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About the Academy

Changing the face of Islamic Education. 

My name is Merium Khan, and I welcome you to The Muslim Educator Academy.

I founded the Academy in order to help push forward a paradigm shift in Islamic education.

Over the years, I have sat in many a weekend school graduation where students awkwardly recited verses or hadith in Arabic with little to no idea of what they were saying. 

I have seen so many young people wear their Islamic identities like an ill-fitting garment–they don’t feel truly at home in their deen. They associate Islam with words they don’t understand and a handful of trivia-like facts which are dutifully repeated at masjid Jeopardy tournaments.

As a community, we have a plethora of online courses for learning to read and memorize Qur’an. What about understanding Allah’s words? How many classes do we have to teach this? In our Qur’an classes are we helping our students to love what Allah is teaching them in the Qur’an?

Many of our children attend public schools, and their Islamic education is limited to some Qur’an memorization and a few hours of Sunday School lessons.

Even Islamic full-time schools struggle to find material that is engaging and relevant to students’ daily lives. They frequently resort to the typical textbook/worksheet “fill in the blank” approach to teaching Islam.

We are in a full-blown crisis when it comes to Islamic education. Our children are increasingly disillusioned and turned off from any religious instruction. They view Islamic learning as a chore and a burden.

The Muslim Educator Difference

Inspiring Students

In order to face this crisis, I created classes that helped students directly work with the Qur'an in a positive, exciting format. The Ramadan Qur'an Club was an early pilot class that demonstrated that students could indeed become excited about the meaning of the Qur'an through discussion, art, and journaling. I also started book clubs for students to take novels and read them thoughtfully, relating them to concepts in the Qur'an and Sunnah. So many parents have expressed gratitude for the opportunity for their children to connect with Islamic concepts in an intellectually and emotionally fulfilling way.

The Power of Tarbiyah

We often confuse learning information and facts (ta'leem) with relationship-building and nurturing the soul (tarbiyah). The Muslim Educator Academy is based on tarbiyah. Our live classes are designed to nurture connection between the teacher and student, so that the teacher is not only imparting knowledge but acting as a mentor for the students. When teachers are able to connect with and relate to students, the end result is not only knowledge, but a transformation of character in the student. This is our goal.

Heart-centered

Education must involve the heart. I want students to feel excited to learn about the deen. I want them to feel touched, to feel inspired, to feel amazed. When we discuss Qur'an verses, I focus on helping them to see Allah's words as amazing and relevant. "How can we help you feel like the Qur'an is your best friend?" I ask. Learning the deen should fill their hearts with excitement, joy, and love, and each class is designed to cultivate these feelings in students' hearts.

Interacting with the Texts

I teach students several unique methods to interact with their texts. Qur'an students learn to highlight and annotate a study mus'haf to truly create a sense of personal connection with what they are reading. I also teach them how to create a personal Qur'an journal with quotes, reflections, and unique mind maps of the surahs and the concepts therein. Students reading novels in the book clubs learn to mark and annotate their books in order to critically analyze everything they read.

Critical Thinking

True education is not spoon-feeding facts. My focus in the Academy is creating opportunities for students to discuss, analyze, and deeply reflect. Asking students good questions is an important part of our pedagogy. In an age where students' faith is questioned and undermined at every turn, they desperately need to be able to think logically and analytically to understand the deen the way Allah intended us to, and based upon the Qur'an and Sunnah. Furthermore, they need to be able to use these skills to evaluate everything they see and hear around them. This is why we study novels with our "Muslim lenses" on. We learn to reflect on the ideas that culture and society put forth and develop a critical, Islamic-based response.

Our Founder, Merium Khan discusses the founding of
The Muslim Educator Academy and its goals: