Professor Mustapha Sheikh

Dr. Mustapha Sheikh is a scholar specialising in the Shari’a and its ancillary sciences and is the Chair in Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies at the University of Leeds (UK).
​
His travels in pursuit of knowledge have taken him across the Muslim world, including to several historical centres of learning. In Damascus, he received instruction from its leading ‘ulama, including Shaykh Wahbah al-Zuhayli, Shaykh ‘Abdul Qadir Arnaout, Shaykh Rajab Dib and Shaykh Na’im ‘Arqasusi. In Istanbul, he studied tafsir and ‘ilm al-suluk under Shaykh Osman Topbas (Naqshbandi) and Professor Suleman Derin. In Lahore, he received an Ijazah in the transmission of Hadith from Shaykh Professor Sa’d Siddiqui Kandelhvi (University of Punjab). Dr Mustapha has an Ijazah ‘Aliya (Higher License) in Classical Arabic and Islamic Law, having studied at Ma’had al-Fath al-Islami (Damascus, Syria) and the Institut Européen des Sciences Humaines (Wales branch).
​
Dr. Mustapha combines traditional Islamic training with a distinguished background of academic scholarship at several highly ranked British universities. He has a BSc in Project Management from University College London, a Masters in the Study of Religions from the University of Oxford and a Doctorate in Theology (DPhil/PhD), also from the University of Oxford.

He is the author of two books, Ottoman Puritanism and Its Discontents: Ahmad al-Aqhisari and the Qadizadelis (Oxford University Press) and A Treasury of Ibn Taymiyyah: His Timeless Thought and Wisdom (Kube Publishing).
​
Dr. Mustapha has an international reputation for scholarship in Islamic commercial law. The interdisciplinary approach developed by him and his colleague, Professor M.S. Ebrahim (Durham University), marks their work apart within the field. Their work on Islamic Finance has been published by the Arab Law Quarterly (Brill).