Introducing Queen City Diwan

Through my new company, you can make memories--and make a difference.

I’ll get straight to it. I’m excited to announce a new travel company: Queen City Diwan. Through Queen City Diwan, travelers of different ages, life stages, backgrounds and even beliefs can learn more about our place in the world—and how we can make ourselves and the world better. I’m sharing Queen City Diwan because if teaching faith matters to you, Queen City Diwan will too.

I started the halaqas with my wife’s encouragement, when we realized that the Islamic education on offer for our kids was incomplete. We saw how our friends and fellow parents worked so hard to offer their children every advantage, so it stood to reason that these same kids should have the chance to learn about their faith in ways that excited them, inspired them, and helped them grow too.

If you can’t find what you need, in other words, build it.

I’ve been blessed with so many opportunities in my life–and I’ve tried to pay those forward. Because my parents raised me in a strong community, I’ve built communities—and institutions. Because I got a great education, I’ve taught at universities across America and the world. Because my parents emphasized reading and scholarship, I’ve written articles and books.

Because I could travel the world, I led tours of some of the most special places in the world. Because I’ve always loved to explore. I’ve always felt called to study and teach. I’ve always been eager to connect people, to mentor, to uplift our communities, to take ummah from a concept and translate it into tangible and lived realities. Queen City Diwan grows from these commitments and shares them with the world.

The halaqas will continue, of course! But my primary focus going forward will be my new company, Queen City Diwan.

Because, as it turns out, if you build it… they will come.

How Did Queen City Diwan Start?

Earlier this year, I partnered with Travel Safina, a tour company based here in Ohio (follow them on Instagram), to design a trip to Spain. While I’m excited to share we’re going this November, I’m also excited to share the trip is officially sold out. The tour, Amazing Andalus, was meant to be a one-off: With Travel Safina, I’d build and lead an incredible experience for our close friends and Cincinnati community.

As I’d done many times in the past, I’d draw on my decades of studying, teaching and traveling the world to create a memorable and beautiful and fun experience. I’d draw on my experience teaching middle schoolers, high schoolers, and really students of all ages, young and old, to create an experience that would be fun even as it inspired, engaged, and empowered us.

The level of interest and enthusiasm we received was more than we’d imagined.

Not only did we sell out within weeks, but so many more people contacted us, eager to see how they could join future experiences. And almost all of that, remarkably, by word-of-mouth, resulting in hundreds of inquiries, which might be a testimony to this platform’s reach, but also the great hunger for positive, inclusive experiences, as well as the amazing interconnectedness of our communities.

And so we have it: Queen City Diwan.

Four years ago, the Queen City – Cincinnati – became home. Through my family and our community here, I came to realize that our greatest asset and greatest resource and greatest source of untapped potential is us. The same us that’s debating tough questions, sharing wisdom, asking what we’re doing right (or what we should be doing). Let’s lean into that, too.

In many Muslim cultures, a diwan is a collection of poetry. And a gathering of people. 

So much of what we do, we do with others, in ways the wider world needs and search for, the kind of closeness and connectedness that used to be just how things were. From Monday evening halaqas with a dozen young men arguing and debating (and occasionally launching pillows at each other). Or Saturday night dinners. Friday afternoons at the masjid. Late into the night in Ramadan.

We worship together. We celebrate together. We can and should travel and learn together. With people we know. With people we’d like to know. And to places around the world where we can learn from and with great people.

Yes, we design and deliver amazing tours. We want you to have fun. To make memories. But we also want to lean in to what makes our communities special: Our sense of togetherness and solidarity.

We will take friends and family. We’ll help you make friends (and maybe even family). But we’ll also build trips that bring you back home different—more connected to the past in order that you feel more empowered to face the future.

We’re not interested in a negative nostalgia narrative. We want to build identity, community, and even opportunity and prosperity, by connecting the world as it is–and giving us space to think about what kind of world we want to live in. You’ve never done travel like this before.

Yes, our November 2024 trip fast filled up, but we will soon announce our calendar for the coming year, including Europe, Africa and Asia. Some of these will be for students specifically. Some will be for families. All of them will be inspired by five core Queen City Diwan (QCD) commitments.

1. All of you should have fun. Every QCD experience moves us, intellectually, spiritually, and socially. Not to mention literally!

2. We make room in the Diwan. QCD experiences are designed to welcome travelers of different ages, life stages, beliefs and backgrounds.

3. Memories last longer when we make them together. Each of our experiences is made so you can take friends and designed so you make friends. 

4. We’re ambassadors too. We build with excellence, ever mindful of serving ourselves and the wider world with professionalism and purpose.

5. Come back better. Every QCD experience is designed to challenge, inspire and, above all else, empower us. 

Find Out More

At QCD, where we go, what we see, and who we travel with are essential to each experience. In other words, no two journeys will ever be the same. And rightly so: To truly transform ourselves, we have to be with ourselves and each other. Which is why our online presence is intentionally limited—designed so you can find us and, when new experiences launch, so you can join us.

The travel, teaching and transforming happen in person.

We’ll be announcing these next experiences later this month, so follow us on LinkedIn and on Instagram. You can also contact us through our website, especially if you’d like to build bespoke experiences for your communities and institutions.

And who knows? One day soon you might see a Sunday Schooled in some of the most beautiful places in the world. Parents, educators, and students, learning together, in ways that aren’t just memorable or meaningful.

But that’ll change how you see your place in the world.