About | Center For Innovativ

Why CIRE?

In today’s world, complex and intricate interactions exist between culture, religion, and identity that are not always appreciated or understood. Religious literacy is understanding the role religion plays in people's lives and recognizing the importance of having tools to engage with religion.

Many approaches to teaching religion are constricted in scope and depth leading adherents to a faith, and those outside a faith, to have a superficial understanding or limited appreciation for a robust way of life.

The Center for Innovative Religious Education (CIRE) responds to this lack of resources as an incubation hub that creates dynamic curricula meeting the challenges and needs of our changing times, promotes engaged teaching, and cultivates an integrated worldview. CIRE thoughtfully collaborates, develops expertise, and provides tools to raise religious literacy among educational institutions, religious communities, nonprofits, and policymakers.

The CIRE Response

Our Work

Provide expertise and collaboration space for educators and relevant experts to create innovative approaches to teaching religion, identity, and culture. CIRE emphasizes the development and dissemination of a religious studies K-12 curriculum that is cross-disciplinary, and aligned with recognized state and national academic standards.

Develop and conduct training, knowledge-building and expertise on religious engagement and literacy for relevant organizations, policymakers, educators, and institutions.

Partner and collaborate with institutions, organizations, and efforts that align with CIRE interests.

Sample Services & Training

Religious Literacy for Policy Makers
Engaging Religious Leaders in Development and Diplomacy
Recognizing Identity, Culture, and Religion in Education Programs
Build and maintain an online curriculum-sharing platform for integrated curriculum units, including religious education standards K-12.
Professional development for K-12 teachers on how to integrate Religious Education standards
Professional development on Prophetic Pedagogy (i.e., using multi-faith prophets as exemplars/archetypes)
Creating a Holistic School Culture and Climate

CIRE as an Education Incubator

We aspire to inspire educators to think and plan their teaching outside the traditional boxes of curriculum and lessons. University students studying education work with our incubator schools to experience firsthand how innovation is a part of the teaching process from lesson planning, resource and material development, to assessment and evaluation.

Individuals and organizations benefit from our repository of resources to develop their own approaches and practices to engage religion while also contributing their experiences to a shared platform across sectors.

The Center for Innovative Religious Education is uniquely positioned in thought leadership and promising practices as it is housed within a preschool—8th-grade school that has flourished for the past 25 years in the Washington, D.C. area. Al Fatih Academy has been a model in creative and holistic education nationally and internationally while continuing to develop curricula, programs, and opportunities for relevant religious education.

Our Logo

The CIRE logo incorporates a date palm frond (for the letter “I” in innovation) that connects us to the time of Prophet Muhammad in Madinah when he exemplified teaching religion in a holistic manner. That was also a time of innovative approaches to community building and creating responsive and relevant societal institutions.

The word for “date pit” (nawāh) is related to the word for purpose in Arabic (niyyah; both words are derived from the letters nūn, wāw, and yā). This etymological relationship reminds us to be intentional in bringing innovation into education and learning. Leaves, of course, represent growth, and change, and as part of a tree, they connect us to the intricate, endless wonders surrounding us.

Who We Are

Afeefa Syeed

Director

Afeefa has worked for the past 30 years with nonprofits, government agencies, and international organizations to implement an understanding of cultural context and religious literacy in their programs and policies. She develops various curricula and training for educators and institutions to integrate a more spiritually grounded framing in their work. Afeefa is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on identity and self-determination in women’s leadership, social entrepreneurship, educational innovation, social justice, and religious expression.

She is a founder of the model-independent school, Al Fatih Academy, whose core curriculum for the past 25 years has included peace education, service-in-action, and place-based learning. The school has been an incubator for innovative practices in integrated learning and teaching while creating a curriculum to teach religious studies and family life education as part of a spiritually grounded wellness program.

Afeefa has served as Senior Advisor at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and has been a Scholar Consultant for the Carter Center. She is currently a Research Associate with Cambridge University’s Institute on Religion & International Studies, Senior Fellow and Advisory Council Member for the Institute for Global Engagement’s Center for Women, Faith & Leadership, and on the Advisory Board of the Ghazali Children’s Project at Fons Vitae.

Ismail Ibn Ali

Program Manager

Ismail is a scholar-practitioner who enjoys forging frontiers in Muslim PK-12 and Adult Education spaces. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Florida ('11), a Master of Science in Education from Johns Hopkins University ('13), and a Doctorate of Education from the University of Central Florida ('24).

Ismail has taught in a variety of public and private PK-12 school settings over the last 15 years in Florida, Maryland, and Virginia. He is also the Executive Director and a Quranic Arabic Instructor at Fawakih Institute, managing the instruction of Quranic Arabic to hundreds of students worldwide. He has studied Arabic and various Islamic Sciences on a part-time basis with scholars throughout the DC metropolitan area. Ismail enjoys sports, studying the Islamic tradition, and spending time with his family.

Suhaib Albarzinji

Operations Manager - Volunteer

Suhaib is an international development consultant specialized in the Middle East and North Africa. From 2010 to 2015, he was the Executive Director of the Network of Democrats in the Arab World (NDAW), an organization that promotes cooperation and resource-sharing between civil-society initiatives throughout the region. Prior to that, and for five years, he was the Program Officer in charge of managing the Center for International Private Enterprise‘s largest and most visible portfolio - Iraq, Jordan, Yemen and the Gulf. He implemented numerous large and innovative development and economic-reform projects that responded to the needs of a demanding environment.

Prior to CIPE, Mr. Albarzinji founded Astrolabe Islamic Media and worked for over 10 years in the field of media development and the use of media in grass-roots empowerment and advocacy.

Suhaib has a BS in Finance and Banking, an MA in Mass Media, and is an American of Iraqi origin currently residing in the Washington, DC area.