Yasser Qureshy
Shaykh Yasser studied in traditional Islamic seminaries in Syria and Turkey, following a long established orthodox curriculum. He graduated first in his Arabic and Islamic Studies program in Damascus, Syria. As well as being formally trained in a number of Islamic sciences during his seminary studies, he has further augmented his classical Islamic education with more focused instruction with scholars. Additionally he completed his PhD in Divinity at the University of Cambridge.
Hilal Al-Shareef
Shaykh Hilal was born in the city of Manbij, northeast of the citadel of Aleppo, Syria. In Manbij he embarked on his formative education of the sacred disciplines for a period of five years. Thereafter he moved to Aleppo and was admitted into the law faculty of Aleppo University where he furthered his study, and also memorised the majority of the Quran. He remained here for three years before moving to Lebanon where he was a deputy Imam in the Zayd b. Thabit mosque in Jabal Lebanon for 6 years, undertaking all the duties of teaching and community engagement associated with this. More recently he has been in the UK teaching both Qur'an and Arabic to the local community living here with his wife and children.
Sohail Hanif (Visiting Lecturer)
Shaykh Sohail spent over a decade in Jordan where he studied a curriculum of sciences with traditional ‘ulamā’. He was previously Head of Arabic Sciences at the Qasid Arabic institute in Amman, an instructor in Islamic studies at Qibla online academy, and has taught undergraduate classes on Modern Islam and Qur’anic studies at the University of Oxford. He also served as Head of Research and Development at the National Zakat Foundation.
He is currently a lecturer at the Cambridge Muslim College where he works on Islamic legal theory, with a focus on the Hanafi school of law.
Umm Iman
Ustadha Umm Iman left the UK in 1998 with her family to study in Damascus, Syria. Her primary focus was the acquisition of Arabic, it’s disciplines, and Tajwid. In 2001 She traveled with her family to Tarim, Yemen, where she studied at both the Dar al-Zahra seminary and privately, her primary teacher being the daughter of the late Mufti of Tarim, Habib ‘Ali Mash-hur b. Hafiz (r). Whilst there she was in charge of coordinating the educational program for the Khadija Umm al-Mu’minin School of Qur’an Memorisation, working with the principal teacher of Qur’an, based on the Sudanese method of memorising utilising the wooden tablet method (al-lawh).
Abdul Karim Morris
Shaykh Abdul Karim was born in Liverpool, England. After successfully completing a MSc in computer science and also a PGCE, in 1998 he embarked upon the pursuit of the Islamic disciplines, studying for over seven years in the blessed land of Damascus, initially at the Abu Nur Institute. Whilst there he undertook the study of a number of classical disciplines, including Tajwid, Arabic Language, Grammar, Morphology, Rhetoric, Hadith, Jurisprudence and Theology. He studied Tajwid under Shaykh Anas Al-Hibry and Shaykh Mahir Munajjad.
Faiz Amīr
Shaykh Faiz Amīr began his religious education in 1998 in Damascus, Syria focusing primarily on Arabic language. In 2001 he furthered his studies in the Dar al-Mustafa seminary, Yemen, in both the core curriculum and private study. His teachers include Shaykh Salim Khatib, Habib Kazim Saqqaf, Habib Hashim b. Sahl, Shaykh Muhammad Amin Abuh Chinquite and Habib Umar b. Hafiz. In 2009 he helped establish the Ribat Institute focusing on educational & community projects including forming a partnership with the Ihsan Foundation in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He regularly lectures for a number of initiatives across the UK, and has experience as a project worker for with long-term sufferers of mental illnesses in inner London. Additionally from 2009-2018 he served as the Imam to Broadmoor Hospital working with some of the most challenging inmates in the UK.