A board of Trustees is legally responsible for the running of the College. The Trustees guide and supervise its administration, contributing the wealth of their experience and knowledge toward the achievement of the College’s aims. The Trustees of Cambridge Muslim College are:
Professor Lejla Demiri, Chair of Doctrine and Deputy Director at the Center for Isla
mic Theology, University of Tübingen
From 2007-10 Demiri was a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge University, and she also taught courses on religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue at the Cambridge Muslim College. Demiri holds a BA and MA from Marmara University, licentiate degree and postgraduate diploma from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the history of Islamic theology, Islam and religious pluralism, Christian-Muslim relations and Ottoman intellectual History.
Professor M.A.S. Abdel Haleem OBE, Director, Centre of Islamic Studies, SOAS, University of London
Professor Abdel Haleem Haleem is Professor of Islamic Studies at SOAS, University of London and editor of the Journal of Qur’anic Studies. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008 in recognition of his services to Arabic culture, literature and to inter-faith understanding.
Professor Haleem has authored many books and publications including the Oxford Classics English translation of the Qur’an.
Professor David Ford OBE, Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge
An internationally recognised academic figure, Professor Ford has written and edited numerous books, including The Modern Theologians and Theology: A Very Short Introduction which are considered leading textbooks in the field.
Professor Ford is one of the founders of Scriptural Reasoning – the practice of Christians, Muslims and Jews reading their scriptures together. He also founded the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme which is dedicated to learning about, learning from, and learning between religions as they interact within a secular and religious world.
Dr Ali Almihdar, Barrister at Outer Temple Chambers
Dr Almihdar was educated in law at Churchill College, Cambridge (MA & LLM), his legal career started as Legal Adviser to the Saudi Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, and then expanded (through Almihdar Law Firm (ALF) established in Jeddah, 1976), to handling work for that Ministry and many other corporate and private clients from around the world including the UK, the USA and Western Europe. He holds a PhD in “Good Faith in Contracts” from Alexandria University.
He was the Honorary Legal Adviser to the British Consulate in Jeddah from 1998 to 2010.
Dr Sohaira Siddiqui, Assistant Professor of Theology, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar
Dr Siddiqui received her doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara. Her first monograph, Knowledge, Law and Politics: An Intellectual Portrait of al-Juwayni, analyses the thought of the 11th century jurist and theologian Abu Ma’ali al-Juwayni through a close reading of his legal, political and theological treatises. Her research interests include classical Islamic legal theory, classical Islamic political thought, the development and intersection of legal thought and political thought from the 9th to 11th centuries, Islamic Law under colonialism, and secularism and modernity in relation to Islamic law and Muslims in the West.
She has previously taught courses in Religion, Islamic Law and Islamic History at the University of Saskatchewan. She completed CMC’s Diploma Programme early in her academic career and has held fellowships at Cambridge University and Harvard Law School.
Dr Arfan Ismail, Head of Digital Learning and Learning Resource Centre, Blackpool and The Flyde College.
Arfan Ismail has been involved in the education sector for approximately 20 years. As a qualified teacher, he has taught in some of England’s most deprived wards. Arfan received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Manchester and re
ceived his masters and doctorate in Applied Linguistics from the School of Education at Newcastle University. Arfan has worked primarily in the private sector, leading major international education reform projects for the Education Development Trust, Interserve Learning and Employment and Oxford University Press. He is an internationally published author in leading publications, including Emerald where he published a monograph on the importance of epistemology in Muslim education curricula. He is currently heading a digital learning transformation at a leading College in the North-West of England.
As a registered charity, the finances and governance of Cambridge Muslim College are publicly accountable. CMC has no political or religious affiliation, and is open to all who wish to build better understanding between civilizations.
