Resident Teachers – Sheikh Sa’d al-Attas

Sheikh Sa’d al-Attas
Abu Shu`ayb Sa`d Peters al-`Attas, a South African with roots extending to Yemen. He is a grandson of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace).

He graduated from the Shari`a institute run by the Tahdhib wa Ta`lim endowment in Damascus, Syria. He was in the four year, accelerated program. His studies there included the following: Arabic, `Ulum al-quran, Usul al-tafsir, Hadith, Aqidah, Fiqh (Shafi`i and some comparitive), Usul al-Fiqh, Sira (fiqh al-sira, sirat of the Khulifa al-Rashidin), Mantiq, and Khitaba.

Some of the more important books read during that time include:
* Ibn Hisham's Shudhur al-Dhahab and one year from Mughni al-Labib
* Shadhr al-`Arf
* al-Balagha al-Wadhiha
* Zakiriya al-Ansari's commentary on the Jazariyya
* Half of the Jalalayn, al-Sabuni's tafsir in Ayat al-Ahkam
* Dr. Nur al-Din `Itr's `Ulum al-Qur'an
* al-Nawawi's Irshad Tulab al-Haqa'id
* `Umdat al-Ahkam with its commentary Ihkam al-Ahkam
* al-Sawi `ala al-Jauhara, Dr. al-Buti's book on contemporary paradigms
* `Umdat al-Salik, Kifayat al-Akhiyar
* al-Mahalli `Ala al-Waraqat, Dr. al-Zuhayli's al-Wajiz, half of al-Luma` and Muftah al-Usul
* Mukhtasar Minhaj al-Qasidin
* Nur al-Yaqin, Itmam al-Wafa, Fiqh al-Sira
* Dhawabit al-Ma`rifah

His graduation thesis involved an extensive commentary on the hadiths concerning al-amr bi-l-ma`ruf wa al-nahi `an al-munkar. He defended his thesis and passed his oral examinations in `aqidah and fiqh, conducted by Shaykh `Abd al-`Aziz al-Khatib, the imam of Jami` al-Darwishiya and director of the school.

Outside of this institute Sa`d concentrated on Shafi`i fiqh. He read with Shaykh Hussayn Darawish for three years. During that time he completed Zakariya al-Ansari's Tuhfat al-Tulab with most of al-Sharqawi's marginal notes. He also completed nearly the first third of the same author's Fath al-Wahhab with additional notes from al-Bujayrami's marginal notes. While doing this he also read al-Shirazi's al-Tanbih with al-Suyuti's commentary, Sharh al-Yaqut al-Nafis, portions of al-Suyuti's al-Ashbah wa al-Natha'ir, I`yanat al-Talibin, and others.

He moved to Keighley in Ramadan 2003 where he currently resides with his wife and three children and teaches at the Abu Zahra Foundation.

Sheikh Ata’ Bukhari
Biography will added. Due to arrive from Damascus soon, inshallah.

Sidi Wajid Hussain
Bio will be added.

Sheikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Sheikh Nuh Keller, American Muslim translator and specialist in Islamic Law. Born in 1954 in the north-western United States was educated in philosophy and Arabic at the University of Chicago and UCLA. He entered Islam in 1977 at al-Azhar in Cairo, and later studied the traditional Islamic Sciences of hadith, Shafi'i and Hanafi jurisprudence, legal methodology (usul al-fiqh), and tenets of faith (`aqidah) in Syria and Jordan, where he has lived since 1980.

His English translation of `Umdat al-Salik [The Reliance of the Traveller] (1250 pp., Sunna Books, 1991) is the first Islamic legal work in a European language to receive the certification of al-Azhar, the Muslim world's oldest institution of higher learning. He also possesses ijazas or "certifiates of authorisation" in Islamic jurisprudence from sheikhs in Syria and Jordan.

His other translations and works include: Al-Maqasid: Imam Nawawi's Manual of Islam; The Sunni Path: A Handbook of Islamic Belief; and Tariqa Notes (handbook for those on the Shadhilli path of tasawwuf). He is currently translating Imam Nawawi's Kitab al-Adhkar [The Book of Rememberance of Allah], a compendium of some 1227 hadiths on prayers and dhikrs of the prophetic sunna.

Sheikh Abd al-Hakim Murad
Born Timothy J. Winter in 1960, Abdal Hakim studied at the prestigious Westminster School in London, UK and later at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated with first class honours in Arabic in 1983. He then lived in Cairo for three years, studying Islam under traditional teachers at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest universities in the world. He went on to reside for three years in Jeddah, where he administered a commercial translation office and maintained close contact with Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad and other ulama from Hadramaut, Yemen.

In 1989, Sheikh Abdal Hakim returned to England and spent two years at the University of London learning Turkish and Farsi. Since 1992 he has been a doctoral student at Oxford University, specializing in the religious life of the early Ottoman Empire. In 1996, he was appointed University Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Sheikh Abdal Hakim is the translator of a number of works, including two volumes from Imam al-Ghazali’s Ihya Ulum al-Din. He appears frequently on BBC Radio and writes occasionally for a number of publications including The Independent and Q-News International, Britain's premier Muslim Magazine.

He lives with his wife and children in Cambridge, UK.

