On Monday, April 17th and Tuesday, April 18th, 2017 Teacher Prep together with the Office of Religious Life presented "Teaching About Islam and Muslims in America"-- a workshop for educators and an interactive discussion on Islam and the lives of Muslims in America with Princeton University's Muslim Life Coordinator and Chaplain Sohaib Nazeer Sultan. 

The Complexities of Teaching Islam & Muslim Debates: In the U.S. and throughout the Muslim World so many individuals and actors claim to speak in the name of Islam with, at times, competing interpretations of Islamic concepts like jihad and shari’ah as well as diverse understandings on the relationship between Islam and politics, secularism, modernity and so on. For teachers making sense of the differences and accurately explaining the debates shaping Islam today can be quite challenging. This session with scholars of Islam, including Princeton’s Muslim Chaplain Sohaib Sultan, helped explain some of these complexities, offered recommendations on good resources for teaching Islam, decoded some of the anti-Islam / Muslim sentiments in the public discourse and answered some of the participants questions.

Muslims in America: Muslims are often spoken of as the new kids on the block. But, the history of Muslims in America is a long and storied one beginning at least with enslaved West African Muslims over 400 years ago. Today newly immigrated and refugees coming from Muslim countries – and anyone who looks like them – are often treated with suspicion and sometimes even discrimination. In this session, teachers got to hear from diverse undergraduate Muslim Princeton students about their stories of coming to America, going to high school as a religious minority, and their hopes or dreams for themselves and their community.  

Recommended Reading: "Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes" by Tamim Ansary