My name is Shumaila. I am an educator with more than 15+ years of teaching experience, and I have always loved finding creative ways to help children understand, enjoy, and connect with what they are learning. As a Qur'an and Islamic Studies teacher, I often found myself imagining activities while teaching—a matching game to explore a meaning, a drawing prompt to encourage reflection, or a hands-on activity to help a lesson stay with a child.
The ideas came easily. Finding time to bring them to life was much harder.
Between lesson planning, classroom management, and family responsibilities, there was rarely enough time to create everything I envisioned. I often struggled to find resources that suited my younger learners and the particular lessons I wanted to teach. Even after a full day of giving my best, I sometimes went home thinking, “I wish I could have made that lesson more engaging.”
During summer holidays, I would return to those ideas and create what I could. But I always wished I had a way to turn more of them into thoughtful, engaging resources children could enjoy.
Then I discovered AI.
When I first began using ChatGPT, I told my husband, “This is going to be a game changer.” I could immediately see the possibility of finally developing ideas that had been waiting in notebooks and in my mind.
My relationship with technology, however, began long before AI. I have a background in Computer Systems Engineering and spent around 10 years working in the IT industry as a computer programmer. That experience taught me how to think logically, solve problems, work with digital systems, and use technology to make complex tasks more efficient.
When AI tools became available, those two parts of my background naturally came together: years of teaching and years of working with technology. I began using AI not simply to generate content, but to help me research, brainstorm, organize ideas, develop activities, explore visual concepts, revise materials, and turn classroom ideas into resources more efficiently.
Over the past couple of years, I have been exploring what becomes possible when teaching experience, creativity, technology, and AI work together. My role remains at the centre of that process: deciding what children should learn, developing the educational approach, guiding the tools, questioning their output, checking and revising the content, and shaping each resource around the needs of young learners.
That is how Deenscovery began to take shape.
My hope is to give children opportunities to explore Qur'anic meanings, develop their understanding of Islam, ask questions, reflect, and connect what they learn with everyday life. I also want to support parents and teachers who have the same wish I had: thoughtful, accessible resources that make Islamic learning more engaging for children and lesson preparation more manageable for adults.
I openly acknowledge AI's role in this journey. For me, AI does not replace the teacher, the ideas, or the educational purpose behind the work. It is a creative tool that has helped me bring more of those ideas to life.
At the heart of Deenscovery is a hope I carried into every classroom: that children will enjoy learning about their deen and grow in their love for the Qur'an.
— Shumaila
Founder of Deenscovery