Imam Zaid Shakir
Imam Zaid Shakir is amongst the most respected and influential Muslim scholars in the West. Born in Berkeley, California, the second of seven children he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force. He then obtained a BA with honours in International Relations at American University in Washington D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University, where he emerged as an active leader in campus activities, helping to revive the Muslim Student Association, co-leading a successful South Africa divestment campaign, and co-founding a local Islamic centre, Masjid al-Huda. After a year in Cairo, Egypt, studying Arabic, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his tireless community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam from 1988 to 1994 he speared-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort in the local neighbourhood, and taught as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University until his departure for Syria to further his studies in the traditional Islamic Sciences. For seven years in Syria and briefly in Morocco he immersed himself in an intense study of Arabic, Islamic law, Qur’anic studies, and Islamic spirituality with some of the top Muslim scholars of our age. In 2001, he graduated from Syria's prestigious Abu Nur University and returned to Connecticut to continue his work with the Muslim community in America.

Amongst several works that he has translated from Arabic into English, his translation of “The Heirs of the Prophets” was published by Starlatch Press in 2001. In 2003, he moved to Hayward, California with his family to serve as a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute where he now teaches regular courses on Arabic, Islamic Law, History, and Islamic Spirituality.

Sheikh Samir al-Nas
He was born in Damascus, Syria. He studied in the College of Medicine of the University of Damascus. He studied in the United States and became qualified in Medicine. He studied under some of the great ‘ulama of Sham and Saudi ‘Arabia. He has ijazah in the ten styles of recitation of the narration of Shatibiyyah and Durra from Sheikh Muhammad Sukr. He has ijazah in the ten styles of recitation of the narration of Tayyibah from Sheikh Ahmad Mustafa, who is a student of Sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Zayyat of Egypt. He has ijazah in fiqh and ‘aqida from Sheikh Abu Yusr ibn ‘Abidin, Sheikh Lufti Fayumi, and Sheikh Adeeb al-kallas.
He has ijazah in hadith from Sheikh Yasin Fadani al-Makki, and Sheikh Dr. Nur ud-din Itar. He also has ijazah in hadith from al-Hafidh Sheikh Abd Allah Siraj ud-din. He has taught at various din-intensive courses in England and North America.
Sheikh Samir is presently a teacher in the the M'ahad al-Fath in Damascus, teaching Hanafi Fiqh in the Takhassus Shariah department and lecturing in the Masters department.
Sheikh Samir teaches Tajwid on a daily basis in the blessed masjid of Sheikh Ibn 'Arabi, a post given to him by his sheikh and father-in-law, Sheikh Muhammad al-Sukr.
Sheikh Naeem Abd al-Wali
Sheikh Naeem Abdul-Wali is an American convert to Islam who has studied the Islamic sciences in Istanbul for over eight years full-time at the feet of some of the finest scholars including Sheikh Mahmud Effendi and Sheikh Ihsan Khoja. He has focussed his efforts exclusively in the traditional methodology studying the classical texts in aqeedah, (Hanafi) fiqh, and other subjects to an advanced level..

Sheikh Muhammad bin Yahya al-Husayni al-Ninowy
Sheikh Muhammad, a descendant of the Noble Prophet Muhammad, began his study under his father, Sayyed Yahya, memorising the Qur'an and acquiring knowledge in many of the Islamic disciplines, including Aqidah, Fiqh, Hadith and Ihsan. He particularly specialises in the fields of Hadith and Tawhid.

He attended al-Azhar University, the Faculty of Usul-udin, the School of Hadith Sciences, where he studied under many scholars. In addition, he was under the tutelage of many stars of this century who resided in Syria, Medina, Makkah, Tangiers, Fez, Rabat, Egypt, Sudan and Jordan. He sat at the feet of, and was authorized by, many scholars such as al-Imam Abdullah bin al-Sidiqq Ghumari, Abul Aziz bin al-Siddiq Ghumari, Ibrahim bin al-Siddiq Ghumari, and Hasan bin al-Siddiq Ghumari, Sheikh Abdullah al-Husayni, Sheikh Muhammad al-Bata'ihi, Sheikh Jamil al-Rifai, Sayyed al-Habib al-Attas of Hadramout and others. Among the scholars he learnt from are Sheikh Abdullah Siraj-Addin, the Ba'Alawi scholars, Sheikh Abdullah al-Talidi, Sheikh Qaribullah of Sudan, the late Muhaddith al-Haramayn Sayyed Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki and many other honourable scholars in Morocco, North Africa, and Hijaz.

He has authored many books in the sciences of Tawhid and Hadith in Arabic, some of which have now been introduced into the English language. He delivers weekly khutbas, which can be viewed online, and participates in many national and international conventions.

Hajji Noorudeen
Haji Noor Deen Mi Guangjiang, eminent master of Arabic calligraphy. Born in 1963 in eastern China's Shandong Province bordering the Yellow Sea, Haji Noor Deen lectures on the art of Arabic calligraphy at the Islamic College in Zhen Zhou, where he has also established a correspondence course to enable students from all areas of China to study Arabic calligraphy. In addition, he researches Islamic culture at the Henan Academy of Sciences. In 1997, Haji Noor Deen was the first Chinese Muslim to be awarded the Egyptian Certificate of Arabic Calligraphy and to be admitted as a member of the Association of Egyptian Calligraphy.