GSI Alumni Spotlight
Living out Muslim Values: applying the pedagogy from the Center for the Study of Contemporary Islam
By: Nora Zaki
By: Nora Zaki
The Center for the Study of Contemporary Islam (CSCI) at Shenandoah University offered a dynamic, exciting and invigorating two-week program in August 2021. Our curriculum started with the Qur’an, the Qur’anic and biblical story of Abraham, then to contemporary Islamic thought, gender, and then to Prophetic sira (biographies of the Prophet Muhammad). We spent time on understanding the sunnah and hadith, pivoted to prophetic pedagogy, and in the middle of this program, we learned how to build wealth in a sustainable and Islamic way.
We started our second week strong with Islam and anti-racist education leadership with creative case studies. As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, we reflected on how Islamophobia may increase but also created solutions to make it a learning opportunity and help our American Muslim youth not feel alienated especially during this time. We had many Zoom breakout sessions, with learning socio-cultural perspectives in Islamic education, even designing a curriculum.
We were led by Dr. Nisa Muhammad in the interactive learning community segment. From the gitgo, all eleven students were able to bond together, getting to know each other and then jumping into our research topics of interest which would be presented to our classmates and other scholars at the program’s conclusion. Meeting six times throughout the program as a learning community, we befriended one another, learned about “learning” and always walked away with something that gave us hope. We listened to presentations on the Qur’an and mercy, prophetic pedagogy, Islam and the stranger, making an inclusive college campus, and learning about the hijab in a detailed case study about Iran.
For the learning community project, my colleague, Kyle Ashley, an MA student in Media Studies and Political Science at the University of Alabama and I, brainstormed on what topics both engaged and challenged us. As a college chaplain, a priority of mine is making sure an institution of higher learning is inclusive for all students. As a Muslim chaplain, this also extends to Muslim students who still face anti-Muslim racism on campuses.
Thus, after our first two discussion sessions, we decided on the topic, “Living out Muslim values” via building an inclusive college campus in the medium of a ten-minute talk show. We envisioned ourselves as Islamic scholar consultants who work with college campuses and wish to display the plurality of views on living out Islam on campus. Not everyone interprets Islamic practices in the same way, and we wanted to discuss how to navigate those differences. We seek to help Muslim students navigate institutions that may be indifferent or even hostile to Islam and its practice in a continuum of ways. We also seek to challenge Eurocentric views that portray Muslims in various forms, which are often negative and one-dimensional.
So, we created a talk show centering around two issues: inclusivity on campus in the form of belonging with anti-racist actions along with not presenting Islam and Muslims in an East/West dichotomy a la the books Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen and Orientalism by Edward Said. For our first issue, we discussed the Prophetic approach to community which was inclusivity, amongst other values. Additionally, we reminded our audience of an excerpt from the Prophet’s Farewell Sermon, “You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also, a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white – except by piety and good action.”
Unfortunately, anti-black racism, among Muslim students, occurs on college campuses. In 2015, a hashtag campaign called #BlackInMSA was started by the MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) to bring awareness to the racism that occurs in Muslim spaces which impact black Muslim students. Tweets showed stories and denials of racism of black Muslims by Arab and South Asian dominated spaces. “Through the hashtag, it became clear that Arab/South Asian millennials perpetuate marginalization with the idea that racism, bigotry, and caste are a thing of the past within their community.”
We started our second week strong with Islam and anti-racist education leadership with creative case studies. As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, we reflected on how Islamophobia may increase but also created solutions to make it a learning opportunity and help our American Muslim youth not feel alienated especially during this time. We had many Zoom breakout sessions, with learning socio-cultural perspectives in Islamic education, even designing a curriculum.
We were led by Dr. Nisa Muhammad in the interactive learning community segment. From the gitgo, all eleven students were able to bond together, getting to know each other and then jumping into our research topics of interest which would be presented to our classmates and other scholars at the program’s conclusion. Meeting six times throughout the program as a learning community, we befriended one another, learned about “learning” and always walked away with something that gave us hope. We listened to presentations on the Qur’an and mercy, prophetic pedagogy, Islam and the stranger, making an inclusive college campus, and learning about the hijab in a detailed case study about Iran.
For the learning community project, my colleague, Kyle Ashley, an MA student in Media Studies and Political Science at the University of Alabama and I, brainstormed on what topics both engaged and challenged us. As a college chaplain, a priority of mine is making sure an institution of higher learning is inclusive for all students. As a Muslim chaplain, this also extends to Muslim students who still face anti-Muslim racism on campuses.
