top of page

ABOUT US

Afghan Academy was established in 1992 in Northern Virginia and is a duly registered non-profit organization.

The goals and objectives are:

  • Preserve Islamic values and Afghan cultural heritage.

  • Create bridges among Afghans.

  • Offer sound advice and assistance on Afghanistan’s social, economic, and cultural issues.

  • Encourage and promote interfaith dialogue.

OUR MISSION

  1. Teach and disseminate religious, educational, cultural, and social values of Afghanistan to the Afghan community residing abroad.

  2. Provide support to scholars for their educational, cultural, and social research studies.  

  3. Expand relations between the Afghan community and other social and cultural organizations nationally and internationally.

  4. Help our seniors, youth, and Afghan families in need.

OUR PURPOSE

  1. Establish schools, mosques, centers for youth and elderly, and burial facilities.

  2. Celebrate national and religious holidays, hold seminars, conferences, and other cultural and literary activities.

  3. Celebrate individual academics, sports, and cultural achievements by the members of the community and organizations, including scholars and students.

  4. Regularly visit and provide comfort to seniors in the nursing homes and sick in the hospitals.

  5. Connect the needy in the community with people of means and experience.

FUTURE PLANS

  1. Afghan Academy is striving to open a full time school in the Metropolitan area.

  2. In order to reach the needy (including orphans and widows) Afghan Academy is committed to open its offices in Afghanistan. We will remain independent of any ethnic, tribal, political, and governmental influence.

OUR CULTURE
OUR CULTURE

  • Evidence of human habitation in Afghanistan dates as far back as 50,000 BC.

  • Natives were small farmers and herdsmen, probably grouped into tribes.

  • Urbanization may have begun as early as 5,500 BC.

AFGHAN ACADEMY ENTERS A NEW PHASE OF CULTURAL ACTIVISM

​

Afghanistan has a rich culture, which dates back thousands of years. With a diverse culture and language as a result of a mosaic of villages, towns, and cities located on, between, and within the mountains and valleys. We have to preserve that cultural heritage and diversity.

​

Rhea T. Stewart, the author of Fire in Afghanistan, famously wrote, “Everywhere you go in Afghanistan, you are held in a handful of mountains. As you travel, there always comes a moment when you have rounded the rim of the mountain and suddenly there you are in a sweep of different mountains. The horizon is always close at hand.

​

“In the mountain peaks of Afghanistan. All is brown, gray, lightened in some places by an impersonal sun, in others deepened by the shadows of jagged peaks descending in a relentless ravine.”

​

The landscape of this country is infinite and unmatched in beauty. It is vital that our sisters and brothers, mother and fathers, sons and daughters can preserve this priceless Cultural Treasure while living in these United States of America. We come from the land of Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna), Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi, Rabia Balkhi, Al Beruni, Khwaja Abdullah Ansar, and many, many more. We are diverse and our solutions should be as well.

​

One size fits all will not work. We should create an organization which could operate as an umbrella encompassing all ethnic groups, while they retain their flavor of cultural differences.

​

Afghan Academy is an organization that always encouraged unity among all Afghans. It has the potential to unite various ethnic groups. 

​

Responsible, sincere, and patriotic Afghans living in Virginia created Afghan Academy in 1992. The objective of the founding fathers was to provide a platform to the Afghan refugees arriving in droves from 1977 to 1995. They had no place to pray, meet, or socialize. The community was renting churches, halls, and the roadside to pray or celebrate their cultural heritage.

​

Although the progress has been slow, today the fruit of their efforts is the Mustafa Masjid, located in Northern Virginia, and a host of other facilities and functions including the Afghan Academy School and funeral services.  Currently, the organization, with the leadership of Mustafa Center, is preparing to build an Islamic funeral chapel.

​

Afghan Academy is proud to support its voice in the form of a monthly newsletter called “Paigham”, and is ambitiously pursuing its goal of providing the message in Pashto, Dari, and English.  The English portion will help our younger generation, whose main language is English.  The Afghan Academy School provides courses for those who would like to learn their native languages.

​

It is the responsibility of the Afghan elite and intellectuals to provide the resources for the youth to learn Dari or Pashto, and maintain our Afghan Culture so that the future generation is not lost in the "melting pot" of the United States.

bottom of page