Introduction

As-salamu alaykum, welcome to the Ummah Builders Podcast. I’m your host, Mustafa Dustin Craun. It’s a blessing to be here and to launch this podcast. We’ve been thinking about doing this for years. As many of you know, we’ve had tons of conversations with people on the internet and in person. And now it’s time to, you know, have a place where we can feature all of these different things. This is really an opportunity to have deep conversations about what it takes to build community, what it takes to build institutions.

We hope to feature people from educators to startup founders, to thinkers, to people doing the work around the world. Really, it’s an honor to have this first conversation be with Shaykha Tamara Gray, who visited us here in Seattle a few weeks ago when we were just blessed with her presence.

You know when you’re when you’re in the presence of really special people it’s transformative. It can be transformative for an entire community, it can be transformative for a family it can be transformative for individuals. And that’s why we seek them out, that’s why they are so special.

And so we had this small conversation talking about education, really talking about what it takes to build Islamic schooling with tarbiyah and barakah, right? And tarbiyah is this idea of the deep, educational work and the transformation of souls and Shaykha Tamara is someone who’s been doing this work for decades she just had this incredible series talking about her 40th shahadaversary, Mashallah and talking about all the things the projects that she’s been involved in. Most people know her for her work focused on building Islamic women’s scholarship around the world with Rabata.

And inshallah, we’re going to be launching this idea of Dads for Rabata soon, where people like myself who support that work with Rabata and support our daughters in that institution want to support the work more.

Because right now Rabata’s funders are about 96% women. So can we at least get it to 80-20%? You know, come on, brothers, we got to we got to do this together. And so it’s really an honor and a blessing to have her with us right as we launch this podcast. And you’ll see this is a very deep conversation. Unfortunately, we had some camera issues and this recording is not done well. It’s not in HD quality. But we thank the people who recorded it at Cordoba Academy here in Lynwood, Washington.

Cordoba Academy has been one of our partners as we launch our own work around the School of the Ummah, where we’re building towards launching three separate things. One is youth education programs, youth leadership programs, where we do deep experiential learning with young people.

Two, where we are inshallah, launching daycares, a set of daycares that we’re calling the Little Ummah. And with Little Ummah Daycares, it’s really about doing the deep work of transforming Islamic learning from the earliest ages of three to five years old and doing immersion Arabic with immersion Spanish to build adab together and build a deep community for the future of Islam in the Americas, inshallah.

And then the third is this idea of an online global Islamic high school that inshallah will be launching in the fall of 2025. So this podcast is sponsored by the School of the Ummah and Cordoba Academy. Thank you again for hosting us at your beautiful campus in Lynwood, where you can feel the barakah and you can feel the reality of the children reciting the Wird al-Latif every morning with our beloved Abdul Qadir Sheikh, also known as Imam Bazi, the principal there at Cordoba Academy. So without further ado, here’s Shaykha Tamara Gray.

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Building Islamic Schools With Tarbiya & Baraka A Conversation With Shaykha Tamara Gray

Mustafa Dustin Craun – Thank you for joining us today. We’ll read a brief bio for everyone who doesn’t know the Shaykha, It’s an honor to have you here at Cordoba Academy. My name is Mustafa Dustin Craun, for those who don’t know me, I’m the founder of the Center for Global Muslim Life, and now we’re starting to found our own school called the School of the Ummah.

It’s really an honor to be with Shaykha Tamara, She is a globally renowned Islamic scholar and one of the world’s leading, I would say, Islamic educators. She has contributed to the development of Islamic schools in Syria and Kuwait, I believe, maybe more, and is the founder of Rabata, one of the largest platforms for women’s Islamic scholarship worldwide.

Dr. Tamara Gray is the founder of Rabata, an organization dedicated to promoting positive cultural change through creative educational experiences, she holds a doctorate in leadership from the University of St. Thomas, a master’s degree in curriculum theory and instruction from Temple University, and spent 20 years studying traditional and classic Islamic sciences, Quran and Arabic in Damascus, Syria.

