Workshop Description
This workshop centers on helping Imams and community leaders better understand and engage Gen Z Muslim youth—their realities, pressures, and how they experience faith, identity, and belonging. It focuses on building authentic trust, communicating faith in ways that resonate with real-life challenges, and supporting youth with empathy, cultural awareness, and confidentiality.
Within this context, the workshop also explores how digital culture—including social media and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence—has shaped the experiences of today’s youth and contributed to new forms of doubt and disengagement. Participants will gain practical, grounded approaches to connect with young people and guide them with confidence in an evolving world.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Describe the realities, pressures, and identity dynamics shaping Gen Z Muslim youth, including how they experience faith and belonging.
- Apply principles of trust-building and authentic connection, grounded in empathy, relevance, and non-judgmental engagement.
- Demonstrate effective ways of communicating faith that are practical, relatable, and responsive to real-life challenges.
- Recognize common struggles faced by youth and respond with compassion, cultural awareness, and appropriate confidentiality.
- Identify the influence of digital culture and social media on youth perspectives, questions, and engagement with faith.
- Understand emerging challenges related to artificial intelligence and their potential impact on belief, doubt, and identity formation.
- Integrate these insights into a more effective approach to youth engagement and pastoral support.
Suggested Session Titles
Session 1: Understanding Gen Z Muslim Youth
Exploring their realities, pressures, and how they experience faith, identity, and belonging.
Session 2: Building Trust and Authentic Connection
Meeting youth where they are through empathy, relevance, and non-judgment.
Session 3: Communicating Faith in Real Life
Making religious teachings practical, relatable, and meaningful in everyday challenges.
Session 4: Supporting Youth Through Struggles
Responding to personal, cultural, and spiritual challenges with compassion and awareness.
Session 5: Digital Culture and the Rise of New Questions
Understanding how social media and online environments shape perspectives, doubts, and engagement.
Session 6: Looking Ahead—Preparing for the Next Generation
Reflecting on lessons learned and considering how emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, will shape future youth engagement.
Speakers:
FYI Institute Expert(TBD)
Fahad Tasleem is the Executive Director of Sapience Institute US and a Senior Research Fellow and Instructor. He is the author of No Doubt: Finding Certainty in an Age of Uncertainty, which addresses faith and doubt in the modern world. His work focuses on Islamic theo-philosophy and spirituality, particularly the relationship between faith and contemporary thought.
He holds degrees from Michigan State University and the University of Southern California and is currently pursuing a PhD in Islamic Thought and Civilization at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.
