ISLA is excited to welcome the new Director of the ISLA Database Project, Saulat Pervez! As ISLA seeks to relaunch its Islamic school census survey, Saulat will play a crucial role in collaborating with stakeholders to update the survey instrument, administer the survey, and work with advisors and analysts to create reports that address the unique needs of the broader ISLA school community.
Vision for ISLA Database Project
As Director of the ISLA Database Project, Saulat hopes to contribute to the vibrant and passionate work of ISLA in Islamic education by building on the last survey and its results. Saulat will work to ensure comprehensive representation of full-time Islamic schools in the United States both in the directory as well as the relaunched census survey she will be overseeing. Her previous work straddling education and Islamic thought aligns with ISLA’s mission and vision to support and advance Islamic education to strive for ethical leadership and academic excellence while being grounded in a tawhidic and ummatic paradigm.
Saulat will refine the survey instrument with feedback from key stakeholders and implement it across full-time Islamic schools in the United States. Afterwards, she will closely work with analysts and advisors to create reports that will address the needs of the ISLA community at large. The directory and the survey results will enrich our understanding of the Islamic school landscape in the United States and enable organizations and educators to make data-informed decisions based on rigorous research practices. This is extremely important and only the first step in future efforts to fully grasp the field and work towards its betterment in a systematic manner.
Recent Work Experience and Research
Saulat is a researcher and educator with extensive experience in the fields of Islamic thought and education. Most recently, she has served as Researcher and Program Manager at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) for more than a decade; among her various projects at IIIT was the multi-site, international study, Mapping the Terrain, that explored socio-emotional skills in schools across Muslim societies in majority and minority contexts. She has also been fully involved in the planning and organizing of IIIT’s Symposium on Education in Muslim Societies from 2021 to 2023 and the 2025 Writing Workshop organized by IIIT’s Journal of Education in Muslim Societies. She has managed the Human Development Matters blog too. She is currently pursuing a PhD in education with a research focus on the postcolonial emergence of middle-tier private schooling in Pakistan and its influences on social class, language disparities, and reading attitudes.
Publications
Saulat has authored several academic articles and book chapters, including “Sayyid Abul al-‘Ala al-Maududi and the Jama‘at-e-Islami” in the Oxford Handbook on Islamic Reform (Oxford University Press, 2026) and “Muslim Intellectual History: A Survey” in the American Journal of Islam and Society (2023). Her PhD research has been published in top-ranking journals such as the International Journal of Multilingualism and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. She has contributed articles on education in Islamic Horizons as well.
Her full list of publications can be accessed here.
Conferences
She regularly attends academic conferences and has organized panels on Islamic education at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2025 and 2026 annual meetings to ensure visibility of Islamic schools and their recognition in the fabric of education in the United States. Other conferences she has presented her research at include the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), International Network of Philosophers of Education (INPE), and WISE-Qatar Foundation.
Education and Previous Work
She has a masters degree in Global Affairs, with a specialization in Global Education, from George Mason University and has also taken the postgraduate course, “Foundations of Islamic Education,” at the University of Warwick, UK.
One of her undergraduate majors at Rutgers University was English Literature which she later taught at Generation’s School, a private pre-K through A Levels institution in Karachi, Pakistan; in doing so, she actively integrated the Islamic worldview in the secular curriculum along with a strong focus on an analytical approach to teaching the subject and cultivating higher order thinking skills in students.
A project she also undertook while in Karachi was mentoring six of her former students in the collaborative writing of a murder mystery, Shades of Prey. She wrote children’s storybooks too which were published by Ferozsons and Oxford University Press in Pakistan.
Utilizing her other undergraduate degree in Journalism, Saulat has worked as Content Editor and Manager at Why Islam where, among other tasks, she oversaw the brochure review project, resulting in 14 enhanced brochures in English on numerous topics related to foundational understanding of Islam. She has served as a faith columnist for mycentraljersey.com as well.
Islamic education is and should be a central concern for American Muslims in general and the work being done by ISLA, including this project, has ramifications and benefits far beyond those directly connected to Islamic schools. As such, Saulat is really excited to start this project, to work with fellow enthusiasts in Islamic education, and to collaborate with other organizations to make it a shared goal towards mutually beneficial outcomes, insha’Allah!
