Jim Al-Khalili obtained his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Surrey in 1989. He spent two years as an SERC Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London before returning to Surrey in 1991. He was appointed a lecturer in 1992 and, in 1994, awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship for five years following which he reverted to a full-time lecturer in the Department at Surrey. He was elected fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2000 and promoted to senior lecturer in 2001. In 2003, he was elected onto the Council of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science).
Along with his teaching and research, the considerable time he spends on science engagement activities and popularising science has culminated in his promotion in October 2006 to a newly created chair in the Public Engagement in Science. He is author of several popular science books and appears regularly on radio and television. In 2007, he was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for Science Communication.
Philip Stewart studied Arabic at the University of Oxford and spent a year in Egypt before working in Algeria for seven years. Until he retired, he taught in the Honour School of Human Sciences at Oxford, with a special interest in the ecology of religion.
He is the author of Unfolding Islam, which sets out to present Islam to non-Muslim reader, and to describe for the general reader - whether Muslims or not - how Islam unfolded over the course of time, and how it continues to do so.
Dr Rabia Malik is a senior systemic psychotherapist and lead for the Marlborough Cultural Therapy Centre based at the Marlborough Family Service in London. She specialises in working with South Asian and Muslim clients. She conducted her doctoral reserach on the cultural construction of mental illness amongst Pakistanis and more recently co-authored a report commissioned by the Muslim Youth Helpline and the National Youth Agency on the need for faith-sensitive support services for young Muslims.
Rabia is involved in a number of Muslim community initiatives and is a Trustee at the Muslim Youth Helpline and on the mangement comitttee of City Circle, an independent discussion forum for professional Muslims. She is also an academic social psychologist and has been a senior lecturer at the University of East London, where she taught, amongst other subjects, a course on race, culture and psychology. She also works currently as a freelance therapist and trainer.
Geoff Mulgan was the Chief Executive of the Young Foundation until May 2011 and is now the Chief Executive of NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts). He was a Trustee for Maslaha until October 2011.
Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had various roles in the UK government including Director of the Government’s Strategy Unit and Head of Policy in the Prime Minister’s office. Before that he was the founder and director of the think-tank Demos, He has also been Chief Adviser to Gordon Brown MP; a lecturer in telecommunications; an investment executive; and a reporter on BBC TV and radio.
He is a visiting professor at LSE, UCL and Melbourne University, a board member of the Work Foundation, the Health Innovation Council and the Design Council, and chair of Involve. He is chairing a Carnegie Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in the UK and Ireland. He is also a part-time adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Australia.
His most recent book is ‘The Art of Public Strategy: mobilising power and knowledge for the common good' (Oxford University Press, 2009). Other books include Good and Bad Power: the ideals and betrayals of government (Penguin, 2006) and Connexity (Vintage and Harvard Business Press, 1998).
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra was elected as an Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain in 2008. Prior to that, he was chair of the Council’s Masjid and Community Affairs Committee as well as the Inter Faith Relations Committee, of which he is still chair.
Ibrahim Mogra serves as an imam and scholar in Leicester. He has
been trained in classical theology and the traditional sciences of
Islam. He holds religious credentials from Daru-`Ulum, Holcombe as
well as advanced theological qualifications from the world famous Al-Azhar University in Cairo. In addition, Shaykh Mogra has undertaken a postgraduate degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the founder and Principal of Khazinatul-`Ilm, Madaris of Arabic and Muslim Life Studies, in Leicester.
As a local community activist in Leicester and a national leader in the MCB, Shaykh Mogra has been at the forefront in deepening interfaith relations in the UK and around the world. He is chair of Religions for Peace UK, Advisory Board member of the Three Faiths Forum, and
a member of the Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace and the Christian Muslim Forum.
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra has made regular contributions to the print and broadcast media voicing concerns and opinions of British Muslims and presenting a holistic view of Islam to the national and international discourse.
