Studying History and Future Studies at Ribāṭ University
By Ribāṭ Communications
There is a phrase we hear constantly, in khutbahs, in conversations, in Instagram reels of grainy black-and-white footage: learn from history. We say it so often it has almost stopped meaning anything. And yet the urgency behind it is real. The world is moving fast, institutions are shifting, communities are trying to find their footing, and somewhere in all of that noise is the quiet, stubborn truth that the people who understand where we have been are the ones best equipped to help us figure out where we are going.
Ribāṭ University’s Bachelor of Arts in History and Future Studies was built on exactly that conviction.
A Degree That Almost Did Not Exist This Way
President Dr. Tamara Gray had been building a history degree. She had a consultant with a doctorate in the field, syllabi in development, a curriculum taking shape. And then the consultant asked a question that stopped everything: who is going to register for a history degree today?
It was an honest question, and it led somewhere interesting. Because the answer was not that history does not matter. The answer was that history, taught in isolation from what comes next, misses something essential. What if the tools of future studies, strategic foresight, scenario design, forecasting and backcasting, trend analysis, were brought into direct conversation with the deep study of the past? What if a student could graduate knowing not only what has happened and why, but how to read patterns, map possibilities, and think seriously about what is coming?
That is the degree that emerged. And it turns out the world is already moving in this direction: Dr. Gray met a young woman from Wales who works for a government department dedicated entirely to future planning. Wales has invested in this as a matter of national governance. The question Ribāṭ University is asking is whether Muslim communities will have women trained to do the same.
What You Will Study
The degree takes Islamic history seriously, more seriously than most. The curriculum moves from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, through the Rashidi era, the Umayyads, the Ottomans, and beyond. Crucially, this history is taught from the inside, from the perspective of those who believe in the tradition and belong to it, not through an orientalist or adversarial lens that has shaped so much of what has passed for Islamic history education.
Alongside that foundation, you will encounter courses that most history programs have never imagined offering.
- Histories of Innovation and Disruption asks what has actually caused major change throughout human history, and what we can learn from those moments about how change happens and how it can be shaped.
- Mechanisms of Change: Rethinking Impact takes that question into the present, asking how we make meaningful impact and what it actually looks like to shift the direction of an institution, a community, or a culture.
- Forecasting, Backcasting, and Trend Analysis gives students the practical methodological tools of future studies: how to read trends, how to work backwards from a desired future, how to build scenarios that help communities and organizations make wiser decisions.
- Storytelling, Oral History, and Intergenerational Learning is one of the courses that most distinctly reflects the Ribāṭ approach to education. So much of women’s history, and so much of Islamic history, has never made it into books or Wikipedia articles. It lives in stories, in the memories passed from grandmother to granddaughter, in the oral traditions that have carried communities through centuries. This course takes that transmission seriously as both a historical methodology and a living practice.
The core competencies every Ribāṭ University student takes also feed directly into this degree, with courses like Foundations of Philosophy, World Religions, and Modern History of the Middle East woven in.
Who This Degree Is For
This is a degree for women who want to think at scale. For the community leader who wants to understand not just what her organization needs today, but how to build something that lasts. For the researcher, the writer, the strategist, the educator. For anyone who has ever felt that the problems facing Muslim communities are not new problems and that the answers are somewhere in what we already carry, if we know how to read it.
It also complements a wide range of academic interests. Whether paired with another major or pursued alongside a minor in Islamic Studies or Arabic, the degree provides historical depth, critical thinking, and a richer understanding of the intellectual traditions that continue to shape Muslim communities today.
The degree includes 18 credits of electives, room to build something that is genuinely yours.
Rooted in the Past, Ready for What Is Next
The communities and institutions we love need more than good intentions. They need women who understand how transformation happens, who are grounded in Islamic tradition, and who can apply the wisdom of the past to the challenges of the present and future.
That is the graduate this degree is designed to form.
If you are ready to become that kind of thinker, explore the Bachelor of Arts in History and Future Studies at Ribāṭ University.