The growth of South Asian Muslim communities in the West over the last forty years has brought with it not only the spread of Deobandi Islam, but also the emergence of a new type of Deobandi institution, connected religiously and culturally to the mainstream Deobandi movement but also more inclined to seek connections outside these communities, with other Muslims and more broadly with non-Muslims. Two such institutions are Darul Qasim in Chicago and London's Ebrahim College. This chapter will argue that these two Deobandi institutions should be considered as “second wave” institutions because they are attempting to adjust Deobandi fiqh to the needs of Western Muslims. Both Deoband-inspired schools are staffed in large part by graduates of Deobandi madrasahs, and have sought to break with the mould of conventional dār al-‘ulūms by incorporating new kinds of educational practices and expanding the scope of their activities beyond the South-Asian Deobandi community.

The two schools are quite similar in their basic function and history. Darul Qasim was founded in 1998 by its current head Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia, a British-born scholar who studied at Deobandi madrasahs around India. Kholwadia moved to Chicago in 1984, becoming very active in the local Muslim community, particularly the sizable Pakistani population, which is concentrated on the far North Side and the city's northwest suburbs. Although Darul Qasim has had several physical headquarters during its existence, it is now located in one such northwestern suburb, Glendale Heights, Illinois.

Darul Qasim today has a range of academic programmes: a doctoral programme in iftā’; a master's in Islamic law and theology; a bachelor's in Islamic studies; the “Shaykh al-Hind” pre-collegiate prerequisite programme, which prepares students for the linguistic challenges of Islamic scholarship; introductory Arabic classes; an extracurricular programme in Islamic studies aimed at high school students; and classes in Qurʾānic recitation. The lower-level classes, particularly the high school programme and introductory Arabic, are intended as popular courses for members of the community broadly. The upper-level programmes, on the other hand, including the “Shaykh al-Hind”, are intended to produce graduates prepared for work as imāms and ‘ulamā’. The school has also since 2009 opened satellite chapters teaching primarily Arabic and Qurʾānic recitation in Cleveland; Louisville, Kentucky; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Newark, California, outside San Francisco.