Faculty

Dr. Recep Şentürk is the president of Usul Academy and teaches Sīrah; Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn; 40 Ḥadīth of Imām al-Nawawī and Comparative Theories and Methods.

He currently serves as the Dean of the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifah University. He was the founding president of Ibn Haldun University (IHU) in Istanbul (2017-2021). He obtained his BA from the School of Islamic Studies at Marmara University and his MA in Sociology at Istanbul University. He pursued his PhD in sociology at Columbia University in New York.

He served as a researcher at the Center for Islamic Studies (İSAM) in Istanbul and the founding director of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute. He is head of the International Ibn Khaldūn Society. He has published widely in English, Arabic, and Turkish on a whole range of topics, including social theory and methods, civilization, modernization, sociology of religion, networks of ḥadīth transmission, Malcolm X, Islam and human rights, modern Turkish thought, and the life and ideas of Ibn Khaldūn. Among his books are: Narrative Social Structure: Ḥadīth Transmission Network 610-1505; Malcolm X: The Struggle for Human Rights, and in Turkish; Open Civilization: Towards a Multi-Civilizational Society and World; Islam and Human Rights; Ibn Khaldūn: Contemporary Readings; Malcolm X: Struggle for Human Rights; Social Memory: Ḥadīth Transmission Network 610-1505. Şentürk’s works have been translated to Arabic, Japanese, and Spanish.

For a full list of publications and more information about ongoing research, please visit recepsenturk.com.

Mawlana Bilal Ali teaches Introduction to the Islamic Disciplines. Mawlana Bilal Ali Ansari received his undergraduate education in Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL, and in the Applied Behavioral Sciences at National-Louis University in Lisle, IL, from where he graduated with a Bachelors in Arts in the field of Applied Behavioral Sciences with a focus on adult learning theory (andragogy). Mawlana Bilal acquired an education in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Jāmiʿat al-Ḥasanayn in Faisalabad, Pakistan, where he studied classical and modern texts in Arabic, Islamic Theology, Islamic Law, Quranic Studies, and Ḥadīth. His teachers there include Mawlana Khwaja ʿUbayd Allāh, Mufti Aḥmad ʿAlī, and Shaykh Ramzī al-Ḥabīb al-Tūnisī.

Dr. Alparslan Açıkgenç teaches Philosophy of Science at Usul Academy. He has taught at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, the University of Chicago, the Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization in Kuala Lumpur, and the University of Jordan. He earned his B.A. at Ankara University, his M.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago with a thesis titled “Being And Existence In Ṣadrā And Heidegger”.

Dr. Talal Al-Azem teaches ʿAqīdah and Ḥanafī Fiqh. 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, as well as the history of Muslim jurisprudence. He is the author of Rule-Formulation and Binding Precedent in the Madhhab-Law Tradition (Brill 2017).

Dr. Houcam teaches Maliki Fiqh. Dr. Houcam is a Maliki scholar from Tunisia, he obtained his MA and Ph.D. in Shariah and Law from Higher Institute for Uṣūl al-Dīn at Zaytuna University, Tunisia, as well as an ijazah sharʿiyyah in Fiqh al-Buyū’ (transactional law) from the same institution. Dr. Houcam also resided in Mauritania for a year, where he taught and studied under various scholars.

Dr. Hamzeh al-Bakri teaches Kalām at the MA and BA level at Usul Academy. Born in Jordan in 1982, he completed his BA (2004) at al-Balqa Applied University, where he graduated from the Department of the Methodology of Religion with honors. He went on to complete his MA and PhD at the University of Jordan’s Department of Ḥadīth. He has published many beneficial articles and works and is currently an assistant professor in the Faculty of Islamic Sciences at Ibn Haldun University. In addition to this, he has taught and continues to teach kalām, ʿaqīdah, fiqh, usul al-fiqh, and ḥadīth at such institutions as Istanbul Sultan Ahmet Vakfı, EDEP, İSM, and İSAM.

Dr. Rezart Beka teaches tafsīr at the MA level. He received his Bachelor in Sociology, University of Tirana Albania and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies on Religion and Cultura, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. He also pursues an M.A. in Contemporary Muslim Thought and Society at QFIS, Doha. He earned his Ph.D. In Arabic and Islamic Studies, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. in 2022.

Ustadh Enes Elhan teaches Arabic Grammar. He is an instructor of classical Arabic and instrumental disciplines at Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education (İSAR) where he also completed a four year extra-curricular program focusing on classical Islamic studies. Besides classical Arabic he also teaches manṭiq (logic) and ādāb al-baḥth wa al-munāẓarah (argumentation) in various institutions such as Ibn Haldun University, İSAR and İSM. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Istanbul Sehir University. Currently, he is pursuing a master’s degree in Arabic Language and Rhetoric at Marmara University.

