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Chaplaincy Sessions

Chaplaincy Sessions at the ISNA Convention

On Friday, July 1, 2011 the 3-day Chaplaincy Program opened with a  session about the need, training, and challenges of chaplaincy.  CH Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad began the workshop by highlighting the importance of establishing a greater number of Islamic Lay Leaders, sometimes referred to as Assistant Imams, or Designated Faith Group Leaders (DFGL’s) in the U.S. Army. CH Muhammad stressed the current need for lay leaders due to a shortage of available Muslim chaplains and imams within the various institutions, i.e. hospitals, universities, correctional facilities, and the Armed Services branches. Dr. Jimmie Jones spoke on the need for the Muslim community to be sensitized to establishing religious leaders who are competent and qualified to conduct services in the Islamic traditions. In order to do this, Dr. Jones indicated we (the Muslim community) need to establish our own institution of higher learning, or an Islamic Theological Seminary as the way forward to train our imams and lay leaders. Dr. Mansur Ali, a prison chaplain and research scholar from the Untied Kingdom, shared several examples of how chaplaincy work of all faith backgrounds, including Islam, is conducted and supported in Great Britain of the British government . Dr. Ali also mentioned some of the intra-religious challenges experienced by chaplains as a result of a theologically diverse Muslim inmate population. During the Q&A portion of the seminar, several very relevant and penetrating questions were presented by an audience that was well represented by individuals from a variety of professional backgrounds, including chaplaincy.

On the second day of this seminar, Sister Shareda Hosein provided an overview of her chaplaincy experiences at Tufts University, in Boston, MA. She shared how Muslim women in chaplaincy reconcile not being able to perform some of the responsibilities of their male counterparts, i.e. pastoral services, counseling, etc., because a female cannot lead a mixed gender congregation in salah.  The US Armed Services seems to limit females’ service as Muslim chaplains.  Sister Mumina Kowalski, a former chaplain in the Pennsylvania State Dept. of Corrections, in York, PA, shared research she recently conducted by interviewing 50 Muslim chaplains from four distinct institutional settings, including, prisons, military, hospital, and university settings. She provided an array of helpful information within the profession, including pay and benefits, common challenges and rewards that chaplains experience, and the educational background of chaplains. She also shared how important it is for chaplains to do more research and the need to maintain better documentation of the day-to-day life of being a Muslim chaplain within a predominately Judeo-Christian environment and culture.     

On the third and final day, ISNA President Imam Mohamed Majid and CH Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad addressed a workshop on “Establishing Best Practices for Muslim Chaplains in a Changing Environment”. CH Muhammad’s power point presentation focused his “What are Best Practices?” He shared how “Best Practices” are often used as a means of measuring or distinguishing the success of various programs or organizations over others. He also discussed how Muslim chaplains and Muslim lay leaders often serve as an important bridge within institutions where Muslims and Islam are often misunderstood and therefore often experience various forms of discrimination. He discussed how the absence of Muslim religious leaders may allow for an increased degree of Islamophobia especially within the Armed Services and prison institutions, and how the presence of Muslim Chaplains can assist in reducing this type of tension. Imam Majid indicated the ongoing need for Muslim chaplains to have a good working knowledge of the 4 Mathahib or 4 schools of Fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence. He also indicated what the Muslim chaplains can expect to encounter within these institutional settings-a diversity of cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds-that ultimately the Muslim chaplain is charged with having some degree of representation. Chaplains could earn more credibility with increased awareness and understanding of the diversity of schools of thought and people’s backgrounds. He emphasized how adamant the Qur’an is against any forms of extremism, citing several examples from the Qur’an and Hadith.     

ISNA would like to thank the speakers and moderators who contributed to the success of the sessions: Ronald Beyah, Khadeejah Mohamed, Omer Bajwa, James Jones, Shareda Hosein, Mumina Kowalski, Imam Mohamed Magid, Mansur Ali, Refat Abukhdeir.