Advisory Board

Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia

Shaykh Mohammed Amin is a Muslim scholar, mentor, and the founder of Darul Qasim, an institute of traditional Islamic higher learning headquartered in the Glendale Heights suburb of Chicago. Shaykh Amin is an active advocate of the classical Sunni tradition of Islamic scholarship and a passionate promoter of traditional Islamic sciences and methodologies of teaching and learning. He is regarded internationally as an expert theologian and an authority in the fields of Islamic philosophy and theosophy.

Dr. Mahmud Masri

Shaykh Mahmud Masri is the Senior Academic Advisor of the SeekersGuidance Dar al-Fuqaha Seminary in Istanbul, and the Director of the SeekersGuidance Dar al-Makhtutat project. Originally from Aleppo, Syria, Dr. Masri is a polymath, with a background in Human Medicine, Shari’a, Hadith Sciences and History. He is currently faculty member at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Sultan Muhammad al-Fateh Endowment University in Istanbul, a member of the advisory board of the Journal of the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts in Cairo and a coordinator of manuscript verification courses at the Islamic Research Center (ISAM).

Dr. Amjad Rashid

Shaykh Amjad Rasheed is a Jordanian Shafi`i faqih and PhD in Islamic Law. He has studied under top scholars in Jordan, Syria, and Tarim, and obtained ijazahs from his teachers. He is a student of Shaykh Nuh Keller, and is currently teaching the Shariah sciences, including high-level texts in fiqh and usūl at the Faculty of Shariah in Tarim (Hardamawt, Yemen) under the guidance of his teacher the noble faqih and mufti Shaykh Muhammad al-Khatib.

Dr. Talal Al-Azem

Shaykh Talal Al-Azem is the Mohammed Noah Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and the Islamic Centre Lecturer in Classical Islam in the Faculty of Theology and Religion of the University of Oxford. He studied the disciplines of Islamic learning in Syria and Turkey. He has written and lectured on the history and philosophy of Islamic education, alongside work on the history of Muslim jurisprudence. He is the author of Rule-Formulation and Binding Precedent in the Madhhab-Law Tradition (Brill 2017).

Moutasem Atiya

Ustadh Moutasem Atiya of Al Madina Institute has been actively involved in the Metropolitan DC communities through classes, speaking engagements, and Friday khutbahs on a regular basis for the past 10 years. He has studied the Islamic sciences from some of the luminaries of our time, Shaykh Mohsen An-Najjar, Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui in particular.

Chaplain Omer Bajwa

Chaplain Omer Bajwa serves as Director of Muslim Life in the Chaplain’s Office at Yale University and has been engaged in religious service, inter-religious engagement and educational outreach since 2000. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy from Hartford Seminary and degrees in Near Eastern Studies, Communication, and English Literature from Cornell University and Binghamton University. His interests include Islam in the United States and the intersections of culture, media, politics and spirituality. He mentors contemporary Muslims on exploring their intellectual and spiritual lives in today’s world.