Dr. Gray worked in the field of education for 25 years before moving into the nonprofit world. She is now both the executive director of Rabata and its chief spirituality officer.

Shaykha Tamara – Best name ever.

Mustafa Dustin Craun – So let’s start there because we wanted to start this conversation really thinking about this school, Cordoba Academy, is really rooted in this idea of tarbiyah for children. So being the chief spirituality officer, you may have had many, throughout your experiences in schools, many Islamic schools, unfortunately, are cutting and pasting from public schools. And they don’t have…

Shaykha Tamara – They aren’t cutting and pasting very well.

Mustafa Dustin Craun – And they may have Quran and a few other things, but they aren’t really doing spirituality. They aren’t really doing the deep work of transforming these children’s lives. So talk about your role as a chief spirituality officer and your advice for schools as we think about this idea of Tarbiyah Islamic Schools.

Shaykha Tamara – Okay, well, first I have to say, I wish I could say I made that up because it’s the best name ever, but I didn’t make it up. I saw it on Instagram. Like literally there was some big business and there was a guy who was, that was his job. I don’t know how he does that job, but I said, we need that job in all of our institutions. So I gave it to myself. In Rabata itself, I’m going to answer that very briefly, then I want to talk about schooling. In Rabata itself, I consider the culture within and without part of that job.

So if you work, we have we have how many employees, 30 regular employees, plus another extra hundred when we’re doing teaching and about 300 volunteers. So the part of my responsibility as chief spirituality officer in that way of thinking is to ensure a positive, healthy, Islamic, spiritual culture for the women who are working and volunteering because then they’ll be able to do what we’re trying to do everywhere else.

In schooling, then, when you think about curriculum, we can’t think about it as, as you said, a cut and paste where we’re bringing… I mean, I remember overseas, I would ask teachers or teachers would talk to each other.

“What are you teaching today?”

And they would say, “Oh, page 52 of whatever book.”

And my brain would burst out of its seams because we don’t teach pages. We’re not page teachers. And in the same way, we’re not subject teachers by itself. We’re teachers of a way of thinking and a way of being.

We want to create curriculum and methodologies and objectives and goals so that it’s connected to that wider, strategic vision where everyone has bought into it.

So, I think in a school, you talked a lot about tarbiyah and the beautiful adhkar you have in the morning, for example. That’s a great methodology to reach the tarbiyah of the school.

The missing piece—it’s not missing, I just haven’t heard it yet because I literally had a five-minute tour—is, what are the teachers doing to fill themselves so they can be giving to the students in that space? And how is the school helping to make sure that they do that?

Mustafa Dustin Craun – That’s powerful. So, let’s go back then. Shaykha Tamra has had this really amazing series on her Instagram recently, where she started with her 40th Shahadaversary. Mashallah, which is incredible. Congratulations. And now you have a new series. What’s the new series about?

Shaykha Tamara – So, when I was doing the 40, I did 40 days a year, every day. That was extremely difficult. Like, I would send my husband a message: “What was I doing in 2004?” And he would send me a picture or remind me of things I was doing.

On one hand, it was a spiritual process—reflecting on my past 40 years in just 40 days. It was deeply personal and spiritually beneficial.

Then, during that time, someone asked me, “What are 40 lessons you’ve learned over these years?”

So, we wrote them down. It was like a gift. I printed them out as cards. I thought I brought one with me, but I must have forgotten it. We’re using them in our fundraising dinners around the country.

People started getting confused about some of them, especially the one that says, “Don’t be a cooked spaghetti noodle.”

That’s so clear to me!

But people were arguing about it and giving really strange explanations. So, I realized I needed to explain them. That’s why I started this 40 Days Before Ramadan series—one lesson a day, drawn from both life experiences and deep reflections.

Mustafa Dustin Craun – Within that, in many of those years in the Shahadaversary series, you talked about the different schools you were working with and things like that. So I want you to talk about your journey as an educator. One of the questions I like to ask teachers is: what was the spark that made you want to become an educator? Maybe even before your Shahada?

