Many Ways of Knowing: Pedagogy of Humility Through Islamic Thought

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Religious Identity, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice

Abstract

This paper engages examines how Muslim immigrant girls navigate educational spaces that often marginalize their ways of knowing. Drawing from a bigger qualitative digital storytelling study with girls aged 8–10, this conceptual piece analyzes the fitnas—internal conflicts of being, knowing, and power—produced by systemic Islamophobia and epistemic erasure. We propose a pedagogy of humility, grounded in Islamic educational thought and decolonial theory, as a liberatory framework that affirms students’ identities and funds of knowledge. Our cyclical model of humility invites teachers to adopt explorative pedagogy, recognize student knowledge landscapes, and cultivate collective humility. By bridging historical erasures with future-oriented educational design, this work envisions inclusive, identity-affirming classrooms that honor multiple epistemologies and prepare equitable futures for marginalized learners.

Authors

• Muhammad Zulqurnain Ul Haq Qazi, The Ohio State University

• Kaha Abdi, The Ohio State University