Most Muslim religious leaders who currently provide counseling on the need for forgiveness to community members, rely solely on theological ideas from Islam to support their teaching practices. A project from International Interfaith Peace Corps (IIPC) aims to empower these leaders to expand their knowledge on the science of forgiveness and its relation to Islamic theology, and to address barriers to forgiveness in their own Muslim communities. The target audience for the curriculum and workshops the project will develop are primarily Imams and Muslim religious leaders in the USA, with the broader aim of benefiting Muslim communities as a whole. 

The main focus of the project is development of a comprehensive curriculum that will encompass three interconnected domains: theological, theoretical, and practical foundations. In the theological domain, the Quran and Sunnah — the sources of Islamic theology — will guide the understanding of forgiveness. The theoretical domain will draw from the resources of the TWCF Discover Forgiveness hub and Islamic psychology sources. Barriers to forgiveness embedded in human nature, thought patterns, and societal norms will be identified, and strategies developed to enable the religious leaders to address these barriers. 

Regional training workshops will target 80 religious leaders in the Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, and Midwest regions of the US, to ensure practical applicability within communities. To facilitate effective learning, the project will employ various teaching methodologies such as short lectures, group work, case studies, demonstrations, and discussions. Pre- and post-workshop assessments will be conducted to measure improvements in participants' knowledge, viewpoints, insights, and skills.The selection of participants will involve leveraging existing relationships with organizations and utilizing IIPC's extensive database of all mosques in the USA. The project team will also engage an external psychologist to support them for the forgiveness science component of the curriculum development and training of the Muslim leaders.