About the Global Muslim Digital Repository
The Global Muslim Repository (GMDR) is a digital archive and virtual museum currently in development at CME-US. The project is being built to preserve, document, and share the many ways Muslims have shaped human civilization, with a particular focus on American Muslim experiences and their global connections.
For more than fourteen centuries, Muslims have contributed to fields such as science, education, architecture, medicine, art, literature, and social thought. Yet these histories are often fragmented, overlooked, or presented without context. The GMDR is being created to address this gap by bringing together materials that illuminate Muslim life in its full intellectual, cultural, and human richness.
What is being built?
At its core, the GMDR is being developed as a comprehensive, open-access archive of oral histories, photographs, manuscripts, artifacts, and multimedia materials documenting Muslim presence and contributions in America and around the world.
What distinguishes the Repository is its dual commitment to scholarly rigor and public accessibility. Academic researchers need detailed metadata and analytical tools. Educators need age-appropriate materials. Communities need to see themselves reflected with dignity. The Repository is designed to serve all these audiences simultaneously, because transforming narratives requires reaching people where they are.
The impact is concrete: when a teacher in Arizona accesses oral histories of Muslim farmers in her region, when a student in Illinois discovers that a Muslim architect designed his city's first skyscraper, when a journalist can tell the story of Muslims building communities across the rural South—the narrative shifts. Not through assertion, but through accumulated evidence that makes erasure increasingly difficult to sustain.
Within five years, we will launch an AI-enhanced platform with multilingual access, five major multimedia exhibitions, and partnerships with institutions including the Library of Congress, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the British Library—connecting dispersed collections through a single, free portal available to anyone, anywhere.
This is possible because of where we are. ASU is one of the world's leading research universities, with deep infrastructure in digital humanities, archival preservation, AI development, and community partnership. ASU has already established similar repositories, namely the Labriola National American Indian Data Center, an Indigenous-led space dedicated to safeguarding Native knowledge, history, and creative expression.
The CME Repository at ASU will be a space for American Muslim communities to speak for themselves, preserving their stories with dignity and care in one place for global access. ASU’s institutional foundation combined with CME's scholarly network spanning history, anthropology, journalism, film, and religious studies means the Repository is built to last. Endowment funding will ensure free public access for generations. Open standards will keep materials usable as technologies evolve.
This is patient work. Digital repositories don't generate immediate headlines—but they transform how knowledge circulates, who holds it, and what stories can finally be told. We are not building a vault. We are building a platform that shapes new scholarship, enables new storytelling, and gives future generations the tools to write histories we cannot yet imagine.
The arc of the Repository is organized around five thematic areas that connect American experiences to broader Muslim histories:
When Fazlur Rahman Khan designed the Sears Tower—then the world's tallest building—his breakthrough use of bundled tube engineering drew inspiration from bamboo construction in his native East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). Award-winning architect Maryam Eskandari draws on Islamic principles of ihsan (doing what is beautiful) to create sustainable, community-centered designs today. Their work expresses a long architectural tradition, including Mimar Sinan's earthquake-defying domes in 17th-century Istanbul. Our research, documentation, and oral history collection will focus not only on iconic figures but on lesser-known yet equally significant contributions, including the creation of unique religious and social spaces—mosques, coffee and tea shops, senior living facilities, community centers, temporary Eid celebrations, and halal food festivals—that foster interaction and strengthen inclusivity. This digital, interactive exhibition showcases these connections, allowing viewers intimate engagement with stories that span continents and centuries.
Muslim Americans lead in strengthening education and developing innovative pedagogical tools. Salman Khan created Khan Academy, a nonprofit online tutoring platform serving millions globally. High school student Momin Khan founded Model UN Academy to mentor peers in international affairs. Their work connects to Muslim education reformers across centuries: Fatima al-Fihri, who founded Al-Qarawiyyin University in 859 (the world's oldest, continuously operating university); Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who established Aligarh Muslim University in India in 1875; and the scholars and curators of Timbuktu's vast manuscript library, preserving knowledge through tumultuous centuries. In scientific fields, Muslim Americans have achieved distinction: Ahmed Zewail received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for femtochemistry; Farouk El-Baz proved instrumental to NASA's Apollo moon program. Their achievements follow in the footsteps of al-Zahrawi, who pioneered surgical instruments in the 10th century, Ibn al-Haytham, who revolutionized optic sciences in the 11th century, and Ibn Sina who wrote a five-volume medical encyclopedia that served as the primary medical authority in both the Islamic world and Europe for over 600 years, pioneering evidence-based medicine, pharmacology, and clinical trials. This exhibition traces how Islam's foundational emphasis on seeking knowledge—embodied in the Prophetic teaching that "seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim"—has manifested across fourteen centuries in a commitment to educational innovation and scientific knowledge, making learning accessible to all, regardless of background or circumstance.
In 1805, Thomas Jefferson hosted the first White House iftar honoring a Tunisian envoy—a tradition recently revived. In the United States, diverse Muslim food cultures are increasingly recognized for promoting healthy, balanced diets. Halal certification processes ensure high standards of hygiene and food safety while encoding ethical sourcing practices. Muslim-owned restaurants and cafes foster interaction among strangers and strengthen community bonds. Muslim business owners contribute significantly through feeding the homeless, supporting community development, and facilitating interfaith dialogue. In New York City, Muslim doctors comprise nearly 10 percent of the medical field, many serving poorer, underserved communities. These commitments connect to historical traditions: advancements in Unani medicine and concerns for mental well-being articulated in the 14th-century Bimaristan Arghun in Aleppo, which pioneered music and water therapy for psychological distress. This exhibit, combining food and the body, will allow viewers to appreciate the traditions of human wellbeing, cultivated and maintained by Muslims over centuries.
Etched in stone on the U.S. Supreme Court portico are the world's great lawgivers, among them the Prophet Muhammad. Long before the building's 1930s construction, Omar Ibn Said, enslaved in North Carolina, wrote an Arabic autobiography testifying to enslaved Africans' resilience and Islam's foundational values of freedom and justice. Malcolm X's 1964 Hajj opened his eyes to the principle that all races, ethnicities, and humans are equal. Today, American Muslims live these values through significant donations to social justice causes, volunteer work for community uplift, creation of highly plural and inclusive worship spaces, and advocacy for equity in Congress. These struggles draw inspiration from the Constitution of Medina (a blueprint for inclusion and equality), Mughal Emperor Akbar's Sulh-e-Kul (treatise on universal peace), and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights. This exhibit will document and share with audiences Muslim contributions to freedom and social responsibility across fourteen centuries.
American arts are deeply influenced by Muslim creative traditions and shaped by Muslim artists and performers. Muslim influences gave form to American music from the beginning. Field hollers that birthed American blues echo the adhan chanted by enslaved Muslims, with their call-and-response patterns and melismatic singing (multiple notes on one syllable). Ahmed Abdul-Malik fused North African music into jazz, playing both bass and oud. The great saxophonist John Coltrane was profoundly influenced by Islamic spiritualism. Contemporary Muslim painters like Shahzia Sikander employ traditional Islamic miniature painting techniques to address American concerns of equality, feminism, and Muslim belonging. Across the country, Muslim poets, novelists, photographers, painters, designers, and musicians interweave their cultural traditions with American expressive arts, creating new artistic forms and reshaping the American cultural landscape. By bringing together these multiple creative expressions of Muslims, this exhibit will celebrate Muslim contributions to American cultural richness.