Professor Mustapha SheikhDr. Mustapha Sheikh is a scholar specialising in the Shari'a and its ancillary sciences. He is also an Associate Professor of 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). |
Dr. Katherine BullockDr. Katherine Bullock is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, where she also completed her Ph.D. Her teaching focus is political Islam from a global perspective, and her research focuses on Muslims in Canada, their history, contemporary lived experiences, Islamophobia, political and civic engagement, debates on the veil, media representations of Islam and Muslims, and Muslim perspectives on zakat and Basic Income. She was the editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences from 2003 – 2008 and the Vice-President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America from 2006 - 2009.
Her publications include Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves (University of Texas Press), and Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes (International Institute of Islamic Thought), which has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Malayalam, Tamil, and Turkish. Her latest research studies how Canadian Muslim healthcare workers cope with workplace anti-Muslim racism. She is also a TV host for Sound Vision Foundation’s Muslim News Canada, and the President of Compass Books, dedicated to publishing top-quality books about Islam and Muslims in English. Originally from Australia, she embraced Islam in 1994. |
Dr. Osman LatiffDr. Osman Latiff is Senior Researcher and Instructor at Sapience Institute. He has a B.A. in History, an M.A. in Crusader Studies, and has completed a PhD in the 'Place of Fada'il al-Quds (Merits of Jerusalem) and Religious Poetry in the Muslim effort to recapture Jerusalem in the Crusades' from Royal Holloway, University of London. He has delivered many papers in the U.K. and internationally at renowned academic institutions. His book on the Crusades, ‘The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades,’ was published by Brill in 2018. He has also written and continues to write academic articles and book chapters in the field of history.
Further to his PhD, he conducted post-doctorate research in Politics and International Relations ('The effect of war media iconography on U.S. identity: disruptive images, counter-hegemony and political syncretism') - considering bottom-up, grassroots humanistic values and affective principles of empathy and syncretism, and the power of the visual dimension in war and conflict. His second book, on the place of empathy in challenging attitudes of otherness in human societies, entitled ‘On Being Human: How Islam addresses othering, dehumanisation and empathy’ was published in February 2020 and launched in Christchurch New Zealand on the anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings (2019). His most recent work, ‘Navigating War, Dissent and Empathy in Arab/U.S. relations: Seeing Our Others in Darkened Spaces’ (Springer, 2021) is a comparative, multimodal study that helps to explain shifting self-identities within the U.S. and relationally through the representation of an Arab 'other'. Dr. Latiff is a lecturer and teacher at Jamia Masjid and Islamic Centre, Slough, and is a regular speaker at mosques and universities in the U.K. and internationally. |
Professor Sharif El-TobguiDr. Sharif El-Tobgui holds a BS in Arabic Language from Georgetown University, a Master’s and PhD in Islamic Studies from McGill University and currently serves as Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director of the Arabic Language Program at Brandeis University.
He previously taught for five years at Harvard University as Preceptor of Arabic, and has also taught at the Middlebury College Summer Arabic Language School. Prof. El-Tobgui’s scholarly expertise lies in the field of Islamic thought, with a special concentration on theology, law and jurisprudence. He is particularly interested in questions concerning the relationship between reason and revelation in the Islamic tradition, and has published on the manifestations of this tension in the fields of classical Islamic jurisprudence and Qur’anic exegesis. He has just completed his first monograph, a study of Ibn Taymiyya’s (d.728/1328 10-volume work, “Refutation of Contradiction Between Reason and Revelation” (E.J. Brill, 2020). In addition to his expertise in Islamic thought, Prof. El-Tobgui has a deep love of language in general, and of Classical Arabic in particular, and has enjoyed for many years exploring the intricacies of Arabic grammar as well as classical literature and poetry with his students. |
Dr. Irfanullah FarooqiProf. Irfanullah Farooqi obtained his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2014 from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, with a dissertation titled "From Universalism to Muslim Nationalism: A Sociological Inquiry into the Evolution of Muhammad Iqbal’s Thought." Prior to his doctoral studies, he completed his M.Phil in Sociology in 2009, focusing on "Literature and Society: An Interpretative Study of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Poetry," and his Masters in Sociology in 2006, both from the same institution.
Farooqi's academic career includes a variety of teaching experiences. He has served as an Assistant Professor at Aligarh Muslim University from June 2015 to December 2018 and at South Asian University as a Guest Faculty from July to December 2014. He has also been a Guest Faculty at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, from October 2009 to May 2011 and from August 2012 to December 2014. In addition to his teaching roles, Farooqi has held administrative positions such as Assistant Director at the Residential Coaching Academy of Aligarh Muslim University from August 2017 to December 2018. He has been an active member of various committees, including the Innovation and Incubation Committee at AMU in 2018 and committees focused on minority welfare and educational policy. Farooqi's scholarly contributions extend beyond his teaching responsibilities. He has delivered lectures and presented papers both in India and abroad on topics related to Urdu literature, Muslim identity, nationalism, and social issues. His publications include articles and book reviews in reputed academic journals and anthologies. Notable among his achievements is the prestigious DAAD fellowship he received in 2011 for research-related work in Germany. Furthermore, Farooqi has engaged in professional experiences outside academia, including consultancy work with UNICEF India and coordination roles at Commutiny – The Youth Collective, New Delhi. He has also participated in various academic programs and workshops, such as the Winter School on “The Life and Thought of Gandhi” at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, and the International Summer School on “Muslims in the West” at the University of Erfurt, Germany. Throughout his career, Farooqi has demonstrated a commitment to academic excellence, social engagement, and interdisciplinary scholarship, making significant contributions to the fields of sociology, literature, and cultural studies. |
Dr. Tajul IslamDr. Tajul Islam is a Lectuer in Islamic Studies at the Univeristy of Leeds. He holds a BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Leeds and a PhD in Islamic Theology from the University of Exeter. He is recognized as a theologian, having pursued studies in traditional madrasahs/ulama across the Muslim world, including Mauritania, Egypt, and Pakistan. He holds licenses (ijazahs) from various channels such as dars-i-nizami – mahadir shinquit, al-azhar, sham, sudan, among others.
Since 2009, he has been a member of Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds, concurrently holding a visiting position at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. His work blends critical methodologies with traditional Islamic textual hermeneutics, emphasizing Islamic sensibilities and Muslim subjectivity. As a co-founder of Critical Muslim Studies at Leeds, he utilizes CMS as a framework in both teaching and research, contributing to the decolonization of higher education. His teaching approach is characterized by inclusivity and sensitivity to issues such as Islamophobia, antisemitism, and racism in knowledge production. His research outputs include a forthcoming monograph titled "On Muslim Unity (Theological Minimalism)," a co-authored article on Hanafi fiqh and British Muslims' perspectives on cultured meat, as well as an article on Qur’anic phonetics. He has also contributed to studies in Judeo-Islamic, biblical, and kalam studies. In terms of publications, he has co-authored a forthcoming book titled "A Dictionary of Arabic Idioms and Expressions" with El Mustapha Lahlali, to be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Additionally, his doctoral thesis, titled "Scholastic Traditional Minimalism: A Critical Analysis of Intra-Sunni Sectarian Polemics," was completed at the University of Exeter in 2015. |