Dar al Islam Reaching Out to Educators

Faculty, staff, and teacher-participants of the 2023 Dar al Islam Teachers’ Institute Photo: Dar al Islam

By Karima Alavi
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​1994: First Step in a 29-year Tradition:
 
From 1994-2023 a series of 34 professional development programs for educators took place at Dar al Islam in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Attendees of the free program included primary-level teachers to university professors, librarians, and state Social Studies Coordinators. The goal of this program was to enable educators to teach about Islam with confidence. The Dar al Islam Teachers’ Institute is the only summer teachers’ institute on Islam presented by Muslim faculty, while housing participants in a Mosque/Madrassa complex where teachers are surrounded by Muslims participating in their daily faith practice. The program was unique in the nation, possibly even in the world. 

Through lectures, free time spent on campus with faculty, and through dinner discussions, participants gained a deeper understanding of the basic tenets of Islam.

Questions addressed during the two-week residential Institute included:

• How did Islam become the second largest world faith?
• What should we know about Islam and Muslims in America today?
• What are the common links between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism
• How does Islam view reform, diversity, and change?
• How can one most effectively teach about Islam in the classroom?
  
  

Using primary texts and classical interpretations, Islamic scholars covered subjects such as:

• Islamic faith & practice
• History
• Culture and civilization, including Islamic art—with teachers participating in art workshops
• Contemporary issues and world-view of Islam
• Existing resources & curriculum for social studies, religion or world history classes

​The first institute was initiated and directed in 1994 by Audrey Shabbas, Founder of AWAIR (Arab World and Islamic Resources). She was an early trailblazer in the field of publishing teaching resources for use by educators covering subjects such as Islamic history, art, and Arab culture in the classroom. The 1994 institute was funded by a one-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. After the first year, it was Dar al Islam funding that enabled the program to continue. Subsequent directors of the program were me, Rehana Shafi, and Susan Douglass who is considered by many to be the country’s most prolific developer of pre-college curriculum in the field of Islamic studies.
 
Institute Faculty and lecturers have come from across the U.S. and from abroad. One of the original professors was the British scholar, Dr. Abdul Hakim Murad who founded Cambridge University’s Muslim College. Known for his brilliant lectures, he also has a reputation for having a serious, no-nonsense demeaner which is precisely why he was used, with much humor, in one of the many remakes of Pharrell Williams’ video “I’m Happy.” Looking for something to cheer you up? Check out this video, “Happy British Muslims” on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVDIXqILqSM

​You can catch the Abdul Hakim irony at 41 seconds. Moving on, at 2:41 you’ll see a coffee-toting Abdul Rehman Malik who brought his British touch to the Teachers’ Institute as Assistant Director. In between his current teaching responsibilities at Yale Divinity School, he leads tours to Turkey, where the history of “The Muhammadan Bean” (coffee) is explored while visiting mosques, palaces, and bazaars. The Turkish ties deepen with professor Feryal Salem who also leads tours to Turkey when not teaching at Dar al Islam or Chicago’s American Islamic College

Photo: https://ett.org.uk/artists/abdul-rehman-malik/

​Other faculty have come from a variety of universities across the United States, including Georgetown, University of Virginia, Temple, Emory, UC Berkeley and many others. One of the earliest faculty members was Hamza Yusuf, an American Muslim who founded California’s Zaytuna College, a private liberal arts school that became the first accredited Muslim undergraduate college in the United States.
 
Professor Sulayman Nyang, originally from Gambia, developed the African Voices display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History and served on the board of America’s Islamic Heritage Museum that preserves and archives the history of American Muslims since the inception of the republic.

​Professor Maria Dakake of George Mason University lecturing on Women’s Spirituality in Islam
Photo: Dar al Islam 

​Dar al Islam’s Outreach Beyond Abiquiu:
 
With the support of Dr. Mohammad Shafi, former chair of the Dar al Islam board, the Teachers’ Institute became known among American educators, school boards, and state Social Studies Coordinators. Soon Dar al Islam’s commitment to teachers led to outreach that went far beyond Abiquiu. Between myself and Susan Douglass, fellow institute faculty and director, we offered over 100 workshops at organizations such as the National Council for the Social Studies, the World History Association, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and many others. We covered such subjects as Sacred Architecture, Islamic Spain as a Cultural Crossroad, Trade and Commerce Along the Silk Road, Teaching About Imperialism, and Jesus and Mary within an Islamic Paradigm.

​Our half-day workshops, “Rethinking the Renaissance,” explored links between Islamic scholarship and the European Renaissance. This workshop eventually led myself and Susan to co-author a 300-page teaching guide called The Emergence of Renaissance: Cultural Interactions Between Europeans and Muslims. Published by the Council on Islamic Education with support from Dar al Islam, the publication sold out quickly. For those interested in learning about cultural, artistic, religious, and scientific ties between East and West, this publication is downloadable for free by anyone. Go to the website of The Institute on Religion and Civic Values at cie.org (no www).  

​A nationally known curriculum developer, when Susan Douglass isn’t teaching at Dar al Islam, or working in educational outreach at Georgetown University, her work has led her to serve in the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, and as an Affiliated Scholar with the Council on Islamic Education, where she reviewed commercial textbooks while reporting on the development of state and national academic standards. She has contributed to teaching resources for the National Center for History in the Schools, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, and the online curriculum World History for Us All, as well as The Indian Ocean in World History website, and the NEH/ALA project Bridging Cultures Bookshelf/Muslim Journeys. 

Photo: Susan Douglass

The year 2008 saw a whole new outreach program when I led a lecture-tour to Iran, a country where I once taught at the university level. Traveling with me were several alumni of the Dar al Islam Teachers’ Institute. This photo was taken on the veranda of a tea shop facing the famed town square of Isfahan. In the background are mosques, a palace, and the entrance to the bazaar that weaves through the neighborhood like a labyrinth.  

Photo Credit: Karima Alavi

Enduring Friendships:
 
It’s always fun to encounter former faculty and teachers who return to Abiquiu for a visit to Dar al Islam. Whether they’re visiting Santa Fe, Albuquerque, or even Colorado, they often make time for a stop at a place that is dear to their heart. In fact, one of the original lecturers, Ross Dunn of San Diego State University, visited Dar al Islam two summers ago after a nearly three-decade absence. His book, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, led American textbook publishers to finally acknowledge this Moroccan explorer who traveled 75,000 miles before returning home, three times the length traveled by the better known man, Marco Polo. Other alumni have visited from Georgia, Virginia, Canada, and beyond to say hello, and thank Dar al Islam for their time spent in New Mexico. 

Ross Dunn and Karima Alavi at Dar al Islam. 2023 Photo: Karima Alavi

​Other alumni have remained in touch through Facebook, sharing photos of their classrooms (that often reflect what they learned in Abiquiu), or simply expressing their love of teaching and enthusiasm for tackling big questions in their curriculum such as “Who was that Ibn Battuta guy, and why should we care?”
 
Finally, if you would like to watch a video on the Dar al Islam Teachers’ Institute, go to 

“What makes Dar al Islam unique as a place of learning is, first and foremost, how beautiful it is. The architecture is beautiful, the natural environment is beautiful. A lot of things we speak about in our lectures, participants actually see in the architecture, in the designs, in the patterns.” 2023 Faculty, Oludamini Ogunnaike

“It gives me some confidence to know that I’ve been taught by the finest academic scholars in our country.” 2023 Teacher-participant, Luz Antonio