Shaykh Haytham Tamim is the Chairman and founder of Utrujj Foundation, a leading Islamic educational institution in the UK. He has provided a leading vision for Islamic learning that has influenced the way Islamic knowledge is disseminated in the UK.
While responsible for orchestrating the design and delivery of over 150 different courses, Shaykh Haytham Tamim's vast teaching experience has manifested in changing many lives.
He is an independent consultant in Islamic finance and is on the Shari'ah supervisory board for Gatehouse Bank PLC (London), Gulf Finance House (UK) and Al‐Qalam Shari'ah Board (UK). He has delivered numerous courses and lectures in Islamic finance, including an annual conference with leading Islamic finance scholars .
The Shaykh's responsibilities and achievements include:
former senior lecturer in Islamic transactions and comparative Fiqh at the Islamic
University of Beirut;
classical education from eminent scholars including comparative Fiqh and Islamic
transactions;
studied Shari'ah for over 20 years;
verified around 20 books;
provides consultancy to public and private organisations;
provides training and consultancy within corporate companies.
Dr. Usama Hasan was trained in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, in Artificial Intelligence at the University of London and in the traditional Islamic sciences at home and mosque.
He is currently Senior Lecturer in Engineering & Information Sciences at Middlesex University and a voluntary, part-time imam at Tawhid Mosque in East London. He is also Director of the City Circle, a London-based network of Muslim professionals, and an astronomer, having worked as Planetarium Lecturer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, 2006-8.
Hasan has also taught traditional Islamic sciences at the mosque and on campus for the last eighteen years, and he has published translations of numerous books, including Character of the People of the Qur'an, by Imam al-Ajurri; The Concise Legacy and Tolerance Within Islam, both by Imam Ibn Taymiyyah; Hajj - The Journey of Love by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim and The Prophet's Prayer Described by the late Shaykh al-Albani.
Musharraf Hussain is Director of the Karimia Institute Nottingham and the chief editor of a family magazine, The Invitation. He is the chairman of the Christian Muslim Forum, senior trustee of Muslim Hands, and a trustee of the National Centre for Citizenship and Law. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University in 2005 for his services to the British Muslim community. He is also the founder and director of the PGCE course sponsored by the Teacher Training Agency, and formerly vice chair of the Association of Muslim Schools.
Born in 1958, he moved to Halifax from Pakistan in 1966 with his parents, where he memorised the glorious Quran, and learned Tajweed and basic Quranic Arabic. After completing a degree in biochemistry at Aston University, he went on to gain a science doctorate. He worked as a scientist until 1990 and then decided to dedicate himself to serving the community. He read Islamic studies at a seminary in Pakistan and at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
In 1995 Dr Musharraf helped to establish a Muslim boarding school for boys in Retford, where he was the headteacher for three years. In 1997 he was appointed Director of the Karimia Institute. He began working on a number of projects ranging from community development to raising the educational achievements of Pakistani children, to adult classes and interfaith work. Currently Karimia runs some 20 projects and is a premier Muslim organisation in UK.
Dr Musharraf has translated and written ten books about traditional Islamic teachings to help Muslims practice their religion as well as some seventy articles. He has written an introduction to Islam, published by Nelson and Thornes, and has taught in secondary schools in England. He is a familiar voice on BBC Radio Nottingham's thought for the day and Radio 4's prayer for the day.
Over the past ten years he has worked tirelessly promoting interfaith work in Nottingham and nationally. He has organised three conferences for imams and Christian ministers to foster better understanding amongst the Christian and Muslim leaderships.
Along with Dr AJ Daud, Dr Musharraf flew to Iraq to help effect the release of British hostage Ken Bigley in September 2004. They appealed to the captors to release Ken, ana ction that was seen as an important symbolic gesture to show that British Muslims care for their fellow Britons. It was widely hailed as an important symbol of British Muslims' loyalty toward and love of their country.
