IIIT Intellectual Panels 

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) held a series of panels at
the 42st annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America-Muslim
American Society (ICNA-MAS) in Baltimore, MD, on Saturday, April 15,
2017. This year, the convention’s theme was “The Quest for True Success:
The Divine Message of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.”

IIIT’s intellectual panels dealt with a variety of topics. The first session,
“The Concept of Madrasa: Context and Reform,” revolved around Ebrahim
Moosa’s What Is a Madrasa? (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2015). Moosa (professor, Islamic studies, University of Notre Dame)
reminisced about his time as a madrasa student in India, stating: “The way I
came into India was in a very pietistic orientation, that Islam was all about

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piety. India and the madrasas taught me that Islam is about thinking ... piety
... goodness ... making a contribution to the world.” However, he continued,
the “madrasas have done a good job in preserving the identity of traditional
Islam, but it’s unable to make that identity actually work in the real world. ...
and that modern knowledge has been closed off from the lived experience of
Muslims.” 

Ammarah Decuir, a prominent leader and trainer in the field of Islamic
education leadership, largely agreed and suggested that the leadership’s per-
manent structure – “a weakness from the angle of human resources” – is the
main problem, and that current policies and practices are rooted in these insti-
tutions’ original establishment, which has enabled them to continue like this
for generations. Moderator Ahmed Alwani (vice president, IIIT) noted that
“you have a curriculum that represents more or less an identity to the students
... it is actually a part of who [they] are.” He introduced IIIT’s new focus, re-
forming education in Muslim societies with an emphasis on integrating
knowledge: “In general, it is to deal with this problem of having classical Is-
lamic education, that ... is part of our identity, is something that we cherish
and we certainly want to preserve and build on. But in the meantime, [we
need] to go beyond the past and be able to deal with our own life and living
conditions and our own world as it exists right now.” The panelists empha-
sized the need for reform and offered suggestions to both madrasa leaders
and policymakers. 

The second panel, “Parent-Child Relations: Challenges and Strategies,”
revolved around Parent-Child Relations: A Guide to Raising Children, by
Hisham Altalib (a founding member and current president of IIIT), Abdul-
Hamid AbuSulayman (former president, IIIT), and Omar Altalib, a sociologist
by training. The panel presented ideas from the book, which is a comprehen-
sive guide focused on providing parenting techniques and powerful tips based
on the latest research on child development and parenting techniques. Hisham
Altalib identified and provided advice about how children test their parents,
parenting styles both in the East and the West, the importance of spending
time with children, the existence of a parenting gap due to generational dif-
ferences, the need for mutual respect, and other challenges. He reminded par-
ents that children observe and listen to them and can spot lies and hypocrisy,
as well as to be active participants in their children’s life to counteract negative
external influences. In short, parenting is a long-term investment that requires
a high level of commitment, respect, engagement, and time.

Suzy Ismail (visiting professor, DeVry University; curriculum developer
and lead instructor, Center for Muslim Life) disclosed that Parent-Child Re-

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lations has been a great help to her as a counselor and worker with parents
and children. She reminded the audience: “When we raise our children, our
end goal must be clear, so that path we take in raising our children, consistently
leads to that end goal, the raising of our children, our tarbiyah of our children,
is another avenue towards that worship. It starts with following the guidance
that we have been given in the Qur’an and Sunnah.” She then walked the au-
dience through the stages of “Tarbiyah,” a framework that describes the stages
of a child’s development and helps parents better understand them and their
concerns. The stages described are 0-7 years old (children feel the need to be
connected with their parents and to feel secure), 8-14 years old (the age of
discipline [e.g., boundaries and moderation]), and 15-21 years old (children
are ready to be a part of the conversation).

Decuir, who also moderated the session, spoke of her experience as an
educator in both schools and Islamic schools and as a mother. She highly rec-
ommended Parent-Child Relations, for it serves as “an excellent starting point
for effective conversation on how [families] want to organize their relation-
ships in their home.” After elaborating upon the stages introduced by Ismail,
she described the differences that she has noticed as both a teacher and a
mother and reflected upon parenting a generation that has experienced things
that she never did. Decuir decided to talk with other parents, gather as much
information as she could, and asserted that there must be a “village” of mutual
support, which includes suspending judgment and maintaining confidentiality.
Co-author Omar Altalib agreed with the other panelists and suggested that the
mosque should become more family friendly and that the community should
help it become so. Doing so, he contended, would improve family life in the
community as well.

