The mission statement of The Majlis is as follows:

The Majlis seeks to develop and nurture safe community spaces where people can learn and live Islam, based on the traditional sources of understanding the faith, while acknowledging the particular challenges of our context. Our efforts are focused around religious education, spiritual refinement, love, and service.

In this series of articles I will present some thoughts around how we came to the mission statement that we have and why we did. This second one is on the portion which says,”where people can learn and live Islam, based on the traditional sources of understanding the faith, while acknowledging the particular challenges of our context.”

“Learning and Living”

This portion of the statement hints at the idea of “embodied learning” which we speak so much about at The Majlis. This idea is discussed at some length in the work of Dr. Bilal Ware, “The Walking Quran”, in the context of West African Islamic education. To put it simply it means that we learn not only as a mental exercise, but so that that knowledge can become part of us and really impact who we are, how we think, and how we are in the world. Put simply, we learn it to live it, and with the intention for it to be part of who we are.

We emphasized this in the mission statement because we do put a heavy emphasis on learning and knowledge in our programming, but we want people to understand that the knowledge is meant to be lived. We want the knowledge to become part of what the space is really about, for it to seep its way into the relationships and interactions of the community members. In doing so we do not only learn, but rather become a community of learners who are constantly improving on ourselves and becoming a means for one another to improve.

“Based on Traditional Sources…”

This point is to say that we are not coming up with something new here. When it comes to teachers engaging with community there are a number of factors, but in the context of learning and living we have clear examples. We look to what kinds of things to teach based on the kinds of things that have been taught. There is a continuity to this inherited religious discourse. The subjects of Islamic Studies are well-known as are the major relied upon texts and figures. This has been the case generation upon generation all the way back to the Prophet, peace be upon him. Of course, the texts themselves have shifted and such, but the concept remains. When it comes to living Islam we also have examples. Primarily in the teaching of the Prophet, but also in the way of those who have spent their lives trying to inherit his way.

We strongly believe that the knowledge of this religion and how to live it is a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge that is passed from one generation to the next. This does not mean there are not variations over time, it means that the adaptations to context are rooted in a tradition. It is a living tradition, not a stagnant and dead one.

We will speak more about how we understand what this tradition is in the article about “religious education.”

“In Context”

In context means that we know where we live and that matters to us. We know the culture, the history, the people, the regional variations, the good, and the bad. And with all of this we know that Islam is meant to be able to work in any time and place. So we dig into that tradition and find the best of it and know that when we do that it will work where we are. This means looking critically and deeply at our intellectual tradition, while not discarding it.

It also means that we have to figure out as a community what a lived model of commitment to this faith looks like and feels like in this context, in this place, in this time. There are no shortcuts to this process and it is messy at times. But if we are rooted in the right things and sincere, then we hope that Allah will guide us to build an example of what committed community can look like for Muslims in this country. This is not about doing something big, it is about doing something right. That takes time, commitment, patience, and an immense amount of tawifq. Ultimately, it is about our children and our grandchildren more than it is about ourselves.