Testimonials
For the first time, I was given the license to think and ask questions without feeling like I was being disrespectful…it really changed my life.”
— Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans
It was really transformative to be able to say ‘I don’t get this" and being able to challenge an idea that was brought up by a scholar, but getting to a point where you both reconcile that."
— Mohammad M.
You’re sitting a few feet away from this legendary scholar who's engaging with you. It was very different and very encouraging."
— Zain S.
ALIM Summer Program Testimonials
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Beyond Sunday school I’ve always felt a strong desire to understand my faith from deeper angles.Unless you’re studying Islam in an academic setting, there was no room to scrutinize or question.Everywhere you’re expected to approach the world in a critical and conscious matter but for some reason when it comes to faith that assumption doesn’t always hold. ALIM turns that assumption on its head and demanded me to analyze and understand my faith in light of changing times.As a young American Muslim, it was unbelievably refreshing. Through candid conversations, uncensored teaching of historical facts, the ALIM program became a safe space to explore and ask, learn and grow.As a result, I grew to have a deeper and much more rooted understanding and appreciation of my faith, something no Sunday school education could have offered.” |
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The ALIM Summer Program was a life-changing experience. I’ve been blessed to participate in many different intensive Islamic Studies programs, and ALIM is unique in its critical, yet nurturing, approach to Muslim intellectual and spiritual traditions. Too often, too many young Muslims are unprepared to face the Islamophobic onslaught from cultural, political and academic discourses, but ALIM offers an extraordinary antidote to common Muslim anxieties by teaching authentic, substantive and sophisticated Islamic literacy. For me, the deepest and most meaningful impact was how the scholars first ‘broke you down’ and then helped ‘build you back up,’ all while embodying their teachings of the intellectual and spiritual beauty of Islam. In my opinion, there is no finer intensive summer program across the country.” |
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My experience at Alim’s Summer Program was pivotal in my personal Islamic development. The knowledge I gained and the nurturing I received from each of the participating teachers continues to steer me more than 15 years after my attendance. What I gained from ALIM is unmeasurable, It solidified my understanding of Islam as a divine, balanced and perfect way of life!” |
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I attended the ALIM Summer Program in 2001, right after graduating from Brown University. The Summer Program remains one of the most intellectually and spiritually fulfilling experiences I have had since converting to Islam back in 1998. It was a rigorous overview of Sunni thought, coupled with a focus on issues of contemporary importance to American Muslim communities. It helped me bridge the world of “the academic study of Islam” and “traditional Islamic thought” in a way that helped me enormously in graduate school at Princeton, and as a Muslim chaplain at Dartmouth College and Brown. In many respects, the class I currently teach on Islamic law at New York University is built on the hybrid model of Islamic Studies I first learned at ALIM. May God bless my teachers.” |
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While I had questioned my own beliefs before, ALIM deconstructed what I knew down to its very core, and reconstructed it after challenging us, bringing together a refreshed perspective. It challenged me to think from a viewpoint I did not think from before. To be quite frank, I was previously afraid of looking at it from that angle. But each lesson by the numerous scholars about Fiqh, Sīrah, modernity, or Islamic History (and many other topics), added to my prior knowledge, and showed me that had I not considered to ask the questions the scholars pushed us to answer, I would not have the same framework of my faith as I do now.” |
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As a teenager in search of self discovery, in need of purpose and affirmation of faith, I attended and greatly benefited from The ALIM Program. Seventeen years later, I find that my quest for knowledge has come full circle. Now as an adult, I return not only as a counselor but as a student of scholars both home grown and of our international community. One of the many advantages of studying with the diverse group of scholars at the program is the ability to enjoy an environment where ontology is encouraged as a means to approach faith. I am grateful for this opportunity, as I have established friendships and bonds that I believe will last a lifetime. I highly recommend this program for students of knowledge of all ages and walks of life, who seek understanding in an encouraging, diverse environment.” |
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Our class had people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, and understandings of Islam. It brought different perspectives, but more importantly, it brought clashes. From from those clashes, I was challenged. And from those challenges, I learned some of the most important lessons of my life. We live in a time in which learning can be made very convenient and comfortable online. I think it’s that comfort that makes online debates get so ugly – we are unwilling to leave our comfort zones to understand another perspective. The sacrifice we all made of distancing ourselves from our physical and mental comfort zones made us grow together. I’ve made some of my best friends at ALIM despite vehemently disagreeing with them. In that way, we’ve become something like a family. And I really think that’s what growth in Islam is all about.” |