Dr. Haitham Khazneh teaches Uṣūl al-Fiqh al-Ḥanafī at Usul Academy. He is serving as a faculty member in the Department of Islamic Economics and Finance at Sabahattin Zaim University, Istanbul. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Jordan in 2004, with his dissertation on "The Methodological Differences between the Schools of Iraq and Samarkand and Their Impact on Ḥanafī Uṣūl al-Fiqh." His academic interests span Uṣūl al-Fiqh, Islamic Finance and Banking, as well as Comparative Islamic Jurisprudence and Law.

Mohamad Hammour is an academic economist as well as a practitioner of participation finance. Dr. Hammour has served as: a member of the economics faculty at Columbia University and of the visiting faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States; a Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France; a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in the United Kingdom; and a consultant to the World Bank. He is the Founder and Chairman of Guidance Financial Group, an international financial services company dedicated to Shariah-compliant finance and investment. Dr. Hammour holds a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Tariq Jaber teaches Shaf’i Fiqh in the MA program. Dr. Tariq is a Jordanian scholar and currently serves as an assistant professor at The World Islamic Sciences and Education University in Jordan. He obtained his PhD, MA, and BA in Fiqh and Uṣūl al-Fiqh from Jordan University.

Dr. Kasım Kopuz teaches Ḥanafī Fiqh at the MA Level. He graduated from the School of Law and Shariah at Al-Azhar University and from The Law School of Istanbul University. He has studied history and sociology at Binghamton University (State University of New York) where he earned his MA and PhD degrees in Ottoman History with a specific focus on legal theory. He was part of the research group for the Structures of Social Sciences at The Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations at Binghamton University. His academic concentration is on the reproduction of legal culture in Ottoman society during the 17th and 18th centuries. His main areas of interest are fiqh, uṣūl al-fiqh, Islamic legal thought, social theory, cultural studies, knowledge production, world systems and civilizations.

Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi teaches Comparative Psychology at Usul Academy. He is licensed as a psychotherapist in the state of Illinois. He holds a Doctorate of Clinical Psychology, a Masters of Clinical Psychology, and a Bachelor of Science with a specialist psychology track/minor in Islamic Studies. He is currently teaching at American Islamic College, Hartford Seminary, and Islamic Online University. He is the founding director of Khalil Center, the first Islamically-oriented professional community mental wellness center and the largest provider of Muslim mental healthcare in the US. He is also a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding at the Global Health Center, conducting research on topics related to Muslims and Mental Health. Hooman Keshavarzi is an international public speaker and trainer currently serving as a Clinical supervisor of graduate students of clinical psychology at the Village of Hoffman Estates (DHS). He also delivers seminars on specialized topics around multiculturalism and psychology. In addition to his academic training, Hooman Keshavarzi has studied Islamic theology both formally and informally. He is a student of Shaykh Muhammad Zakariya from Toronto, Canada, where he attended his ḥadīth and spiritual discourses for a number of years. After moving to Chicago, he studied informally with Shaykh Azeemuddin Ahmed, later formally enrolling in Darussalam Academy for 4 years. During this time, he also did some specialized coursework with Shaykh Amin Kholwadia in Islamic counseling. He then transferred to Darul Qasim, where he continued his higher Islamic education.

Dr. Samir Mahmoud, the Academic Director of Usul Academy, teaches Islamic Civilization and the Birth of the Modern World. He has a BA (Hons) in Anthropology & Politics with a focus on multicultural theory and comparative religion, and an MA in Architectural History, Theory & Urban Design with a focus on the traditional townscape from the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. He also holds an MPhil in Theology & Religious Studies with a focus on comparative philosophy and aesthetics. He completed a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Cambridge. Recently, he was an Assistant Professor at the Lebanese American University.

Dr. Ebad Rahman taught Introduction to the Islamic Disciplines in the BA level, and is an organizer of our Futuwwah Program. Imām Ebad memorized the Quran as a sophomore in high school in Manhattan. He studied in a four-year pilot seminary program at Zaytuna Institute (2004-2008) and completed his BA at NYU (2009-2013) and MA and PhD (2014-2022) at Columbia in the Religion Department. He currently serves as the Muslim Life Coordinator at Columbia University.

Dr. Harith Ramli teaches the course on Islamic Civilization. He is a Lecturer in Theology and World Religion at Edge Hill University. Prior to this, Dr. Ramli held teaching posts at SOAS, University of London and the University of Nottingham, where he taught courses on philosophy, theology and mysticism in the Islamic tradition. He is a member of the OCR Religious Studies Consultative Forum, and has worked with OCR in the development of their A-Level Religious Studies curriculum. His primary area of research is the history of Islamic thought and the development of scholarship and learning within the Islamic tradition. He is particularly interested in the formation and consolidation of various intellectual traditions within Islam during the ninth-eleventh centuries C.E., especially the mystical tradition known as Sufism. His current research project, based on his doctoral thesis, situates a key early Sufi text of the tenth century C.E, the Qūt al-Qulūb, and its author Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d.996), within the broader framework of the emerging intellectual disciplines of the period. His other areas of research interest include: Sufism and Islamic theology in the early modern period (the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries C.E.); “Mysticism” as a concept and tool for comparative study within Religious Studies; Religion in Southeast Asia and the influence of mystical and occult traditions on contemporary popular culture.

