Shaykha Halima Krausen

Shaykha Halima Krausen is one of the most prominent European female scholars of Islam and the head of the German speaking Muslim community. She was born in Aachen, Germany into a Catholic/Protestant family and accepted Islam in her early teens. She traveled extensively in the Muslim world to learn the Arabic language and pursue Islamic studies under various scholars. Shaykha Halima completed her formal education in Islamic Studies, Theology and Comparative Religion at the University of Hamburg in 1992. She then continued her studies with various visiting scholars and undertook extensive studies with Imam Razvi who is one of the leading scholars in Germany. Between 1984 to 1988 Shaykha Halima was part of the project to translate the Qur'an into German with commentaries. She was also involved in translating volumes of Hadith and Islamic law.

Shaykha Halima is a founding member of the Inter-Religious Dialogue Circle at the Department of Theology at Hamburg University. She is also part of Reinhard von Kirchbach's inter-religious dialogue initiative that works with Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim scholars and intellectuals to promote cross-cultural dialogue. She is the Founder and lecturer at the Initiative for Islamic Studies in Hamburg Germany. She lectures frequently across Europe and London in particular. She has dedicated her life to building a strong German speaking Muslim community as well as building bridges with other faith groups through interfaith/cross-cultural dialogue.

Source: Shaykha Halima Krausen

Shaykha Sabira Lakha

Shaykha Sabira Lakha is one UK’s prominent female Faqihah(jurist). She received formal training in Islamic Jurisprudence and obtained her Masters Degree in Law from the University of Warwick. As part of her academic work she undertook comprehensive comparative study of the English legal system and the Sharia with special emphasis on constitutional law, human rights and the evolutionary application of the Sharia in contemporary context through Ijtihaad. She has been working as an advisor to the UK government ministers as well as the Scotland Yard. In 2006 she was invited by the British Prime Minister to join the Islamic Advisory Group in UK.

Shaykha Sabira has been involved in various community building projects in UK such as “Preventing Extremism Together”. She works as an adjudicator at the Financial Ombudsman Service. She also works with various UK based community organizations promoting civil and political participation of various faiths and ethnic communities in the UK.

Gul Rukh Rahman

Gul Rukh Rahman earned her masters from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, MA in International Relations with a focus on Security Studies and Conflict Resolution. She is a software engineer and has several years of work experience in Silicon Valley with leading technology companies.

In 2005, Ms. Rahman moved to New York and was hired as co-executive director of Children of Abraham, a non-profit organization dedicated to building bridges between Muslim and Jewish youth, globally. She has spoken about Muslim-Jewish relations and Muslim-West relations in several international forums. She has in-depth experience in journalism, women and youth empowerment and community development. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in Geneva Switzerland.

Source: Modified from ADR Fellowship Portal

Shaykha Reima Yosif

Shaykha Reima Yosif was born and raised in US. She studied under various Shuyukh from the Middle East. She is a hafidha of the Qur'an and has a 4 year diploma in Classical Arabic. She has scholarly licenses to teach Sahih Bukhari, Muslim, Tafsir of the Qur'an ( the books of : Al-Kashaaf by Al-Zamakhshari, Al-Tafseer Al-Kabeer by Al-Razi and Jami' Al-Ahkaam by Al-Qurtubi) as well as two different Qira'at of the Qur'an. She has extensively studied comparative fiqh with special emphasis on women's fiqh. She has also composed books on comparative fiqh. She has translated over 200 various classical and contemporary Islamic texts from Arabic to English amongst them are: Sahih Muslim, Tafsir Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Hazim Al-anadalusi and Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali's work.

Shaykha Reima undertook formal studies at the American University in Cairo, Ain Shams Univeristy and Al-Azhar University in Cairo Egypt. Her graduate studies are in English and Comparative Literature. She is a published poet, her first "Diwan" (poetry collection) is called "Kalimaat min Jawf Al-Zaman" ( Words from the Enclaves of Time) written in Arabic and published by Daar Alnashr Al-Masriyya (Al-Ahram) in Egypt.

Professor Kecia Ali

Prof. Kecia Ali serves as an Associate Professor of Religion at the Boston University, Department Religion. Prof Ali received her Ph.D. in Religion from Duke University, where she was the recipient of the James B. Duke fellowship, in 2002. Her specialization was Islamic Studies. She completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University with a degree in History and honors in Feminist Studies. From 2001 to 2003, Ali worked as a research analyst for the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University. In 2003-2004, Ali was a research associate in Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion Program. From 2004-2006, she held a Florence Levy Kay postdoctoral fellowship in Islamic Studies and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University.

Her research interests center on Islamic religious texts, especially jurisprudence; women in both classical and contemporary Muslim discourses; and religious biography. She is the author of Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006), Islam: The Key Concepts (co-authored with Oliver Leaman), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (2010), and Imam Shafi’i: Scholar and Saint (2011) in Oneworld’s Makers of the Muslim World series. Her current research focuses on biographies of Prophet Muhammad.  She serves as co-chair for the Study of Islam Section of the American Academy of Religion and is a member of its Status of Women in the Profession Committee.

Source: Modified from Boston University Portal

Shaykha Zaynab Ansari

Ustadha Zaynab Ansari is based in the southeastern United States. She spent nearly a decade studying Farsi, Arabic, and traditional Islam in Tehran and Mashhad, Iran and Damascus, Syria. From 2004-2009, she volunteered, wrote, and taught for SunniPath Academy (now Qibla for the Islamic Sciences). Since 2009, Ustadha Zaynab has been a contributor at SeekersGuidance, an online educational initiative developed by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, one of the original founders of SunniPath. In addition to writing for SeekersGuidance Answers Blog, Ustadha Zaynab has taught at SeekersGuidance annual Appalachian retreat and is in the process of developing new course content for the online academy.

Ustadha Zaynab is currently pursuing an M.A. in World History at Georgia State University, after graduating from that institution with undergraduate degrees in History and Middle Eastern Studies. She is a freelance writer for Azizah Magazine and My Muslim Veil and volunteers for the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta. Ustadha Zaynab is married and has three children.

Dr. Amira Bennison

Dr. Amira Bennison is the Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
at the University of Cambridge. She earned a BA in History and Arabic from the University of Cambridge and MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.  
She earned her PhD from SOAS, University of London in Moroccan History. As part of her graduate studies she traveled to Egypt and Morocco.

Her research interests are North Africa and the Middle East since 1500; 18th-19th century Muslim religio-political discourse and state structures; the medieval Islamic West; Islamic cultural history and historical globalization. Some of her published books include Religious Minorities under the Almohads, The Great Caliphs: the golden age of the ‘Abbasid empire, Cities in the Premodern Islamic World: the Urban Impact of Religion, State and Society. Dr. Bennison has appeared in several TV programs about the history of the Middle East and North Africa including ‘Europe’s Lost Civilisation’; ‘The Thirties in Colour’ and ‘Islamic Science’.

Source: Modified from Cambridge University Portal

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