Queen City Diwan designs transformative leadership experiences for Muslim college students. Through our immersive, week-long retreats, we help Muslim students grow their faith, build community, and realize their potential, one cohort at a time.
Our flagship program, Queen City University, takes a select cohort of undergraduates to Andalusia, Spain for a week of memories, insights, realizations and transformations that will endure for years to come. We help students find out who they can be by connecting with who we’ve been. Each retreat focuses on the heart of Muslim Spain, where Islamic civilization reached extraordinary heights in philosophy, science, and art–and where Muslims learned to survive against impossible odds.
Why we focus on college students
Queen City Diwan began by designing remarkable journeys for travelers of all kinds. Those experiences taught us something we couldn’t ignore: the deepest, most lasting impact comes from working with students, in the very years when faith, ambition, and identity are still taking shape. So we’ve concentrated our work where it changes lives most. This is the whole of what we do.
Who is Queen City Diwan?
Queen City Diwan is the vision of Haroon Moghul, a professor, an award-winning journalist, a historian, and most of all a parent, whose life has been focused on how to educate and empower future leaders. Haroon is currently the Muslim Chaplain at Xavier University, a Jesuit institution in the heart of Cincinnati, Ohio, the author of several books, including Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future, and writes Sunday Schooled, a Substack for parents and educators of faith. With his friend and colleague Joey Taylor, he co-hosts Avenue M, a podcast about faith in the world. Inspired by a lifelong dedication to teaching and a passion for empowering students of all ages, Haroon built Queen City Diwan to connect young Muslims to the world they live in, and to the potential they each carry.
A program parents can trust
We know that sending a son or daughter abroad is a serious decision, especially for families who hold their traditions close. Every cohort travels with an experienced, responsible leadership team that is present and accountable throughout. And each cohort graduates to join a growing community of accomplished young Muslims, an alumni network that becomes a circle of lifelong friends, collaborators, and family. Students don’t just come home changed. They come home connected, to their past, to their ummah, and to their potential.
What makes us different
At Queen City Diwan, we believe travel should enrich us, help us find purpose, and build genuine community. Every experience we design is guided by five core commitments.
We’re made to be travelers. When a student first sees the legacy of Muslim Spain–perhaps it’s the Mezquita in Córdoba, a ruined monument in Granada, or the echoes of Arabic in contemporary Spanish–they’re transformed. We know it because we’ve seen it. Transformation starts with relocation. Growth doesn’t happen by sitting still. Our ancestors crossed oceans and continents to change the world. We seek to revive that spirit.
We make room in the Diwan. Whether you grew up Muslim or came to Islam later, whether your practice is traditional or still taking shape, there’s a place for you here. We build cohorts that are diverse in background and united in seriousness. We believe the ummah can only realize its potential when it embraces its diversities, which are both who we are — and the source of our strength.
Memories last longer when we make them together. The friendships forged on a QCU journey don’t end at the airport. Our students graduate into an alumni cohort that become collaborators, confidants, and family, and a growing alumni network they’ll draw on for decades. That’s the kind of resource many of us wish we had when we were coming of age. That’s the kind of resource we’re dedicated to realizing for the future.
We’re all ambassadors. We hold our students to a standard of excellence, because they represent something larger than themselves: their families, their faith, and the communities they’ll go on to lead.
Come back better. Every QCU experience is designed to challenge you, stretch you, and above all empower you, to send you home not just with photographs, but with direction.
How do I learn more?
Queen City University is going back to Spain this coming winter break: Applications for our next retreat will open soon. To learn more, apply, or simply ask a question, reach out! We’d love to talk.