INVITED
TEACHERS
Imam Adéyínká Mendes
Imam Adéyínká Mendes is the founder of the Bilal Spiritual Center for Peace and the Arts and co-founder of the African-American Healing, Ancestry and Development (AHAD) Collective. He is an educator, author, translator of sacred literature, and spiritual activist who has traveled the world studying Quranic Exegesis, Prophetic Narrations, Classical Arabic, Theology, Sacred Jurisprudence, Contemplative Arts, and the Science of Spiritual Illumination with living masters. He has been teaching these and other sacred sciences since 2001, and speaks internationally on Quranic Spirituality, Youth and Adult Rites of Passage, peace-building, and the healing wisdom of Black Muslim cultures and civilizations. Adéyínká is a recipient of the Center for Global Muslim Life "2020 Spiritual Impact Award" and his latest work, "The Spirits of Black Folk: Sages Through the Ages" is due to be released in February 2021. He lives with his wife, Rukayat Yakub, an author and educator, and their children in New Jersey.
Imam Zaid Shakir
Imam Zaid Shakir is a co-founder and senior Faculty Member of Zaytuna College located in Berkeley, California. He is amongst the most respected and influential Islamic scholars in the West. He obtained a BA with honors in International Relations at American University in Washington D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. For seven years in Syria, and briefly in Morocco, he immersed himself in an intense study of Arabic, Islamic law, Quranic studies, and spirituality with some of the top Muslim scholars of our age. In 2001, he graduated from Syria’s prestigious Abu Noor University with a BA in Islamic Sciences. He has recently been appointed as the new chair of MANA, the Muslim Alliance in North America.
Shaykha Ieasha Prime
Shaykha Ieasha Prime converted to Islam more than 20 years ago. She studied at the Fajr Institute in Egypt, and later moved to Yemen and enrolled in an Islamic university for women. She is most passionate about combining Islamic studies, cultural art, activism and service for the purpose of training leaders. She has served as the Director of Women's Affairs at Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia and is co-founder and Executive Director of Barakah INC, an organization committed to training Muslim women in traditional Islamic sciences. She now serves as a Scholar-in-Residence and Associate Chaplain at ICNYU. Sh Ieasha is a proud wife and mother of three children.
Imam Omar Suleiman
Imam Omar Suleiman is the Founder and President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and an Adjunct Professor of Islamic Studies in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at SMU (Southern Methodist University). He is also the Resident Scholar at Valley Ranch Islamic Center and Co-Chair of Faith Forward Dallas at Thanks-Giving Square. He holds a Bachelors in Accounting, a Bachelors in Islamic Law, a Masters in Islamic Finance, a Masters in Political History, and is currently pursuing a Phd. in Islamic Thought and Civilization from the International Islamic University of Malaysia.
Imam Dawud Walid
Imam Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI). He has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history. He has also lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the U.S. and Canada.
Shaykh Ubaydullah Evans
Shaykh Ubaydullah Evans is the first Scholar-in-Residence at American Learning Institute for Muslims. He converted to Islam while in high school. Upon conversion, Ustadh Ubaydullah began studying some of the foundational books of Islam under the private tutelage of local scholars while simultaneously pursuing a degree in journalism from Columbia. Since then he has studied at Chicagoland’s Institute of Islamic Education (IIE), in Tarim,Yemen, and at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, where he became the first African American to graduate from its Shari’a program. Shaykh Ubaydullah also teaches with the Ta’leef Collective and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN).