Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Founder & Chair of Board of Trustees
Cambridge Muslim College was the original vision of Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, who continues to oversee and contribute to its work as Chair of the Board of Trustees. Abdal Hakim was educated at Cambridge, Al-Azhar and London universities. He is currently the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University and Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College. He has published and contributed to numerous academic works on Islam, including as Director of the Sunna Project, and is a leading figure in inter-faith activity, notably as one of the signatories to the Common Word statement. He is well-known as a contributor to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’.
Mustafa Davies
UK Chartered Accountant
Mustafa Davies is a UK chartered accountant with over 30 years’ experience in business and consulting, most recently in the Testing, Inspection and Compliance (TIC) sector. He has an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School and specialises in finance, operations and strategy. Originally from North Devon, Mustafa converted to Islam in 1994 and lived in the Middle East for 13 years, before returning to the UK in 2022. Mustafa is passionate about education and the environment and is proud to serve as a Trustee at the Cambridge Muslim College.
Professor Lejla Demiri
Chair of Islamic Doctrine at the Center for Islamic Theology, University of Tübingen
Demiri holds a BA and MA from Marmara University (Istanbul), licentiate degree and postgraduate diploma from the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome), and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. In 2007-10 Demiri was a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge; taught courses on religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue at the Cambridge Muslim College; and subsequently held post-doctoral fellowships at the Free University of Berlin (2010-12). Her research interests include systematic theology, Islam and religious pluralism, Christian-Muslim relations and Ottoman intellectual history. She is the author of Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Medieval Cairo (Brill, 2013), and co-editor of The Future of Interfaith Dialogue (with Yazid Said; Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology (with Samuela Pagani; Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
Dr Haroon Sidat
Research Associate, Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, Cardiff University
Dr Haroon received his doctorate in 2019 where he looked at the formation and training of British Muslim Scholarship with an ethnographic study of a Dar al-Uloom, or a traditional Islamic seminary in modern Britain. He holds a BA in Economics and Social Studies and has completed the traditional Dars-i Nizami syllabus. He teaches courses in Islamic law and theology alongside undergraduate modules related to contemporary Muslims concerns in Britain. Currently, alongside being an imam, he is working on an important three-year project looking at the lived experiences of imams in Britain. He is finalising a monograph that explores Islamic authority and tradition and what it means for Muslims living in the West.
Aishah Sameem
Head of Public Fundraising at the British Refugee Council
Aishah has worked in a variety of roles across marketing, comms and income generation for the third sector since 2006, for organisations within health care, international aid and social welfare. She is currently the Head of Public Fundraising at the British Refugee Council. Aishah’s background in social anthropology and international development helped her grow her passion for communicating in personal ways to influence change and raise vital funds. Aishah is an advisor for our Development and Comms directorate at the college.
Dr Fatima Nawaz
Community Development, Islamic Center of Nashville
Fatima joins the Cambridge Muslim College with an academic background in biomedical research and public health. At the University of California, Berkeley, she investigated the rising drug resistance in malaria parasites in East Africa, with field research in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Her doctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health outlined the binding footprint of Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) envelope glycoprotein as it engages a key integrin receptor. Fatima also brings 10+ years of experience with community development, most recently at the Islamic Center Nashville where she served various roles (operations director, Vice President of the executive council, and member of board of trustees).
Dr Humayon Dar
Founding Director General, Cambridge Institute of Islamic Finance
Dr Humayon Dar has previously served as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank AG London, CEO of Dar Al Istithmar and BMB Islamic, and Director General of Islamic Development Bank Institute. Since 2011, he has been running an Islamic financial advisory and advocacy conglomerate. In this role, he has emerged as arguably the most influential advocate of Islamic banking and finance. Through Global Islamic Finance Report, ISFIRE and WOMANi Report, he continues to play an influential role in Islamic business and finance. The awards programmes he has founded are market leaders in their respective fields. Global Islamic Finance Awards are the leading Islamic financial awards programme in the world. Islamic Retail Banking Awards are now in their 10th year. Under his supervision, the 11th edition of Global Good Governance Awards will be held in Brunei Darussalam this year.
Umer Suleman
Chief Risk Officer, Wahed
Umer Suleman holds a degree in Economics from Royal Holloway, University of London, and has pursued further executive education at Manchester Business School and Harvard University. Umer began his professional career at Ernst & Young before progressing to several senior positions within the financial sector. In 2020, he founded the National Waqf Fund and successfully led its merger with another waqf institution in 2023. He has also advised numerous fintech companies and is an internationally recognized speaker and educator in the fields of Islamic finance and leadership. He serves on the boards of the UK Islamic Finance Council (UKIFC), the National Waqf, and the Islamic Council.
