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The 17 Benefits of Tribulation:
Online Series with Zaytuna Scholars

A new Sunday series with Zaid Shakir, Talal Ahdab, and Faraz Khan

Finding Solace in Knowledge

Sundays, April 5, 12, and 19 | 1 pm PST

According to our tradition, tribulation—notwithstanding its difficulty—always presents an opportunity for us to reorient our hearts to God. In his text On Benefitting from Misfortunes, al-’Izz ‘Abd al-Salam al-Sulami (d. 1262) laid out seventeen ways through which a person might raise his or her standing with God in times of distress. 

Zaytuna College will host a live three-part series, The Seventeen Benefits of Tribulation, based on Shaykh al-Sulami's text, featuring cofounder Zaid Shakir and faculty members Talal Ahdab and Faraz Khan. After his talk, each scholar will take questions from the online audience.  

Series Schedule
Scholar Date and Time
Faraz Khan

Sunday, April 5 | 1 pm PST
Talal Ahdab

Sunday, April 12 | 1 pm PST
Zaid Shakir

Sunday, April 19 | 1 pm PST

We hope this guidance from our scholars, rooted deep in the soil of our tradition, will enrich us all as we navigate this unprecedented global challenge together. The lessons will be livestreamed on this page and the Zaytuna College Facebook page every Sunday until Ramadan, God willing.  

Watch the Livestream

Watch the Replay of Past Classes

Faraz Khan

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Talal Ahdab

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About the Speakers

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Zaid Shakir

Zaid Shakir, a cofounder of Zaytuna College, is a prominent American Muslim scholar. He has taught courses in Arabic, Islamic spirituality, contemporary Muslim thought, Islamic history and politics, and Shafi’i fiqh at the College. He speaks and writes on a wide range of topics, and he travels frequently across the United States to support institution-building projects in the Muslim community. In 2007, he was a signatory of the 2007 letter “A Common Word Between Us and You,” an appeal for peace and cooperation between Christians and Muslims, and in 2016, he presided over the public memorial for Muhammad Ali.  

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Talal Ahdab

Talal Ahdab serves on the MA faculty at Zaytuna College. He pursued a rigorous and structured classical curriculum with Islamic authorities, with a focus on Islamic theology, epistemology, ontology, language, jurisprudence, and legal theory. Over the last twenty years, he has been teaching the Islamic disciplines to senior students as well as professors of Islamic studies. His research interests include exploring how modern challenges can be addressed through Islam's rich tradition of knowledge and scholarship.  

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Faraz Khan

Faraz A. Khan is on the faculty at Zaytuna College. He resided in Amman, Jordan, from 2004 to 2011, where he read classical texts with distinguished scholars in Ashʿari and Maturidi scholastic theology, Hanafi jurisprudence, prophetic narration, logic, and other religious sciences; he received scholarly authorization after seven years of full-time private study. His current research interests center on the engagement of philosophical theology and ethics with the contemporary age. His book A Prolegomenon to Islamic Theology, a translation and annotation of an intermediate Maturidi teaching text, will be published by Zaytuna College this summer.