Dr. Mohammad Shafi
Chairman, Board of Trustees of Dar al Islam
Dr. Mohammad Shafi is a semi-retired Management Consultant in Corporate Management Strategies and International Marketing and lives in Northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
He has served in several Senior Management capacities in fields related to High-Tech Research and Trade, Defense, Managed Health Care, and Health Insurance. Some of the positions he served include: Vice President, John Hancock Health Plans; General Director, John Hancock Financial Services; Chairman and President, SIA Technology Corp.; and President, Skylight Holding Co.
Dr. Shafi has been involved in building the Muslim American community since he came to the United States in 1958 to pursue his PhD at Georgetown University. Even at that time he was founding organizations (Pakistani Students of Greater Washington) and providing guidance on the Muslim world (such as through speeches at the First Unitarian Church). His work has always been about the Muslim American community and the ways in which it integrates and supports the American community at-large.
In the past 50 years, he has helped to establish, given technical assistance to, financially supported or been on the Board of Directors of dozens of Muslim organizations, Islamic Centers, Outreach and Educational efforts and student groups including The Islamic Center of New Mexico, The Islamic Center of New England, Zaytuna Institute, Inner-Attainment Television, and Karamah: Muslim Women for Human Rights.
In 1978 he helped to establish Dar al Islam, which has been building bridges between the Muslim American community and the American community. He currently serves as Chairman, Board of Trustees of Dar al Islam. He also serves as Secretary of the International Board of Directors of Minaret Business Organization.
His commitment to Project Sakinah is exemplary. He has been personally involved in the project since its conception and has spent hundreds of hours with the project's team and Dar al Islam's board members while resolving several issues and streamlining budget constraints for the project.
Dr. Shafi considers his being a parent to one son and three daughters, a grandfather and a husband as his most important accomplishments. 
Anas Coburn
Managing Director
Anas Coburn is the founder and Managing Director of Project Sakinah and a member of the Dar al Islam team since 1987. He has a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, and has practiced as a mental health clinician serving clients living within a culture of generational poverty. He has worked with clients suffering from physical and sexual abuse and living in 'high-risk,' chaotic, multi-stressed families dealing with issues such as poverty, substance abuse, and serious mental illness, often all at the same time. Coburn's utilization of a whole-systems-approach has sharpened his appreciation of complex social and family-systems factors that strongly shape the ability of an individual or family to be resilient in the face of challenges. His background informs his belief that violence within Muslim families is an issue best addressed at a community-wide level.
During his tenure with Dar al Islam, Coburn has been involved with the development of numerous programs including "North American Muslim Powwows" and "Deen Intensives" intended to address various aspects of the social experience of practicing Islam in North America.
Coburn has broad interests in the impacts of modern society on Muslims, and has given written and spoken on the development of Muslim Identity, the struggle to establish and maintain community, and the impacts of computer technology and internet use on Muslims. Anas lives in rural Vermont, a mile from a paved road, amongst thousands of trees in perfect submission to their Creator.
Zerqa Abid
Campaign Manager
Zerqa Abid is a mother, a social/political activist, an interfaith youth mentor, a blogger, a TV producer/director, a media consultant, a campaign maker and CEO of her business, ZAPS Technocrats Inc. In the past, Abid has worked at the American news giant, NBC News as News Editor and at ARY Digital Network of Pakistan as the General Manager of The City Channel.
Through her overseas business ZAPSnet Consultancies Pvt. Ltd, she has successfully organized international trade and consumer shows. Her consumer show, "Expo Juniors," in 2006 was recognized as the first expo and an historic event for children in Pakistan. It drew 800,000 people in three days to the Expo Center, Karachi.
Abid has been working with Project Sakinah since the time of its conception. Along with media and marketing experience, she also brings with her a 20-plus-years experience of nonprofit community organizations and mobilization in US and overseas.
Abid is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of North Carolina State University. She majored in Mass Communication, TV production, and minored in Journalism. She received "Norma & Wally Ausley Merit Scholarship" for being "The Outstanding Student of Mass Communications."
She is happily married with three daughters. She gives credit of all her accomplishments to her parents and her extraordinary husband.
Naseema Shafi
Community Liason
Ms. Shafi is an attorney living and working in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Currently the Chief Operating Officer at the Whitman-Walker Health, she began her career there overseeing the Compliance Program. She is responsible for major areas of Whitman-Walker including information technology, human resources, clinical and administrative operations and grants management in order to help the organization provide high quality, affirming care. She supports the Board of Directors, especially as it relates to issues for Federally Qualified Health Centers, of which Whitman-Walker Health maintains "Look Alike" status. She spent several years working on intellectual property litigation matters during the time that she attended law school. She was a board member of Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights.
Ms. Shafi has been involved with Project Sakinah since its inception. She provides assistance to the team on all matters as needed, including by facilitating community involvement and addressing general organizational questions.
Ms. Shafi holds a JD from University of Maryland School of Law and has studied overseas in the Middle East and North Africa.
Abdur Ra`uf Declerck
Director of Accounting & Administration
Abdur Ra'uf Declerck, a native from Belgium, became aware of Islam and Muslims in the mid seventies while working as a magazine editor in Amsterdam. He became a Muslim soon thereafter during a two year stay in the United States.
He has been associated with Dar al Islam in various functions since 1980, and currently serves as its Director of Accounting and Administration.
Declerck has long been committed to stewardship of the trusts Allah places under our care. From close attention to the environmental impacts of program activities at Dar al Islam's New Mexico retreat center -- to a painstaking attention to detail that yields cost-effectiveness and fiduciary responsibility, Declerck steadfastly supports Project Sakinah accountability.