Sunday Open Thread – IlmFest and Some Parting Thoughts Before Egypt

A little over two years ago, I attended my first ever Al-Maghrib event: IlmFest. Today, fittingly, IlmFest will be my last Al-Maghrib event for quite a while as, inshā'Allāh, I will soon leave for an extended stay in Egypt. Although I don’t know exactly what to expect during my time in Cairo, I suspect I won’t find the sort of gatherings, seminars, and conferences that Muslims in the West have at their disposal. This is one of the reasons why I penned my inaugural post on MuslimMatters and why I firmly believe that the “best place for Muslims to live” is far from obvious.

The weekly haliqas, weekend seminars, and summer intensives across the United States (and a select few other Western nations) evidence how organizations in Muslim-minority countries are adapting the study of Islam to modern life. In traditional Muslim lands, like Egypt, there are few outlets, if any, that allow one to be a serious student of knowledge while also attending university or working full-time. In the past, Distance learning programs partly filled this void, but such programs lack the social benefits of Islamic institutions in the West.

Beyond serving the academic needs of American Muslims, organizations such as the MSA, Zaytuna, and Al-Maghrib form new social spheres for their constituents. Think about how many close friends and acquaintances you’ve met through being a part of these institutions. In many ways, conference halls and college mussalahs are this generation’s social centers – a distinction once held by brick and mortar masajid for the first generation of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. (As an aside, the longterm effects this shift has on our community would be a great research project.)

All this is not to say that studying abroad is over-rated or irrational (I like to think I wouldn’t be making this move if that was the case, heh). Notably, the overwhelming majority of current American scholars studied at and attained their degrees from traditional centers of learning across the Muslim world. These overseas institutions similarly draw in foreign students with less lofty ambitions, even with all the domestic resources available to them. I have some ideas as to why that’s the case, but I’ll reserve comment until I’ve undergone this experience firsthand.

So with that, I bid the MuslimMatters audience farewell as I’ll be settling my affairs Stateside and settling in Masry-side over the next few weeks. I pray that my time in Cairo is beneficial and that my experience allows me to be of benefit to others in any small way. Āmīn.

Alsalamualaikum Amreeka!