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I have to say that my favorite sessions were with Ustadth Ubaydullah Evans. His “Islam in America” classes were just the re-orientation I needed. I spent a good deal of my life thinking Islamic jurisprudence was black and white. For someone who had studied at Al-Azhar in Egypt, he is still very much aware of the times in which we live, Ustadh Ubaydallah was able to speak to the students in a way that gave us hope: that navigating Islam in the West in the 21st century was going to take commitment, but it was possible.” |
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There is no question that ALIM changed the trajectory of my life forever. Ten years later, I can still recall with detail the information taught to me by Dr. Sherman Jackson, Dr. Muneer Fareed, Sheikh Mokhtar Maghraoui, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah and Dr. Ali Suleiman Ali. During my graduate courses in Islamic Studies and Arab Studies at Georgetown University, the knowledge I had gained at ALIM was like an anchor that kept my faith steady in turbulent waters. By God’s will, the knowledge they imparted had allowed me to surmount the doubts, attacks and challenges hurled upon Islam by Orientalist and skeptical scholarship. |
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One of our teachers once told us in class that life would illuminate the things we learned at ALIM – and indeed life has. Over the years, I’ve gained insight and wisdom in how practically the Prophet (S) lived and how vast the rulings derived by the ulema actually were. One of the most profound lessons that the Core Scholars at ALIM taught was that the “journey” of Islam was as important, if not more-so, than the decision to submit oneself to Allah in the first place. The reality that Islam is a process for human beings – and not an event – becomes clearer as I grow older and as priorities in my life invariably shift. The ALIM program equipped me with the proper context and insight to live as an active Muslim in America, whose thinking is firmly established in the traditions and methodology of classical Muslim scholarship. |
More Student Testimonials
As Muslims, we are challenged by our Creator to think, and not shallowly, but to earnestly search, reflect, learn, plan, and dare to stretch our imaginations beyond society’s boundaries. At ALIM, I felt privileged to be included in this very type of thinking that is essential and fitting for our ummah to thrive and prosper.”
~Amy H.
The ALIM Program has provided a voice to the questions that arise from the perceived conflicts between my worship of God, and my desire to be an effective human being in society. In my opinion, ALIM is talking about issues that impede our tradition from being deeply relevant to our people. This is essential if we want to meaningfully communicate what we are about, and God willing, have a positive impact on the greater community.”
~Shawn C.
It was nice to know that it was okay to have more questions by the end of the program than answers, which is something most of us wouldn’t expect to see happen. I believe it shows that we are finally challenging ourselves to critically engage with our religion in the pursuit of Islamic literacy that ALIM is promoting, rather than passively being fed answers by big-name scholars or online fatwas.”
~Nesima A.
Being a recent college graduate, I’m excited to see our future generation empowered by the American Dream in an Islamic context. ALIM is helping to empower these students by showing them that this American dream is a real possibility and is not in conflict with Islam but rather can be enhanced by Islamic teachings.”
~Matthew S.
Being a recent college graduate, I’m excited to see our future generation empowered by the American Dream in an Islamic context. ALIM is helping to empower these students by showing them that this American dream is a real possibility and is not in conflict with Islam but rather can be enhanced by Islamic teachings.”
~Matthew S.
I had my doubts about coming to ALIM before, and even after, registering for the program, especially about giving up a month of my summer break after a really stressful year and about whether I would be able to get along with the other attendees, who I was sure would be younger than me. Well, alhumdulilah, ALIM has been totally worth it. It has helped me refocus on what is important in life. I leave with a renewed commitment to my faith and a revived motivation to make a contribution in my community. At times the scholars made my brain hurt, but it was a good pain that reminded me I haven’t really been using the faculties Allah has blessed me with in the way I should be using them.”
~ Sabiha D.
ALIM is a fantastic program that gives students unbiased knowledge that is vigorously empowering. I think this module should be used in cities across America for young Muslims and converts! May Allah reward you all for such an excellent program!”
ALIM allows for critical thinking and discussion, whereas many of the other programs I’ve attended are in a traditional classroom format where information is presented and the student is simply expected to retain it.”
ALIM does not ask you to leave your brain at the door and accept Islam blindly; rather, to accept all aspects of faith and to ask all your questions too.”
ALIM has a broad range of diversity, perspective, and interests among its participants. The spirit of Al-Islam is present and we are respecting the differences that are expressed in our interaction.”
