Welcome to the Dr. Shakeela Hassan and Dr. Zia Hassan Institute for Interfaith Encounter
The Hassan Institute (HI) cultivates intentional interfaith encounters, education, and leadership development for a more just and compassionate world.
Our vision is grounded in three key principles:
Loving Connection – We center rahma, loving-kindness, in all our human and ecological connections.
Sacred Creation – We honor the sacred power of creative expression to call forth new worlds.
Compassion in Action – We embody care through collective, courageous interfaith action.
With sound, rhythm, and movement at the heart of our work, we trust creative practice as a universal language of connection and devote ourselves to courageous action rooted in loving-kindness. Anchored in Chicago yet attuned to the wider world, we are cultivating a community of practice that loves deeply, creates reverently, and serves with justice.
Today’s interreligious landscape demands leaders and communities who can draw on their own traditions while engaging others with compassion, ethical clarity, and courage. American Muslims are central to this work, building solidarity across traditions, modeling creative approaches to pluralism, and navigating Islamophobia. Yet Muslim perspectives are often underrepresented in interfaith scholarship and practice. The Hassan Institute for Interfaith Encounter envisions a future where Muslims are central to shaping interreligious leadership in the United States. Through residencies, fellowships, place-based programs, and public convenings, we will center Muslim voices while fostering deep interreligious collaboration. Building upon AIC’s legacy as an innovative Muslim institution, the Hassan Institute will serve as a national hub for interfaith formation, research, and public leadership rooted in Muslim traditions of care and creative, compassionate action.
For interfaith and intrafaith encounter to spark transformation and social impact, it must call forth the whole self—the layered identities, stories, and histories that flow through us. These rhythms shape how we encounter one another and how we move within the wider world. When culture, race, ethnicity, and gender are interwoven with religious identity, dialogue deepens into a fuller understanding of our shared human condition. The Hassan Institute nurtures this fullness.
