All providers
Ossama Bahloul, imam and spiritual advisor at Zaha Health
Imam · Spiritual care

Ossama Bahloul

Central Time (US)
About

Both the imam families call and the chaplain on campus

Dr. Ossama Bahloul is Resident Scholar of the Islamic Center of Nashville, where he has guided the community's religious life since 2016 and gives most of the Friday sermons. He is also Muslim Chaplain at Vanderbilt University, and he sits on the Fiqh Council of North America.

He holds a BA, an MA and a PhD from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the doctorate in Comparative Religions. Before Nashville he served as Imam of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro from 2008. He has spent more than sixteen years in interfaith work, including peer-reviewed research and university teaching.

That combination is unusual. Most people are one or the other: the imam families call first, or the chaplain trained to sit beside clinicians. He is both, and a seat on the Fiqh Council means the hardest questions a client brings have somewhere to go.

Some of what people carry is not only pain but a question of what their faith actually permits, asked quietly, and usually of no one. Ossama is someone that question can be put to, and he answers it.

Training & credentials

Resident Scholar, ICNIslamic Center of Nashville · since 2016
PhD, Al-Azhar UniversityComparative Religions · BA and MA from Al-Azhar as well
Fiqh Council of North AmericaMember
Muslim ChaplainVanderbilt University

What he works with

The religious weight underneath the distress
Al-Azhar training and a Fiqh Council seat mean the tradition gets taken seriously in the room, not waved at. Where a question needs a formal ruling, he will say so and point you to the right scholar. Spiritual advisors here do not issue them.
Faith and doubt
A doctorate in comparative religions, and years of practice with people whose certainty has gone quiet.
Students and young adults
Campus chaplaincy at Vanderbilt alongside the masjid, so the twenty-year-old and their parents both have somewhere to sit.
Families under public strain
Nearly two decades leading Tennessee communities through scrutiny, which is its own kind of pressure on a household.

Launching April 2027

Join the waitlist