Shaykha Tamara – Well, actually, if I’m really honest about it, I went to undergraduate school to become the President of the United States.

We still need you.

Yeah. And I became Muslim in January, right after my freshman fall semester. So I was like, hmm, I don’t think I can get elected now. Like, literally, I’ve always been a very strategic thinker. So I was really thinking, what am I going to do next? What will benefit people the most? What can I do that will have the greatest impact?

At the time, I had a mentor who was a teacher. She was someone I had just recently met, and we were talking about teaching and its benefits. What she said to me was really powerful. She told me, “When you’re teaching in a classroom, you have those students, but each of those students—let’s say 20 of them—will grow up and have their families. Let’s say each has a family of five. That means you’ve affected 100 people per class. And you’re not even counting their friends, their extended families, and the broader community. And you do that every single year.”

So your impact on the Muslim Ummah becomes exponentially greater. That’s why I switched to education. I didn’t actually switch—I was doing political science. I focused on educational policy and added education.

Mustafa Dustin Craun – And then your journey as an educator—can you tell us about where it took you? The history in Syria and everything else?

Shaykha Tamara – Yeah. Well, I started out in the United States, of course. I did a little bit of my early training in public schools in Minnesota, but I never actually taught there because we moved. We moved to Philadelphia, and there I got my master’s in curriculum theory and instruction. I had a really good professor. SubhanAllah, the people that Allah has put in my path have always been there to prepare me for the work ahead.

What I learned about curriculum in that program still benefits me today when I’m building programs. It was really something else. My professor was from—what did she say about herself?—from the boroughs of New York City. I don’t know what that means, exactly, or which borough she was from. But she graduated from Cornell at 16 years old. She was a genius.

Then, when I went to Syria, I started teaching and working right away. If you’re asking about my journey as an educator, I started out teaching at an institution for women who had not been able to finish high school because of life circumstances. At that time in Syria—this was 35 or more years ago—if a woman got married while in high school, she was no longer allowed to attend. And it was common for girls to get married in high school. So they would lose out on their degree or have to complete it independently, which most young girls struggled with.

This institution was created to help these young women complete their high school education so they could go on to college. That’s where I started. That experience, on its own, was transformative. I made pennies, but there was barakah in that money. It was a great experience.

Then I moved to an elementary school where there were 80 children in a single second-grade class. It was mass teaching. The principal didn’t want me there, but the school’s owner insisted. The principal, I believe, wanted to make me fail. So she put me in the most difficult class—88 second graders, actually. I came in with all my high-minded ideas: Children need to use scissors. They need to write on their own. They need to talk to learn language. I was teaching English, and I believed that if they couldn’t speak, they wouldn’t be able to learn.

So the principal said, “Okay, go and do this in a class of 88 students.” Challenge accepted.

I love a challenge. In fact, if I’m not challenged enough, I get bored. So I spent that first year proving that a class of 88 second graders could learn English and use scissors. I bought 88 pairs of scissors and passed them out. I was in so much trouble! But it was great.

I started with those second graders. Then I became the English supervisor. Then I started training teachers while continuing to teach because I love teaching. Throughout my years in Syria, I always made sure to have a class because teaching is my passion. Even when I became an academic director at a bilingual school with 3,000 students—the first bilingual school in Syria—I still made sure to teach a class.

I heard you’re trying to do Arabic immersion. Bilingual education can be done, but you have to be deeply committed to it. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. I’ve rarely seen it done well, but it can be done.

So that was the 3,000-student school. And I had a lot of responsibilities as the academic director, but I always scheduled a class that was mine. The owners would ask me, “Why are you doing this? You have so much administrative work.” But for me, teaching was what gave me purpose.

I love teaching. I truly do. But I also find schooling—especially as an administrator—a daunting responsibility. Because children carry with them what they learn in school. If they have a bad experience in an Islamic school, they may associate that negative experience with Islam itself. That is terrifying.

