Zahra Ayubi

 

Zahra Ayubi is a PhD candidate in Islamic Studies in the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she studies under Drs. Carl Ernst and Omid Safi. Her research is focused on contemporary Muslim gender debates and Muslim women’s contributions to Islamic reform through faith-based initiatives. She is also interested in the application of philosophical and juridical Islamic ethics discourses to gender reform. Her master’s thesis, written under the direction of Dr. Juliane Hammer, explored American Muslim women’s religious authority and scholarly discourses on increasing women’s participation in Muslim communities. Her undergraduate work was completed at Brandeis University where she majored in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies under the mentorship of Dr. Kecia Ali. She has also conducted ethnographic fieldwork research on American Muslim women’s divorce experiences and their relationships to civil and Islamic law.

 

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Yarehk Hernandez

Workshop Leader - Light of Islam Sunday School Curriculum

 

Yarehk Hernandez is an educator, poet and progressive Muslim activist hailing from New York City. He completed his undergraduate studies at the City College of New York, where he majored in Middle East History and studied under Dr. Beth Baron, a renowned scholar of Middle Eastern Women? History and 20
th Century Egypt. He also minored in Comparative Religion with a focus on Jewish Studies and studied under Dr. Roy Mittelman, whose work focused on the Sephardic Jewish community of Morocco.

 

While at the City University of New York, he studied Arabic with Dr. Sharifa Zawawi, a linguist and professor of Arabic and Swahili at Columbia University. Yarehk completed his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Master of Science in Education. While at Penn, he majored in Secondary Education with a focus on Social Studies/Citizenship education and studied under Dr. Karen Clark, a well known Philadelphia activist and scholar. Yarehk has also spent time studying Ilm al-Tassawuf (Sufism) with Imam Faisal of Masjid al-Farrah in New York City, the tariqat Burhaniyya-Desuqiyya-Shadhiliyya, Shaykh Kabir Helminski of the Mevlevi Order of America and is a follower of the tariqat Naqshbandiyya led by Sultan al-Awliya Maulana Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani the Hanafi Mufti of Cyprus and his representative in the United States, Shaykh Abdul Kareem Effendi al-Qubrusi al- Osmanli.

 

Workshop Details

Progressive Islamic education attempts to marry Islamic practice with the ideals of an open, just, tolerant and modern society guided both by Islamic and progressive principles.  In the same vein that modern social studies education attempts to teach history, citizenship and social skills, progressive Islamic education seeks to provide Muslim youth with the skills necessary to retain their Islamic identity while actively participating in modern society.  Progressive Islamic education teaches kids that they can be Muslims and good American citizens simultaneously and without conflict.  The main goal of progressive Islamic education is to provide Muslim children with an education that is not antithetical to western society.  Instead of learning how decadent the “West” is and how Islam is so different and distinct from the world they live in, our children will learn that Islam helped to guide the Renaissance that sparked modern western thought and that Islam is not a monolith but instead a malleable way of life that may be practiced under any circumstance.
The education of Muslim youth is the single most important issue for Islam’s future and the only way to combat the intolerance, hatred and zealotry plaguing Islam in the present.  The goal of this workshop is to not only discuss theory but practice as well. We will address the needs and issues inherent in Islamic education and how to create progressive Islamic education centers across America.  Muslim children deserve the tools necessary to become active and independent participants in modern society, and it’s our job to provide them with these skills.

 

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Michael Prival and his wife, Joan, joined Machar, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism about 30 years ago.  Michael soon found himself teaching Sunday school which, at that time, had a total of three students, two of whom were Joan and his children.  Raised as a secular Jew, teaching at Machar was his first serious encounter with the Bible, and led to his writing of a book to help nonreligious people teach the Bible to children.  (This book can be read at http://www.bible.x10hosting.com/.)  He studied at the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism to become a madrikh (leader) in the movement and is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute.  Over the years he has officiated at numerous weddings, funerals, and other life cycle events; given many talks at High Holiday services; served as chair of the Social Action Committee; and enjoyed being a part of Machar as it grew and promoted positive human values.  Now blissfully retired both from his paying career as a research microbiologist at the FDA and from most of his Machar responsibilities, Michael looks forward to leading some adult education activities, including at Darwin Day, each year.