Beyond Extraction: Islamic Community Practices as Liberatory Research

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium demonstrates how Islamic community practices serve as liberatory research methodologies that move beyond extraction toward reparation and collective healing. Six presentations showcase diverse Islamic community traditions—halaqa (learning circles), majlis (storytelling gatherings), and faith-informed wellness practices—as decolonial research approaches that inherently prioritize reciprocity, relationship, and community transformation. Researchers demonstrate how MusCrit methodology, participatory action research halaqas, educator learning circles, coffeehouse storytelling sessions, faith-based wellness practices, and justice-oriented literacy frameworks challenge extractive academic norms while centering Muslim voices and community wisdom. These approaches create microaffirmative spaces that resist epistemic erasure, affirm agency, and foster communal healing. Rather than imposing Western research frameworks, these Islamic community practices naturally generate knowledge through collaborative dialogue, mutual aid, and collective meaning-making.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Decolonial, Postcolonial, and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education

Chair

• Noor Ali, Northeastern University

Papers

• Reciprocal Pedagogies: MusCrit as Methodology for Decolonial Knowledge Relations - Noor Ali, Northeastern University

• Sacred Circles, Transformative Spaces: Halaqa as a Model for Decolonial Education - Ambereen Khan-Baker, National Education Association

• Intersecting Literacies and Identities: A Justice-Oriented Framework for Muslim Adolescents - Fatima Seyma Kizil, Syracuse University

• Decolonizing Wellness: Muslim Women’s Faith-Informed Practices of Healing - Fatima Koura, Northeastern University

• Halaqah as Decolonial-Decolonizing Praxis: Muslim Undergraduate STEM Education and the Promise of MusCrit - Vivian Zohery, University of Maryland

• The Mokha Majlis Method M3 : A MusCrit-Informed Collaborative Storytelling Gathering - Carolyn M. Lane, California State University - Bakersfield

Session Organizer

• Noor Ali, Northeastern University

Discussant

• Hina Rehman, Rutgers University