Dr. Amjad Rashid teaches Uṣūl al-Fiqh al-Shāfiʿī in the MA Program. Shaykh Amjad is a Jordanian Shāfiʿī faqih with a 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.

Furkan Şentürk teaches Manṭiq (Logic) at Usul Academy. He is currently a Ph.D. student of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and, African Studies at Columbia University with a focus on Islamic Political Thought. He did his MSc at SOAS in Comparative Political Thought, and his BA at Marmara University, Faculty of Theology, in Istanbul, Turkey. He also completed a five-year extracurricular program at the Center for Sciences and Arts (İSM), Istanbul.

Hasan Spiker is a philosopher and comparative scholar of Islamic, Greek, and modern thought. Spiker spent twelve years studying the Islamic sciences in the Middle East, primarily under the tutelage of the Iraqi sage and theologian al-Sayyid Quṣayy Abū al-Siʿd. Upon his return to the United Kingdom, Spiker entered the University of Cambridge where he completed his MPhil, and is currently carrying out his doctoral research, in philosophy. From 2014-2022 Spiker was a researcher on Tabah Foundation’s ‘Classification of the Sciences’ project, widely lauded as one of the most significant contemporary attempts to renew the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of traditional Islamic philosophical thought. His main areas of study in Islamic thought are i) the intersection of ʿilm al-kalām (Muslim theology), Avicennan philosophy, and ʿilm al-taḥqīq (experiential metaphysics), as well as ii) the metaphysical foundations of ethics; in Greek thought, the Neoplatonic critique of Aristotelian immanentism; and in modern thought, the philosophy of Kant, the metaphysics of freedom, and the possibility of metaphysics. He joined Zaytuna College as a lecturer in philosophy and logic in 2022, and as of 2023, serves as a faculty member at Usul Academy.

SELECTED WORKS

-Things As They Are: Nafs al-Amr and the Metaphysical Foundations of Objective Truth. Abu Dhabi: Tabah Foundation, 2021.

-The Metacritique of Kant and the Possibility of Metaphysics. Abu Dhabi: Tabah Foundation, 2022.

-Hierarchy and Freedom: An examination of some classical metaphysical and post-Enlightenment accounts of human autonomy. Cambridge: New Andalus, 2023.

Dr. Ahmad Snobar teaches Ḥadīth at Usul Academy. He is an Associate Professor of Ḥadīth Studies at Istanbul 29 Mayis University. He has published a number of publications, most importantly his book about the history of the transmission of ḥadīth from the Prophet (PBUH) to Bukhari, in addition to his newest work about political power and ḥadīth transmission.

Dr. Issam Eido teaches Ḥadīth: Method and Text in the Islamic Foundations Diploma program. Dr. Eido is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Department of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He was a former research fellow at the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard University 2020-2022. His research focuses on the Quran and Ḥadīth Studies and Sufism. Prior to the Syrian uprising, Dr. Eido served as a lecturer in the faculty of Islamic Studies in the Department of Quran and Ḥadīth Studies at the University of Damascus. He is one of the main students of well-known muḥaddith Shaykh Nūr al-Dīın ʿItr. In addition to Shaykh ʿItr, Eido is a student of a number of well-known scholars such as shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan al-Kurdī, Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAwwāma, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāghūrī, and Shaykh Maḥmūd Maṣrī.

Shaykh Hazem was born in the Syrian city of Homs in 1989. He embarked on seeking knowledge at the hands of the scholars of his city at an early age, studying traditional Islamic sciences and Arabic and memorizing the Holy Quran. His primary teacher was Shaykh Mohammad Saeed AlKaheel, the most senior scholar of Homs at the time, from whom he received a great portion of subba, tarbiya and spiritual guidance.

He continued his academic studies in Damascus at The Islamic Institute of Saad ibn Obada as well as his traditional Islamic studies at the hands of a number of senior scholars of Damascus.

Of the most notable scholars he received ijaza from are: Shaykh Mohammad Saeed alKaheel of Homs; Shaykh Ibrahim AlKaleefa al-Ihsaie; Shaykh AbdAlhady Kharsa of Damascus; Shaykh Mohammad Haydara alJaylani. He was officially appointed Imām at the age of 18, and has since continued teaching, spreading Islamic knowledge and working in the various areas of Dawa work across the cities he lived in, where he was an imam in Homs, Damascus, Beirut and Istanbul. He received an ijaza in the Holy Quran, the honorable Ḥadīth, and took the path from scholars of both the Shazili and Qadiri paths.

Dr. Salman Younas teaches Fiqh in the Diploma in Islamic Foundations. He is Lecturer in Islamic Studies focusing on classical Islamic law, the history of law, legal philosophy, and contemporary legal thought. He received his DPhil from Oxford University. His thesis focused on the formation and evolution of the Ḥanafī legal school during the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries. Prior to joining Cambridge Muslim College, Dr Younas was the Hamad bin Jassim Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. His research interests are in Islamic intellectual and social history, with a focus on Islamic law, legal theory, and contemporary thought.