In 2006 he was asked by the Prime Minister to chair the UK - Indonesian Islamic Advisory Group. The group's remit was to "advise on countering radicalism and promoting mutual understanding between Islam and the West." The group made several important recommendations; some of these have been implemented whilst others are at the planning stage.
Mona Siddiqui started her academic life with a BA in Arabic and French, which led eventually to a PhD in Classical Islamic Law. She came to the University of Glasgow in 1996 and two years later founded the Centre for the Study of Islam, which she directs. She provides invaluable consultancy work to institutions such as museums, local government and educational institutions, and also provides advice in legal cases, including anti-terrorism cases. Professor Siddiqui is well known for her broadcasting work, including regular radio appearances, and writes frequently for the Scottish and British press. She has also travelled the world to talk about her life and work at the invitation of diverse institutions.
Director of the Visionary Consultancy Group (VCG), a Muslim World - West relations policy consultancy, and Fellow of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (CRER) at the University of Warwick, Dr Hellyer is a UN Alliance of Civilizations Global Expert, an internationally acclaimed writer, and a regular commentator in the international media.
Dr Hellyer was nominated as Deputy Convenor of the UK Government's Home Office working group on Tackling Radicalisation and Extremism, and from September 2007 to March 2008 he was also an ESRC Placement Fellow at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, examining state - minority community relations in Europe as an independent Warwick academic.
H.A. Hellyer is Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) in Malaysia, Member of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) of the University of Oxford, Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.
Until recently Ford Fellow of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution (USA), Dr Hellyer also taught as Visiting Professor of Law at the American University in Cairo (AUC) (Egypt).
At present, he focuses his research on minority communities in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. He contributes both to academic journals and mainstream media such as the Washington Post and the BBC Doha Debates. Dr Hellyer also speaks authoritatively on his subject areas to forums such as the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe and the Royal United Services Institute for Defence.
Jim Al-Khalili obtained his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Surrey in 1989. He spent two years as an SERC Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London before returning to Surrey in 1991. He was appointed a lecturer in 1992 and, in 1994, awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship for five years following which he reverted to a full-time lecturer in the Department at Surrey. He was elected fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2000 and promoted to senior lecturer in 2001. In 2003, he was elected onto the Council of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science).
Philip Stewart studied Arabic at the University of Oxford and spent a year in Egypt before working in Algeria for seven years. Until he retired, he taught in the Honour School of Human Sciences at Oxford, with a special interest in the ecology of religion.
Dr Rabia Malik is a senior systemic psychotherapist and lead for the Marlborough Cultural Therapy Centre based at the Marlborough Family Service in London. She specialises in working with South Asian and Muslim clients. She conducted her doctoral reserach on the cultural construction of mental illness amongst Pakistanis and more recently co-authored a report commissioned by the Muslim Youth Helpline and the National Youth Agency on the need for faith-sensitive support services for young Muslims.
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra was elected as an Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain in 2008. Prior to that, he was chair of the Council’s Masjid and Community Affairs Committee as well as the Inter Faith Relations Committee, of which he is still chair.
Musharraf Hussain is Director of the Karimia Institute Nottingham and the chief editor of a family magazine, The Invitation. He is the chairman of the Christian Muslim Forum, senior trustee of Muslim Hands, and a trustee of the National Centre for Citizenship and Law. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University in 2005 for his services to the British Muslim community. He is also the founder and director of the PGCE course sponsored by the Teacher Training Agency, and formerly vice chair of the Association of Muslim Schools.
Mona Siddiqui started her academic life with a BA in Arabic and French, which led eventually to a PhD in Classical Islamic Law. She came to the University of Glasgow in 1996 and two years later founded the Centre for the Study of Islam, which she directs. She provides invaluable consultancy work to institutions such as museums, local government and educational institutions, and also provides advice in legal cases, including anti-terrorism cases. Professor Siddiqui is well known for her broadcasting work, including regular radio appearances, and writes frequently for the Scottish and British press. She has also travelled the world to talk about her life and work at the invitation of diverse institutions.