We have a history in America of Catholic schools proving this—where bad experiences in religious schools have led students to turn away from their faith. If we’re not careful, the same can happen in Islamic schools. That’s why we have to be so thoughtful about every step we take.

Mustafa Dustin Craun – And related to that, we have a broad crisis in education, especially for Muslims in this country. I would say it starts from the very beginning. We actually have an early childhood education crisis. Most of us aren’t even thinking about it. The early years—ages 3 to 5—are critical. But where are the Muslim preschools? Where are the Muslim daycares?

That’s something we’re thinking about: building a Muslim daycare as a place where our children can be raised with a strong foundation. Right now, most families just send their children wherever they can find space. And I know, within the movements you’ve been part of, early childhood education was really important.

Shaykha Tamara – Oh yeah. But we never called it daycare. It was school.

Starting at what age?

Three. It started at age three.

And this was part of a movement. If you want to talk about movement-level change—in the 1970s, the first school was opened by my teacher, specifically for three- to five-year-olds.

Part of it was also due to government regulations. They only allowed private schooling at that level. They didn’t want anything outside of their control. Even then, the government exerted pressure. There was a second principal—a government-appointed overseer—inside the school. These schools operated under great pressure. We can speak about this now, but we couldn’t speak about it before.

Despite that, the schools accomplished miracles. And I want you to know what they were able to do, because believing in what is possible is something I haven’t seen anywhere else.

These schools opened for three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Many of the families who sent their children weren’t religious. It was seen as something prestigious because it was private, and there was nothing like it in the 70s. So even families who weren’t praying at home would send their children.

And these little kids—three-, four-, five-year-olds—they were learning wudu. They were learning how to keep themselves clean. They were memorizing Quran. They would come home and bring that home with them.

And then something beautiful happened: parents started to pray. Because you cannot refuse a four-year-old. If a child looks up at you and says, “Mommy, why aren’t you making wudu with me?”—you’re going to say, “Right now! Here I come.”

So that’s how transformation starts. Through education. Through the next generation.

They’re so darn cute. I mean, when they say, “Mommy, why aren’t you making wudu with me?”—you’re going to be like, “Right now! Here I come.”

So that was part of it. And then the Quran they learned—they even built a busing system to go back and forth. On that bus, there was a teacher, called the bus teacher. She had other responsibilities, but her role on the bus was to engage the children.

That’s great.

Yeah. Because you know how buses can be one of the most harmful places in schools?

Buses?

Yes, because that’s where the children are mixing, and there’s no supervision. A lot of bullying happens there. In public schools, a lot of haram or even illegal activity happens on the bus.

So to prevent unhealthy interactions, the teachers decided they had to keep the kids busy. That’s how they started memorizing Quran on the bus.

And the last time I visited, the principal of that school told me that after all these years, they’re still doing this.

Do you remember how much they had memorized? You were with me.

Yes. In some cases, they memorized Juz Amma—on the bus!

On the bus! Imagine that.

And the thing about children at that age is that you don’t have to teach them in a structured way. I think one of the mistakes we make with Juz Amma is trying to teach them too much about the meanings too soon. There’s a lot about punishment and Hellfire in those surahs. But if they memorize them at a young age, they can learn the meanings as they grow older, and it becomes a solid foundation for them.

So that was a very effective method—really taking advantage of creative educational experiences and making use of every moment that the child is with them.

The classes at that school were very large because that’s just how it was. Even so, there would be a teacher and a helper. And the way they structured the learning process—it was all about methodology.

With 88 children, I introduced things they weren’t used to—like painting, scissors, and other hands-on materials. But because of the structured systems they already had in place, everything else was so organized that they were able to adapt. They all learned how to use scissors properly. They all learned how to cut paper. We even did painting.

And they also did something else—I truly believe that whatever you believe you can do, with Allah’s help, you can accomplish. Children are brilliant.

They performed plays—complicated plays, with complex movements and choreographed performances—constantly.

Through that, they learned nasheeds, public speaking, and memorization skills. They memorized lines and performed them confidently.

And these weren’t simple plays.

