Our core theme
The Islamic Social Vision: A Roadmap for the well-being of individuals and communities
Our core theme provides a comprehensive framework for exploring and actualizing our mission and vision. It is periodically updated but serves the same function in every edition: to establish the thematic parameters and strategic priorities across our offerings for a specified period.
The current theme is set to revive the Islamic social vision and its relevance today by examining fundamental questions about human nature, our purpose, and destiny with the explicit aim of offering a coherent social vision for individuals, communities, and institutions. With this theme, we aim to define and explore the possibilities of bringing this vision into our current realities, while addressing current challenges like new technologies, climate change, conflicts and wars, and the experience of the self.
Our 2026-28 Core Theme
Islam offers a complete social vision for humanity. The question of how human beings thrive, individually and collectively, has never been merely philosophical in the Islamic tradition—it is the heart of the Islamic message. Muslim scholars engaged the question through an integrated metaphysical, intellectual, theological, legal, and ethical vision. This vision is grounded in who human beings are, and how human beings live. It applies both to our everyday life, our afterlife, and understanding of our ultimate end. Most fundamentally, the human being originates from God and returns to Him: our wellbeing, completion, as well as felicity in this world and the next depend on living in alignment with that arc.
How you can get involved
Explore research grants designed for researchers working in areas aligned with the theme
Enhance your training in methods that prepare you to engage the theme in your own research
Submit ideas, artwork, films, and personal reflections that explore the theme in creative ways
Browse events and programs that address the theme through a variety of topics and questions
Learning with the core theme
Several of our events and programs are designed to fit within the context of our core theme.
Readings in Islamic Civility
How did Muslim philosophers, jurists, and historians understand the concept of civility? Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat discusses the principles of human social life as they appear in the intellectual heritage of Islam.