Thus, after our first two discussion sessions, we decided on the topic, “Living out Muslim values” via building an inclusive college campus in the medium of a ten-minute talk show. We envisioned ourselves as Islamic scholar consultants who work with college campuses and wish to display the plurality of views on living out Islam on campus. Not everyone interprets Islamic practices in the same way, and we wanted to discuss how to navigate those differences. We seek to help Muslim students navigate institutions that may be indifferent or even hostile to Islam and its practice in a continuum of ways. We also seek to challenge Eurocentric views that portray Muslims in various forms, which are often negative and one-dimensional.
So, we created a talk show centering around two issues: inclusivity on campus in the form of belonging with anti-racist actions along with not presenting Islam and Muslims in an East/West dichotomy a la the books Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen and Orientalism by Edward Said. For our first issue, we discussed the Prophetic approach to community which was inclusivity, amongst other values. Additionally, we reminded our audience of an excerpt from the Prophet’s Farewell Sermon, “You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also, a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white – except by piety and good action.”
Unfortunately, anti-black racism, among Muslim students, occurs on college campuses. In 2015, a hashtag campaign called #BlackInMSA was started by the MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) to bring awareness to the racism that occurs in Muslim spaces which impact black Muslim students. Tweets showed stories and denials of racism of black Muslims by Arab and South Asian dominated spaces. “Through the hashtag, it became clear that Arab/South Asian millennials perpetuate marginalization with the idea that racism, bigotry, and caste are a thing of the past within their community.”
[2] MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) “#BlackinMSA:10 Recommendations for Muslim Student Organizations.” November 24, 2015. https://www.muslimarc.org/blackinmsa10.
|
The solutions we offered as Islamic scholar consultants were several. First, conduct regular surveys of the Muslim student body to take the pulse of what is going on. Second, we offered recommendations from MuslimARC, including “for umbrella Muslim youth organizations like MSA National and its chapters: compile demographics of the leadership of MSA chapters and publish the findings for transparency.”
Additional solutions were reading books on black companions of the Prophet Muhammad such as the upcoming book The Spirits of Black Folk: Sages Through the Ages published by Celebrate Mercy, an online gathering program which educates people about the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Also, we said to offer cuisine at events |
that is not only Arab or South Asian, such as biryani or falafel, but foods such as fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. We emphasized that we also do not generalize about one group of people.
For the second case study, which Kyle discussed in the talk show, he shared how the dichotomy of “East'' and “West” is often used to portray Muslims and their separateness from the West. He cited statistics from Reel Bad Arabs that of 1,000 films between 1896 and 1980 with Muslim characters, 936 of them portrayed them negatively. Kyle further explained how the US could be defining its superiority against the Arab “other.” He also shared that we don’t have to act out such negative stereotypes and resist other stereotypes that are placed on our diverse communities. We sought to answer the question, “What are the challenges that Muslim students face on campus and how can we provide solutions?” through our interactive talk show.
[1] Farewell Sermon
[2] MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) “#BlackinMSA:10 Recommendations for Muslim Student Organizations.” November 24, 2015. https://www.muslimarc.org/blackinmsa10.
[3] MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) “#BlackinMSA:10 Recommendations for Muslim Student Organizations.” November 24, 2015. https://www.muslimarc.org/blackinmsa10.
For the second case study, which Kyle discussed in the talk show, he shared how the dichotomy of “East'' and “West” is often used to portray Muslims and their separateness from the West. He cited statistics from Reel Bad Arabs that of 1,000 films between 1896 and 1980 with Muslim characters, 936 of them portrayed them negatively. Kyle further explained how the US could be defining its superiority against the Arab “other.” He also shared that we don’t have to act out such negative stereotypes and resist other stereotypes that are placed on our diverse communities. We sought to answer the question, “What are the challenges that Muslim students face on campus and how can we provide solutions?” through our interactive talk show.
[1] Farewell Sermon
[2] MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) “#BlackinMSA:10 Recommendations for Muslim Student Organizations.” November 24, 2015. https://www.muslimarc.org/blackinmsa10.
[3] MuslimARC (Anti-Racist Collaborative) “#BlackinMSA:10 Recommendations for Muslim Student Organizations.” November 24, 2015. https://www.muslimarc.org/blackinmsa10.
Stay tuned for more blog posts coming sooon!