They did an entire production about a beehive—imagine that! And there were over 100 children on that stage, each one knowing exactly what they were supposed to do.

It was mind-blowing.

Amazing.

Yes, truly amazing.

And Seraga’s aunt is still the principal. She’s in her 80s now. She was the principal of that school when it opened in the 70s.

Our teacher even sent her to Lebanon to study how to be a principal. She attended a university there to learn leadership skills so she could come back and run the school effectively.

It’s all about leadership, alhamdulillah.

And leadership trickles down.

I’ve been to maybe 400 schools in my life. I used to do teacher training and administrative training. I did that when I lived in Syria.

And what I saw was that the school is as the principal is.

Not to put pressure on you—but here it comes.

Really, the best school I ever visited was in Homs, in Syria. That school was later destroyed during the war, but they have reopened now.

I want to go deeper into this language piece and what children can do at that age.

Our daughter, alhamdulillah, speaks Spanish to my wife at home. But she wasn’t speaking as much Spanish as the older girls, because I was speaking English to her.

So we sent her to an immersion daycare.

Then we moved. And unfortunately, the Spanish-language schools here are so full that we couldn’t get her into another one. So we had to send her to a regular daycare.

She comes home and says, “Daddy, they’re not speaking Spanish.”

She was bored.

She said, “They’re not teaching me enough.”

And that’s the thing—especially in Muslim families, where we have so many children. The older kids naturally teach the younger ones. Many elementary schools are designed to teach skills that, in large families, are already passed down at home.

So when it comes to language immersion—I just don’t understand why we haven’t focused on Arabic.

If you look at a map of all the immersion schools here, you’ll find maybe 40 Mandarin immersion schools. Probably 100 Spanish immersion schools. At least 15 French immersion schools.

But how many Arabic ones? Almost none.

There’s a new public school on the Eastside here, and Qatar Foundation is funding some Arabic schools. They’re sprinkling them in.

But why do you think this is? And how important do you think it is for a child?

Arabic has been intentionally separated from us.

I’ll tell you two quick stories.

I went to a really bougie, fancy nonprofit conference in September. It was called the Nonprofit Innovation and Optimization Conference.

I attended because we’re launching this university, and I wanted to learn new skills—things like AI and digital fundraising.

The people there were serious. These were big nonprofits.

We were the only Muslims there.

At lunch, they assigned us seats so we could network.

A man at my table—white, probably in his 60s—looked at me and started speaking in perfect Arabic.

I was confused at first. Then I responded in Arabic.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Iraq. I lived in Damascus,” he said.

We spoke for a bit in Arabic. But I don’t like speaking a language when others at the table don’t understand, so I switched to English and asked, “Where did you learn Arabic?”

He told me he runs a very well-funded Christian missionary organization that works in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan.

That’s why his Arabic was perfect.

They learn it. They go under the cover of businesses. They hire locals. They build relationships.

Meanwhile, Muslims?

We whine, “Oh, Arabic is so hard. I just can’t learn it.”

Another story: In 2013, I was hired by an American company that was contracted by the UAE to set up Common Core Standards for their schools. They wanted to implement a K-12 curriculum system like the U.S.

I was hired for the Islamic Studies portion.

We all met in Qatar. On the bus ride, I sat next to a white woman, probably also in her 60s. I asked, “What’s your role?”

She said, “Oh, I’m here to develop the Arabic curriculum.”

I said, “Wow! When did you learn Arabic?”

She said, “Oh, I don’t know Arabic.”

I was stunned.

I asked, “Don’t you think it might be difficult to write the Arabic language standards if you don’t speak Arabic?”

She said, “Oh, no! I’ve done this many times in English. And I have a friend who speaks Arabic—he emails me.”

That actually happened.

So, yes, there are external forces that have stripped Arabic away from our communities. But there’s also a real lack of motivation on our part.

At Oxford, Dr. Anna Maria Roth-Sanzadeh specializes in teaching Arabic as a second language. Her entire dissertation was on building motivation to learn Arabic. There are strategies you can implement at every educational level. But we have to be intentional.

