By Friday morning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as students walked briskly to class in the brittle February sunshine, life seemed almost to be returning to normal.  Almost, but not quite normal. This was where thousands of students, faculty and members of the community gathered on Wednesday night in a stunning vigil to show their solidarity with the family and friends of Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, who police say were fatally shot by their upstairs neighbour on Tuesday.  Related: FBI opens inquiry into North Carolina shooting deaths of Muslim students  The crowds were joined by many others, at university campuses around the country, and on Thursday 5,500 people joined the victims’ families and friends in an extraordinary and moving funeral service and procession.  As news of the attack spread, tributes to the victims poured in. Sameer Abdel-Khalek, a family friend of Barakat’s who also studied with him as an undergraduate at North Carolina State University, told the Guardian the community had lost “the best of us, echoing the sentiments of Muslims and non-Muslims.  In a tremendous show of support, a fundraising page set up before his death by Barakat to raise money for a trip to Turkey to help refugees of the Syrian civil war with dental work has been shared tens of thousands of times online, raising more than $300,000. Barakat was a student at UNC’s school of dentistry, and Yusor, his wife of nine months, was about to enroll.  In the aftermath of this community tragedy, questions have arisen as to what drove suspect Craig Hicks to such extreme violence.  Police have implied, in a statement that has been re-quoted countless times, that his actions were caused by a dispute over parking. This is an explanation that for friends and family can never explain things satisfactorily.  Abdel-Khalek posited a damning hypothetical. “Had it been the reversal of roles, how fair would it be to the families of three white atheist victims if we began entertaining the cause may have been a parking dispute,” he asked.  “When the Muslim killer entered the house and killed them execution style. A bullet in each head. From the back. All the while the killer’s Facebook page had numerous posts and content showing his disdain for anyone who wasn’t religious.”  “As if disputing over parking is something we would entertain to take someones life. Execution style. In the head. From the back. Please. Save us the insult and dehumanisation.”  On Friday, 149 faith and civil rights groups, led by the group Muslim Advocates, signed an open letter to the outgoing attorney general, Eric Holder, urging him to upgrade the preliminary inquiry by the FBI, which is running parallel to the police inquiry, into a full-blown federal hate-crime investigation.  In doing so, they joined the voices of the families, who have been calling for the attack to be treated as a hate crime since Wednesday.  Related: Remember Yusor Abu-Salha as more than just a victim of the Chapel Hill shooting | Rana Odeh  But even setting aside the questions that must be asked by law enforcement – and even now, we are learning more about the accused killer, including details of a stash of weapons he reportedly had at his apartment – the local community, and America at large, must begin the quixotic mission of trying to find deeper meaning in the tragedy.  In a statement on Friday, President Obama quoted Yusor: “Growing up in America has been such a blessing. It doesn’t matter where you come from. There’s so many different people from so many different places, of different backgrounds and religions – but here, we’re all one.”  “We are all one American family,” the president echoed in his statement.  According to Chris Bail, a professor of sociology at UNC Chapel Hill and the author of the book Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organisations Became Mainstream, Chapel Hill is “one of the most accepting, cosmopolitan areas in the United States”.  But that makes the search for answers after this week’s attacks all the more desperate. Because Chapel Hill is such a tight knit and accepting community, the events of this week came as a shock, Bail said.  “In fact, the word I hear more consistently than any other from friends, colleagues, and students, is ‘shock’.”  Bail said he was “tremendously proud of the remarkable display of support and compassion” displayed at the vigil.  However, Shamira Lukomwa, the president of the Muslim Students’ Association at UNC Chapel Hill, said that while the Muslim community felt “humbled” by the response, some students were still scared.  “[The support they have received] does not make people think Islamophobia has somehow dissipated or is any less. If anything, we fear that it – and by ‘it’ I mean Islamaphobic actions – will increase and have increased,” she told the Guardian.  She said the group had reached out to the university, and were talking about buddy systems and safety buses for Muslim students.  Related: Some people see me as Muslim first and a doctor second. That's how prejudice works | Haider Javed Warraich  For Abdel-Khalek, the attack and the overwhelming response to it was a watershed moment for Islam in America.  “Islamophobia has been with us since the narrative of 9/11,” he said. “It had got to the point where I think we became desensitised and unsure of how to react in the face of the ridicule. Up until now.”  “This is the tipping point,” he continued.  Andrew Powell, the student body president at UNC Chapel Hill, said all the students would honor and remember the lives of the victims. A scholarship fund in the victims’ names is under consideration, as well as a recurring annual day of service, new programmes and events.  “I am sure Deah, Yusor, and Razan will continue to have a profound impact on our student body for years and years to come,” Powell said.
Life on the campus of University of North Carolina is slowly returning to normal but the killings of three Muslims are a haunting reminder of Islamophobia