Year to Live Facilitators

Baraka Blue

Baraka Blue is a Sufi poet, musician, and author. In addition to releasing multiple studio albums, authoring books of poetry, and performing internationally, he has degrees in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Washington and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has performed and taught all over the world, including at institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, and the School of Oriental and African Studies. He teaches courses on mystical poetry through Rumi Center for Spirituality & Arts.

Muhammad Adeyinka Mendes

Imam Mendes is director of the Garden of Knowledge Academy and founder of the Bilal Spiritual Center for Peace, the Arts, and Consciousness. An Ohio native with Yoruba, Brazilian, and African-American ancestry, he embraced Islam at seventeen and went on to study history at Morehouse College and Arabic at the Ohio State University, as well as the Islamic sciences primarily in Syria, Mauritania, Nigeria, and the United States. Imam Mendes is particularly passionate about environmental justice, women's empowerment, and uplifting African-Americans with knowledge of their vast spiritual, intellectual, and sociocultural legacy.

Micah Anderson

Micah Anderson is a meditation teacher and Associate Marriage Family Therapist. He is the Program Director for the Mind Body Awareness Project, an Oakland, CA.-based non-profit that provides mindfulness and emotional literacy groups and therapy to incarcerated populations, in a variety of settings. Micah has taught retreats and led trainings on mindfulness and emotional literacy in five countries, and has lead a variety of meditation groups in the Bay Area. He has a private psychotherapy practice in Oakland

Tasnim Benhalim

Tasnim Benhalim brings over 25 years of experience in culture, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) with a focus on team-building and leadership. She is a certified facilitator (CDTLF) of Brené Brown's Dare to Lead™️ work.  And, together with the team at DiversityWealth, delivers a range of programs, such as Thriving in the New Normal™️  and  Allies in Community™️ that support and connect cultures and generations to build bridges of understanding and belonging.

Abdallah Rothman

Dr. Abdallah Rothman is the Director of Islamic Psychology at Cambridge Muslim College. He holds an MA in Psychology from Antioch University and a PhD in Psychology from Kingston University London. His clinical practice as well as his academic research focus on approaching counselling and psychotherapy from within an Islamic paradigm and establishing an indigenous Islamic theoretical orientation to human psychology that is grounded in the knowledge of the soul from the Islamic tradition. In addition to his academic training he has studied privately with a number of traditional Islamic scholars throughout the Muslim world. Dr Abdallah is visiting professor of psychology at Zaim University Istanbul, International Islamic University Islamabad, and Al-Neelain University Khartoum and co-founder, along with Professor Malik Badri, of the International Association of Islamic Psychology.

Vinny Ferraro

Vinny Ferraro has been a practitioner of insight meditation (Vipassanā) since the mid-90s. He is a co-founder of the Dharma Punx and he’s been the Guiding Teacher of a sangha in San Francisco for 15 years. He is also a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing interventions for at-risk adolescents and is a Senior Trainer for Mindful Schools. In 2001, he began teaching for Challenge Day, a nationally recognized, social & emotional learning program, eventually becoming their Director of Training and leading workshops for over 110,000 youth on four continents. He is also a teacher at Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center.

Abdal Hakim Murad

Cambridge Muslim College was the original vision of Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, who continues to oversee and contribute to its work. Abdal Hakim was educated at Cambridge, Al-Azhar and London universities. He is currently the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University and Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College. He has published and contributed to numerous academic works on Islam, including as Director of the Sunna Project, and is a leading figure in inter-faith activity, notably as one of the signatories to the Common Word statement. He is well-known as a contributor to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’.

Ieasha Prime

Ieasha Prime is a traditional Islamically trained educator, activist and public speaker. She studied Arabic and Quran at the Fajr Institute followed by general Islamic studies in Cairo, Egypt. After two years in Egypt, she moved to Hadramaut, Yemen and enrolled in Dar al Zahra, an Islamic University for Women. There she studied Aqeedah, Quran, Hadith, Arabic, Jurisprudence (Fiqh), Islamic law, Purification of the Heart and other religious related learning. Her lineage of scholarship from whom she received direct education can be traced directly back to the Prophet Muhammadﷺ from the Husseini lineage. Under the tutelage of her professors, she has established several circles of knowledge and continues to teach and lecture across the United States and abroad.

Sohaib Sultan

The late Sohaib Sultan was one of the main inspirations for the Year to Live course. After being told he had less than a year to live by his doctor at the age of 40 he continued to teach and lead his community in his final months, including helping to guide for our 2021 offering of a Year to Live. Sadly, he passed away midway through the course, but his example lives on and deeply informs the course. We are blessed to have his recordings and writings as a key component of this training.

He was the first full-time Muslim Life Coordinator and Chaplain at Princeton University. He is a graduate of the Hartford Theological Seminary earning a Masters in Islamic Studies & Christian-Muslim Relations, and a Graduate Certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy. His research and academic interests focused on Islamic spirituality and psychology, as well as the development of practical skills in religious leadership. He is author of numerous books and articles including, The Qur’an and Sayings of Prophet Muhammad: Selections Annotated and Explained.