For bilingual education, the best model I’ve seen was in a little village school where I worked.

Students there did the Cambridge IGCSE first-language English exam in 11th grade.

And in 12th grade, they did the Syrian Baccalaureate—the hardest Arabic-language baccalaureate in the world.

How?

Full immersion up to kindergarten.

Then, in first grade, it transitioned to a bilingual system.

That method worked really well.

So that’s my suggestion here:

Ages 3-5? 100% Arabic immersion.

Grade 1? Start the bilingual system to maintain Arabic.

The bilingual system includes classes that students take in Arabic and others in English. You have to measure out those hours and plan accordingly. It would take some thoughtful planning, but it could certainly happen.

Mashallah. Related to this, I wanted to bring up a point you made at the WASA program last night, which I found really powerful. A lot of this comes down to the intentions of parents when enrolling their children in Islamic schools.

Often, the intention is not for their children to become Islamic scholars or deeply knowledgeable in their religion. Instead, many families see Islamic schools as a place for adab (manners) and identity-building, while still expecting their children to become doctors, lawyers, or engineers.

I think there was an Arabic term you used—I can’t recall exactly—but you were talking about our intentions in being here. You mentioned that throughout history, when Muslims entered a place, they came in strong and confident. Could you elaborate on that?

That’s an important point. One reason Islamic schools have not historically been bilingual is because of assimilation pressures, Islamophobia, and systemic racism. These are real factors. But for our children to carry forward the work of leaders like Malcolm X and Imam W.D. Mohammed—not in incremental ways but in truly transformative ways—we need a shift in mindset.

I have three things to say about this.

First, you mentioned Imam W.D. Mohammed and Malcolm X. The Sister Clara Muhammad Schools are a great example of Islamic schools that did it right. They provided an excellent education while instilling pride in Black identity, teaching Black history and literature, and emphasizing strong character development.

Many non-Muslim families even wanted to enroll their children in these schools because they saw the value in the education being offered. Dr. Jamillah Karim has spoken extensively about this in relation to her experience at a Sister Clara Muhammad school. These schools serve as models we should learn from as we build our own institutions.

Second, when we look at Islamic history, how did Muslims expand into regions like Malaysia, Indonesia, and parts of Africa? They entered these societies with full confidence in who they were. They did not wonder, Will people like us? Will we fit in? Will we be okay here? Instead, they approached new environments with the belief that their presence was a blessing.

Muslims integrated into communities in countless ways, but at the core, they upheld the principles of ma’roof (promoting goodness) and munkar (rejecting harm). Wherever they went, they identified and uplifted goodness while working to eliminate societal harms.

For the most part, people agree on what is ma’roof and what is munkar. However, in modern times, external confusion has distorted these concepts. Despite this, deep down, most people still recognize goodness and injustice. As Muslims, we should be the ones championing goodness in our communities.

Non-Muslims should feel grateful when Muslims move into their neighborhood. They should see our presence as a positive force—knowing that we will contribute to the community, bring generosity, and uphold strong values.

The reality is, Muslims in America are among the most educated and generous communities. So why aren’t we having the influence we should?

One reason is that many of us are still grappling with the effects of colonialism. It’s as if we are trying to please a “stepfather” figure—seeking approval and acceptance in ways that limit our growth and confidence.

This is where Islamic schools come in. Many Islamic schools have been designed with a protectionist mindset rather than a growth mindset. The goal has often been to shield students from external influences rather than to cultivate strong leaders who can go out into the world and uplift society.

The problem with a purely protectionist vision is that it is inherently limiting. Schools that prioritize protection over development often fail to create an environment where students can flourish and build confidence.

If our vision for Islamic education is simply to avoid harm, then we set the bar too low. Instead, we need to create institutions that empower young Muslims to carry forward their faith with conviction.

As we build these institutions, we should be asking: Are we merely importing curricula and trying to keep out harmful influences? Or are we actually designing an educational model that prepares students to lead, contribute, and transform their communities?

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