Teaching Islam

The Wabash Center's new blog series “Teaching Islam” is a place for faculty and students to engage in conversations about a range of issues related to teaching and learning about Islamic culture, religion, and history. Topics will include such issues as teaching Islam through film, teaching controversial issues, engaging current events in teaching such as Charlie Hebdo, and teaching through site visits to Mosques and other sacred sites. Twelve professors have agreed to contribute weekly posts to this blog series in 2016.  

We encourage you to check this site frequently for updates. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to receive announcements of new postings. 

Check it out!

Our blogs are now housed on our new Wabash Center website: https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/blog/ Read more →

Using PSAs (Public Service Announcements) to Alter Perceptions About Islam: Students in “Arabs & Muslims in the Media”

Debra Majeed
Professor of Religious Studies
Beloit College

Lack of awareness about what Islam is and how its followers are religiously motivated to act, coupled with heightened tensions during the 2016 presidential campaign about the patriotism of American Muslims, led me to offer “Arabs and Muslims in the Media” as Read more →

Teaching about Sectarian Differences in Islam

Meena Sharify-Funk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair Religion and Culture Department
Wilfrid Laurier University

Due to the diversity of Muslims in the southern Ontario region, my classes on Islam always bring together students from a variety of different sectarian, legalistic as well as interpretive, understandings of Islam. For instance, in. Read more →

Teaching Black Lives Matter through Islam and Muslims

Martin Nguyen
Associate Professor, Faculty Chair for Diversity
Fairfield University

The questions and challenges concerning the teaching of Islam and race that I raised last year in “Teaching Islamic Theology through Black Lives” are no less urgent and relevant now as they were then. In that contribution, I attempted to Read more →

Introducing Islam through a Subversive Saudi Drama

Elliott Bazzano
Assistant Professor
Le Moyne College

In two classes that I teach—“Islam” and “The Qur’an”—I often assign the film Wadjda (dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012) as the first homework assignment. Wadjda tells the tale of a young girl (same name as the film’s title) in Saudi Arabia who longs to Read more →

Islam, Tradition, and Colonial Modernity: Teaching Theory without Theory Talk

SherAli Tareen
Assistant Professor
Franklin & Marshall College

This is the third and penultimate blog in a series of posts in which I have sought to meditate on the question of how one might present theoretical/conceptual arguments to students in an introductory course on Islam in a manner that does Read more →

Teaching Islam through Storytelling

Meena Sharify-Funk
Associate Professor
Wilfrid Laurier University

I was scheduled to write a blog post on teaching about controversial issues and how they are shaping contemporary Muslim identities in North America. Guessing, however, that many readers may be fatigued from the barrage of unfavorable events – from the U.S. travel. Read more →

Teaching Qur’anic Exegesis in English

Martin Nguyen
Associate Professor, Faculty Chair for Diversity
Fairfield University

As anyone who takes on the task will appreciate, teaching the Qur’an is an incredibly challenging undertaking. The scripture bears out multiple layers of meaning and finds expression across a range of literary devices: parables, similitudes, hyperbole, sacred narratives, direct Read more →

On Finding Balance: Islamic Studies Pedagogy After the Election

Elliott Bazzano
Assistant Professor
Le Moyne College

Since Trump became a candidate in the 2016 US presidential race, educators have continued to reflect on how his political presence might influence pedagogy. Personally, I find myself in a familiar quagmire: to what extent do I focus on current events in my. Read more →

Teaching Islam with Online Museum Collections

Joshua Canzona
Georgetown University

Daniel Madigan, my mentor when I first began teaching Islamic studies, considers his introductory course an opportunity to help students understand Islam as a religious choice and vision. This, in contrast to a politicized framework wherein Islam, is a problem to be solved. Marshall Hodgson also Read more →