About Us

Our Story

Founded by Dr. Mariam Sheibani in 2025, Maʿruf Commons seeks to cultivate a future where Muslims – spiritually grounded and intellectually resilient – live with confidence, act faithfully and critically, and are valued as partners in cultivating just and pluralistic societies.

Maʿruf

is a core moral anchor in the Quran that refers to ‘what is known to be good.’ It encompasses what the community widely recognizes as ethical, just, and beneficial.

God repeatedly commands us to enjoin maʿrūf as a means of aligning and fulfilling our personal piety and social responsibilities.

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ

“You are the best community ever raised for humanity—you encourage maʿruf, forbid evil, and believe in Allah.’’ [Quran 3:110]

Commons

is a shared space or resource managed by and for a community. In this case, we are a public organization offering educational resources and communal spaces of belonging. Commons is the closest English concept to Islam’s waqf (public endowment) and hima (common land), and thus enables us to carry forward and reimagine these bedrock institutions of the Muslim past.

Through research, education, and training, Maʿrūf Commons seeks to embody, uphold, and ground our communities in maʿrūf - what is known to be good - and to provide meaningful and beneficial solutions to emerging challenges in our communities.

About Our Founder

Dr. Mariam Sheibani

Dr. Mariam Sheibani is the Founder and Director of Ma’ruf Commons and an Assistant Professor of Islamic Thought at Brandeis University. She is also a globally recognized scholar. Dr. Sheibani earned her PhD in Islamic Thought from the University of Chicago and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Law School. Over the past two decades, Dr. Mariam Sheibani has studied the classical religious sciences with Muslim scholars in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, North America, the UK, and West Africa.

Her research and teaching engage Islamic intellectual, religious, and social history, with particular attention to the theory and practice of Islamic law, ethics, and spirituality. Her work offers paradigms and frameworks for coherently integrating religious commitment with lived experience. She empowers individuals and communities to think through critical issues, co-construct responses to shared challenges, and develop practical tools for cultivating a God-centered and meaningful spiritual life.

Our Values

Faith

We have a deep belief in God and in the truth and value of our faith, its teachings, and its transformative potential. Our trust in God drives our work, filling it with high aspirations and perpetual optimism for personal and collective flourishing.

Integrity

We model Prophetic community stewardship through transparency, humility, professional ethics, and compassionate care.

Courage

We dare to imagine innovative models for thinking and practice that challenge existing paradigms and facilitate the ability to sit in the discomfort of not having all the answers while building confidence and resilience in exploring new horizons.

Community

We foster safer, braver, and more welcoming spaces of belonging, both in person and online, that nurture deep connections with God and each other.

Service

We identify needs in our community and develop ways to fill the gaps that will facilitate community flourishing, while reviving and enacting our tradition’s core teaching of service.

Spiritual well-being

We grow expand our inward capacities that draw from deepening connection to God and spread through purposeful ties to community.

Our Team

Our team brings together members of our communities with expertise across academia, education, research, community development, faith-based leadership, and lived experience. Together, we share the responsibility of stewarding relevant research and developing enriching programs that serve and strengthen Muslim communities.