The third and final panel, “Islamic Education and Imam Training,” ex-
plored the essence, scope, methods, and challenges of educating imams and
community leaders to serve within the contemporary American context. The
panelists discussed the importance of developing basic competencies and stan-
dards for educating and training of imams and community members, the
imam’s roles as counselor to the community and ambassador to the media, as
well as engaging the interfaith community and civil society in general. Ermin
Sinanović (director, Research and Academic Programs, IIIT), who also mod-
erated the panel, then introduced IIIT’s contribution as regards Islamic edu-
cation and imam training and emphasized the imam’s many non-
mosque-related responsibilities (e.g., serving as religious leaders, instructors,
motivational speakers, counselors, and conflict resolvers) and the commu-
nity’s expectations. Thus, “there’s this disparity between our expectations and

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realities, ... between the ways our Islamic centers and mosques are set up and
... how we perceive professional work in the masjid. And then there’s this per-
ception that imams or anyone working in the masjid is basically a superman
or a superwoman.” 

Abubaker Al-Shingieti (executive director, IIIT) introduced IIIT’s mis-
sion and commitment to creating programs that encourage professional de-
velopment for both imams and Muslim community leaders and noted several
other responsibilities of a community leader, including “the legal contexts,
the political environment, social-cultural factors and variables, these are im-
portant elements that in many ways influence, if not determine, the educa-
tional needs for our imams and community leaders, in the American context.”
Stating that one of the institute’s new core objective is to created a core cur-
riculum for a training program that will meet all of these requirements, he
then introduced the Graduate Certificate in Imam and Muslim Community
Leadership program, a joint IIIT-Hartford Seminary undertaking to better
prepare Muslim leaders and bridge the current gap in imam and Muslim lead-
ership in the community. 

Sinanović cited another challenge: fully qualified imported imams who
cannot relate to American culture and its pluralistic society, and potential do-
mestic imams who have the cultural expertise but not the relevant academic
background. Moosa discussed the “mismatch” between what the community
wants and really knows about itself, and the difficulty in recruiting imams
who know Islam and culture, who can deal with a multi-ethnic congregation,
as well as with the mental, gender, and all other issues that madrasas do not
address. In short, we need imams “who are open-minded, equipped to deal
with the challenges,” and unafraid to look for answers. 

Zahid Bukhari (former national president, ICNA; director, American
Muslim Studies Program; fellow, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding,
Georgetown University) spoke about the pressures of keeping up with other
religious leadership systems, looking at the mosque’s overall management
and the types of imams required, and training imams and community leaders
to communicate competently on generational, gender, ethnic, and all other is-
sues. He concluded by recommending courses specifically designed to man-
age mosques, prepare imams to deal with American realities, and seek the
support and participation of community leaders.

The final panelist, Joshua Salaam (graduate, Certificate Program in Imam
and Muslim Community Leadership, Hartford Seminary; youth director,
ADAMS Center, Sterling, VA) shared how, during this program, he learned
“about a tradition from the early Jewish community. They had three distinct

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groups of religious people,” each of which had a distinct role in society and
brought their expertise to the community. He commented: “I realized [that]
in the Muslim community we just package it all together. Not only do religious
leaders expect it, but they believe they can do it.” He had high praise for the
program: “I do not believe I could achieve and obtain what I have gotten from
Hartford seminary from anywhere else. I have sat with righteous Jewish peo-
ple, and extremely righteous Christian people, who are leaders in their own
church, and we are sitting in the same classroom studying theology together,
under Christian scholars and under Muslim scholars and the conversation is
one you can’t have in an only Muslim institution. ... I am very appreciative of
what IIIT is trying to do.”

The IIIT panels attracted a large diverse and robust crowd. All three lec-
tures were followed by an engaging Q&A session. 

Hadeel Elaradi
Masters Candidate, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

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