of Indiana Muslims taking place this weekend is seen by some as a milestone. For a diverse community under great scrutiny since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they say it represents a sign of staying power and their desire to become fuller participants in their state's future.
"I would say this is a coming of age," said Louay Safi, a Plainfield resident and staffer with the Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America. "This is a very significant threshold."
The weekend's agenda includes serious discussions about the need for greater Muslim political activism, epitomized by a scheduled speech from Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, who wants to end the Iraq war immediately.
There will be sessions for Muslim youths, including one on how to balance the faith's strict rules on gender relations in a modern society.
The three-day event, which began Friday, is the product of a relatively new organization called the Muslim Alliance of Indiana. The group's greatest previous efforts were landing an invitation for Muslims to stage Ramadan suppers in the governor's residence and "Muslim Days" with legislators in the Statehouse.
It also comes on the heels of the debut of a quarterly magazine, The Muslim Hoosier, and the establishment of a Muslim chamber of commerce. "It is the idea that Muslims are realizing themselves as being Hoosiers just like any other individual or group," said Shehzad Qazi, a 19-year-old student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis who manages the magazine.
In some ways, these are the next steps for a Muslim community that has established 50 religious institutions around the state, including Islamic centers, mosques and student associations -- most of them within the past 30 years.
The convention at the Adam's Mark near the airport is expected to draw about 300 people, which is modest compared with the 30,000 who attend the Islamic Society of North America's gathering in Chicago. The Indianapolis event opened with an interfaith luncheon that drew participants from the Christian and Jewish communities -- symbolic, organizers said, of the need for Muslims to be fully engaged with the broader society.
Also in attendance were a lawyer from the U.S. attorney's office and two agents from the FBI, which has tried to build allies in the Muslim community and occasionally recruits Arabic speakers to its ranks.
A vendor selling head scarves made in Kuwait and Dubai set up shop in the bazaar. And more than 70 early arrivals held Friday prayers in a conference room emptied of chairs and tables but covered with white floor sheets. In one corner of the windowless room, a paper sign read "Qibla," denoting the direction toward Mecca, where Muslim prayers must be directed.
Some say the conference may also unite Muslim Hoosiers in the issues they commonly face.
Both immigrant Muslims from countries around the world and American-born believers, particularly black Muslims, could stand to learn more about their brothers and sisters in the faith, said Michael Saahir, an imam with the Nur-Allah Islamic Center in Indianapolis.
"Though we are all Muslims following the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad, the cultural diversities have to be worked through," Saahir said. The convention, he said, "is a good demonstration of what could be or what should be."
