Who is Timothy Winter, Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad?

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Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad is one of the leading scholars of traditional (Sufi) Islam in the British Isles and Europe, indeed he is listed by the Royal Jordanian Strategic Studies Institute as one of the 50 most influential Muslims in the world. His very Englishness is complementary to his very Muslimness and the Islam he represents with such dedication is the antithesis to both the extremes of modernism and fudamentalism.  He is a role model and a voice for British Muslims, and an eloquent supporter of the tradition of mainstream classical Islam.

He was born at the start of the 1960′s CE and gained an education at Westminster School before going on to study Arabic at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He graduated with a double first  in 1983 CE and then went on to the Al-Azhar University, Cairo.

During his time in the Middle East he also worked in Jeddah and more importantly gained a connection to the well loved and inspiring figure of Sheikh Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad (ra) of the Yemen and a number of other important scholars.

In 1989 CE Sheikh Abdul Haklim Murad returned to the UK and studied Turkish and Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Later going on to a life as a notable academic and as an Islamic teacher.

He is the Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies at Cambridge University and the Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College. He is  also director of a number of projects related to the study of traditional Islam and other Muslim issues.

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further reading

Khutbas (sermons) by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad

Online Lectures by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad 

(article from Abode of Mercy)